The Public Policy Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Thursday, March 6, 2003 at 6:30p.m. at the DeKalb County Legislative Center’s Freedom Conference Room. Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias called the meeting to order. Members present were Pat LaVigne, Richard Osborne, Patricia Vary and Joseph Wiegand.  Mr. Pritchard was absent.  

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

Moved by Mr. Wiegand, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from January and February 2003.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Moved by Mr. Wiegand, seconded by Mr. Osborne, and it was carried unanimously that the agenda be approved.

PUBLIC COMMENT

No one was present for public comment.

NEW BUSINESS – County Government Week

Chairman Tobias said that there are different agencies in the county that provide services for children.  She felt that it would be nice to do a slide show at the County Board Meeting about the various programs and departments that offer these varied services.  The Sheriff does a workshop every year at the Farm Bureau that she would like to show with the slide show as an example.  She would then like to put the slides on the website.  She asked Mr. Wiegand to please mention this to the Executive Committee next week. 

Ms. Vary passed out the business card sized foldout from NIU that lists all services for people throughout DeKalb County.  Mr. Wiegand said that by looking at the fold out it mentions a list of institutions that provide services but lacks the description about the services.  Chairman Tobias, said yes, but she feels that this type of format could still work because we just don’t have as many offices. The committee discussed how much something like this would cost to produce and who would pay for the production of the brochure and copies.  Ms. Vary will get in touch with the NIU office that produced this foldout. Ms. Supple will call Ms. Betty Baugh at NIU to find out how she produced the foldout card, the cost to produce it, who printed it for them, etc.   It was agreed that Mr. Wiegand would bring all this information to the Executive Committee next week.   

Proclamation :  Chairman Tobias passed out a proclamation that she will have read at the county board meeting in March regarding County Government Week.  She will be mentioning the various county services and would like to have these department heads attend the county board meeting and award them with a certificate.  It was agreed that Chairman Tobias would contact Ms. Joy Gulatta, with the Extension Services of the University of Illinois about her children services.  Ms. Supple suggested that she could email all department heads and ask them if they have any children services offered through their departments.  The committee agreed with that suggestion and asked Ms. Supple to follow through with that request and get back to Chairman Tobias with the various replies. 

OLD BUSINESS:  LEGISLATIVE AGENDA FOLLOW-UP:

Chairman Tobias said that she has received a lot of positive comments from  people that attended the breakfast.  She was pleased to have people talking to other people from the county in a relaxed atmosphere.  The legislators invited also enjoyed themselves.  It was suggested that next year the committee could send a letter to the legislators and ask them to pick one of the three top legislative agenda items and speak on it for so many minutes.  Ms. Vary said that she was concerned about only addressing only three items when there were more than that included in the legislative agenda.  Chairman Tobias said that that was a good point – how do we follow-up on the items and the legislators? 

The committee also mentioned about possibly having the federal items looked at again next year.  Chairman Tobias said that Ms. Olson has contacted her and requested that she speak before the committee regarding her reauthorization resolution that will need to go before the full board for approval in April  This is a federal item.  It was discussed that maybe the committee could invite Mr. Hastert to attend a meeting regarding federal issues in March/April of 2004 and then have our next legislative breakfast for local legislators held in October 2003.  It was also discussed about possibly inviting the legislators back in the future to follow-up with them to see what they are doing with regards to the legislative agenda items.  It was also agreed to have Chairman Tobias send out a letter to the legislators on behalf of the Public Policy Committee to ask them if there is anything that the committee can do to help them.

Before adjourning, Chairman Tobias said that she would be sending out a letter of thanks to all of those people involved in making the breakfast such a success. 

Chairman Tobias also informed the committee that on April 11, 2003 the DeKalb  County Farm Bureau and DeKalb County Government, through it’s Public Policy Committee, will be holding Students in Government Day at the Legislative Center from 9:00a.m. to 2:00p.m.  She invited all committee members to attend it at all possible.

ADJOURNMENT

Moved by Mr. Wiegand, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.   

Respectively submitted,

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                                                                              Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias

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Mary C. Supple, Secretary