March / April County Board Updates

The pandemic may have interrupted a lot of plans and activities, but local governments still continued, albeit with more remote access and technology hurdles than usual. The County Board meetings since our last coverage of the regular February meeting have been... interesting... to say the least. The videos are available on the Champaign County Clerk's YouTube Channel here.


March County Board Meetings:

The March Facilities Committee meeting delved into the jail consolidation plans and public concerns again. The video is available here for those interested in where they left off before those plans were canceled.

The last normal County Board meeting was the Committee of the Whole (What is this?) on March 10th. That video is available here and generally focused on the jail consolidation plans that have since fallen apart under the uncertainty of the coronavirus and its detrimental effects on budgets and planning. There was a great deal of public participation and a presentation on the jail consolidation issues, including local activists and State Representative Carol Ammons and the Criminal Justice Collaboration presentation.

There was also an update by Rosecrance on the Champaign County Reentry Council (video link here) and a presentation on the Champaign County Clerk's website updates (video link here).

After that March 10th meeting, the coronavirus news took a dark turn for the rest of the week, from European travel bans to the NBA canceling games and the country beginning to close down. University students were asked to return home and life changed dramatically.

The "regular" County Board meeting for March was done partially in its normal location with initial attempts at social distancing as well as with remote Zoom meeting participation. That chaotic learning process is available on video here. The technical issues, sound problems, alien reverberation noises, etc made the meeting almost unwatchable.

Public participation started around the 25 minute mark (video link here) and began with concerns about the jail and the infection control concerns with the coronavirus. Public participation continued later in the video (due to difficulties with the new Zoom app method of participating) and that video link is here.


April County Board Meetings:

A lot of the meetings in the rest of March and in April were canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, including the April Committee of the Whole meeting.

The regular County Board meeting was still a bit of a technical difficulty mess, but improved over the month before (video available here). The main issue of contention at this meeting was about pandemic funds and making them available for immediate use if need be or requiring approval or emergency approval by the County Board. A lot of budget technicalities were discussed about ensuring the funds balances were sufficient to set aside the money for that purpose while ensuring the County's other obligations were paid on time.

In the end half of the funds for pandemic response were made available in case they were needed immediately, with the remaining half available later. In an emergency those funds could be made available by a special meeting of the County Board in roughly 48 hours, if I understood the details correctly.

There seemed to be some concern among Democrats on whether the Republicans were being sticklers on protecting the County's financial situation or being unreasonable due to partisan distrust. There appears to be a division locally mirroring national disputes on the facts and what they mean.

There was a presentation on the Champaign County Financial Forecast that is worth checking out if one is interested in the outlook prior to the coronavirus pandemic basically adding endless uncertainty and wrecking balls through it. The written report is available in PDF format here.

There was also some discussion about extending the contract with Rosecrance on the reentry program and some quick questions about the effect of the coronavirus so far.


May Links:

May meetings are available on the County Clerk's YouTube channel and will be the subject of another post. They're available to watch now, with a bonus meeting of the County Board of Health, available separately here, that had an unusual amount of public participation and questions and answers worth checking out. That meeting and a general coronavirus update is available in a previous post here.

A new County Board member (also former Board member and County auditor, Diane Michaels was seated to fill the vacancy left by John Clifford who resigned at the end of the May Committee of the Whole meeting.