County Roundup

It's catch up time for the Cheat Sheet! We've been running behind, but will have a bunch of overviews of February local government information as we get swinging in March.

Here's are County Board meeting links and coverage for the last month as well as a couple quick March County news items from to get things going:

February County Board Meetings:

• Committee of the Whole: Video, Agenda, News-Gazette Coverage on solar farm approval,


• County Board 2/21/2019 (regular meeting): Video, Agenda Packet, Addendum, News-Gazette Coverage with highlights of the Nursing Home sale delays cause more consternation as the Nursing Home rating drops to the lowest level.


• Study Session: Video (not yet available), Agenda (more information in Handouts), News-Gazette Coverage, Bonus: Champaign County Government Strategic Planning Overview

March County Facilities Meeting: News-Gazette coverage of Youth Detention Center's potential new roof. This is one of many facility maintenance issues the county has been delaying due to budget crunches. WCIA had an additional article and video segment on the County's plan to start dealing with long neglected facility maintenance here.

Emergency Management News:

• News-Gazette coverage of Champaign County Emergency Management Agency advice on weather radios and having at least two sources for receiving emergency notifications.
  
• METCAD will likely be hiring in the Spring. METCAD is the agency that does a great deal of the area emergency dispatch for emergency services. Information available from Tom's Mailbag and the City of Champaign website. METCAD is a collaboration of local governments, including the City of Champaign which manages the personnel. From Tom's Mailbag last week:
  

  "Our hiring is done through the city of Champaign Human Resources, as we are employees of the city. Our requirements include a high school diploma or equivalent, ability to pass a data entry test that equates to about 30-35 words per minute with 90 percent accuracy, and the ability to earn a passing score on our telecommunicator aptitude test," she said. "We have some preferred qualifications as well: prior dispatch experience, customer service experience, and experience working with computers...
  
  "We are currently exploring some updates to this process to make sure that we are visible and accessible to those looking for a career in emergency communications and that we are finding good people to fill the openings we have. We plan to hire again in the spring and people can always check the city of Champaign website (champaignil.gov) to see when we start accepting applications."

  More details at the News-Gazette article here.