Will County Ad-Hoc Reapportionment Committee Met April 6.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Ms. Fritz led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Chair Tyler Marcum called the meeting to order at 1:10 PM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Tyler Marcum | Chair | Present | |
| Donald Gould | Vice-Chair | Present | |
| Mimi Cowan | Member | Present | |
| Mike Fricilone | Member | Present | |
| Gretchen Fritz | Member | Present | |
| Jim Moustis | Member | Present | |
| Meta Mueller | Member | Present | |
| Judy Ogalla | Member | Late | |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Member | Absent | |
| Denise E. Winfrey | Member | Late |
Present from State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe.
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Ad-Hoc Reapportionment Committee - Regular Meeting - Mar 2, 2021 1:00 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mimi Cowan, Member SECONDER: Gretchen Fritz, Member AYES: Marcum, Gould, Cowan, Fricilone, Fritz, Moustis ABSENT: Ogalla, Traynere, Winfrey |
1. Parameters for Reapportionment
(Information)
Mr. Marcum stated we went over this last month. If anyone has questions or would like clarification on anything, now would be the time to ask.
Mr. Moustis stated the County Executive has to do a reapportionment map and submit their reappointment map first. This was not always the case, but Mr. Walsh had the law changed in Springfield. We only did this once where the County Executive submitted a reappointment map and that was after the 2010 census. I would like to see the County Executive’s map. The last time, even though we had some discussions, we waited until the Executive sent us a map and then we changed the number of districts after the Executive submitted their map. After that, it does become a County Board process. It would be nice to know we are somewhat on the same page and that is why the next items are important, whether we decide to stay with the current number of districts or whether we want more or less districts. Hopefully, then the Executive’s Office would be drawing a map based on the number of districts we want to go forward with.
Mr. Fricilone asked where did these parameters come from?
Mr. Marcum replied from the state statute.
Mr. Fricilone continued the parameters say the County Executive may develop a reapportionment plan. It does not say they will.
Mr. Marcum stated the County Executive has informed us she would like to submit a map.
Mr. Moustis continued it would be nice if on certain things we got on the same page. The last time, we sent it to GIS and they basically drew us a map. It was a fair map after we gave certain parameters that was based on the communities being appropriately represented. I think the last 10 years has borne that out that it was a map to represent people and not politicians. Are we going to go forward or are we going to wait on the County Executive? Not that we can’t do the items on the agenda. The last time, the County Board held public hearings on what the County Executive created and what the County Board thought they wanted to go forward with. Mr. Gould, you were on the last one, is that your recollection?
Mr. Gould replied it is pretty much how it happened.
Mr. Moustis stated when you say we are going to talk about parameters, is it what are the parameters going to be? Because we have this dynamic with the County Executive we have to wait on.
Mr. Marcum stated Mr. Schaben is on the meeting. I don’t know if he has a timeframe they are looking at to show us a map. I don’t want to wait too long on making our decisions as a Board, so they will know what is going on and where we are coming from.
Mr. Schaben stated our official deadline to submit a plan, according to statute, is Wednesday, May 19th. We have not made a request to the County Board yet for a hard date for a presentation. We are putting together our outline before we make that request.
Speaker Cowan stated we should give the County Executive the benefit of an understanding of what this Committee would like to see. Of course, it is up to the Executive as to whether or not she wants to make something slightly different. I don’t think this is the case, but if we are thinking about a 6-member board and she is thinking of a 29-member board, we need to give her some idea of what we would like to see and how we would like to see it. If we can come to something that is agreeable to this Committee and agreeable to the Executive, then perhaps we don’t have extra work being done that is completely unacceptable to this Committee or vice a versa. Is that what you were thinking Mr. Marcum?
Mr. Marcum replied I would like to make this as painless as possible for everyone. I think them being involved, listening to our concerns and what we decide will make everyone’s lives easier in the long run. If they disagree with us, they can let us know why and make their case.
VI. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VII. NEW BUSINESS
1. Determination of the Number of County Board Districts
(Discussion)
Mr. Marcum stated I think this item will go hand-in-hand with the determination of the number of County Board Members. I have talked to some people who are interested in seeing a decrease in the number of Board Members. I have heard some people voice their opinion for single member districts. Who likes our current system and who would like to change it?
