The Public Policy Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Thursday, March 4, 2004 at 6:30p.m. at the Legislative Center’s Liberty Room. Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias called the meeting to order. Members present were Mr. Osborne and Ms. Vary.  Those absent were Ms. LaVigne, Mr. Sands and Mr. Wiegand.   There was no quorum present.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

No quorum was present to vote on the approval of the minutes.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

No quorum was present to vote on the approval of the agenda.

PUBLIC COMMENTS:

There were no public comments for the evening.

LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

Chairman Tobias said that she did not do the reports from the other Counties on the Legislative Agenda.  She will present it to the committee next month.

COUNTY GOVERNMENT WEEK IDEAS

Chairman Tobias said there will be a Proclamation that will be read at the March County Board Meeting declaring the week of April 18 – 24, 2004 as National County Government Week. 

Chairman Tobias said that the theme this year is on transportation.  She has spoken with Mr. Lorence at the Highway Department and he will get some information to her for that week.  She would like to have information on the volunteers that clean the county roads and publish their names.  The committee said that they would like to publish the names of the local organizations taking part in the road cleanup program in the local newspapers and also give some statistics to be published too.  She would like to gather some information and facts on the signage division at the Highway Department, too.  She would like to include the numbers signs that have been erected and replaced in the county. 

Mr. Osborne will look into the railroad (Union Pacific) and see how many trains travel through DeKalb County now and how much will it increase or decrease when the HUB opens in Rochelle? 

Ms. Vary will create the outline for what will appear in the newspapers for County Government Week.

The committee also agreed to include information on Voluntary Action Center, Huskie Bus Line and the trails and bikeways in the county for County Government Week.

NACO CONFERENCE REPORT

Chairman Tobias, said that the attendance by our county at the NACO conference was very good.  She said that the new president, of NACO, Mr. Angelo Kyle, was a County Board Member of Lake County, and he is pushing affordable housing and HUD.  She also attended an economic development breakfast on Sunday morning.  National Association of Industrial and Commercial Real Estate talked about the smaller communities that are on the edge of growth and what they can provide as an organization (they are consultants) to them.  She spoke to one of the representatives there and she discussed with them on what DeKalb County could do to bring in other industries other than warehousing and distribution facilities.  They discussed that DeKalb County should be looking at attracting biotech businesses to the county because of having a university here.  Ms. Tobias said that she would be talking with Mr. Roger Hopkins at DeKalb County Economic Development Corporation about this information and development along the I-39 corridor.

She also attended the session on Streamlining the Sales Tax, which would tax the source of goods, such as internet sales.  She then attended a session on how to present your individual county’s legislative agenda to your congressman and how to respond to the media.  She will do a synopsis of this session for the committee to review.  She visited with Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert’s, Legislative Aide on Tuesday morning to discuss various items of interest for DeKalb County.

Before adjourning, Mary Supple, DeKalb County Board Coordinator, informed the committee that a Ms. Lynda Rivers, Executive Director, of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, had approached her the other day regarding the support of the Public Safety Sales Tax Referendum.  In the course of the discussion she mentioned that they would be holding a legislative meeting hosted by Ms. Patricia Reid-Lindner on March 18, 2004, in which they will be discussing mental health courts and drug courts.  Ms. Supple informed Ms. Rivers that she believed our Public Policy Committee might want to send a member to this meeting and possibly another county board member and would this be okay?  Ms. Rivers said yes and that she would get the pertinent information to Ms. Supple next week.  The committee decided that Ms. Vary will attend this meeting and possibly Chairman Tobias and County Board Member Steve Slack. 

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting could not be adjourned for lack of a quorum.

Respectively submitted, 

______________________________           Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias                 

_____________________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary