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DeKalb County, Illinois |
Minutes of the
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The
Public Policy Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, July 15, 2002
at 6:30 p.m. at the DeKalb County Legislative Center’s Freedom Conference
Room. Chairman Ruth Anne
Tobias called the meeting to order. Members present were James Barr, Pat
LaVigne, and John Dlabal. Mr.
Metzger, Mr. Brown and Ms. Dubin were absent. Sharon Holmes, DeKalb County Clerk
and Recorder, was also present.
Moved
by Mr. Dlabal, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to accept
the minutes of the May 20, 2002 and June 17, 2002 meetings.
Moved
by Mr. Barr, seconded by Mr. Dlabal, and it was carried unanimously that the
agenda be approved.
No one was
present for public comment.
E-Gov
Website Review: Chairman Tobias reviewed what the
committee discussion was pertaining to the county’s website for the members
that were not present last month. She
said that when we look at the website, she wanted the committee to discuss what
more can be done with it. This is
an introduction to DeKalb County and she feels that in the interest of public
participation that it is a good idea to keep upon it and see what the issues
are. She has sent an email to Lisa
Sanderson, DeKalb County Webmaster, telling her that the committee would like to
look at the website and maybe make some suggestions.
Chairman Tobias said that she would like to invite Ms. Sanderson to their
next meeting and ask her questions. There
are some really good things on the website now, like Volunteer information,
Forest Preserve page, Adopt –A- Highway Program, etc.
But then there are some that haven’t been updated in a while.
She continued by stating that the Joiner History Room had a report from
1999 and she wondered if it is only updated so often.
Ms. LaVigne said that
she was at a meeting recently whereby a person speaking there said that the
county’s website gets about 1200 hits a week and that he felt it looked great.
Chairman Tobias said, yes, it is a good website, but that we would want
the public to know that we are keeping it up-to-date as much as possible.
Mr.
Barr asked if the News Releases were up-to-date? Chairman Tobias said yes, pretty much, however, there’s a
news release today on the website that speaks to the subject of the West Nile
Virus, but that was from June. It
stated that the Health Department said that there was nothing to worry about
just yet because it wasn’t in DeKalb County.
However, now we have seen it reported that, yes, there has been a dead
bird found in the county who had it. She
said that she knows that it is hard because things happen so quickly and people
have a lot going on. She just feels
that it’s good to let people know that we are interested and aware.
Ms.
Holmes, DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder, said that in all honestly, keeping
those type of things updated, is not a high-priority for most department heads.
She said that eventually, she knows, the Health Department will change
that web page to update the West Nile Virus story.
She said maybe there should be some sort of periodic reminder asking the
department head if they have checked their website, as a suggestion.
Community
Trees Program Application: Chairman
Tobias reviewed for the members not present last month, what the community trees
program is. She said that there is
a lot of work involved. You have to
get a volunteer source together, collect all of the money, and get donations,
etc. Per the discussion of the
committee last month it was agreed to give the program application to the Forest
Preserve Department for their committee to work on it because it fits their
duties.
Illinois Tomorrow Application: Chairman
Tobias said that an application was given to her for the Illinois Tomorrow
Awards, which is an award for projects and programs that support the five core
values of preserving sustainable communities, regional planning, open space
preservation, etc. She emailed Paul
Miller, DeKalb County Planning & Zoning Director, and asked him if he had
seen the application and he said no. Mr.
Miller then downloaded the application, filled it out and has already mailed it
out. Therefore, we don’t have to do anything with the application.
2002 Legislative Agenda: Chairman
Tobias said that she wanted the committee to start thinking about the
legislative agenda items that they would like to bring forward this year for
consideration. There will be memos that will go out this week to all
department heads and county board members asking for their input.
Chairman Tobias said that when she spoke to Representative Wirsing, he
said that November is a good time to get it to our legislators, like we have
been doing. She has not talked to
Senator Burzynski yet and said that she needs help with it.
She wanted to know if we should invite them again?
The committee said that Representative Wirsing and Senator Burzynski
should come one at a time to the committee meeting and to include Ron Wait, too.
OLD
BUSINESS:
August
Meeting in Sycamore:
Chairman Tobias said that she recently spoke with Mr. Nicklas, City of
Sycamore Manager, about meeting with the City Council in the near future.
They agreed to meet not at one of our regularly scheduled committee
meetings, but at the City of Sycamore’s City Council Meeting on August 5,
2002, she said. We will be expected
to explain what our committee’s duties are and state that sometime in the
future we would like to invite them to one of our meetings.
It was agreed that Ms. LaVigne would go with Chairman Tobias to the City
of Sycamore’s meeting.
Deputy
Registrar Training/Pollworkers Report:
Ms. Sharon Holmes, DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder, said that this is
the year that Election Judges are reappointed and the law requires her office to
have the training at that reappointment time.
Therefore she will have training around late summer/early fall.
The law states that her office conduct a 4-hour training schedule.
She tries to provide hours in the evenings, daytime and weekends
(Saturday mornings) to make it available for people around their schedules. She
tries to run the training sessions for about 2 ½ hours to 3 hours long and then
give them the manual to review. She is also giving refresher courses prior to each election
especially since her office went to the voting system.
Even though voting is simpler for us to vote on, how to set up the ballot
box and computer count system is a little unnerving to election judges, Ms.
Holmes continued.
Chairman
Tobias asked Ms. Holmes what a pollwatcher is?
She said that it is a political party function.
She said that she has spoken at the Republican Precinct Committeemen
Meeting about the duties, responsibilities and limitations of pollwatching.
She will be more than happy to do the same for the Democratic Precinct
Committeemen Meeting. Mr.
Dlabal asked if a pollwatcher has to be sitting or standing at a certain
distance from the voting area? Pollwatchers
can be sitting right next to an election judge as long as they don’t touch
anything, she said. They can be in
the room before the polls open at 6:00a.m. while election judges are setting up
things or checking the ballot boxes and the pollerwatchers can watch what they
are doing. They also have to have
credentials to do that, added Ms. LaVigne.
Ms.
Holmes said that Deputy Registrar training is an ongoing thing.
Her office offers the training sessions on the 1st and 3rd
Wednesday of every month at 3:00p.m. in her office. She is going down to
Sandwich next week to train people down there.
She also explained that a Deputy Registrar is a person who registers
people to vote. One of the areas that you can have deputy registrars is the
high school Principal or his designee. Well,
if the Principal is busy and doesn’t have the time to do this work, he/she can
name every secretary in that building and they can have them all trained so that
they can sit there on open house night or registration day and have them
register people to vote, Ms. Holmes said.
Chairman
Tobias thanked Ms. Holmes for visiting with the committee and informing them
about the Deputy Registrar and Pollworkers Training sessions through her
department.
Moved
by Mr. Dlabal, seconded by Mr. Barr, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn
the meeting.
Respectively
submitted,
______________________________
Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias
______________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary
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