The Zoning and Building Committee met at 10 am and lasted until past 11:30 am. The most controversial item was the proposed rezoning of a planned unit development (PUD) to use 44 acres of its golf course to become another PUD. The States Attorney had previously ruled that this was allowed, but there was great controversy as to the precedent this would set, since it would mean that all other PUDs in Illinois could be changed and amended as developers find opportunity. Typically a PUD includes open land to offset denser housing development, and it had been thought that once a PUD was developed, it could not be changed. There were many public speakers. In the end the proposal was sent back to the Zoning Board of Appeals so that petitions could be validated and entered into the public record.
The consent calendar was finally approved at 1:55pm
The Finance Committee convened and a budget update was
presented by Lawrence Wilson, Comptroller. Revenue is down from the Recorder of Deeds office due to fewer building
transfers. Cook County healthcare
system contributions are up by $89 million. The
Comptroller is still not receiving timely financial data from the Clerk of the
Circuit Court.
Jay Shannon, CEO of CCHHS, did not yet have his Health and Hospital Systems
Board report. Doug Elwell, VP of Finance
and Strategy, talked about lower than expected ACA membership, and believed that
people had not re-applied for healthcare from last year. They anticipated 125,000 enrolled in ACA and
currently have only 100,000. Collections
are strong from fee-for-service Medicaid co-pays. More people are using outside services and
clinics versus Cook County Hospital and its clinics. HHS is working on improving the patient
experience to encourage users to choose County Healthcare clinics over
neighborhood clinics.
An ordinance was passed to allow prosecution of METRA fare
evaders to be tried in Cook County courts with the County collecting half of
each $100 fine.
The Roads and Bridges Committee met. A motion was passed to allow the county to
bring up to standard and then turn over small, odd parcels of county land to local
authorities who can better maintain that property. John Yonan, Transportation supervisor,
described the current situation where the county is actually at times fined by
local municipalities for failure to maintain these odd parcels. He endorses turning over these parcels to the
local governments. Parcels include
shoulders of certain highways and grass triangles between highway ramps, etc.
By the time the Board agenda was discussed, Commissioners
Gainer and Goslin were absent, as was Garcia.
Two items were moved to the Legislative Committee: the Judicial Discretion
in Juvenile Transfer resolution and the Inspector General review of Rabies and
Animal Control department. Most items
were moved to various committees as the commissioners appeared to be weary of
being in the meeting already most of the day.
The board had to reconsider a previously passed bill to
increase the minimum wage because Commissioner Schneider had been absent and
had therefor been noted as voting yes on the resolution. He and Commissioner Gorman voted no on
increasing the minimum wage. The
resolution still passed.
Commissioner Suffredin’s proposed amendment to move the
consent agenda to the end of the Board meetings was sent to the Rules
Committee.
The Wage Theft ordinance was sent to the Finance Committee.
Cook County is taking advantage of Community Development
Block Grants to bring more federal monies to Cook County, and audits were
approved to assess and evaluate the administrators of those funds.
A change in the Alcoholic Liquor Ordinance was sent to the
Finance Committee.
The only item that was discussed thoroughly was the awarding
of debt collection service contracts to four vendors. These vendors had been reviewed and audited
by the Chief Procurement Officer, Shannon Andrews, and Victoria Gomez, the
Chief Auditor. Systems are now in place
to track the reliability of vendors’ use of minority and women owned businesses
to perform services. Cook County has
recently spent considerable monies ($75 million) to upgrade the tracking system
of its vendors so that records are now reliable. Commissioner Sims claimed that she had
received a letter claiming that one of these vendors, Penn Credit, had used
fewer than 12% MWBE sub-contractors and that Penn Credit should not have been
chosen. Victoria Gomez said the Audit
department had flagged the low % MWBE usage and sent a letter to Penn Credit,
who have corrected their MWBE usage for
the last 3 months now since the letter.
Commissioner Tobolski stated that every commissioner should
receive the same letter, and that now there
is faith in Cook County systems and it can track MWBE usage with reliable data,
the board needs to back the system and approve the debt collection agencies.
Commissioner Suffredin was worried that one of the vendors,
Alliance, had been sued over its aggressive debt collection tactics, and had to
pay $1.4 million in damages to injured parties.
He suggested that the States Attorneys office perform the debt
collection rather than paying vendors to do it.
The Northern District of IL States Attorney’s office had collected $100
million for its jurisdiction and he suggested that Cook County States Attorney
office could do the same.
Shannon Andrews stated that each of the four vendors was
MWBE compliant, as well as qualified in other aspects like ability to do the
job efficiently and best previous contract compliance.
Commissioner Gainer asked that Shannon Andrews include the
projected fiscal impact of using the debt collection agencies. Andrews said the impact would be $8 million to
the positive.
Commissioner Schneider said that Cook County has good dedicated
employees and systems in place now in procurement and contract audit, and that
the County should support the process of awarding contracts.
Commissioner Boykin requested that each vendor be voted on with a
roll call vote. Commissioners Sims,
Boykin, and Suffredin voted no on all four vendors.
They were joined by Commissioners Murphy and Steele voting no on Penn Credit and Alliance.
A letter was received from the Attorney General saying Cook
County needed to change its way of voting under the Open Meetings Act to make
sure that the Board of Commissioners voted on resolutions and ordinances, not just the committees.
Submitted by Amy Little
Submitted by Amy Little