Mr. Gould stated I am a proponent of the system we have now. I served under two different systems; the first when we had 3-member districts and under the current system where we have 2-member districts. As was pointed out in the last meeting, the size of the district went from approximately 75,000 people per district down to 50,000 people per district. In my opinion and from my experience, this has been a much easier function as it does not have the sway in population we experienced ten years ago. At that time we had districts that were twice the size of other districts because of the growth. I looked at the numbers Mr. Johnson provided after the last meeting and played with it a little bit. Using the State’s Attorney’s guidelines of 4%, under the system we could come up with a plan with very minimal changes to what we have right now. It is a matter of shifting a few people here and there to meet the population standard to keep it in the 4% range. That is the approach I would be in favor of, just to keep the system we have now and do whatever is necessary to change to meet the population standard.
Ms. Mueller stated I am interested in looking at the number of County Board Members. I understand how it has worked in the past and it does seem like it has served fairly well. I would like us to look at the possibility of narrowing down County Board Members per district so this could become a regular job for somebody, not just a part-time job. I think that making this more of a full-time job in salary opens our candidate pool for folks who are able to run for office and represent their communities. I think it also would give the Board Member the ability to focus more on this being an actual job and not having to work another full-time job which takes them away from being able to do this job effectively. It also makes them more available to be at the other meetings that often become required on this Board that folks have to miss because they are working. I think it would give our communities better representation if we could consider that. I have talked to a few folks on the Board who agree with this. That is something I would like us all to talk about a bit.
Ms. Fritz stated I mostly agree with Mr. Gould. Let’s keep the number of districts higher so each Board Member is not expected to cover so much population and so much land. I think it would be nice if the number were divisible by three. Only because you would have a more equal distribution in every election cycle; it would be the same number of districts that are up; instead one or two cycles every ten years have a disproportionally high number of people or seats up for election. I would say 12 instead of 13.
Mr. Moustis stated I favor keeping the 13 districts and the way we have it now. I do not favor making this a full-time position. I don’t know of any County Board Members or Commissioners throughout this area, including Cook County that are considered full-time, regardless of what their salaries are. Cook County may get full-time salaries, but they are not full-time positions. All you would be giving is a full-time salary, not a full-time job or commitment, in my view. I don’t believe that any more time would be spent, they would just be getting a bigger full-time salary. How you would determine what a full-time salary is? Is it twice what it is currently; is it three times? I definitely do not favor making it what you would call full-time. I could be open to 13 one member districts, if you want to cut the Board and raise the salaries. I think that would be a better solution than saying you are full-time, just cut down the County Board Members and double the salary; instead of $23,000 it would be $40,000. I throw that out for those thinking about full-time, because what you are talking about is you want a larger salary, in my opinion and maybe that would be a compromise if we had to go down that road. The way the Board is constituted now is what I think is the best solution.
Mr. Fricilone stated I don’t think we can take a look at the last two or three years and say we have this gigantic workload. We did because we had a massive building plan and we had additional meetings for that by Leadership, the Ad-Hoc Committees and Capital Improvements Committee. Then, last year with COVID, not only the pressures of trying to do this via video, but the additional meetings of the CARES Committee and the American Rescue Plan; all of those added to the job. If you take a look back to when I started eight years ago, the job certainly does not take that. If we look to the future, our building is going to be done, except for the morgue, for a while. Once the American Rescue Plan is figured out, it will go on autopilot. I don’t think we can look at workload over the last couple of years to say it is a full-time job. I believe having two people in the district gives better representation. I don’t know the breakout of our districts with a person from each side of the aisle, but it does give a little more representation to everybody in that area rather than being one-sided. I think that helps. As far as cutting down, if we went to 12 versus 13 I don’t know what that big of a difference is. The salary to me, is a separate issue. If you want to raise the salary, that is one thing, but I don’t think we should decide on how many Board Members or how many districts we have just based on trying to figure out how we get more money. I probably would not be opposed to some kind of raise or some kind of kicker each year, but I think that is a separate issue and we should not try to figure that out based on let’s eliminate Board Members just so we can raise the salary.
Mr. Marcum stated I think that is a very valid point. When we redraw the maps, I think we should not look at where everyone lives and just do it blind, I think that is the fair way to do it and that is the way I plan to do it.
