LAW AND JUSTICE COMMITTEE MINUTES

November 16, 2009

The Law and Justice Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, November 16, 2009, 2009 @ 6:30p.m. in the DeKalb County Administration Building’s Conference Room East.  Chairman Marlene Allen called the meeting to order.  Those present were Riley Oncken, Kevin Chambliss, Michael Stuckert, Derek Tyson and Anita Turner.   Mr. Dennis Miller, Ms. Margi Gilmour and Regina Harris were also present.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

          Moved by Mr. Oncken, seconded by Mr. Chambliss, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from October 2009.      

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Moved by Ms. Turner, seconded by Mr. Oncken, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda

ESDA & CORONER’S DEPARTMENT UPDATES

          Mr. Dennis Miller, DeKalb County’s ESDA Director and Coroner briefly updated the committee about these two departments.

          He said that in September 2009 he submitted the Plan B for the Disaster Plan for update and approval.  He should hear something back on that sometime in March or April of 2010.  He hosted some IEMA classes over the year.  He will be hosting another one this week at the Community Outreach Building in DeKalb.  It will be on a training program on hazard materials.  He also said that he attended a meeting on the evacuation plan for Cook County and Chicago.  He was very disappointed with it because it didn’t talk at all about their plan for us.  We will get nothing, no money, nothing from this plan.  Cook County and Chicago will receive millions of dollars for this.  If there is an evacuation from Cook County we may receive as much as 200,000 people. 

          Mr. Chambliss said that living through the evacuation with Katrina, he said that they placed people in all college and high school football fields and stadiums in the area, high school basketball auditoriums.  All sporting events in the region were cancelled.

          Mr. Miller then gave a brief update on the Coroner’s Office.  He said that he is still working on the increase in the cremation permits.  He was told that they will pass it as it was originally written at $50.00.  Springfield will be making the final decision.  He also mentioned that suicides were up this year - we had 3 of them last week.

PUBLIC DEFENDER’S REPORT

          Ms. Regina Harris, DeKalb County Public Defender, said that there was an increase in open cases – about 300 cases over this time last year.  She said that it was mainly coming from misdemeanors and juvenile cases. She explained that in the felony cases there was a qualitative change in the kinds of crimes that they are seeing.  The kinds of crimes that they are seeing are changing, more guns, more violence, more sprees of robberies and residential robberies.

          Her attorneys are stressed at the moment because of them trying to keep up with the number of cases.  In the next report that the committee receives, she said, you will see that there will be a change in felony and a leveling out.  It is because they took felony probation violations and sent them back to the felony attorneys so that the person who is doing them now can assist the misdemeanor attorney more. 

          Ms. Turner asked Ms. Harris, so could you lose an attorney, do you need all of them? 

          Ms. Turner said that there are some people who are saying that you may be overstaffed.

          Ms. Harris said her office and the State’s Attorney’s Office are not overstaffed.

COURT SERVICES REPORTS – MS. MARGI GILMOUR

          Ms. Gilmour, Director of the DeKalb County Court Services Department, said that in the Adult Report that there were 32 new cases filed in October 2009.  She also mentioned that the Community Restitution Services hours ordered last month increased to 9,345 hours.

          Ms. Gilmour then reported that under the Juvenile Court Services Report that there were 3 detentions for the month of October with 2 being for the first time and 1 for the 2^nd time.   She said that there are 2 placements still ongoing with 1 of them in placement for a little over one year.  They are trying to see if another relative may take him.

          Ms. Gilmour also said that the Safehouse is just about ready to open.  They are still seeking a family to run it and have placed an ad in the newspapers.  Her office will be going around and talking to various groups, like Rotary Groups and Church groups to get the word out there.

JAIL REPORT

          Chairman Allen briefly covered the Jail Report for October 2009.  She said that there were 117 inmates housed in the Jail for the month of October and that the number of transports is down. 

ADJOURNMENT

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

                                                Respectfully submitted,

                                                _________________________________

                                                Marlene Allen, Chairman

MA:mcs

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