Will County Democratic Caucus Committee met Nov. 28.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Ms. Williams led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Majority Leader Meta Mueller called the meeting to order at 6:07 PM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Meta Mueller | Majority Leader | Present | |
| Sherry Newquist | Member | Present | |
| Margaret Tyson | Majority Whip | Absent | |
| Saud Gazanfer | Member | Absent | |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Member | Present | |
| Joe VanDuyne | Member | Present | |
| Herbert Brooks Jr. | Member | Absent | |
| Denise E. Winfrey | Member | Present | |
| Rachel Ventura | Member | Absent | |
| Natalie Coleman | Member | Present | |
| Tyler Marcum | Member | Absent | |
| Mimi Cowan | Speaker | Absent | |
| Mica Freeman | Member | Present |
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe.
Also Present: N. Palmer, and B. Adams.
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
V. OLD BUSINESS
VI. NEW BUSINESS
1. Review of County Board Rules
(Discussion)
Mr. Palmer explained these are draft of the rules, we redo them every two years. This draft has been assembled with the help of several people’s input. The goal was to have a robust draft going into the 5th of December’s meeting. He reviewed the proposed changes to the rules.
Ms. Newquist stated I personally am not comfortable approving new hires, I don’t know these people, I haven’t seen a resume, I have no idea what their qualifications are, nor am I qualified to decide if they are qualified for the job. Department Heads, I could go both ways on, I could see approving them.
Mrs. Tatroe stated for clarification right now state law requires the advice and consent of the County Board for every employee, except the immediate staff of the Executive. That is what Mr. Palmer was trying to say. Maybe there should be some amendment to that law, or maybe you don’t want the advice and consent of every employee.
Executive Bertino-Tarrant added I am going to correct that, I don’t think it is any other department except the County Executive.
Mrs. Tatroe stated not the Countywide Elected Officials, they are not departments they are Countywide Elected. But Land Use is a department, Highways is a department, Sunny Hill is a department; they are all under the Executive.
Mr. Palmer replied that could change, that is why in this language that was proposed says under the County Executive purview. There is also language about the appointments which is driven by State Law. The County Executive makes appointments to several boards and commissions; that information is on the County Executive’s website so you can see which appointments are due at the beginning of each year. The Executive’s Office has provided a list of all the appointments for the coming year.
A discussion followed regarding removing the invocation; also, an explanation was given on how to change the rules on the floor at the meeting.
Mr. Palmer continued to review the draft rules pointing out different changes that were suggested, and sections that will remain the same.
Ms. Freeman suggested when making a motion the members should be using their name to help make it clear who is making a motion.
Mr. Palmer said next section is to allow someone to participate virtually in a committee meeting. During COVID we had the Governors declarations that allowed this, now we don’t. State law, which is in section 7, is the section that allows this information. Reasons being personal illness, employment purposes, or the business of the public body, and family emergency, that is allowed. I have been told that the Board can be more restrictive than that and say only if you are doing county business. That is where staff needs to be given direction; do we want to be very allowable or do we want to be more restrictive. Some rules are there must be a physical quorum in the room first of all; then if you have that quorum then you can allow a member by vote to participate via WebEx; You also can deny someone to participate. The other concern that we have if it gets too liberal then staff is going to have to chase every meeting to see who will be there, there must be proper notifications. We would need rules and then a process that the Board staff could implement so that it is carried out.
The Caucus members had a discussion on how the process would work for board members participating virtually. Some of the Caucus members backed the idea that Member Winfrey could participate in virtual meetings and vote, due to her busy schedule with NACo.
Ms. Winfrey stated I appreciate that, and you are right in what you are saying, but that will cause a lot of dissension on the Board, just be aware.
Ms. Mueller stated I talked to Mr. Palmer and Mrs. Adams about moving our Full County Board Meeting to later in the day but on the same Thursday, I also had a conversation with Mr. Schultz about the possibility of moving the Forest Preserve meeting as well. We would have to give staff more information so the logistics could be worked out.
There was a discussion about what the caucus members felt about having later meetings, and the pros and cons. A couple of members were very adamant about not having later meetings. The subject of considering staff in the situation was brought up by Executive Bertino-Tarrant, something would be having to be negotiated with the Union for pay. It was explained that no union staff would receive flex time, and Security would have to be set up for nighttime meetings as well.