Speaker Cowan stated I agree, the hours are not a full-time job and I see what Mr. Fricilone is saying, we should not be cutting the Board as a function of a salary increase. I would have a hard time keeping the Board to 26 Members and giving a salary increase. For me, it is a function of let’s cut a deal with ourselves and make the Board a little bit smaller. To me, the problem is not this is a full-time job in terms of 40 hours a week, the problem is when the meetings are, it makes it very difficult to have another full-time job or to have a job, unless you are in certain industries. It makes it very hard for regular, working people to run for office and be here. I would like to look at going to evening meetings. I know it is not good for everyone, but then it allows for most people to have some sort of a full-time job; again a separate issue. My preference would be 6 districts of three people each. Ms. Fritz made a great point about the multiplier of three. That was my thinking about the three member districts because we would not have everyone up in a district at the same time. It could be a two and one thing so that there is some continuity of representation in each district, so you would not have an entire district turnover in any one election. I know, 6 districts means the districts are twice the size they are now, but we would have three people each. Someone mentioned keeping it exactly the same; even if we keep 13 districts, we need to really look at the map. There are some areas that make a lot of sense; for instance mine and Mrs. Berkowicz’s district makes a lot of sense, it is the Naperville portion of Will County. It is probably the easiest political area to explain to anyone. Districts like 13 and 9 were clearly made up from leftovers and one was made to include where someone wanted to move. Even if we leave the number of districts the same, I would really like to see us reconsider the map. To Mr. Marcum’s point, not making a map that considers where our current Board Members live; it should be based on where our residents live and where the lines need to be drawn. My preference would be 6 districts with three people each.
Ms. Mueller stated I want to reiterate, when I say better representation, I mean better representation from regular people. A person cannot run for this office because it does not pay enough money for them to support themselves, it does not accommodate having meetings at night; this was something I saw as a solution for both of those things. I really like Ms. Fritz’s point about the continuity in how we are doing this because it makes a lot of sense that we need to have something a little different so so many people are not up at once.
Mrs. Berkowicz stated I believe it should continue to be a part-time job. If it becomes a full-time job that could reduce the interaction the Board Members have with the community. If it is a full-time job, you are with your family in the evening, but evenings are when you need to get out and engage with the community, to keep up with what is going on and understand things happening in your district. Engagement is really important and I think it would be difficult if we were to change the dynamics. I feel having two members working together can bring a lot to the district. In Naperville, I think Speaker Cowan and I working together we do a good job representing our residents and we can also support each other. In Naperville they are having an active conversation about redevelopment and there is a push to find the space for more multifamily units. We are probably going to continue to see growth in Naperville. To have one Board Member, I don’t think that would benefit the residents. Those are two things that are important. We want to remember that we need to be engaged with the community. I think having at least two Board Members in each district will benefit the residents.
Mr. Marcum stated I came to the County Board from a school board, which had seven members. When I was elected to the County Board I was very interested to see how 26 people work and it is interesting; sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad. Since I have been on the Board, I agree we need to cut it. Originally, if you had asked me, I would have said in half would have been easy. However, I think there is a valid point to be made for going to smaller districts with single members. I was looking at somewhere around a 17 to 22 member board. Ms. Fritz’s point about splitting it equally for election cycles is an extremely valid point. I think if we go to fewer Board Members, but single person districts then you can do a more adequate job of not only communicating with your constituents, but we can also provide other opportunities for groups of interest. When I was looking at the numbers, we only have one minority and majority district in Will County. Our Board reflects our population much better than our maps would indicate. We have our Latinx population and there are some opportunities to strengthen their role in government. If you go to 21 individual districts that is an extremely manageable size of around 30,000 to 40,000 people per district.
Mr. Moustis stated you made the point I wanted to make. When you go larger districts, like six districts, which would be between 115,000 to 120,000 people per district, it is very difficult to put communities of interest together. What you wind up with is communities that totally get disenfranchised no matter how it goes. If you want to have communities of interest, you might want to go the way Mr. Marcum suggested. I don’t know if we need to go to 20, maybe we could leave it at 13, I make it an odd number. I like the idea of smaller districts because, as Mr. Marcum, mentioned that is how communities of interest get represented. The larger districts cause people to get disenfranchised. When we had 9-districts with three representatives per district, my district was a very large growth district at the time; I had 80,000 people in my District #2. It became less manageable and there were three of us that covered things. I prefer more districts because I think communities of interest do get better representation.
Speaker Cowan stated I am largely convinced by those arguments. I had not thought of it that way, so I thank you for pointing that out. I would be in favor of single member districts; 13, 15, 17 or 19 districts.
Mr. Fricilone asked when it was three member districts, were all three people up at the same time?
Mr. Marcum replied yes.
