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DeKalb County, Illinois |
Minutes of the
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PRINTABLE DOCUMENT (.pdf)
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The Executive Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 7:15p.m. at the Administration Building’s Conference Room East. Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias called the meeting to order. Members present were Pat Vary, Eileen Dubin, Julia Fauci, Mike Haines, Pat LaVigne, Bob Rosemier and Roger Steimel. Sally DeFauw was invited to sit in for Mr. Osborne. Mr. Osborne was absent. A quorum was present. Others present were Ray Bockman, Gary Hanson, Greg Millburg, Joan Hanson, Diane Strand, Anita Turner, Steve Walt, Larry Anderson, Julia Fullerton, Haley Murray, Jeff Metzger, Sr., John Hulseberg, Liz Carney, Paul Stoddard and Vince Faivre.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTESMoved by Mr. Haines, seconded by Ms. Dubin, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from August 2007.
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDAMoved by Ms. Fauci, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to approve the amended agenda.
Chairman Tobias asked everyone present that she would like to take a moment of silence in remembrance of 911 observed.
APPOINTMENTS:
Local Emergency Planning Committee: Ms. Pat LaVigne, appointment for an indefinite term.
Chairman Tobias said that Mr. Frank Bierlotzer said that they need another county board member to serve on this committee and so if anyone else is interested in serving, please see her.
Community Services Administrative Board: Mr. Robert Keil Ms. Brenda Campbell Mr. Kenneth Moeller Ms. Micki Chulick All reappointments for a term of 3 years, until September 2010.
Mr. Brett Brown, appointment for a term of 3 years, until September 2010.
And
Ms. Marlene Allen, to replace Ms. Sharon Holmes, for an indefinite term.
DeKalb County Public Building Commission: Mr. Matt Swanson, appointment for a term of 5 years, until September 2012.
River Valley Workforce Investment Act Board: Mr. Steve Cunningham, reappointment for a term of 2 years, until September 2009.
Appointments expiring for October 2007 are: Workforce Investment Act Board – 2 positions Housing Authority of DeKalb County – 1 position
Chairman Tobias said that Mr. Matt Swanson is the President of the DeKalb Building Trades Commission and a long time builder in DeKalb County. She said that Mr. Cliff Seldal has done an excellent job and has been on the PBC since 1992, which is a long time to serve. The appointment would be for another five-year appointment. She feels that it would be an interesting time to bring on a new board member. He has a long working history in building skills especially in asphalt and concrete materials.
Mr. Steimel asked if he has worked in the DeKalb County area?
Chairman Tobias said yes.
Mr. Steimel asked what firm does he work at?
Chairman Tobias said that she did not think to ask that. She will find out and get back to Mr. Steimel before the County Board Meeting.
Moved by Ms. Fauci, seconded by Ms. Vary, to forward the appointments to the full board for approval.
Mr. Steimel moved to separate the PBC appointment from the rest of them, seconded by Ms. LaVigne.
Mr. Haines asked Mr. Steimel why?
Mr. Steimel explained that Mr. Seldal has done a good job for a long time and is a long standing plumber in the community. He is conservative and he watches the taxpayer’s money and what it is spent on. He feels that the PBC is running well and does not feel that it needs to be changed.
Mr. Rosemier asked for an explanation of what the PBC does?
Mr. Bockman said that the PBC was formed in 1978 when we were constructing a jail and we were running out of money. It is a separate public body of the County Board and they used to have the authority to issue bonded referendum debt without referendum and then lease facilities to the County. They still have the authority to incur debt, but the tax cap law now covers it. The commission has served the County very well by overseeing construction projects. After you authorize a building to them, they oversee submittals, contractors, sub –contractors, construction managers, plans that need to be approved, etc. Our current commission is a good commission and it is working very well. The truth is that you are not compelled by law to use them for managing your projects, Mr. Bockman said. It is a convenience to the board. Since you are now responsible to finance your own construction projects, you don’t have to turn them over to the PBC any longer. You could hire a construction management firm and bypass the commission all together. I won’t get into who is an appropriate appointee, that’s your business not mine. I will tell you, however, that from a management position the PBC has been a very good vehicle for the County.
Chairman Haines asked if we have authority over them?
Mr. Bockman said that the County appoints them and that they can only build buildings for the County and are responsible to us.
