The Executive Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Tuesday, December 10, 2002 @ 7:00 p.m. at the Legislative Center’s Freedom Conference Room. Chairman Robert Pritchard called the meeting to order.  Members present were Marlene Allen, Steve Faivre, Jeffery Metzger, Dennis Sands, Ruth Anne Tobias and John Wilson.  Others present were Ray Bockman, Gary Hanson, Pat LaVigne, Diane Strand, Eileen Dubin, Julia Fauci and Steve Slack.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

            Moved by Mr. Wilson, seconded by Mr. Metzger, and it was carried unanimously to accept the minutes of the November 12, 2002 meeting. 

APPROVAL OF AGENDA

APPOINTMENTS

            Chairman Pritchard recommended the following appointments:

DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing
Center Operating Board: 

Mr. James Kirby
Ms. Jeanette Heinisch
Mr. Blake Richter
Ms. Ruth Anne Tobias
Mr. George Daugherty
All reappointments for a 1-year term, until 01/01/2004.

Ms. Eileen Dubin,
appointment for a 1-year term, until 01/01/2004.

DeKalb County Board of Health:                Carl Heinisch, reappointment for a term of 3 years, until 12/1/2005
Steve Kuhn, P.A., reappointment for a term of
3 years, until 12/1/2005
Rosemary Lane, MD,  appointment for a term of 3
years, until 12/1/2005.
Julia Fullerton, appointment for a term of  1 year,
 until 12/01/2003.

Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Mr. Wilson, and it was carried unanimously to approve the appointments as presented by Chairman Pritchard, and to forward them onto the full board for approval.

WORKFORCE INVESTMENT ACT BOARD

Chairman Pritchard explained to the members that the Workforce Investment Act Board background is an initiative by the State to fund training for unemployed youth or adults, or adults that are shifting careers into another field.  Over the years it has taken many forms.  The current form is the Illinois Employment Training Center.  It’s part of a three-county partnership.  The state divided up all of the counties into some jurisdiction and our county fell into a three county area that included Kane, Kendall and DeKalb Counties.  Through an agreement with the chairmen of each of those boards, we agreed that Kane County would take the lead and be the host agency in applying for federal monies and then assuring that the money is spent appropriately.  There are mountains of paperwork that says who is qualified for training and then you have to verify if that training did occur and so forth.  Kane County, obviously, is the largest populated county out of the three and so we divided up the monies based on population.  Their operating board is also appointed based on the number of seats according to population.  This is a federal law that the state can “put their fingerprint on.”  Through this “fingerprinting” they have come up with some guidelines that are somewhat different than the federal congress intended.    It is all a “moot” point because the state has jurisdiction of the funds and approves or does not approve how they are spent.   The Governor oversees this program and has many workshops on this matter. 

He is now looking for two new members to serve on the board and would like the committee members to try and think of some names of people that might be good candidates and submit the names to Mary Supple or him before the next meeting. 

COUNTY BOARD LEADERSHIP AND GOALS

Chairman Pritchard passed out a checklist (see attached to these minutes) of recommendations to the committee chairs on ways not to do themselves, but involve their committees.  To do special assignments, more homework, etc., to involve the county board a little bit more and make the committee meetings as informative as they can around the topics that they will be dealing with.  A suggestion that he made is to facilitate with their committees and ask people to do things.  He also encouraged the committee chairmen to set some goals with their committees.  He asked them to involve their vice-chairmen and broaden the leadership in their individual committees.  He asked them to look outside of the county and be proactive.  Ask yourselves and the department heads that report to your committees, what the public thinks about how their department is doing?  What is the feedback that they are receiving from the public?  Maybe there will be goals that need to be reached.  He also encouraged them to follow item #8, that is, to look to other counties to see how they operate. Why not have somebody call up other county board members in other counties and discuss some of the issues and see what they are doing.  He also cautioned them to be mindful of the Open Meetings Act.

Chairman Pritchard then discussed the responsibilities of the subcommittees (see sheet attached to these minutes).  He will be sitting down with each of the subcommittee chairmen to get their feelings and solidify what they are going to try to accomplish and talk about how we might put people on the subcommittee.  He said that we had a Vision Committee about ten years ago where there were a group of three of people that looked at the turn of the century that dealt with the quality of life issues, infrastructure issues, and service delivery issues.  They had about seventy people, involved with about 3 major different subcommittees that met for almost a year.  They came up with a report that was presented to the board and the board adopted it and was delegated to the various departments to implement.  It was this kind of thinking, actions, and community input that gave us a fresher look to energize the board around some of the issues that were a problem at that time. That’s kind of the analogy that he will be looking for when he is forming these subcommittees.  This isn’t meant to make more work for staff, it’s meant to be an opportunity for board members to delve into issues that the committees haven’t normally had time to delve into. 