Mr. Fricilone continued if we decide to have multiple people in the district, I would not stagger elections. People have enough election fatigue without constantly voting for representation. Half the people in our district don’t even know what a County Board Member does, let along voting for us. I think staggered elections would cause more problems than it is worth. If we go down to 6 districts with three people are you going to limit minority participation? We don’t have a large enough minority participation to effectively cut six districts out so everyone has a shot. I think we need at least 13, not cutting it down to a smaller number. I think it will be very hard to draw that map and we would end up gerrymandering to put communities of interest together. Then you start taking communities of interest apart because you are not representing a village and you may have three or four representatives for one village. I still like the 13, if the consensus is to go to a single member then I think 21 would be a decent number.
Mr. Moustis stated communities of interest are contiguous with each other. You could have a community of interest in Crete and a community of interest in Joliet, but it does not mean you put them together. Communities of interest could be a village, high school district and such. The way to get communities of interest together is to avoid gerrymandering or disenfranchising communities. I would oppose gerrymandering for any reason. In the last reapportionment we were very conscious of drawing Hispanic districts and we drew them. If they did not participate in those elections, they certainly had the opportunity and all we can do is create opportunity for people to get represented. If the Hispanic community did not run anyone, it does not mean they did not have the opportunity to do so. Remember, we are creating an opportunity, we can’t make a determination of who is going to run and who is going to win.
Mrs. Tatroe stated with regard to members of the same district running in different elections; the statute does not allow for that. The district runs together, that is how it is created by State statute.
Speaker Cowan stated they don’t do that in DuPage County.
Mrs. Tatroe continued sitting here thinking about it; if you wanted to use the same geographic area and call it District 1a, District 1b and District 1c then maybe you could arguably call those different districts. I will say also, counties over 800,000 have some different rules and I don’t know if that is addressed in them. I was unaware DuPage County does it. I specifically stopped to look up the statute; when I heard that to verify whether or not you had to run in districts. Under the code for Will County and our population, you have to run as districts. Again, if you want to be creative and say Districts 1a, 1b and 1c have three members representing the same geographic areas but call them Districts 1a, 1b and 1c I suppose you could do that.
Ms. Fritz stated someone mentioned 21 districts; that number is divisible by three, but it is an odd number so you will not have as many ties in voting. If we have 21 districts with one member per district, it would keep the person closer to the people they represent. In District #5 there has been a history of one person running from the Aurora area and one person from the Plainfield area and it is almost different constituencies. The people who live in the Aurora area feel very strongly that their person more likely represents them. I think that having smaller districts is more desirable. We could also accomplish raising the pay if you have 21 members versus 26 members, you take the same pool of money and give everyone a bump. I don’t think we need more money, but if we have fewer members it makes sense.
Ms. Mueller stated I had not considered the stuff you said about the communities of interest. Mr. Marcum I like your idea and I am down for that too.
Mr. Marcum stated I think the smaller districts provide more opportunities in the southern part of the county for rural areas with one Board Member. The more I talk about it, the more I like the idea.
Mr. Fricilone stated I don’t necessarily agree with that Mr. Marcum. Some of the areas are so big they may get one and half reps. If District #1 has 50,000 they may have one and half reps if you go down to 21 districts. When we talk about communities of interest, we have to look hard at the map and see how many villages will be broken up if we go to single numbers. Is Homer going to be two different people; the east side and west side? Will the same thing happen to Mokena or New Lenox? Are they going to have individual members broken up by the city and thereby not having representation for their whole city; which they did a pretty good job at 10 years ago. They tried to keep those cities together as much as possible. As Speaker Cowan said, your district is pretty much Naperville now it would theoretically be cut into two or one and a half. You could have some Naperville people put in with another contiguous areas and some Naperville people just having a Naperville rep. I think there are pitfalls with 21 single districts as well.
Ms. Fritz stated Mr. Fricilone, I disagree with you. I think there is an opportunity to keep communities together. Plainfield is already in at least two districts if not more. I have a piece of Naperville; although Speaker Cowan and Mrs. Berkowicz’s district is all Naperville, they don’t have all of Naperville. I think there is an opportunity to do a better job of not chopping up villages by having smaller districts. In the initial run of the 2010 map, they wanted to divide Plainfield into four districts. We fought against that and got it down to two, which is better. I agree, the more you chop up the villages, the worse it is for the people.
Mr. Fricilone stated with 21 you will have a lot of chopping.
Mr. Gould stated I have been listening to the conversation and I hear some good arguments for 13 and some good arguments for 21. A lot of this is speculating what is going to happen to the population of this community and what will happen to the population of that community. One of the things for this Committee is to entertain multiple proposals. We can look at proposals for 13 districts and we can look at proposals for 21 or something in between. Until you see this and how it affects a community you are just speculating. I think we can look at the different options and weigh which one is best.