Mr. Haines said that with the PBC having a majority of Republicans seated on the commission, couldn’t we consider 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats to sit on it? He continued by stating that many or our committees and boards do rotate terms.
Ms. Fauci asked where are their minutes? Where do they meet? She would like to see some transparency.
Chairman Tobias returned to the amended motion made by Mr. Steimel and seconded by Ms. LaVigne to separate the vote on the PBC appointment. There were 2 yes votes and 7 no votes. Motion failed. The yes votes were Mr. Steimel and Ms. LaVigne.
Chairman Tobias then returned to the original motion to approve the appointments as presented. It was moved by Ms. Fauci, seconded by Ms. Vary, and it was carried to forward the appointments as presented to the full board for approval. Ms. LaVigne and Mr. Steimel voted no.
Mr. Steimel asked Chairman Tobias if Mr. Swanson could attend the County Board Meeting next week and could she email his resume to him?
Chairman Tobias said that she would invite him and that she would email his resume to all county board members prior to the county board meeting.
REAL ESTATE PRESENTATION – MR. GARY KOBES OF LANDSIDE, INC. Mr. Bockman said that Mr. Kobes has been advising the County for a number of years going back to the development of the nursing home property into the DeKalb Market Square.
In the early part of this year he and Mr. Hanson asked Mr. Kobes to take on a series of four tasks. The first three tasks were rather technical. The first task was to evaluate our current interest in the DeKalb Shopping Center. The County still owns the ground that those stores sit on by TJ Maxx, but we do have a marketable interest in it. We asked Mr. Kobes if this would be an appropriate time to consider offering up for sale our interest in that property?
The second task was to evaluate the properties on either side of the Market Square Theatre. They asked him whether or not it would make sense for the County to invest in infrastructure? One of those parcels would need about a half million dollars of work done to it to prepare it for sale. We asked Mr. Kobes to compare that with the possibility of packaging those lots as they are, not investing any more money and offering them up for sale.
The third task they asked him to look at was some land that the County owns near the Tails building and it borders another privately owned piece of property. We were approached about the possibility of combining our parcel with another one in what could become a commercial development. They asked Mr. Kobes to evaluate our options with regard to that parcel.
Those three technical pieces are done or nearly so. The reason that we invited Mr. Kobes here tonight was because of the fourth task, which was the general one. He is going to present his recommendation with regard to the Sycamore Campus. They were particularly interested in getting this piece done now because later on –on the agenda you will see an item on Strategic Planning, and we wanted you to have this information prior to launching a Strategic Planning process.
Mr. Kobes said that the first three tasks that Mr. Bockman just mentioned is what he will cover first. In round numbers the sale of those assets would bring about $3 ½ to $4 ½ million range to the County. One of those would not be advantageous to the County to sell and that’s the shopping center. The other two properties he is recommending to sell, that is, the two lots on either side of the Theater and the property by Tails.
The fourth task is related to the capital needs of the County. This memo should be looked at as a document that should prompt a lot of discussion and then lead to some sort of consensus of the direction that you want to go.
The two major needs in terms of capital that the County faces are in the area of jails and the demands on the State’s Attorney’s Office, Court Services Department, all of those other judicial functions. A number of studies have been done in the past like the Dulin Study in 1991, the Goldman Study in 1994 and the Wold Report in 2006. There has been a lot of work done that needs to be synthesized. What you don’t need is another specific jail study, or another building study, etc. You have a lot of elements of information where some of it needs to be updated. However you need enter into a process that starts bringing all of it together.
Mr. Kobes said, more specifically the question that is asked in task 4 is whether or not the County Government Center should remain in Sycamore or should it relocate to another site entirely. Or a combination of those two and there is a fourth possibility of just doing nothing.
On Page 2, Figure 1, that is a depiction of what properties are owned by the County. The dark green is indicative of the properties that the county owns. The pentagon of numbers are just general areas that are isolated by alleys and streets. The yellow parcels that are owned by other persons. The County has some significant land holdings here, but they are scattered around. Currently the County owns 8 ¼ acres and 124,000 square feet of office space on those properties.
He has outlined the general possibilities of action for the County to take. In each one of those there are a number of aspects to look at. The four avenues of action available to the County are: Remain at the Sycamore Campus, Relocate to another site in Sycamore or elsewhere in DeKalb County, Relocate part of the governmental function and retain part at the current campus, and do nothing.
