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Executive Committee Minutes
June 11, 2013
7 p.m.

PRINTABLE DOCUMENT (.pdf)

 

DRAFT

 

The Executive Committee of the DeKalb County Board met Tuesday, on June 11, 2013, at 7:00p.m. at the Administration Building's Conference Room East. Chairman Jeffery Metzger called the meeting to order. Members present were Sally DeFauw, Julia Fauci, John Gudmunson, Stephen Reid, Anita Turner and Jeff Whelan. Ms. Fullerton and Mr. Stoddard were absent.

 

Others present were Gary Hanson, John Acardo, Frank O'Barski, Derek Tyson, Ruth Anne Tobias, Paul Miller, Riley Oncken, Tracy Jones, John Emerson, Gil Morrison, Mark Pietrowski, Anthony Cvek, Bob Brown and John Frieders.

 

It was moved by Ms. Fauci, seconded by Ms. DeFauw, and it was carried unanimously to invite Mr. Derek Tyson to sit at the table to represent the Law & Justice Committee since there is no chairman from that committee present.

 

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
It was moved by Mr. Reid, seconded by Ms. Turner, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from the May 2013 meeting.

 

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA
Chairman Metzger said that we would need to pull the Executive Session off of the agenda and leave it in open session.

 

It was moved by Mr. Whelan, seconded by Ms. Fauci, and it was carried unanimously to approve the amended agenda.

Ms. Fullerton arrived at 7:04p.m.

 

AMENDMENT TO THE RAFFLE PERMIT ORDINANCE

Mr. John Acardo, DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder, presented his updated amendments to the Raffle permit ordinance that has been approved by the State's Attorney's Office. He has placed some of the changes on a summary page that he passed out this evening. He mentioned that Ms. Julia Fullerton also called him about some other technical changes of which 3 of them were needed to have the committee's approval on. Those three were: Division 2, Sec 1 -- Change the 501 (c) 3 requirement to "Any organization classified as not for profit as described by the Internal Revenue Services Classification schedule; Div 4, Sec 2 -- Changed the notice of bonding requirement from 10 days after the approval of the permit to "by the day of the event; and Div 4, Sect 4 (d) -- Clarified that the County Clerk & Recorder maintains all raffle records."

 

She also recommended these technical changes: Division 2, Sec 1 -- Allow the determination of the status of the applicant for Class C License by the County Clerk & Recorder; Div. 4, Sec 1 - (11) write in thirty before the (30); and Div. 5 Sect 4 - write in ten before the (10).

It was moved by Ms. Fauci, seconded by Ms. DeFauw, and it was carried unanimously to include Ms. Fullerton's changes to the ordinance that will be sent to the full board for approval.

 

It was then moved by Ms. Turner, seconded by Mr. Whelan, and it was carried unanimously to approve the amendments to the Raffle Permit Ordinance and to forward it to the full board for approval.

 

APPLICATION FOR A RAFFLE PERMIT
Mr. John Acardo, DeKalb County Clerk, approached the committee about 3 raffle permit requests made by Sandwich Fair, Family Services Agency and NIU Athletics. They successfully submitted their application and he is bringing them forward tonight for the committee's consideration. They will then go to the full board for approval, he said.

 

It was moved by Ms. Fauci, seconded by Mr. Reid, and it was carried unanimously to forward the resolution to the full board for approval.

 

EVERGREEN VILLAGE UPDATE -- MR. PAUL MILLER
Mr. Paul Miller, DeKalb County Planning and Zoning Director, briefly updated the committee about the status of Evergreen Village.

 

He said that they were looking to bring in a project manager for Evergreen Village, but the company that they were looking at hiring is now not available. Now the County has opened the RFP again and try to get some names from the gentleman that they were thinking of hiring. Which they did and received 2 other proposals. These proposals that they received were significantly higher than the original person. They went back to these two people and asked them to give them 2 different versions bid, one where they would simply be a consultant who would lay out the process for us. The second part was to do a part of the project which is called the Relocation Plan. That is where you take an assessment of comparable housing out there in the area that is available for the tenants that are going to be displaced.