Mr. Palmer said the issue that is saved for last were the suggestions about eliminating the Public Hearing of Land Use Cases at the Board Meeting. I am going to ask Mrs. Tatroe to comment on the subject.
Mrs. Tatroe stated this goes out of a case called Clairin years ago where the courts found that you had public hearings for a Special Use permit hearing; the County Board in that county turned it down during the hearing the Chair of the County Board opened it by saying listen this is not a time to ask questions or get answers. You can come up and have your comment and you have two minutes, that’s it then you go. The Courts found that they did not accord the participates due process. At a public hearing you are supposed to have the ability to question the speakers, and you are supposed to have plenty of time to make your point. They were clear that you had to have some time limit, but you had to make sure that its sufficient time that people could speak. The legislator tried to address this because they didn’t like that the whole public hearing structure. The problem with what the legislator passed thou is that they added this sentence. The principals of substantive and procedural due process apply at all stages of the decision making and review of all zoning decisions. Procedural due process is exactly what I just talked about; it is the ability to stand up, to make your point. When a developer makes some statement about their development those opposing it can ask questions, and say, you said this but is that true and why? They have that ability and that is why we hold a public hearing for your Land Use cases. If you don’t want to hold a public hearing, then you can’t be allowing comment. The minute you allow one person to comment then you must give equal time to somebody else as well. You need to do that in a hearing process because the statute requires procedural due process, that is why we do it. If you do not want to do a hearing move public comment to the end of the agenda, then, but you are going to tick off all your constituents.
Ms. Newquist asked don’t we already have a public hearing, and if so, why do we have another ne at the County Board meeting? Some of these public hearings are getting ridiculous.
Mrs. Tatroe said but the proposal is to remove the public hearing, the reason for the second one is the County Board has always wanted the public to be able to speak on the Land Use issues. If you allow them to speak then you need to afford them due process at every stage of the decision-making process. I believe that some of the public hearings can be paired down, we have some speakers that ramble on.
Ms. Freeman asked if we could go from 3 minutes to 2 minutes.
Mrs. Tatroe advised the caucus that there is no time limit for public hearing. The Executive does have the ability to ask if they have anything to add.
Executive Bertino-Tarrant said I am not going to do that to people that come to speak. If we are going to give them an opportunity to talk, I am going to let them talk, I will not cut them off. The decisions are we are either going to have the public hearing there or we are going to only allow it at the committee meeting.
There was a discussion of many aspects of public hearings, public comments, and the different processes that we must follow. Explaining that the person on the other side has a right to confront the people; and you must afford due process at every stage of the decision-making process. Once you allow them to talk at a public forum you must do the public hearing at every single stage. It was explained about the different ways we have done public comment in the past.
Mr. Palmer stated all the presentation of new facts has happen before the County Board meeting. Sometimes the new facts are presented at Land Use, I have heard from staff and others that it is a rehash at the Board meeting, if you are a Board Member who doesn’t choose to attend Land Use you don’t hear it, you are relying on the committee to tell you what to do. If you are not going to have a public hearing then all the new facts get presented at committee, at the Board meeting you are just basically reading what has been attached to the agenda and voting yes or no. If you want to ask more questions you then would have to send it back to Land Use committee where they can have a public hearing. It is streamlining the Board meeting, but it is forcing that person to bounce back and forth. That to me is more problematic to me, if you have it at the Board meeting and you have that hearing and you say this is going to be the final action so get all your facts because today, we are deciding. So, if you don’t have a public hearing at the County Board meeting it would have to go back to committee.
Ms. Mueller said this sounds really complicated, I say that we leave it how it is.
Mrs. Tatroe said you shouldn’t be allowing Attorney’s and Developers to come to Caucus and talk to you. They should be relegated to the public hearings. There shouldn’t be these extraneous conversations.
Ms. Mueller stated I don’t think we have every had that happen.
Mrs. Tatroe said I will say not that long ago you had an Attorney show up to Caucus to advocate for a Land Use case.
Mr. Palmer asked if they could deny the right to talk at a Caucus.
Mrs. Tatroe said I believe that they can, they need to understand this is part of the public hearing process.
VII. COMMITTEE REPORTS
VIII. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
Ms. Mueller said let’s discuss the Speaker position.
Ms. Traynere nominated Mr. Van Duyne for Speaker.
Ms. Freeman seconded the nomination.
Ms. Mueller said I think we are all in favor of that.
