Will County Legislative Committee met Sept. 13.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Mr. Marcum led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Vice Chair Natalie Coleman called the meeting to order at 9:02 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Denise E. Winfrey | Chair | Absent | |
| Natalie Coleman | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Julie Berkowicz | Member | Present | |
| Amanda Koch | Member | Absent | |
| Debbie Kraulidis | Member | Absent | |
| Tyler Marcum | Member | Present | |
| Sherry Newquist | Member | Absent | |
| Judy Ogalla | Member | Absent | |
| Tom Weigel | Member | Present |
Also present at the Meeting: M. Fricilone, D. Kennedy (Chief Judge), Sheriff Kelly, B. Conser, B. Adams
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: J. Glasgow, C. Koch, K. Meyers, K. Grey
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Legislative & Judicial Committee - Regular Meeting - Aug 9, 2022 9:00 AM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Tyler Marcum, Member SECONDER: Tom Weigel, Member AYES: Coleman, Berkowicz, Marcum, Ogalla, Weigel ABSENT: Winfrey, Koch, Kraulidis, Newquist |
V. MISCELLANEOUS LEGISLATIVE REPORTS
1. ISACo Updates
(Information)
Ms. Coleman noted that the ISACo updates are in the agenda packet that were emailed out.
VI. OLD BUSINESS
1. Federal Legislative Update
(Smith, Dawson & Andrews)
2. Creation of FY24 Federal Legislative Agenda
(Smith Dawson & Andrews)
3. Update on State Legislative Issues
(Curry & Associates)
Mr. Hassert gave the update and there really isn’t an update right now. We had 2 days of updates with department heads and local officials and nothing on the agenda.
Mr. Weigel asked has there been any discussion on the bridge for Bruce Rd. Has there been any discussion about that; anything new where we can move that along?
Mr. Palmer replied I just got off a call and we’re talking with the Federal Highway Administration and IDOT so there’s work ongoing just as we spoke a few minutes ago so that is included in with what Mr. Hassert said, I spoke to Mr. Schaben and we had meetings and there’s collected information and we’re processing things but as we said before. Board members if you have other ideas beyond Mr. Weigel and other ideas, please get them to me and hopefully next month we’ll have something for you to look at and this month there’s also the ISACo agendas attached, look at that too because that may be ideas. Both the State and Federal are working on it but we knew with today’s presentation it was going to take the bulk of the time. To answer your question Mr. Weigel, yes, we have that in the mix.
Mrs. Ogalla asked has there been discussion regarding relief for Heatherbrook Estates.
Mr. Hassert replied we have it on the list.
4. Creation of FY23 State Legislative Agenda
(Curry & Associates)
VII. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VIII. NEW BUSINESS
This item was moved to the beginning of the agenda.
1. Discussion of Public Act 101-0652 SAFE-T Act
(Discussion)
Ms. Coleman stated we have several guests today and just a reminder that this is supposed to be for information to help build our Legislative agenda and understanding implications and impact of the Safe-T Act on Will County. We’re going to make sure after each speaker everyone is given the opportunity to ask a clarifying question and we will ask one question at a time until everyone has gone.
Judge Kennedy stated I’m here not to talk politics, not to talk pros/cons but how Safe-T Act affects our judiciary which you fund. Just to let you know every month we meet there’s 23 Chief Judges throughout the State of Illinois we meet for 2-day meetings and mainly the topic is the Safe-T Act. Also, together with Mr. Glasgow, Sheriff Kelly, and probation and various other agencies that are being affected by the Safe-T Act, we’ve been meeting monthly and we’re going to have another meeting in 2 weeks regarding the Safe-T Act. Before I get into how it affects the judiciary branch, I want to begin by saying, as of January 1, 2023, there is going to be no bonds the way the statute directed, which means out of the 640 people that are in our county jail 90% are on bonds. That means as of January 1, there is going to be about 90% that are going to be released because there will no bond requirement. Preventative measures which we have taken there seems to be a consensus throughout the State of Illinois Chief Judges and AOIC which is the administrative branch in the Supreme Court that will allow to file pre-statute detention hearings in which the State’s Attorney’s files a petition with detention hearings, but the order does not go into effect until January 1. Meaning that the statute is not inactive but the order that we entered does not come in effect until January 1. We’ve been talking about this for about 3 months, and we have put together a program exchanging information with the State’s Attorney’s and the Sheriff’s office regarding what people we’re going to bring in front of the courts prior to January 1. I think we need to do that in the interest of public safety and our community. There are 2 other changes of thoughts throughout the State of Illinois not the minority opinion. The other change of thought is that the Act is going to affect anyone that’s in jail, stays in jail and we’re going to do the detention hearings after January 1. The serious Constitutional issues with that it’s going to have a lot of lawsuits. Hopefully, our main concern locally is to make sure that the people that are detention eligible stay in jail and not released in the public. As far as the Safe-T Act itself probably a lot of you are not that familiar with. Some of the concerns with the judiciary, the Sheriff’s department, the State’s Attorney’s Office, the initial arrest of an individual the policy agency makes a determination whether the person gets detained or not. Does anyone see a problem with that? Who’s supposed to do that? A judge and the State’s Attorney’s Office. Police departments they don’t want to do that because what it’ll do is open lawsuits up to them because they’re going to make mistakes. We have to train these people tell them which offenses should be detained and which offenses should not be detained, and we see a lot of problems with that. That’s one thing we’re talking with Chief Judges on how to change this. I meet with our legislation that we have monthly and hopefully some of these changes can be taking place if not the Safe-T Act can stall out for a little bit, so we can make these changes. The second issue is especially with felony cases let’s say it’s not a detainable offense. The guy doesn’t show up to court. Generally, speaking especially in these felony cases, I mean the misdemeanor cases are a little bit different there’s always a little bit of a leeway for misdemeanor cases. You give them a notice to appear, and they don’t show up then you issue a warrant. Felony cases the only way you assure someone comes to court who doesn’t show up to court issue a warrant for their arrest and you can’t do that anymore, under the Safe-T Act. What’s going to take place under the Act, the Sheriff’s department has to serve the individual defendant with a rule and show cause why he shouldn’t be held in contempt. That means he has to find the person, he has to personally serve him, and that person if he doesn’t come to court then he can issue a warrant. Now, I don’t know what Sheriff Kelly’s point is, but he hasn’t the manpower to do that and it’s a safety issue with that and a lot of defendants they have multi residences and they are hard to find. There’s no insurance to have these people come back to court. What’s going to happen is we’re going to get a big backlog of people who don’t show up to court and our whole docket is going to be pushed back. I understand you don’t want people to be in jail that shouldn’t be in jail, and I understand that but there’s no insurance that these people will come back to court. Another issue that’s troubling; what about the people that are on detainable offenses and already posted their bond. Let’s say a guy is charged with aggravated battery detainable offense, armed robbery detainable offense, he posts $50,000.00 in cash. What do we do with these guys that already posted a bond. Under the Act we have to give their money back and then we have to bring them to court and have a detention hearing. See any problems with that? Tremendous problems with that. These are issues we’ve hashed out many times. Also, you have to look at the Constitutional issues we have involved. At the Chief Judges meeting that we have once a month we have Supreme Court Judges that show up. I think there’s a trend within the Supreme Court that you will find portion of this act unconstitutional, if not all the act unconstitutional. What that means is if that’s found unconstitutional, we go back to bonds. Logistically for our departments and remember our County is the 3rd largest population, we have the 2nd largest jail population, and we have the largest criminal docket in the State of Illinois. We’re big. Logistically with all the agencies involved the Clerk’s office, the Sheriff’s office, the State’s Attorney’s office, and probation we’re going to have to start all over if it’s found unconstitutional. I see a lot of problems with that, and I would like to get this right. Let’s look at this and fix some of the problems that we foresee that we know are going to come. Lastly, the Clerk’s office did a study and when a bond is posted and the person pleads guilty the fines and costs, probation fees, the restitution of any victims come out of the cash bond. Now, if we’re not going to have any bonds, we’re going to lose that cash. What happens is the person is going to be assessed fines and costs that they rarely pay at the end of their case that they take a judgment for. The Clerks’ office did a study that’s in the last 5 years between $10 and $14 million dollars in revenue lost to the County. Also, Chris from probation did a study; home monitoring is going to cost the County between staffing and equipment an extra $900,000.00 per year. Those are the issues that we have to face in the judiciary branch. I think if we take a proactive approach together, my colleagues proactive measures to try preventing right now not releasing 640 people from jail. Hopefully, we can stall this out a little bit and fix some of these problems that’s going to face our County, our community, and our judiciary.
Mrs. Berkowicz asked I know that many people think this is going to save us money because we’re going to release all these people, they won’t be in jail, but I don’t see this as a savings, I see this as an additional cost in several ways. These people are going to be released and I’m sure a lot of them are repeat offenders and they are going to go out and continue to commit more crime. That’s going to lead to the need to have more deputies out there and on the street to address the additional that is occurring because we can’t hold them. Is anyone talking about the impact of additional crime but the strain on our resources for the people that are out there having to protect the public. I think the world is what it is, and I think our crime is going to increase. Is anyone talking about that?
Ms. Coleman asked Mrs. Berkowicz is anyone talking about what because I want to make sure I understand your question?
Mrs. Berkowicz replied the financial impact that’s going to occur.
Judge Kennedy replied given my position I can’t give political opinions about this. However, I think this bill was hastily put together and ran through legislation. I don’t want to make a political opinion about any of our legislators, but I think there wasn’t any thought in this, especially how it affects our community. Every community is different. I have Chief Judges from Southern Illinois that this wouldn’t affect at all because they don’t have anybody in jail. They don’t have a lot of crime. Counties like us we’re the 2nd biggest criminal docket sheet in the State of Illinois. It’s going to affect us. Just the financial impact on you and my numbers are solid. We did studies $10 to $14 million losing of revenue because of no bonds. $900,000.00 for a home monitoring system for Chris to fund it. These are your issues because you guys are the purse strings. State’s Attorney Glasgow knows more about this than I do, and I don’t make any political opinions but a lot of these people have multiple repeat offenders and will repeat again. Hopefully, I have a very good judiciary system, and we have a very good handle on this we’re not going to let anyone out that shouldn’t be let out but we are more into let’s protect the public than letting people go because that’s our jobs.
State’s Attorney Glasgow stated this is about public safety. I’m here to protect everybody in this room, our law enforcement officers, my employees, my children, my wife. I’ve been doing this for 40 years and I’m scared to death what’s going to happen if this goes into effect, but I want to make something clear. I agree there needs to be bail reform. We just need to do it right. A lot of the people that have talked about this and even worked on the current bill that is in place agree that the New Jersey system is a good system and it’s working extremely well. Well in 2014, they went to referendum, and they amended their Constitution and modified their bail rights, well we didn’t do that. Our Constitution says that all people should be bailable with sufficient sureties and in the victim section it says the amount of bail shall be sufficient to protect the victim. You need to go to referendum and change that before you write a bill that says we’re going to abolish bail. I want everybody clear this bill is unconstitutional, but I don’t want to see the whole concept go down in flames. I stand ready today to work with everybody in the legislature to put together a referendum like they did in New Jersey modify our bail and our Constitution and then put in play a law like New Jersey has which considers the needs like Judge Kennedy and myself to protect all you from the very violent offenders. Now, they’ve done that and reduced their jail population by 44% so people that shouldn’t be in there are not in there. They have a risk assessment tool that is stringent, and they have discretion in a lot of different areas so the people that eventually get held deserve to be held. I got 90 days to bring people to trial under the new bill. If somebody demands a speedy trial, they get out in 90 days even though that’s not the speedy trial and you heard Judge Kennedy say, once they get out we can’t get a warrant. So, if you’re facing 30 years in jail do you think you’re going to come back when you know we can’t get a warrant. No, that’s not going to work. In New Jersey they hold those violent individuals. The State’s Attorney have 90 days for indictment and 180 days to bring the case to trial. With our incredibly technical prosecution now with all our digital evidence and the visual evidence that we have to accumulate, all the forensic evidence, we can’t get any serious case and trial in 90 days. It can’t be done. Then if you add on to that once this law goes into effect everybody that gets arrested is looking at 90 days. It’s not just the people that are in the jail that are going to cause a clog. There’s 53 people in the Will County jail charged with murder right now. As Judge Kennedy said we’re talking about doing some hearings before the start day and the problem with that is we went through these and we go about a bunch of them and we’re not sure if we can prove a specific identifiable person that they are a threat to, which is required by the statute, which means those murderers can get out. And then we can’t get a warrant if they don’t come back. Think about that for a second. That’s scary. We don’t want that. We can make this work and we can make it work fluently and fair to everybody but the Act as it stands, and I take a lot of criticism for what I’m doing but I can’t restrain myself because when I see a problem like this I have to speak up. I’ve been threatened. I have done more for the at-risk community in Will County, and I just want this in context. Since, I’ve been in office I’ve done a lot of stuff that as far as I know no one had ever done for these communities. You’re not looking at a guy who doesn’t care about justice, presumption of innocence, and all those things they’ve been talking about. At the same time, I understand when you have a Christopher Vaughn, I can’t drop the ball and I have to make sure I convict that individual. There’s always a balance and I hope we can get some clarity here. Because we’re coming up on an election there’s a lot of politics going on and unfortunately and that’s conflicting with our public safety. Judge Kennedy keeps talking about detaining and I agree with him about that, and I praise him for wanting to do that but when you talk about detention it’s 90 days. The trouble that police departments are having maintaining police officers, I’m having the same problem in the State’s Attorney’s Office. Because I take pride in what I do and I like to win, I don’t like to lose. The bail bill is unconstitutional and like Judge Kennedy said, there will be lawsuits after the first of the year. You lock up someone on a Class A misdemeanor domestic battery with no bail or nothing that’s a Class A misdemeanor. Then I got murderers that I can’t lock up because we can’t prove a specific identifiable person that they are a threat to. Domestic batter shoved somebody significant other, so that’s the person but the murderer killed the person so they’re no longer in danger. So, you have an attempted murderer who we can always lock up because he was unsuccessful in murdering the victim, so now the victim is the one who’s specific identifiable person. That’s ludicrous what I just said, but unfortunately that’s where we’re at with this legislation. In 2014, they did the referendum in New Jersey. For 3 years Republicans and Democrats sat down at the table and worked out details on how they were going to write the legislation and that’s why the legislation is so good and fair. The new legislation we have right now put together 6 categories of people who can be detained. The first one tries to mirror what the constitution says that the penalty case, life in prison cases, and felonies that are mandatory prison but 10, in order to placate the order of protection people, the domestic violence people, and the stalking people. They threw all those in and that’s unconstitutional to the max. Most of those are not mandatory prison cases, there not even eligible. Then they added on all the sex offense and the gun cases. A lot of the sex offenses and gun cases are probational so again you’re willing to follow the constitution. As Judge Kennedy said, we have a bunch of good judges here, they’re fair, they don’t lock people up unless I make a case and prove what I need to prove. When he was talking about the fact the ability to get a warrant is taken away, that’s called separation of powers. The legislature can’t do that. It’s an invitation to a tea party. Criminal history isn’t going to matter on a lot of these cases. I want to give you a list of forceable felonies and what you do is look at who is detainable and then you figure out who isn’t; burglars, robbers, arsons, kidnappers, 2nd degree murderers, intimidators, aggravated batteries, aggravated DUI, reckless homicide, involuntary manslaughter, all drug offenses, and all drug induced homicides, so if you’re talking about reckless homicide you’re talking about a guy with maybe 4 DUI’s with a .30, gets in his car and for a week or 2, let’s say that every day that he gets into his car that he commits every one of these crimes that I just read, but he doesn’t get arrested on any of them. He gets drunk, he gets in his car which in the trunk there’s enough fentanyl to kill everybody in Will County and he hits the bus head on and kills 50 children. He gets arrested, processed, and then he confesses to all these crimes, but he can’t be detained on any of them, so he walks out the door. Now, that is the most outrageous, ludicrous, cynical, thing I could put together and that’s in the current bill. We don’t want to create this kind of a situation. Now, let’s look at the B/C misdemeanors because that’s where we’re at right now. Say we’re in a private building and Class B, trespass. If somebody comes in publicly starts to urinate on the carpet with all of us present and they are trespassing and we call the police, they can’t arrest them. If he has a viable ID on his they can give him a summons 21 days out, but it doesn’t tell you what to do if he doesn’t have an ID. Maybe, he’s homeless and doesn’t have an ID, the police are completely stymied. We’re stymied because we have a trespasser here that’s disrupting our peace and quiet and we can’t get rid of him. Once these people find out about this you know what’s going to happen, there’s going to be swarms of them, and we won’t be able to do anything about it. I feel terrible about homeless people. There is going to be so much disruption. Surly conduct is another crime is a Class C misdemeanor. That’s where you alarm and disturb people and breach the peace. The police will come and say, please stop that. If you have an ID, here’s a summons, and if you don’t know what to do, these people absolutely cannot be detained. B & C misdemeanors cannot be detained. At best, someone can make an argument maybe you can bring them before a judge at some point but that’s not clear in the statute either. I was just talking to a couple of deputies about how I’m so fearful that we’re going to wind up with, I know Joliet advertising for new officers and they’re getting like 20% of the application they normally got. What do we want? We want the brightest and the best to be our police officers. Well, the brightest and the best aren’t applying anymore and unfortunately the 20% that’s applying maybe the one that wouldn’t have made the cut when they had the normal applications. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot. The good officers are retiring early, they’re losing part of their pension because they just don’t want to be involved in this anymore because of what they see coming. That’s tragic. I’ve had the honor of reviewing use of deadly force by police officer in the community since 1992. I can tell you that we have not had a single case that resulted in death where the officer exceeded their lawful authority in most cases and hesitated and didn’t shoot at the first opportunity and put their own lives in danger. If I can get a meeting with Beso and ask him if he can work with us. Let’s take the Austin neighborhood or Roselyn neighborhood where I spent 9 years of my life. Let’s go in there and get the gangs out, bring businesses in, demolish the bad buildings, and rebuild, employ the local people, get the schools built up to where they should be, and watch what happens. All our lives are at stake. We all can work together and make this work. We can do this. We can keep people out of jail that shouldn’t be in jail, and we can do it extremely well and then you can empower the police, and my office and the judges to do their jobs to protect us when we have these violent offenders, and we know they’re there. The cost that we’re going to be dealing with here is pretty hard to calculate because of the variables but again what Judge Kennedy and I are telling you once this goes into effect the people who are getting arrested are going to sue. And say, you can’t hold me this is unconstitutional. There are hurdles and roadblocks but even if we do all I keep hearing on TV is, they’ll be detained but they don’t tell the public, it’s only 90 days. Mrs. Berkowicz asked a couple of times Judge Kennedy mentioned the home monitoring system and you brought it up too. Can you give us a little more information about it? It appears to me that the use of that is one of the reasons they are saying, this is going to work. We’re going to be able to monitor them so, there are a couple of things I am wondering about. The cost. Because if this is the case, you’re going to need more equipment. How is this monitored? Because we’re all aware of issues that it didn’t. They go and catch somebody and he’s wearing an ankle bracelet. Can you share a little bit about that?