 

One of the companies that they were talking to brought up another stumbling block. He said to Paul, "you do realize that the law is going to say that the comparable housing that you have to offer is other owner occupied units." Because the trailers in Evergreen Village are all owner occupied, we can only offer them owner occupied units, which means, if we don't have another trailer park to put these people in, we have to offer them condos or houses, Mr. Miller said.

 

A week before last Friday, he felt the project was dead, because the project went from approximately $7 million to $15 million. If the County had known this in the beginning, when we made our grant application, it never would have been approved in the first place. IEMA and FEMA did not know this.

 

Julia Fullerton asked Mr. Miller, how far does another mobile home park have to be?

 

Mr. Miller said that they got confirmation and a couple of the experts said that we have some options. One expert said that that person is wrong. One of the persons that he talked to said that the County had a couple of options. So they went and looked at comparable housing around the county (trailers) and were told that they could look within a 50 mile radius. The program that was explained to Mr. Miller is that, he could go to a mobile home park to discuss relocating people to their mobile home park by saying: We have 123 buyers looking for trailers and who want to relocate here. They could buy some of the trailers in the new mobile home park.

 

The $10,000 that we initially give the Evergreen Village residents could help them buy their trailer and do what they want with it. If we give them $20,000, we are only giving $10,000 more. All in all, we are looking at $7.1 million dollars for our budget and it looks feasible.


Mr. Miller said that he and Mr. Hanson will be meeting with IEMA people this Friday in Aurora, in the IEMA offices. The acquisition person that they have been speaking to about possibly hiring will also be on a conference phone with them at this same meeting.

 

Mr. Miller pointed out that we have about 2 years left in our timeline for this project. The person that they are talking to now, as a possible consultant, said that his proposal bid is $19,900.00.

 

Mr. Miller also said that none of the $7 million has been spent yet. He believes that we may get in-kind payment for staff time.

 

He further stated that Mr. Santoro owns 19 acres in the park plus 33 other acres around the park area. He said that the original appraisal on the park land -- the County will be able to use.

 

The committee thanked Mr. Miller for his every informative report.

 

CHAIR'S COMMENTS
Chairman Metzger said that he was suggesting an idea that they used to do at the college that he worked at. He was talking about naming rights on our buildings and conference rooms. He said that it turned out to be very profitable for the college. This could include corporate and individuals, whatever the county board would decide. Some people or companies can do this annually. We may want to set up an Ad Hoc committee to look at this. The committee asked Chairman Metzger if he could share some model with them. Chairman Metzger said that he could and to think about the idea and get back to him.

 

COUNTY BOARD MEETING STATE TIME
Chairman Metzger said that he has had some county board members complain to him about the start time of the county board meeting and why it starts later than our committee meetings. He said that he looked it up and found that in years past it was beginning at 7:00p.m. and for some reason the board at the time decided to make the time what it currently is at 7:30p.m.

There was some brief discussion and it was agreed to bring this item to the Ad Hoc Rules Committee and have them study this issue.

 

APPROVAL OF THE COUNTY BOARD AGENDA

Appointments:

1.) Building Board of Appeals: Mr. Ralph Tompkins and Mr. Steve Bollinger, reappointments for a term of 4 years, until 04/30/2017.

 

Moved by Mr. Reid, seconded by Ms. Whelan, and it was carried unanimously to forward this appointment recommendation to the full board for approval.


Appointments expiring for July 2013:
Fairdale Light District -- 2 positions


Ms. Fullerton, Chairman of the Law and Justice Committee, said that her committee did not meet last month. They will be hearing from Sheriff Scott and Mr. Dennis Miller this month. In July they will be hearing from the Gang Unit from the City of DeKalb. In August they will hear from Crime-Free Housing Section Coordinator, Mr. Carl Leoni and his new position with the City of DeKalb.

 

Mr. Gudmunson, Chairman of the Highway Committee, said that his committee was sending 3 items to the full board this month.

