Tuesday, August 4, 2020

County Board Updates


There are some County government committee meetings coming up this week (more information on those on the weekly calendar here).

Following up on a previous post previewing the July County Board meeting here, the July meeting (agenda here, video here). There was an economic presentation by the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation that delved into some the current outlooks and challenges, including with the coronavirus pandemic ongoing (direct video link here, slide presentation here). There was a handout from the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce with local business owners and operators and the frustrations they have had with the coronavirus, government response, and the chaos both have caused. Many go into heartrending detail about the hurdles they've faced as the livelihoods and economic survival of themselves and their employees teeters over an uncertain future.

The meeting was perhaps more notable for the frustration on display between Board members than any items on the agenda itself. Many of the items were passed in omnibus and bipartisan votes, including authorizing the intergovernmental agreement on the Douglas County Enterprise Zone that would help that county navigate some tax and Enterprise Zone technicalities for a solar project there (presentation at the January Committee of the Whole available here). Also approved was the contract to Tyler Technologies for the new County government server/software replacement, frequently referred to in meetings as the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) System.

Another issue everyone appeared to agree on was rejecting the proposed 6-year Workforce Plan (available on page 72 of the agenda packet, page 75 of the PDF file). Complaints ranged from board members who felt like they or their committees should have been consulted prior to the plan being presented to the board to wanting more input from the workforce itself in developing the plan. Deputy Director of Administration Isak Griffiths defended the process and the plan, but to no avail.

There was some silent protests and angry swearing peppered throughout the meeting as well. County Board member Jon Rector's business logo has often been visible in the background of his Zoom video feed, which has raised concerns about using the County Board for advertising among a couple Democrats on the board. To highlight the issue they changed their Zoom video alternate backgrounds to Rector's business logo:



County Board member Stan Harper took a moment in the middle of the meeting to announce he was going to go on his "semiannual rant and rave about stuff" where he began swearing about how tired he was of people like him being called Nazis and racists. It appeared that the County Executive muted him for violation of the County Board rules. That in turn caused a bipartisan push back about muting board members by the County Executive without some protocol being established by the County Board first. The Executive pushed the meeting along on the grounds that the discussion was off topic on the items being discussed (federal CARES Act election funding which was approved). 

As the meeting was going into closed session, member McGuire complained about the lack of an auditor's report earlier in the meeting. The Executive pointed to the previous auditor items on the agenda as the time to bring it up. County Auditor Danos was on the Zoom call and jumped in and exclaimed that the report is on the County website, "It's done! It's Done!" An argument ensued over the agenda structure and criticisms. There was no Committee of the Whole in July which usually covers reports like this as opposed to the regular meeting.

A handful of board members then struggled to navigate the Zoom setup for the closed meeting live on the County Board meeting feed, sharing phone numbers and codes and a moment where the Chairman of the County Board dropped the f-bomb in frustration for the public to hear (the video is still on the facebook version of the meeting video here).

From the presence requested for the closed meeting, including the Treasurer, Deputy Treasurer, Director of IT, and others it sounded like it may have been related to legal and technical problems with the Treasurer's property tax system. But that's just a guess on my part from the context and the vague closed meeting description in the agenda: "to consider litigation which is pending against or on behalf of Champaign County, and litigation that is probable or imminent against Champaign County."

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