October 7, 2015, Cook County Board Meeting

Questions about Justice Advisory Council grants and procurements

 The lengthy Consent Calendar "meeting" was over 70 minutes long due, once again, to a suspension of the rules of the Board so that individual commissioners could read aloud and comment on the various resolutions recognizing individual deaths, birthdays, softball championship, etc.

However, one interesting and pertinent  series of comments was related to the Justice Advisory Council (JAC) and its  distribution of grants ($1.9 million of county dollars for violence prevention) and payments for outside work done for the JAC.  Commissioners Fritchey and Boykin questioned the use of a vendor, Taylor Made Industries, whose owner falsely claimed educational attainment from various prestigious  universities.  The procurement process in this case was evidently not followed and this vendor was chosen due to an association with one of the employees at the JAC.  Five commissioners voted "no" to paying this vendor $15,000.00 for work completed, which was to help the JAC with fiscal monitoring and site visits to grantee organizations.

Commissioner Boykin also questioned whether the violence prevention strategy of the JAC was "reflecting the purpose of saving lives and reducing violence" in Cook County.  He was told that quarterly reports from the JAC would guarantee that these contracts with outside organizations were working toward this goal.  Concern was expressed by Commissioner Fritchey that a JAC grant to paint a mural was not appropriate for the goals of this department.

Finance Committee--Revenue reports

Comptroller Lawrence Wilson presented the August 31, 2015 revenue report which showed that expenses have out-paced revenue ($1.0 billion in revenue and $1.04 billion in expenses).  In particular, projected revenue in the Sheriff's and Clerk of the Court's offices and tobacco taxes were lower than expected.

Committee Report Actions

The following were approved by the Board:

15-4728 Resolution calling on the JAC and Office of Procurement to provide its scoring criteria for violence prevention grants and the role played by violence levels in communities for determining grant recipients.

15-5254 Proposed Ordinance-- Replica firearms and Paint Pellet Gun Ordinance (as amended to remove Paint Pellet Guns)

Deferred and Referred Actions

The Responsible Business Act (which would require all employers with more than 750 workers to pay a living wage) was sent to committee.

Proposed amendment to the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Fees was deferred to the November Board meeting.

submitted by
Karin Hribar,
Observer