Cook County Board Meeting on June 19, 2012

Board Approves New HHS Board Members and Redistricting Map

New HHS Board Members

By voting to accept the report of the Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee meeting held earlier that morning, the Board approved Rev. Calvin S. Morris, Carmen Velasquez, and Dorene P. Wiese to new 3-year terms through June 30, 2015 to the Health & Hospitals Board.  Also approved was Edward L. Michael to complete the one-year remaining on term of a Board Member who resigned.  These appointments add to the diversity of the Board as the new members are an African American man, an Hispanic woman, a Native American woman, and a Caucasian man.

Separately, as part of the Revenue Report presented by the Comptroller to the Finance Committee, the CEO of the HHS, Dr. Raju, said that the current projection is for the HHS to be down $60 million from budgeted revenues for the fiscal year, though revenues, as compared to last year at this time, are up by 11%.  But he expects further strains on the system with people no longer being eligible for Medicaid under new Illinois legislation.

New Commissioner Districts for the 2014 Election

By accepting the report of the 2010 Redistricting Committee (see the Cook County Observer Blog report from the June 15 meeting), the Board adopted an ordinance creating new districts for the 17 Commissioners effective with the 2014 election. 

Proposed Amendment regarding Source of Income (SOI)

Item 10 on the New Items agenda is a proposed amendment to the County’s Fair Housing ordinance which would eliminate wording that allows a landlord to refuse to rent to people who want to use Federal Section 8 assistance as their source of income (SOI).  Commissioner Garcia, one of the sponsors, moved that the proposed amendment be sent to the Human Relations Committee, which was approved.  The League of Women Voters of Cook County is supporting this amendment.

Proposal for County Cemetery for Burying Unclaimed Deceased

Probably the most time during the Finance Committee portion of the meeting was spent on a resolution sponsored by Commissioner Fritchey to study creating a County cemetery to bury those in the County morgue who have not been claimed for burial elsewhere.  Commissioner Fritchey obviously felt that he had been given misleading or incorrect information by members of the Administration, and he took quite a bit of time to question Robin Kelly, the Chief Administrator of the County.  Commissioner Fritchey favored situating the proposed cemetery on part of the Oak Forest Hospital campus that is up for sale by the County, and which portion of the land is adjacent to an old cemetery.  However, it was clear from the statements of the other Commissioners that Commissioner Fritchey had no support for this resolution, and he withdrew it.

New Items

Several new items, not available to review prior to the meeting on the County’s web sites, were referred to Committees, including (New Item 15) a proposed change in the Procurement Ordinance to provide flexibility with the goal of having more Minority, Women-owned, and small businesses obtain contracts from the County; (New Item 16) a proposal to establish a Land  Bank Advisory Committee to advise on creation of a Cook County Land  Bank to help redevelop vacant and tax-delinquent properties; and (New Item 20) proposed appointments to the Medical Examiner’s Advisory Committee.

To watch the video of this meeting and/or to view the agenda items for this meeting and the committee meetings held before and during this Board Meeting, go to http://blog.cookcountyil.gov/secretarytotheboard.

-- submitted by Priscilla Mims