What he envisions happening is that the chairmen and he will come up, together, with a list of people to serve on the individual subcommittees that may be some board members and hopefully a lot of citizens.  These names will go to the full board for approval.  Then the committee will meet and appoint someone to keep a rough outline of minutes so that those minutes can be reflected back to the standing committee that they report to.  Hopefully, they will come up with some information that leads you to solutions, programs or actions.  The standing committees will then deal with these issues.  If there is any money to be expended the standing committee will have to deal with that issue.  This is the type of model that he was thinking of.

Chairman Pritchard wanted to encourage the committee chairmen to look at their meeting dates and times that fall the week of the county board meeting and strongly recommended that they should pick another date to meet.  The reason being because there’s always the temptation that you are going to bring items to the board at the last minute.  Our rules state very clearly that you are supposed to give members seven days notice of agenda and background information on items that are going to be presented to the board for consideration.

APPROVAL OF THE COUNTY BOARD AGENDA

            Mr. Bockman reviewed the county board agenda for the board meeting to be held on December 18, 2002.   

            Moved by Mr. Faivre, seconded by Mr. Metzger, and it was carried unanimously to accept the amended county board agenda as presented by Mr. Bockman.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Mr. Wilson, Chairman of the Public Infrastructure and Development Committee, said that he is very pleased with the new members on his committee and that the meeting was excellent. 

            Mr. Sands, Vice-Chairman of the Planning & Regulations Committee, said that they have not had a meeting since he’s been assigned to the committee and that they have canceled the one for this month.  The big topic that will be coming up is the Wind Farm issue, obviously. 

            Mr. Sands also asked about mailings from the county board office.  Who is supposed to have items included in the mailings from the board office? Should items from outside sources be included in county board mailings?   Mr. Bockman said that the county board staff does really try to position ourselves neutral on all issues.  We are staff to all members of the board.  We work for the Chairman, but we are staff to every board member.  One of the things that have come up early is managing email.  There are people that want to send us an email and ask us to send it to everyone else.  We are happy to do that. However, he doesn’t want Ms. Supple or himself to be in the position of trying to decipher content to see if somebody is advocating something.  He wanted the board to understand that we’re simply facilitating your communication with each other.

Mr. Bockman said that with regards to a letter that a citizen comes in with and requests that we send it to the county board - we give them a list of county board members and tell them that it is not our procedure to be a distribution center, but please feel free to mail it to them yourself.  If a board member comes in with a piece that is not really advocating one position or the other, we will give them the courtesy of copying the article and putting in the next mailing in the interest of saving postage.  There have been occasions where members of the board and the public have tried everything that he’s every thought of and then some to lobby this board up to the minute that we are about to vote.  As long as you understand that that’s not our job to lobby your vote, he continued.

            Mrs. Allen, Chairman of the Public Services Committee, said that her committee heard from Ms. Sharon Holmes, DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder, who introduced herself to the new committee members and explained what her department’s duties are.  Mr. Ken Johnson, DeKalb County Public Defender and Ms. Margi Gilmour, DeKalb County Court Services Director, and Mr. Dennis Miller, DeKalb County Coroner and ESDA Director, also introduced themselves to the committee and described what their individual departments do.  She said that her goals, over the next few months is to get the committee to really understand what each department does and how they interact with each other.  She is having Ms. Olson, DeKalb County Community Services Director, come for two months to explain the Senior Services Tax Levy so that each member truly understands how it works and the procedures that need to be taken.

            Mr. Faivre, Vice-Chairman of the Administrative Services Committee, said that they discussed the county’s health insurance plan and that the way that Mr. Bockman explained it to the committee, Mr. Faivre found it very enlightening.

            Ms. Tobias, Chairman of the Public Policy Committee, said that they did not meet last month and that they will be discussing the legislative agenda and County Government Week.

            Mr. Metzger, Chairman of the Forest Preserve Committee, said that he has met with Mr. Hannan that morning and they set some goals for the year and for funding raising ideas for the new park.  They also discussed the formation of a committee including the scouts and citizens across the county to work together to make them a part of the organization so that they can help us and we can help them.

Chairman Pritchard announced that the next meeting in January for the executive committee will be January 7, 2003.  The rest of the meeting dates will be on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:00p.m.

ADJOURNMENT

            Moved by Mr. Metzger, seconded by Mr. Faivre, and it was voted unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

                                                                        Respectfully submitted,

                                                                        _________________________________
                                                                        Robert W. Pritchard, Chairman

_______________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary