January 16, 2013 Cook County Board Meeting

Contracts, Electronic Monitoring, Gun Control

Commissioners absent:  Suffredin, Gorman

This first Cook County Board meeting of 2013 enlisted some procedural changes:  committee meetings (Finance, Roads & Bridges, Zoning) at 10:00am followed by the regular board meeting at 11:00am.  After waiting awhile to get enough commissioners for a quorum, the committee meetings were completed in about 15 minutes with a long wait for the regular meeting to begin.  Useful for those in the audience, President Preckwinkle made sure all agenda items were explained briefly.  Some last-minute errata and new items were not available to the audience.

Contracts
There was a lot of discussion and questioning of the Interim Chief Procurement Officer, Shannon Andrews, regarding the extension of time and expansion of money to current contracts without a re-bidding of these contracts or more favorable discounts.  The current concerns were regarding a contract to InterPark Co. for parking of Cook County vehicles, Integrys Electric for county electricity,  and NAPA for machine and auto parts.  Ms. Andrews stated that current usage by various departments will help determine future needs and therefore enable better leverage for the county.   At the request of the Board, quarterly reviews on purchasing, contract savings will continue.

Electronic Monitoring
Commissioner Gainer expressed concern over the drop in use of electronic monitoring for arrestees, detainees and non-violent criminals.  Increased use would be a large cost savings to the county and more importantly enable low-risk offenders to continue work, school, family matters while awaiting trial.  The big controversy was between the Sheriff's Office stating it is not getting information from the Chief Judge's Office regarding risk assessment, address and other information to determine if someone should be able to use electronic monitoring.  The Chief Judge's office blames the form used and its confusing interpretation regarding state law by the nine bail bond judges.  This issue was brought up at  December's board meeting, with no change in result since that time.  It appears that communication between these two offices is not ideal.  It was agreed at this meeting that the form would be re-done and input from the Sheriff's Office would be given.  This change is expected by February's board meeting.

Gun Control
A resolution urging the state General Assembly to ban assault weapons & high capacity ammunition magazines, close gun show loopholes on background checks and require registration of existing firearm owners passed the Cook County Board after much discussion and various opinions given.   Several commissioners questioned the effectiveness of the resolution, the definitions of various words in the resolution ("assault weapon") and the requirement of gun registration.  The Board will later decide on an ordinance brought by President Preckwinkle regarding guns in Cook County.