State’s Attorney Glasgow replied we only have 50 ankle bracelets available here in Will County. This is no way near enough, so all kinds of investments need to be made in that direction if we’re going to go that route. In this law they say, if you get an alarm that the ankle bracelet has been taken off you can’t consider it an escape for 2 days. Ankle bracelets for non-violent offenders may be effective but not for violent offenders. Again, I’m not here to say we need to do nothing but punish because that doesn't work. We need to work together, not politics. Let’s work for the public safety and get this thing fixed. It’s not like I’m asking them to get rid of this bill and offer nothing in return. Tomorrow let’s sit down and start planning a referendum and we’ll get it done.
Sheriff Kelly noted I don’t know how much I can add on to what was already said. I don’t know how much more I can talk about this bill, other than the State’s Attorney, the Chief Judge, and I have been sitting down talking regarding a list of inmates and what they are locked up for to the State’s Attorney’s Office, and the Chief Judge, and the Circuit Clerk, so we can get a handle on this before it comes into play on January 1. Losing 90% of the inmates in our facility will probably lose ¾ of our employees which is a concern. This rule to show cause has me really scared and now like the State’s Attorney’s says, we have no teeth when we go to someone’s house and say, you need to come to court pretty please and hand them a piece of paper. Then if they don’t come then they can issue a warrant. That’s a big problem. That’s a huge safety problem for every police officer in the State of Illinois. We have just under 10,000 active warrants in Will County. About a 3rd of those are felonies which as you know is one of the highest crimes in the state. When we go to serve a felony warrant, we’re not just sending 1 officer to knock on the door we’re usually sending a team of 4 to 6 people, because obviously these are people who have displayed violence in their past, so we can’t take enough precautious to go there. We make sure we’re going to have to expand our civil process division probably by 4 to 5 times of what we have now, if we have to go through these rules to show cause, minimal.
Mrs. Ogalla asked what’s the amount of people of that?
Sheriff Kelly replied we have about 12 to 15 in civil process now, so you’re talking 45 to 60 will probably have to up that division because I can’t just send 1 person to a door to tell someone that they have to come to court on a violent offense. Mrs. Berkowicz asked we recently approved the purchasing of new shields. When they go out are they wearing helmets and they are completely dressed? Sheriff Kelly replied most of our high-risk warrants are served by our Swat Team. Mrs. Berkowicz asked so the purchase that is occurring now is that sufficient? Sheriff Kelly replied it should be. That’s why we upped it because it was at $35,000.00 but we upped it to $50,000.00, so that we could ensure that we had enough of those shields.
Mrs. Berkowicz asked when you do go out on these calls is there does a medical unit come out, are they in the vicinity?
Sheriff Kelly replied yes, we always have 2 paramedics and an ambulance that respond to all of our Swat Team and high-risk warrants call outs. Mrs. Koch asked if we think this law is going to go into effect and we lose all the people that are in the jail, and we have a lot of people that are unemployed from the County. Will we be able to move some of those folks that work in the jail to work in the civil division?
Sheriff Kelly replied our civil division are certified police officers. They would have to pass over from correctional to civil.
Mrs. Koch stated so this is something that could happen but it’s a little more training.
Sheriff Kelly replied we do that now. I’m not going to disagree with Mr. Glasgow, but unfortunately at the sheriff’s office we don’t have a problem hiring police officers. We have a huge list and we just sent 5 more people to the academy so, fortunately at the sheriff’s office we don’t have a problem with recruiting and retention. Yes, they would have to pass over. The way the correctional deputies in the jail now that we have, they can take the test to become police, but they have to go through the whole process again and they have to go to the police academy which is now 14 weeks. We get reimbursed from the state for the cost of the academy. We put the money up front then the state reimburses us the police academy cost.
Mrs. Koch stated we were just thinking about the folks that would become unemployed that were County employees and so we always worry where we can place those folks.
Sheriff Kelly replied that would be the ultimate goal. If, the people who currently work because that’s the way I do things now. My correctional deputies when they take the police test, they get first dibs over most everybody else because they already worked here, they already shown their work ethics and what kind of employee they are so we give them the benefit of the doubt and hire them usually, first.
Mrs. Koch asked as we look forward to the Safe-T Act possibly becoming law are we able to create a conduit to help those folks streamline that process a little bit because I do know that becoming a Sheriff’s deputy is a long process. The hiring process is long, and all the different steps, and so on.
