PRINTABLE DOCUMENT (.pdf)

Note: These minutes are not official until approved by the DeKalb County Board
at a subsequent meeting. Please refer to the meeting minutes
when these minutes are approved to obtain any changes to these minutes.

The Ad Hoc Rules Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Tuesday, October 1, 2013 at 7 p.m. in the DeKalb County Administration Building's Conference Room East.

Chairman Paul Stoddard called the meeting to order. Members present were Mrs. DeFauw, Mr. Emerson, Ms. Fullerton, Mr. Jones, Mr. Oncken, Mr. Pietrowski and Mr. Reid. Other Members present were Mr. Cvek.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA
Mr. Pietrowski moved to approve the agenda and Mr. Jones seconded the motion.

Chairman Stoddard moved to amend the agenda by adding item #2.5 for discussion of prioritizing items A-F in item #3. Mr. Oncken seconded the motion. The motion was carried unanimously.

The motion to approve the amended agenda carried unanimously.

PRIORITIZING DISCUSSION ITEMS
During discussion on the individual items that were being brought forth to the Ad Hoc Rules Committee, Mr. Cvek questioned whether item e) Reoccurring Use of County Property by Outside Entities Following Initial Approval and also item f) Census Re-Districting Guidelines were being discussed in the appropriate committee. He suggested those items would be better placed in Executive Committee.

After talking further about item d) Proclamation Guidelines, it was decided that the Ad Hoc Rules Committee would not take any action on this item because it should be directed through the Executive Committee.

It was also decided unanimously that item e) Reoccurring Use of County property by Outside Entities Following Initial Approval should be processed through the Executive Committee as well.

It was ultimately decided that the items would be discussed in the following order: Change in County Board Meeting Time, Committee Meeting Dates in Relation to County Board Meeting Date, Electronic Attendance for Meetings and then Census Re-Districting Guidelines.

CHANGE IN COUNTY BOARD MEETING TIME
It had been expressed by some board members that 7:30 p.m. was a late start for a meeting. Mr. Oncken expressed that even changing the meeting to 7:00 p.m. would result in being able to be done earlier. Also shared was opposing remarks that indicated having the meeting at 7:30 p.m. made it easier to arrive to when members work or live farther away from Sycamore. After further discussion it was decided to keep the 7:30 p.m. meeting start to help accommodate everyone.

COMMITTEE MEETING DATES IN RELATION TO BOARD MEETING DATE
The topic for this code change was discussed for the committee meetings that occur after the Executive Committee and before the County Board Meeting. It was shared that these committees have a difficult time because they are unable to forward items to the full board until the following month. These committees most affected by this scheduling are: Economic Development, Forest Preserve and Law & Justice. Multiple suggestions were shared in order to help this scheduling conflict.

Mr. Cvek announced that a question he had was that if the board is already committed to the current schedule now, would it be beneficial to wait until the next election for these changed to be implemented. Chairman Stoddard agreed and announced right now they should set a directive and allow the Committee Chairman to set the dates of the committees after the next election.

Mr. Oncken moved to add a paragraph to Section 2-43 which would be 2-43 (d): No Committee shall meet between the date of the Executive Committee Meeting and the date of the Full County Board Meeting without approval of the Executive Committee. This section would have an effective date of December 1, 2014. Mr. Reid seconded the motion. It was carried unanimously by a voice vote to forward the code addition to the full county board for approval.

Mr. Jones suggested allowing the three committee chairman that have to move their dates to start now if they would like in order to have their new dates set and adjust for implementation in December of 2014.

ELECTRONIC ATTENDANCE FOR MEETINGS
The first step in this consideration was to acknowledge whether or not electronic attendance for meetings is even desirable to the committee before exploring the technology capabilities. After further discussion on reasoning and certain technicalities of electronic meeting attendance it was unanimously agreed that the committee found that looking further into electronic attendance for meetings was desirable.

Chairman Stoddard shared that his next step was to meet with Joan Hanson, Director of the Information Management Office, to discuss technology capabilities and cost. Then the steps after that would be to assess the technologies and what is appropriate and if accepted then prepare guidelines to present to the full county board. Further discussion on this topic will be shared at the next scheduled Ad Hoc Rules Committee Meeting.

NEW BUSINESS
Mr. Reid suggested implementing a rule that would ask when committee members are going to be absent from a standing committee meeting that they inform the committee chairman. He expressed that this would be important for planning purposes. It was agreed by the committee that this is would be a good rule to add and would be added to the next meeting's agenda.

ADJOURNMENT
It was moved by Mr. Oncken, seconded by Mrs. Fullerton, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

________________________________
Chairman Paul Stoddard

_______________________________
Tasha Stogsdill, Recording Secretary