There is potential action that he calls the wild card that could be done in combination with remaining here or partially remaining here.
The County currently has three primary locations for provision of services and governance: The County Seat, Main Campus, in Sycamore; DeKalb County Highway Facility in DeKalb; and the DeKalb County Care and Rehabilitation Center and County Health Department in DeKalb. The County has already adopted a policy of partial decentralization. So one of the directions that you can go is to continue that, he said.
In 2000 the County had a population of 89,000 and in 2006 the census bureau indicates that there is a population of 100,139. This shows a growth of about 11,000 people in 6 years or 1900 people a year. If you factor in the arithmetic growth, which is simply taking the 1900 and adding them on each, you will get a projection that shows in about 15 years the County will be about 125,000 people. That may or may not be accurate, the fact is that the County has been under a lot of growth pressure for some time now, said Mr. Kobes. In 2030 his estimate would be that the County population would be between 150,000 to 160,000 people.
A lot of retirees may start coming in and will affect the nursing home and health care services. If a commuter rail line happens it will have a big impact here. If the new expressway happens just west of Route 47, it will have a big impact here, too. He did mention that the current mortgage crisis will slow things down.
Mr. Kobes continued by stating that the majority of the growth will happen in Sycamore, DeKalb and Cortland. In ten years if the current growth rate continues you could be looking at a combined population of 100,000 people in these three communities.
Long-term sustainability the County needs to look at the options either here or somewhere else. If the County decides to stay here on the Sycamore Campus then that means that you should take every opportunity to acquire as much land and not wait for the pressure of growth and development to force land prices up.
Page 7 under Figure 4 shows an assumption of 3.5% annual inflation, $1.00 borrowed and invested today will have an annual debt service of $.08 and over 20 years will cost $1.40 to repay. If the decision to borrow and invest is delayed five years the cost of investment to buy the same thing will have grown to $1.19, debt service will have increased to $.095 and the total cost to repay the $1.19 will have increased to $1.91. This is an overall increase in real cost of 31.0% to accomplish the same task.
The remaining option, which keeps all of the current functions on the Sycamore Campus and develops specific space solutions for each department with the potential to expand.
He feels that if the County acquires the four parcels that front on Locust and Sycamore Streets in Figure 1 of the report, would solve many problems and would give the County great flexibility at moderate acquisition costs. The City of Sycamore doesn’t want to lose the County Seat and he feels that they will vacate the right of way on the two parcels fronting N. Locust Street if they are acquired. The acquisitions of property shown in Figure 5 should happen right away, said Mr. Kobes.
The remain option addressing the current needs as we know them would at today’s dollars cost $70 to $75 million. That is assuming the construction of these facilities happen fairly soon, said Mr. Kobes.
The relocate option to relocate the County government in it entirety to a new campus. The primary advantage of pursuing this course would be modern structures and systems arranged on a campus in a way tat does not have various functions separated by inconvenient distances and public rights of way that support heavy traffic.
The courthouse is a significant historic structure and any reuse is likely to be a civic use not driven by market pressures. Therefore the sales proceeds vs. cost of replacement would represent a significant cost gap.
The price for all of this is $125 million and all of it needs to happen at the same time. This is ranked third out of the four options in his opinion.
The third avenue of action is partial relocation and partial remaining here. The partial remaining is the lion’s share of the governmental functions.
One suggestion would be to build a long-term jail somewhere off of the Sycamore Campus. There would be two jails, one short-term jail and one long-term. The short-term would be housed here as a holding facility interfacing with Court Services.
He would rank the “do nothing” option last.
The Wild Card solution could be done if you remain here or do a partial relocation. The County could acquire a piece of land that you could hold for 20 to 30 years, hold it, knowing that it’s in the path of growth. After all the best efforts, this campus doesn’t work and you could move there.
Mr. Rosemier said that you are relocating partial, is primarily relocating the jail?
Mr. Kobes said that there may some others, but the right now it is the jail.
Mr. Rosemier asked if the administrative offices could be relocated?
Ms. Fauci asked Mr. Kobes if the County sold only the properties he recommends that we own how much could we see in the sale?
Mr. Kobes said somewhere around $2 million.
Mr. Bockman said that you need to look at what order are you going to solve these problems.