Sheriff Kelly replied it takes about 6 months from the day we hire them until the day they are finally ready to work the streets, alone by themselves. Mrs. Koch commented because I would be interested if we can do something to start getting folks on that path just so they don’t become unemployed. Sheriff Kelly replied we’re going to have to sit down because we have a classification, we are an accredited facility. Every 2 years auditors from all over the country come in, they audit our facility, and we have to pass it in order to be accredited. We have to maintain and keep separate lists. We can’t house certain people with other people. So, we still have to establish and keep that established even if this bill does go into effect on January 1. It’s not like close all the doors and shut the place down. We’re not going to be able to do that because we do have to house some people and we’re going to still stay within our accreditation.
Mrs. Koch commented you just mentioned that a lot of people would have to be let go as employees besides the public safety on the street’s factors, I was mostly thinking about those folks as well and how we can staff and keep people in the County instead of just hiring a bunch of new folks.
Sheriff Kelly replied well here is a situation, we do have an issue hiring and keeping correctional deputies. That’s been an issue. We’ve hired 93 new correctional deputies since 2019 and lost 103 of them so we lost 10 more than we hired since 2019. It’s a big issue. We’re probably 17, 18 short now. We’re 20 correctional deputies short now. We were 4 short before COVID hit and when COVD hit obviously they shut down all the academies and we unable to hire anybody for over a year because we couldn’t train them. So, as people left, we became 4 short, 7 short, 10 short, and by the time everybody opened the academies we were 20+ short and now we just can’t catch up.
Mrs. Ogalla commented so what I’m hearing from everybody is you don’t want to make it political, I get that, but it’s so political. Because before this went into law, we tried to get a Resolution to come forward.
Ms. Coleman stated Mrs. Ogalla we’re asking questions and I’m just making sure. Mrs. Ogalla stated we’re asking questions, but these things need to be said because we tried to bring it in as a caucus before this went into law to make a Resolution opposing this legislation the Republican Caucus tried to do that. The Democrats in this room would not let us bring that forward. Even now I’m hearing we’re concerned about our people losing their jobs. Yes, I’m concerned too. I’m more concerned about legislation as it is that causes the innocent people who are out there that could become a victim, who will become a victim, from what I’m hearing. How these people get out and repeat offenders. Granted some people aren’t but a lot of them are repeat offenders. This is something that cannot be ignored. It cannot be ignored that this is a political thing. That those in this room on the Democrat side refused to hear it. The other Sheriff gave me a whole list of things that I brought forward that no one wanted to hear. So, while some people in this room don’t want to say it’s political, it’s definitely political. I don’t care Ms. Coleman; you sit quiet all the time and then we’re going to twist it and Mrs. Koch is going sit there and she’s going to worry and come forward as the savior. Mrs. Koch is going to be the savior of the jobs. I get that. I’m going to say it. Ms. Coleman stated for the direction of the meeting if you have a question for Sheriff Kelly. I’m not saying, you should not speak. I’m saying this time is for questions to our guest and you can have your comments which are limited to 3 minutes at the end of the meeting.
Sheriff Kelly stated let me interject something. We (myself), Judge Kennedy, State’s Attorney Glasgow we’ve been in multiple meetings there are things being done. There were 2 trailer bills that were passed for this bill under the honor that we we’re going to meet again with legislators to get this portion of it also, fixed, so that’s what we’re doing now. We’re meeting every month with legislators (myself, Judge Kennedy, State’s Attorney Glasgow) giving them what we believe. My administration met with Mr. Hassert and his crew to tell them the concerns we had to hopefully get this changed and that’s what we’re working on now. We’re still working on trying to get this changed. I think we might have made a little head way but it’s our understanding that there is going to be. I talked to the Executive Director of the Illinois Sheriff’s Association this weekend. He was contacted by legislators to sit down this Thursday with them to go over the people who these effects being police officers, State’s Attorney’s, judges, to try another trailer bill. To write up language for another trailer bill. That’s supposed to happen this Thursday, I was told. We are making some head way, we are, but I don’t know what this body’s doing, which so far has been halfway successful. Hopefully, we can also get this one changed as well. So, we are meeting constantly; Zoom meetings, Webex meetings, trying to get this straightened out. Well, the 3 of us are for sure without a doubt. Again, I don’t know what this body does I know what we’re doing behind the scenes. I know what calls we’re making and the decisions we’re trying to get them to make, to get this modified. So, we are doing our due diligence.
Mrs. Koch asked can we get once those trailer bills changed.
Sheriff Kelly replied I can give you the numbers of both trailer bills and you can look them up. They are 3443 and 3512, those are the 2 trailer bills. Mrs. Koch asked why is it that we have a hard time keeping our correctional officers and is there something we can do to change that?
