The Week Ahead: 9/9 - 9/15

*** There is a County Board Committee of the Whole meeting this Tuesday. Agenda here and addendum here (more information below). More information on how to attend a county board meeting here. ***

*** This week is Amnesty Week on past due court fines. More here. ***

*** There is an Electoral Board hearing on objections to candidate filings this week. More here. ***

*** The Public Hearing sessions on the Nursing Home sale are this Thursday. ***

Vote By Mail requests are available to voters generally now. Ballot requests for the November 6th, 2018 General Election have already started and early voting begins later this month! More information on Vote By Mail in Champaign County here. Ballot request direct link for residents here. More information on County elections (including checking your registration, sample ballots when available, and early voting times and locations) at our Elections page.

Other Events:

There are a lot of political campaign and organizing events popping up (e.g. recent meeting of Republican Women of Champaign County and Democratic Party Meet and Greet for County Candidates). 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 doesn't meet this week. Meetings are every other Wednesday at 7pm at the IMC. The next meeting is September 19th.

The Champaign Community Coalition meeting, this Wednesday, September 12th at 3:30-5pm at the Champaign Public Library, it is likely to be again focused 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.

At July's City of Champaign Study Session of the City Council, the reentry housing issue was raised during public participation (a full write up of the meeting is here and video here). This is following up on the preview of that discussion at the City Council meeting here: Reentry Housing Issue. The News-Gazette had a couple articles following up on the meeting linked on the Cheat Sheet here.

County Calendar:

*** There is a County Board Committee of the Whole meeting (What is this?) this Tuesday. Agenda here and addendum here. If you'd like to attend a County Board meeting, you can find more information on how to attend here. The items that stand out to me are the Nursing Home items which appear to revolve around debt to vendors if I'm reading it correctly. As we approach the end of the year I imagine the budget information could be worth keeping an eye on as next years budget priorities will soon have to be fought over.

The week kicks off on Monday with a Litigation Committee meeting, but most of that will be in closed session due to the content (agenda packet here).

On Monday evening there is the Nursing Home Board of Directors meeting at the 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.

On Wednesday there is a Mental Health Board study session meeting (agenda packet here). This meeting appears to be focused on their work to improve their evaluation processes for MHB programs. If you're interested in finding out more about county Mental Health and Developmental Disability programs and agencies they can be a bit wonky, however, they are also very interesting if you want to see all of the gears moving to provide care to so many in our community. If you're interested in what an MHB or DDB meeting is like, here are a couple write up examples: Mental Health Board 2018, Developmental Disabilities Board 10/25/2017. 

There is a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting Thursday night (upcoming agenda here). Board page here. Now that the new Solar ordinance has passed, the race is on for companies to use it: Solar-farm proposals flare up after Champaign County's zoning change (from the News-Gazette last week).


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