Cook County Board Meeting, April 3, 2012

Finance and Rules Committees met immediately prior to the County Board meeting.  Finance committee approved all negotiated salary schedules, to bring all labor contracts up to date, to expire in November 2012. Rules committee merely approved minutes of the prior meeting.

At the outset of the full County Board meeting, there was an extended resolution to honor Cpl. Conner Lowry, a marine from Mt. Greenwood who died in combat in Afghanistan on March 1, and an extended welcome resolution for the Mayor of County Cork, Ireland, part of the Sister-Counties program..

The Office of the President asked for the establishment of the Cook County worksite Wellness Program, which was approved.  Various Commissioners praised President Preckwinkle for establishing such a program.

Periodically the Board meeting was adjourned for actions by various Board committees:  Finance approved payment of various court orders, workers’ compensation claims and a variety of other claims against the County.  Various Commissioners objected to several of the proposed payments for various reasons, but all passed and were recommended to the full Board for approval;  Zoning approved all special use permit requests and referred a number of others to Zoning Board of Appeals.

The rest of the Board meeting consisted of plowing through over 40 items and resolutions having to do with acceptance of various grants from public and private entities to further the work of various county departments (Homeland Security, the Criminal Courts); approval of a number of procurement contracts and highway projects. During this portion of the meeting, several commissioners expressed their frustration with the system as it relates to juvenile offenders, asking if there is anything that can be done to prevent intake into the system, rather than dealing with them once they are inside.  There is a City-County Task Force on Violence Prevention and Community Building presently examining current and proposed solutions.  A report is expected soon.

Commissioner Silvestri moved to refer to committee a wide variety of resolutions moving non-criminal offenses out of the Judicial system and into Administrative Law Review (such as snow removal onto to public streets). Commissioners liked the idea of clearing up court calendars for more important business, and will be involved in “tweaking” the language during committee process.

During an extended discussion of the process by which the County “pre-qualifies” potential bidders for County work—the Job Order Contract (JOC) in cooperation with the City—Commissioners expressed concern about potential limitations on the ability of small- and medium-sized. women and minority contractors to have a chance at receiving a contact.  Staff from the President’s Office argued that just the opposite was true—by pre-qualifying  and doing the extensive paper-work once, they would then be in line the receive contracts during the year, and that major contractors would have a pool of women and minority sub-contractors available to them.

A number of requests for property tax abatements and other property tax issues were referred to Real Estate and Development Committee.

--Submitted by Observer Jura Scharf