Mr. Moustis stated if you went to 17 districts you are looking at approximately 40,000 residents per district. If you go to 21 it is approximately 33,000. I have concerns about single member districts of townships like mine. I have four villages in my district, I don’t count Orland Park because they don’t have many residents. Then you have a large unincorporated area. My concern is that sometimes the unincorporated areas get cut out. I think you have to look at the size of the districts. Twenty one districts would be 33,000 residents and 17 districts would be 40,000. What would the right size of a single member district be to accommodate and meet our goals? There are not too many municipalities over 40,000, I think 21 districts would make more sense because it would fit into accommodating more municipalities. It probably would not work in my township because the 20,000 unincorporated people would be minorities of the two or three municipal districts. There is some concern there. My point is let’s pick a number. What number do you think works? As Mr. Gould mentioned, we can run more than one scenario and look at them. We can have GIS do a one member 13 district, a two member 13 member district and 21 single member districts. Perhaps we can agree on a couple and have GIS give us some scenarios on those.
Mr. Marcum stated I think that is a valid point and then we can all have visuals. If everyone is agreeable; we will ask GIS to do a 13, 17 and 21 district map. Speaker Cowan mentioned six districts with three people; would you still like to see that?
Speaker Cowan replied I would not mind seeing it, if we are going to look at things.
Mr. Marcum continued I don’t think it would be too much work for them to throw it together. I think that would be a good point for us to go over next month. We will ask GIS to do a 6 district map with three reps and maps with 13, 17 and 21 districts.
Mr. Moustis stated I think all three are good. Since the Executive has to give us a map by May 19th, we might want to meet at the end of the month so we can get over to the Executive what we are thinking about with the number of districts.
Mrs. Ogalla arrived at this juncture.
Mrs. Ogalla stated if we do 6 districts with three members, I really have concerns for the unincorporated areas because they will be in such a large grouping. Most of our County Board Members don’t live in the unincorporated areas and a lot of their mindset is living in a municipality and not understanding what it is like to live in an unincorporated area. The issues in the unincorporated areas are extremely different than the ones in a municipality. I am not sure that many of you have the same issues I might have in my district because I am largely rural and I have different things that come up all the time. I am worried it will close down the unincorporated voice, which is what we are supposed to be representing. I don’t support that. I like the districts as they are right now with two people in each area. They seem to put them as representatives of the location and have like communities together. All of University Park’s population is within the municipality. If you took part of my community and lumped it in with University Park, the unincorporated area will lose their voice entirely and that is a concern. You live in Joliet and I don’t know how many calls you receive and how many people ask you to look into things on a regular basis. We need to keep in mind that we are the governmental entity for the unincorporated areas, which is where we make our Ordinances for. I think they should have as large of voice as possible, otherwise we are not governing for them at all; we are governing just for the municipalities because everyone lives in a municipality.
Mr. Palmer stated once you have GIS draw scenarios of different sized districts you are going to see some of the challenges Mrs. Ogalla was alluding to. Last time, one of the core principles beyond being legal with the minority populations was keeping townships and municipalities as whole as possible. That is where the real challenge comes in. In the rural areas we were easily able to keep the townships fairly whole, but as you can see in District 2, 12 and along the entire Route 59 corridor, municipalities don’t annex in nice blocks. You are on the right track and once we get some scenarios you can start to see if your concerns are going to be there or not as far as dividing communities up. That is where the art of this comes in; how do you massage the lines so you keep communities whole. I think asking GIS to do some scenarios is the right path. Having done this the last time and spending a lot of time with GIS it will be a good next step.
Mr. Gould stated perhaps our charge to GIS should be to try to preserve the municipalities and townships to the greatest extent possible when they do the scenarios so that way people get a better understanding of what the challenges are. That is a great point.
Mr. Moustis stated I was going to say something similar to Mr. Gould. I hate to do this, but I have to put on my political hat regarding large districts. If you go to districts that are 120,000 people it becomes more difficult and those with the biggest purse strings have a big advantage in those districts because they can spend the money. This is another reason I oppose large districts. I would not even look at it because it is very difficult to keep communities of interest together. We can ask GIS for scenarios but you have to tell them what you are trying to accomplish. As Mr. Palmer mentioned we tried to keep municipalities and townships together. If we are going to ask GIS for scenarios we should give them some type of direction as to what our goal is and what we are trying to accomplish.
Mr. Marcum stated that is a good point. Going forward, we would like to keep rural areas together and continue to keep minority groups together and municipalities and I think you will see that go hand-in-hand.