Mr. Van Duyne said Ms. Traynere met on Saturday and had a very nice discussion, she was interested in becoming the Speaker which shows me she is interested in Leadership. She also agreed to step away from the position, which also showed me leadership qualities, and her willingness to become united, which is very important for our Caucus moving forward. With her leadership skills that she showed me I would encourage everyone and would like to ask Ms. Traynere to lead our Caucus as our Leader.
Ms. Traynere replied I will if it is okay with the rest of the Board members. Ms. Freeman asked if she could be the Democratic Whip.
Ms. Mueller advised Ms. Freeman that the Leader chooses their Whip.
Mr. Van Duyne said we do need 12 votes for Speaker of the Board; the Leader is decided amongst us. If by chance there are 11 Republicans who do not want to have a Democrat or myself becoming Speaker, I believe our County Executive would be able to break the tie, and I would like to ask her if she is willing to break the tie for us. I have been talking with Mrs. Ogalla and Ms. Parker just to see where their side is at. I will be contacting you individually and let you know what they are looking for. I would encourage you to give me feedback because I don’t want to make any decisions without the majority of the Caucus being okay with working with the Republicans. Not only at the County level but also with the Forest Preserve.
Ms. Mueller stated if we want to have any conversations about that in a political caucus, we can set that up.
IX. PUBLIC COMMENT
County Executive Bertino-Tarrant said there are some changes that was based on Legislation that was initiated. I must remind people that was just regarding vacancies. We also put into that legislation other things, the majority of it was just clarification of what the County Executive role is. Part of that is in the hiring practices, Larry Walsh who put in being able to hire your immediate staff without approval. There is a debate on what must go before the Board. That goes back to Champaign County, any of the hires don’t go before the Board either. For us here every single position going before the Board for approval is a problem, it interrupts hiring. if we have a Board meeting on a Thursday and we hire them that Friday some of them cannot start for a full month, and that is an issue. If State Law changes some of the rules that you are proposing won’t matter. Getting a list of all the new employees, I don’t know who is going to take the time to have a monthly list of new employees. I don’t know if it is because the people are angry about the legislation or if they are really interested in every month at all the employees. That can be requested at any time, you forget you are County Board members, and you can get certain things. I would say 99.9% of the things you ask for you get within a timely frame of when you need them. I must be honest with you sometimes it feels a little personal, I am told it is not. You are right we are 11/11 now folks, we must work together, and I don’t know why some members of this Caucus feel like the Democratic Caucus shouldn’t work with Democratic County Executive.
Ms. Traynere said I have been around long enough to remember when we had a personal committee, and those duties were given to the Executive Committee. Other than these antidotal stories that we hear frequently from the Health Department and as the County Executive mention these people that are in holding patterns for so long that the move on to something else. We don’t get a lot of information at the Executive Committee level, at least I don’t as a member of that committee. We don’t know about the turnover of staff, and we don’t know about the turnover of staff, we don’t know why people are leaving the jobs and I would suggest if the Executive Committee were in charge of personnel, it would be helpful to know the number of employees coming and going, maybe coming from HR and not from the Executives office. We are just asking for how many people have been hired and in what departments, not approval of anything just numbers and positions.
Mrs. Tatroe stated the approval is in the rules, because in State statute for all of those under the departments of the County Executive, that is in State statute. I do think though, particularly at Sunny Hill where you have laws that require minimum staffing. What has happened is they hire and then the County Board ratifies those hires.
Ms. Traynere asked if we have ever taken this up with the Legislators to convince them that something needs to be tweaked.
Executive Bertino-Tarrant replied that legislation that people where so drastically mad about; 90% is just to clarify the County Executive form of Government. That was one piece of it, and it also helped defining the Chairman and the Speaker. It also made it gender neutral and talked about some consent agendas.
Mrs. Traynere said the former Speaker’s comments, the issue wasn’t necessarily that we disagreed with everything that was done. It was that it was done behind closed doors, and not even through the County Boards Legislative Committee, there wasn’t open discussion about. I don’t consider that personal.
X. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
XI. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn @ 8:21 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mica Freeman, Member SECONDER: Jacqueline Traynere, Member AYES: Mueller, Newquist, Traynere, VanDuyne, Winfrey, Coleman, Freeman ABSENT: Tyson, Gazanfer, Brooks Jr., Ventura, Marcum, Cowan |
Alerts Sign-up