Mr. Steimel said that he needs to digest all of this and start discussion on this.
Mr. Metzger, Sr., suggested a land swap.
Mr. Bockman said that Mr. Kobes mentioned that to him and Mr. Hanson when they discussed this and that it is a suggestion that will be explored.
Mr. Kobes concluded by stating that the County should acquire the land mentioned in the three phases. It should support the County at this location and its needs for as far as you can see into the future. You would then have land to do what you want to do.
The committee thanked Mr. Kobes for all of his hard work and his presentation.
LT. GOVERNOR’S PROPOSAL Chairman Tobias said that the Lt. Governor’s proposal is an advisory referendum with a question to be placed on the ballot to the voters at the February 5, 2008 primary election. The referendum is regarding the mandatory federal funding for veteran’s health care.
Moved by Mr. Rosemier, seconded by Ms. Fauci, and it was carried unanimously to forward the resolution to the full board for approval.
VOLUNTARY WATER AND ENERGY CONSERVATION INITIATIVE PROPOSAL Ms. Vary said that someone approached her about a rain garden and they suggested that we hold a seminar on them. Ms. Vary and Ms. Fauci along with Haley Murray have pulled together some information to review. One of them is for an education initiative to try to sponsor different seminars on conservation, water and energy and bringing in speakers. Ms. Fauci said that there would not be speaker fees and would like to jump start this initiative, by holding the sessions in the Gathertorium at very little cost to the County.
Ms. Vary said that these URL’s could be placed on the website that they have so far. They would like some guidance from the county board as how to proceed with this. They will come before this committee again in October with a resolution .
STRATEGIC PLAN DISCUSSION Mr. Bockman said that he sought another proposal for Strategic Planning Process services and did solicit a proposal from TechSolve of Cincinnati, Ohio. The price that they are proposing is half the charge of what they would regularly charge a client. The contract is proposing a sum not to exceed $10,000 plus travel and other project-related expenses to lead a Strategic Planning Process.
Moved by Ms. LaVigne, seconded by Ms. Vary, and it was carried unanimously to forward this resolution to the full board for approval.
This will help to get the vision of what you want the County to look like in ten to fifteen years from now. They would like to begin in the fall, said Mr. Bockman.
Mr. Faivre asked if we could get a cap on the travel and other project related expenses?
Mr. Bockman said that he would get a reasonable cap worked out with them.
APPROVAL OF THE COUNTY BOARD AGENDA Mr. Ray Bockman, County Administrator, reviewed the County Board Agenda for the Board Meeting to be held on September 19, 2007.
Moved by Ms. Steimel, seconded by Ms. LaVigne and it was carried unanimously to forward the county board agenda to the full county board for approval.
GENERAL DISCUSSION Ms. Fauci, Chairman of the Forest Preserve Committee, said that they discussed an increase in their Tort fund, they passed an Emerald Ash Borer Beetle test at two places where they have camp grounds and damage from the last storm. The damages are being repair and they are looking to FEMA for reimbursement.
Ms. LaVigne, Chairman of the Highway Committee said that she has no report.
Mr. Haines, Chairman of the Finance Committee said that they just met tonight prior to the Executive Committee and he had no report.
Ms. DeFauw, Vice-Chairman of the Economic Development Committee, said that they heard the monthly reports and had a discussion on a Halfway House in Sycamore for juveniles.
Mr. Rosemier, Chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, said that they heard from Mr. Gil Morrison, DeKalb County Regional Superintendent of Schools and his annual report.
STORMWATER MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE – PHASE II APPOINTMENTS Before adjourning Chairman Tobias said that she would like to add one more group, the Stormwater Management Committee Phase II, for appointments. Those names she is recommending for appointment from the County Board are: Donna Prain, Roger Steimel, Ken Andersen, Pat Vary, Paul Miller and Bill Lorence. Those names she is recommending for appointment from the Municipalities are: Mayor Claudia Hicks, Joe Misurelli, Joel Maurer, Mark Bernacki, Bill Nicklas and Mayor Tom Thomas.
Moved by Mr. Haines, seconded by Ms. Dubin, and it was carried unanimously to forward these names for appointment to the Stormwater Management Committee- Phase II to the full board for approval.
ADJOURNMENTMoved by Mr. Rosemier, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
______________________________ Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias
_____________________________ Mary C. Supple, Secretary |
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