Mr. Moustis stated there is law we also have to follow. We cannot disenfranchise minority communities.
Mr. Marcum continued to Mrs. Ogalla’s point keeping the rural areas together is extremely important to the southern and eastern parts of the county. It will be interesting to see what it looks like, but I think there are ways we can protect everybody at once.
Mr. Palmer stated I asked our state lobbyist if they had heard anything more about what the state was going to do as far as delaying the primary, if we don’t have the data. The last I heard from NACo was it was still going to be September before we are going to get it. Has anyone heard whether there is a clear alternative coming that we can use and move forward? Some people are using the American Data Source.
Mr. Fricilone stated we talked to GIS and they have estimates of what has changed over the last ten years. Mr. Gould had the numbers and I think it was a total of 18,000 people.
Mr. Marcum stated an e-mail was sent to all of us and it was under 20,000.
Mr. Fricilone stated the number will be pretty close. It is not like we are going to have some wild swing. I don’t think it will be that hard, in the initial go around, for us to be pretty close especially if they use the updated numbers they have, even if they are not official. We don’t know what the state is going to do and that is why we need to do what we are doing, based on the numbers we have access to and see where it falls out. We don’t want to get to a situation where we are not deciding and it is handed over to the County Clerk to decide.
Mr. Marcum stated the mind frame I am using is we are full steam ahead and Springfield will be Springfield.
Mr. Moustis stated I wanted to get clarification; we are going to look at 13, 17 and 21 districts.
Mr. Marcum stated since a Committee Member requested it; I am going to have them throw 6 in to be fair to everyone’s idea. It will not hurt to see it.
A motion was made by Mr. Moustis, seconded by Mr. Fricilone to have GIS look at Maps of 6, 13, 17 and 21 Districts and give us data for our next meeting.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I am a no. I think we should also look at 26 districts. If we have increased in size by 18,000 we have more constituents to represent. If you go down to any of those, you will have a lot of constituents to represent. I don’t know how much everyone else does with their constituents as far as issues they call you on, but if you are in a municipality you are probably not getting a lot of calls. Those of us in the largely unincorporated area get a lot of different calls and I think it is nice to have two Board Members to represent them. I also favor districts drawn to keep the townships and municipalities together as much as possible, but in addition to that having the rural areas be united too. You can wash out an area by having one large community of one particular group of people; you wash out the vote, the power or the voice. If we can look at drawing the districts where 50/50 would be where one is a Republican and the other is a Democrat. That gives a nice balance to the people who live in those communities. I will be a no on that motion.
Mr. Fricilone stated that is what the 13 districts are; you can put one or two in the 13, it is just the map.
Mrs. Ogalla asked to change her vote to a yes.
Speaker Cowan stated I understand Mrs. Ogalla’s point about the unincorporated areas. We have the ability to make single member unincorporated areas and multimember districts for incorporated areas. Is that something Mrs. Ogalla would be interested in supporting?
Mrs. Ogalla replied it is something I would have to think about. We could always ask GIS to do something else as well.
Mr. Moustis stated I like the thought on that. I would be interested in what GIS thinks a rural map would look like. It is important to make sure the rural areas have some type of representation. Even the rural areas we have now have large municipalities in them. I probably have as much of a rural area as anybody with Manhattan and Green Garden and the municipalities have a big influence on the districts. It would be interesting to see what they would carve out as rural districts.
Mr. Marcum stated I am sure that would be pretty easy for them to put together.
Speaker Cowan asked in my area and other areas the unincorporated is interspersed with the incorporated. Would that make districts not contiguous? Would you have the unincorporated areas in Naperville, Plainfield and Aurora be a district?
Mr. Moustis stated unincorporated is not necessarily rural.
Speaker Cowan stated I didn’t say rural, I said unincorporated.
Mr. Moustis continued I thought we were talking about a rural district. Speaker Cowan stated I am reading the notes and it says we can have single member districts in unincorporated areas and multimember districts in incorporated areas. Does Mrs. Tatroe have any clarification on that? Does it mean that all of the unincorporated areas would be pieced together but not contiguous?
Mrs. Tatroe stated you make a very good point. I just brought that from the statute that said you can have unincorporated areas. How you would do that in our county; I am not sure. I would have to take a careful look at that to see how that would work.
Mr. Marcum stated that is a good point. My district has unincorporated sections in it, but they are an island surrounded by incorporated areas. Someone would have to get cut up somehow. That is good to look at, but we need to do some research on it. It would not hurt us to go to two meetings a month so we can make sure this train is moving.
