The Week Ahead: 7/8 - 7/14

*** July's County calendar will likely have a lot of cancellations outside of the regular County Board meeting. Also, Build Programs Not Jails did not meet on July 4th. BPNJ meetings will resume every other Wednesday starting July 11th. More info below.  ***

Other Events:

There are a lot of political campaign and organizing events popping up. Check out your preferred candidates and you will likely see campaign, canvassing, or voter registration events in the area. Many are using facebook to more easily share event information and reminders. Check out the Champaign County Voter Alliance's preliminary general election candidate guide to see who is running. We'll be updating County race information from the primary election to the general soon.
 
Groups that crossover with Racial Justice Task Force recommendations meeting this week:

Build Programs Not Jails meets Wednesday, July 11th at 7pm at the Independent Media Center. Meetings are usually every other Wednesday at 7pm at the IMC. Last week's meeting got moved due to the July 4th holiday disrupting public transportation. Meetings will continue every other Wednesday, e.g. the meeting after next will be on July 25th and so on.

The Champaign Community Coalition meeting, this Wednesday, July 11th at 3:30-5pm at the Champaign Public Library, will be focused on gun violence in a follow up of its special meeting with the community on the uptick of gun violence in our community. There is certain to have a lot of overlap with criminal justice issues and key players from law enforcement, activist, and social service communities there.

Later this month — likely at the July 24th Champaign City Council Study Session (more info here) — there will likely be a presentation on the housing issue and the exemption (more information on that here and a recent letter to the editor by the CU Tenants Union here). Support among local organizations continues to grow.

The Housing Authority of Champaign County's new Executive Director reaffirmed the board's focus on expanding reentry opportunities in the community and the problems exacerbated when people with conviction histories are denied access to housing. He pointed out that HACC is still working with the Champaign County Reentry Council towards that end and he is reaching out to community organizations and government bodies in the area to work together on that and other issues. I'll probably have some follow up on this later this week after the Reentry Council meeting on Wednesday.

County Calendar:

On Monday evening there is the Nursing Home Board of Directors meeting at 6:30pm time (agenda here). From the previous month's minutes in this month's agenda packet you can see this is more of a managerial board discussing financials and marketing more than policy or politics, but with the sale of the Nursing Home looming it may have additional related information.

The Labor/Management Health Insurance Committee deals with benefits issues for County Staff which is probably mostly interesting to County Staff. Agenda and last month's minutes here.

The County Board of Health will be having a special meeting about the tentative 2019 budget proposal of the county contract. It looks like that information will be presented at the meeting according to the agenda. As noted in a recent Cheat Sheet post on health inspections, "The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District covers both the Champaign and Cunningham townships, essentially the borders of Champaign-Urbana. The county covers the rest."

The Zoning Board of Appeals meeting Thursday doesn't appear to be addressing any solar farm issues this week (upcoming agenda here). Board page here. The solar farm issues appear to have mostly moved on to the Environment and Land Use Committee that's waiting for the 30 day review period to move their preliminarily approved rules to the full County Board. More on that at this Cheat Sheet post. 

The full 2018 schedule is on the Calendar page and the County page. The regular County Board meetings are back to Thursdays until next holiday season.

If you're curious about learning more about how your county government works, it's easy enough to live stream a meeting or go in person: Attend a Meeting.

*Meeting is broadcast live on Comcast Public Access and at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/champco1776

Where is Brookens?

Brookens Administrative Center
1776 East Washington Street
Urbana, Illinois 61802-4581
Phone: 217-384-3772

After 4:30 the Washington Street side Parking Lot is Closed See Maps for the North East Parking Lot Access