Sheriff Kelly replied you’re not going to like my answer. More pay. DuPage County just passed their contract. Their correctional deputies are going to start at $12,000.00 more a year than ours and Kane County just passed a contract and they are going to start at $10,000.00 more a year than us. Money is a big issue with that facility. I know money is tight. I get it. But if you want my honest opinion that’s going to be it. We have one of the safest jails in the State of Illinois. We’ve had some attacks on staff, don’t get me wrong because it happens but for the most part it’s a safe place to work. We’re losing people to other departments. And now that DuPage is 12 short, they are short everywhere, especially in corrections. So, we’re going to have a line of Will County correctional deputies probably lined up in DuPage to take out their application so they can leave and go there. Trust me it’s a lot easier and a lot cheaper to hire somebody that you don’t have to train already, who’s already been in the business for some years. You can just lateral them right over, put them through your in-house training you have and you save time and money. The best way to hire is to lateral someone from another location because you don’t have to train and just put them through your in-house training.
Ms. Coleman asked Sheriff Kelly, you said there’s about 10,000 warrants out and 1/3 are for felonies. Has anyone been killed in the line of duty issuing any of those 10,000 warrants?
Sheriff Kelly replied well they’re active warrants, so people are still out. We haven’t served them yet, so we’re looking for them.
Ms. Coleman asked so the ones that have been served; has anyone been killed issuing those?
Sheriff Kelly replied I can’t tell you the last time someone’s been killed in the Sheriff’s office. I had 2 shot about 4 years ago but they had on their bullet proof vests.
Ms. Coleman asked the 600 or so inmates, do you have a rough estimate of how many of them are repeat offenders in for the second time?
Sheriff Kelly replied not off the top of my head.
Warden Santerelli replied I would guess about 70% or higher but that is a very rough guess.
Ms. Coleman asked then it’s been mentioned that warrants can’t be issued but then there’s something like an in-between step and that can be ignored, and then the warrant can be issued.
Sheriff Kelly replied the rule is so called that you have to technically go in front of the judge and tell the judge why you didn’t appear in court. If they believe that’s a legit reason, then you’re good. If they don’t then they’ll lock you back up. However, in this case, if they don’t show up in court for the next date then they can issue the warrant.
Judge Kennedy replied that the person (the defendant) has to be personally served by the Sheriff, so it’s not like there’s some grey area there. Some jurisdictions we’re going to send letters to them, but the probable view is it says, personally served. Just like the rule to show cause in the civil proceedings the person has to actually be served by the Sheriff and if he doesn’t appear the judge can issue a warrant.
Sheriff Kelly stated in some cases there’s substitute service where you can serve someone that’s in the house whose an adult on their behalf. Like if you’re married your spouse can take it from them and then give it to you but in this case you can’t; you have to serve the person on the warrant, which is going to be a logistic nightmare.
Mrs. Koch asked what would be really helpful for us as a legislative committee is to look at very specific items that we can ask for change, because I highly doubt that the State is going to say you know what Will County, we’re just going to scrap this whole thing. I ask anyone that spoke today it would be great if we had a wish list of the top 3 things that we just really want to change because I think that might be an effective strategy for us to change some of this bill. So, what are the top things and you don’t have to have them today and you can send them to leadership in the future and sending that to our lobbyist and saying, these are the top 3 or 5 things that we would really like to change because if we can’t get rid of the whole bill, which is kind of what you’re asking, what is the next best thing that we can get?
Sheriff Kelly replied my administration met with Mr. Hassert, and we explained our top 2 or 3 things, so he is aware of that.
Mrs. Koch stated at the end of the day I’m a realist so we might not get everything we want but what can we do instead. What can we do to incentivize people to stay as correction officers? What can we do to transition our correction officers to processing officers and so on. Just so we can keep our people in the system. Keep people working. Keep the system working if we just have to move a little bit and move the legislation a little bit and make do with what we have. We have to assume that we’re going to implement this law so that’s kind of where I’m thinking just as somebody in the County government as were going to have to figure out how to make it work and what piece moving forward rolled back.
Sheriff Kelly replied that’s why we’re meeting every month because we’re assuming it’s going to go into effect January 1. We’re just going to assume that and be ready for it. If it changes great, that’s what we’re hoping for. Mrs. Koch asked what else can we do to help you be ready as a County Board? Like you talked about increasing the correction officer’s salaries. I totally agree with that. What else can we do to make it better?
Sheriff Kelly replied my administration met with the Vice Chair of Finance and we explained to them what we think needs to be done. She wants us to come before the Finance Committee at some point and give a presentation, but we know that contract negotiations are starting up too and I don’t want roadblock them in that. We’re supposed to meet with the union I believe September 29 or 30, of this month for first steps in contract negotiations. I was kind of waiting for them to come to us with a proposal and us to be ready and then give you the presentation after they give us their first proposal. That was my plan.