Motion to have GIS look at a Map with 6, 13, 17 and 21 Districts and Give Us Data for Our Next Meeting.
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Jim Moustis, Member SECONDER: Mike Fricilone, Member AYES: Marcum, Gould, Cowan, Fricilone, Fritz, Moustis, Ogalla, Winfrey ABSENT: Traynere |
(Discussion)
Discussion of this item was included in the discussion of Item #1.
3. Determination of Salary for County Board Members
(Discussion)
Mr. Marcum stated this discussion is not the compensation but how County Board Members are compensated.
Mrs. Tatroe stated you can choose to be compensated on a per diem, annual salary or a combination of a per diem and annual salary. It is pretty flexible.
Mr. Marcum stated I don’t see a problem with our current system.
Mr. Fricilone stated I think the annual salary makes it so much simpler. Otherwise, we are going to give staff more work to figure out who was at a meeting and who was not. Everybody should attend as many meetings as they can. I think we should widen the gap some for the Speaker’s salary. It has come up several times for Leadership as well; but especially for the Speaker because there is a lot more work in that position. An annual salary, makes it clean and simple.
Ms. Mueller stated I agree with Mr. Fricilone it definitely makes it a lot easier to keep it the way we have been doing it; salary wise. I think we do a really good job showing up at meetings, but I think it would make it a lot messier if we were doing it per diem.
Ms. Fritz stated I agree with Mr. Fricilone and Ms. Mueller. I think salaries are much easier to plan for financially. A combo deal would be almost impossible to plan for financially. I think almost everyone does what they can to attend meetings. We have a motivated group and I think everyone does the most they can.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I agree as well. I know there are some Board Members who are not able to attend as many meetings as others and that changes from time to time according to our jobs. I don’t see anyone who purposely doesn’t show up. There are a couple of members you don’t see a lot and that is due to their work and I think they do the best they can. I support what we have right now as well.
Mr. Moustis stated I agree with the current system.
Mr. Marcum asked Mrs. Tatroe if a motion was necessary.
Mrs. Tatroe replied you could make a motion and it is decided, but you will have to remember when you pass an Ordinance for the reappointment you should include the salary in there. I suspect there will be further conversations with regard to the level of compensation, so you may want to wait.
Mr. Marcum agreed and stated we will just wait on that.
VIII. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
Speaker Cowan asked do we need to give GIS some sort of direction? If we are not using the legitimate census data that we are supposed to use to make this map, is this going to be considered a legally, acceptable map? Could we get challenged by someone saying we did not produce a legal map by July because we did not use the census data? I understand that is up to the state on the statute of passing it in July. I think we might need to talk to the state about doing something about that. I would like to understand whether or not the map we make, if it is not based on census data is a legal map.
Mrs. Tatroe stated I don’t have a definitive answer for you, but I can tell you, the statute, while it requires that the reapportionment take place after the federal decennial census, it does not, when it is taking about population talk about using the census numbers. I would make the argument we made it based on the best population data that we have. I have to think that is what everybody else is going to be doing as well.
Mr. Shay stated Mrs. Tatroe is exactly correct. We are not the only people in this boat. One of the issues is the census data is more finely grained than other data sets currently. We have a data set from our private partner, ESRA and the American Community Survey data. Those are the data set we have been using to generate these. I am not sure about all the legal issues surrounding drawing the maps or potential future problems. The American Community Survey data and ESRA data are remarkably similar. That is what we are basing it on because we have been told we will not have census data in time. I don’t know if that means we will have to go back and make an adjustment of some sort. I think all of those data sets are within 5,000 or 6,000 people over the population of the County. It is not going to be that far off.
Mrs. Ogalla asked when do we have to have a map? Can we modify it afterwards? As an example, if half of the Peotone population moved out, then my area would have to grow by that extra half. Would we be able to do tweaking after the fact, if we needed to?
Mrs. Tatroe replied currently there is nothing in the statute that authorizes you to reapportion after July. Your reapportionment has to be done by the day after your regularly scheduled meeting in July. I would expect if that is something the state wants you to do, there would have to be additional legislation. At this point, I am speculating. We are trying to keep an eye on what is going on and monitor it as best we can.
Mr. Moustis stated in 2001 we amended that map the day of the meeting. There were slight adjustments to the map just before the adoption. I am pointing it out that we have done it in the past.
Mrs. Tatroe stated that was in July at the meeting when you were ready to adopt the map. Perhaps I misunderstood Mrs. Ogalla’s question, I thought she asked, after it is adopted, after the deadline if census data comes in could you tweak it.