 

Mr. Jeff Whelan, Chairman of the Economic Development Committee, said that they did not have a meeting last month, but that this month they will be hearing from the Supervisor of Assessments on her Annual Report and the Treasurer is coming to give an update.

 

Chairman Metzger said that he and Gary Hanson had discussed about having the new mayors come to the August or September Economic Development Committee. The committee could welcome them and see what it is that they may need from the County.

 

Maybe we could start the meeting a half our early.

 

He also said that IHSA people came to see him and Mr. Hanson today about promoting the event and they are looking for some financial support. He has asked them to come before the full board this month and let the entire board hear what they have to say.

 

Ms. Fauci, Chairman of the Forest Preserve Committee, said that their meeting will be held next Tuesday at Afton Forest Preserve.

 

She said that she was not sure if they would be cancelling the Forest Preserve meeting in July yet.

 

Ms. DeFauw, Chairman of the Health & Human Services Committee, said that her committee heard from Ms. Cynthia Luxton, President of the Mental Health 708 Board, who gave their annual report.

 

Mr. Reid, Chairman of the Finance Committee, said that his committee heard from Mr. Fred Lantz with Sikich on the County's Annual Audit Report. They pointed out that the County needs to tighten up the security for IMO. The committee will also be sending the Award of Contracts Policy and the Purchasing Policy.


Ms. Turner, Chairman of the Planning & Zoning Committee, said that her committee did not meet.

 

It was moved by Ms. Fullerton, seconded by Ms. Turner, and it was carried unanimously to approve the county board agenda and to forward it to the full county board for approval.

 

COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR REPORT

Mr. Gary Hanson, County Administrator, then gave his report to the committee. Some of the items that he reported on are mentioned below.

 

He said that he attended his first Drug Court graduation last Friday evening. He strongly encouraged the board members to attend one of these events if they have never done so before. He also mentioned that at the same event it was announced that DeKalb County was approved as a Mentor Court for other jurisdictions. There are only a few courts in the nation that have received that recognition.

 

He mentioned that he will be sending out a plan for the Deputy County Administrator in July. In August, then this committee could send the code changes to the board for approval. Then in September we may be able to appoint someone, he said.

 

He then spoke about the Jail expansion project. In late May the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case against the County. Therefore, we win and Waste Management will go forward on expanding the landfill. Hopefully, within a month or two the State will issue the permit to Waste Management. Then we are looking at a one-year timeframe for them to actually get the construction work done. He said that he will be meeting with them on this issue in a week or so.

 

The difficulty comes when someone asks, why can't we start the jail, he said. Because we have to sell bonds. And to sell bonds, which are alternative revenue bonds, which is off of the host fee agreement. Even though they are alternative revenue bonds they are backed by property taxes. So if these don't come in you levy a property tax. So every year we plan to abate both property taxes. But you have to have one year of revenue in place in order to do that. Now you have a one year construction for the landfill and one year wait to collect revenue. So, it could take us two (2) years out to even sell the bonds. One of our challenges is to find out if we can shorten that time period so that we can start construction even though we will not have all of the revenues in place. He will be meeting with the County's bond advisors to see if there is an avenue out there. We will be coming back to the county board to ask for a new bonding authority. That will potentially happen this fall.

 

LABOR NEGOTIATION -- REHAB AND NURSING HOME
Mr. Hanson said that the Rehab and Nursing Home Operating Board will be discussing this item first thing Wednesday morning so we are trying to bring it to your attention a little bit early on what the agreement was made on the AFSCM labor contract. The wages will increase by 1% in 2013; 1% in 2014 and 2% by 2015. He also mentioned that there is a cap on premium insurance increases that was raised from 15% to 20%. Again, this resolution is subject to approval tomorrow morning by the Rehab and Nursing Home Board.

 

It was moved by Ms. Fauci, seconded by Ms. DeFauw, and it was carried unanimously to forward the resolution adopting the AFSCME labor contract to the full board for approval.

 

ADJOURNMENT

It was moved by Ms. Turner, seconded by Mr. Whelan, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

 

______________________________
Chairman Jeffery L. Metzger

 

 

_______________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary

 

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