State’s Attorney Glasgow commented I’m a sworn prosecutor licensed attorney and I see an unconstitutional law on the horizon, and I can’t sit and watch that. I’m a Democrat who will never play politics with public safety. Making these kinds of plans is silly. We need to look at a forceful way to either get the implementation date kicked so then we can sit down and talk about the New Jersey plan that I’m talking about then they can get what they want, and we don’t get destroyed down here by changing all of our manpower and getting all goofed up here. That is not the answer. I support bail reform 100% but let’s do it right and not throw the baby out with the bath water. Doing a trailer bill on this thing is like putting a new heart in a dead guy. Because right after the first of the year the defendants will eat this bill alive, and we don’t want that. We don’t have the decency and the common sense to stop it before that happens. We must do that. I’m ready to work. The State’s Attorney’s Association; we’re lined up waiting to help you and get this thing done and get the people out that needs to be out, so they are treated fairly.
Mr. Fricilone commented I was going to say come to Finance, but the negotiation thing is going to stop everything because we really can’t talk about that once we get into negotiations and you know how negotiations go, that can be 6 to 8 months. We’ll be well into next year. My other thing is, I’m no legal expert but how do we do a trailer bill to a bill that’s unconstitutional? How do we do that? Where is the logic in that because I don’t get it. Some of us on this Board think this is unconstitutional what do we do? What can we do?
Judge Kennedy replied as of January 1, I have a few judges that are going to find this law unconstitutional and I’m not alone, Will County is not alone there’s a bunch of collar counties are going to follow suit too. The problem I have is if the Supreme Court determines unconstitutional in April or May, then we go back to bond system and we got to reinvent the wheel. Logistically, a County this size it’s hard, time consuming, costly, and it’s hard and that’s what’s going to happen. I agree with you commissioner. If it’s unconstitutional declare it unconstitutional and let’s go from there but if it’s going to go into effect anything will help and 2 issues that really bothered me and Sheriff Kelly too. The police agencies throughout Will County have to make the determination whether the guy is detainable or not. They can’t do that. The other thing we as judges have no right effort or ability to get these guys to court because we can’t issue a warrant. Those are 2 glaring problems with the bill.
Sheriff Kelly replied yes that’s going to be a fight with municipal police departments, I can see that on the horizon. If they believe a crime is detainable and we don’t we’re not letting them in our jail, and somebody has got to make that final decision and unfortunately, it’s probably going to fall on the State’s Attorney’s Office.
Mr. Fricilone asked so to our 3 speakers and maybe Mr. Meyers maybe you can answer for the State’s Attorney, what do you want the Board to do? I mean it’s great that we heard all this but what do you suggest? What do you want the Board to do?
State’s Attorney Glasgow replied we just need to get this thing kicked. Mr. Hassert replied the opportunity as the Sheriff said 6 months delaying it is not the answer. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen. We’re going to have a lame duck session in January, it going to be very difficult not to see this moving forward right now as I see it. Possibly with the option of extending the implementation for 6 months.
State’s Attorney’s Glasgow commented if that can happen that will give us time to sit down, and the election will be over so that won’t be an issue. We sit down, talk common sense because nearly everyone that’s criticizing me is throwing back, they like the New Jersey plan. If we can delay the implementation to the middle of next year so we can all sit down and talk and go over all the legal issues that we need to iron out. I always believe that I can convince people, I always believe that I can be successful if I stay at it, and this would be the solution they are looking for because it would give us the authority to do what we need to do to make sure that the violent offenders are dealt with properly. I wish all of you could see what my attorneys go through when they put on a trial. Hopefully, we can all come together because I appear to be the Democratic fly in the ointment and I’m in there for the right reasons and if I can bring you all in the ointment with me, we can fix this.
Mr. Fricilone asked so would a Resolution from Will County Board asking for extension implementation for 6 months help?
State’s Attorney Glasgow replied it can’t hurt.
Judge Kennedy replied that would be great.
Mr. Fricilone replied that would be up to the rest of this Board, I’m not on this Board, if you want to make that Resolution.
Mrs. Berkowicz stated I would like to make that motion that we send a Resolution indicating that we would like to see a 6-month delay in the implementation of this bill and I’ll also like to add that I want our law enforcement, our judicial representatives, everybody who this bill impacts a part of the process transparently working with these legislators. Whoever the parties are who’s driving this legislation their voice that need to be heard because this impacts them and their safety and the public safety, so I like to make that motion.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I’ll make a second to that motion for that delay.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS] Next: 10/20/2022 9:30 AM
TO: Will County Board MOVER: Julie Berkowicz, Member SECONDER: Judy Ogalla, Member AYES: Coleman, Berkowicz, Koch, Marcum, Ogalla, Weigel ABSENT: Winfrey, Kraulidis, Newquist |
IX. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
X. PUBLIC COMMENT
XI. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
XII. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XIII. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to adjourn the meeting @ 10:21 a.m.
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Amanda Koch, Member SECONDER: Judy Ogalla, Member AYES: Coleman, Berkowicz, Koch, Marcum, Ogalla, Weigel ABSENT: Winfrey, Kraulidis, Newquist |
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