Mr. Moustis stated it was before it was adopted, but it was amended. At that time, we were told we had not done enough to create a Hispanic district. We wound up tweaking it to make those folks feel they were being included. It was just before the adoption. I think we have the ability, based on what we did on the past, we did amend it during the County Board meeting just before the adoption. Do we have the ability to do that?
Mrs. Tatroe replied I think you have the ability. Perhaps I misunderstood Mrs. Ogalla’s question; but I thought she meant after it has been adopted and July passes, and in September additional data comes forward from the census, do you then have the ability to tweak it; that was my understanding.
Mr. Moustis continued we have the ability to tweak right up until the adoption. For example, if we ask GIS to create a map and we all decided on a map, but we are still waiting on official numbers, we have up until the day of adoption to tweak it. Is that correct?
Mrs. Tatroe replied that is correct.
Mr. Moustis continued then if they think we did not have it right, they could take us to court. I think we will have it close to being right because we have the numbers and in each district you can be off a little bit. It is not as though you have to be absolutely exact. What are we allowed? We have the ability to change things up to the day we adopt this, including the day we adopt it.
Mr. Marcum replied we are allowed to be within 4%.
Mrs. Tatroe added just so you know, it is just a presumption that it is correct. It can be challenged even if it is less than 4%. You are correct, it does not have to be perfect. The real question is whether you have done a good job of trying to not break up precincts, townships and making sure you keep communities of interest together. Those are the important things. Of course, the one person, one vote which goes to your percentage.
Mr. Moustis stated I am confident we are going to do that.
Mr. Gould stated ten years ago the State’s Attorney’s Office told us we had to be within 4% plus or minus the population standard. If the standard was 50,000 residents per district, we could be as small as 48,000 or as large as 52,000. This time around we have not had as much of an increase in population. If you told GIS try to come within 2.5% plus or minus of whatever the standard is for the particular scenario, even without the updates from the census you are probably going to fall legally under the 4% because the increase in population has not been that much. Ten years ago it was 4% but if you were to try to narrow that a little bit with the idea that the figures will be updated later, you will still probably fall within the realm of that 4% at the end.
Ms. Winfrey asked on the population growth, do you know where that 18,000 occurred? If it falls primarily in areas of color, then obviously, we need to draw maps so that 18,000 is captured. If it is spread throughout the County then it will make a difference. I just want to put out there that we make sure we cover that.
Mr. Marcum replied if I am not mistaken, it was largely in the northwestern part of the County. I don’t know if they have the racial makeup of the growth yet.
Mrs. Ogalla stated Mrs. Tatroe interpreted what I said as exactly what I did say. I was wondering how long we had to make a change so if we got the numbers and they were different than we expected, if we would be able to change it after the fact.
Mr. Marcum asked Mr. Johnson if he knew exactly where the growth came from?
Mr. Johnson replied the majority is in the northwestern portion of the County; Plainfield, Naperville and Aurora areas. There are pockets in the northeastern part of the County; Lockport, Homer, Mokena, Frankfort and New Lenox areas. The majority of the 18,000 population growth will be in the Plainfield, Naperville and Aurora areas.
Speaker Cowan stated for the record, a substantial amount of that will be people of Indian and Pakistani descent.
Mr. Marcum stated I think we are set with our guidelines and moving forward. As I said earlier, it would be prudent of us to meet at the end of this month and the beginning of next month so we can see the maps and start that discussion. Keep an eye out for when that is announced. I prefer to keep it on a day where everyone has meetings so we are not having to come another day, but if we have to, that is fine.
Mr. Moustis asked how long do you think it will take GIS to put maps together for us? If you have it together in two weeks, I would say, let's meet in two weeks.
Mr. Johnson indicated they would need two to three weeks. Two weeks would be cutting it close, but we can do it, if it is the plan of the Board. Now that I have the guidelines, I am willing and able to do what is necessary so we are all on the same page.
Discussion took place regarding the next meeting date. April 22nd was the date chosen with the time to be determined.
IX. PUBLIC COMMENT
Mrs. Jakaitis announced there were no public comments.
X. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
Mr. Marcum thanked everyone for attending and stated I think this was a wonderful meeting and everyone had some great ideas. It was a very productive meeting.
XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XII. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn at 2:36 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Mimi Cowan, Member AYES: Marcum, Gould, Cowan, Fricilone, Fritz, Moustis, Ogalla, Winfrey ABSENT: Traynere |
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