Catching Up - June County Updates

Sometimes the Cheat Sheet gets behind and we have to catch up. The process involved can be helpful to anyone wanting to get caught up on what's been going on at the County Board and other County government bodies lately. Over the last few years we've attended and watched endless local government and organization meetings with notes filling up the filing cabinet. When we don't have anyone available, we have to play catch up, and we start with the local press. To jump to information on other resources, click one of the links below:

• County Board and Government Resources
• County Board Members
• Other Organization Meetings

Local Press:

The local press can be complicated for activists on various issues or political ideologies, but as a general rule I'd encourage supporting the local paper. For those with serious grievances, one might have to rely on access through their local library's online tools. For most people, a simple key word search for Champaign County Board on the website will do (sorting by "start time" so you get recent articles as opposed to years ago):

You can usually get more hits by searching from within the News-Gazette's eEdition tools, but you'll have to skip over a lot of Section D legal notices too! Here's a list of County Board articles and updates in June:

• The Board of Review seats are now all vacant after ongoing appointment battles and recent resignations. 
• An earlier article had more general coverage of the June County Board meeting here, including highlighting the support for rural broadband internet expansion. It is missing coverage of the mental health care related vote that failed to pass, however (see more on that below).
• There was additional coverage of the discussions behind the feasibility and fairness of extra compensation for County employees who had to work in-person during the pandemic.

There's almost always some hidden gems in the search results that might not appear related to the County Board in the preview text. There's usually an article or two related to County government, if not necessarily County Board business:

• Barbara Scott, a former elected Champaign County Board member, died.
• Jonathon Westfield died. He was active in local politics, a former police officer, and criminal justice issues including coordinator at the Youth Assessment Center.
• There was a profile of Champaign County Auditor George Danos.
• And there was some concern over profanity at a board meeting and YouTube rules addressed in an article and a letter to the editor.

The May and April County Board updates are covered in a separate post here.

Other local news sources can be more hit or miss on something as specific as the business of the local County Board, but tend to pick up other angles on bigger news items or additional news not picked up by other outlets. WCIA has a "Champaign County" local news page here where you can keep loading articles further back in time or a simple keyword search. For example, from WCIA's coverage in June:

• More details about the Board of Review situation, resignations, and documentation.
• Additional coverage on Jonathon Westfield.
• Updates on the Delta variant of COVID from the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District including a recent update yesterday and one earlier this month here.

Other area television news stations include WAND and WICS/WCCU which often have some local coverage in Champaign County. WAND's search function is similar to the News-Gazette website. WICS's Fox Illinois web search feature is a bit more limited and will mix in some older results relevant to the keywords as well. For June there was a County government related story worth noting from WICS here:

• There Sheriff's office hired a social worker as part of its new justice diversion program.

Between the local newspaper and one of the local tv news station searches you'll probably get a decent gist of what's happening when checking out the agenda of the next County Board or committee meetings you're interested in.

There is almost always more out there if you've got the time or have another preferred local news source. Some good examples of sources we cite regularly here on the Cheat Sheet include the Daily Illini, Smile Politely, and Illinois Newsroom / WILL. Here's some County news item examples that pop up in basic keyword searchers in June:

• DI: HUD emergency housing voucher updates with the Housing Authority of Champaign County.
• DI: Updates on the MTD terminal expansion project.
• SP: Vaccine programs for underserved communities.
• SP: Information on the Champaign County Forest Preserve District and League of Women Voters Summer Concert series.
• SP: Information on the limited Independence Day festivities and fireworks this year.
• IN: Overdoses and homicides are up in Champaign County and Illinois generally.
• IN: More details on the County Board's process towards expanding rural broadband.

As you can see, broader search keywords (e.g. Champaign County) on these websites will pop up other local government bodies and issues from the MTD to the Forest Preserve to the Housing Authority. All of which have unique relationships and collaborations with local government, funding sources, and governing bodies.

Of course the most comprehensive source of information about the County Board and County government is directly from the source.

County Board and Government Resources:

Meeting information, including agendas, agenda packets, minutes, etc are available on the County website here. We have some basic information on the overall structure of the County government under the Executive Form of County Government here. The general flow of County Board meetings each month tends to start with committee meetings where a smaller group of County Board members look at a set of issues and items and make recommendations or move resolutions towards the full board for a vote. The Committee of the Whole meetings are generally the next step where all the committee and other resolutions before the board are either moved to the full regular meeting of the County Board for a final vote or discussed, amended, etc.

The regular County Board meeting tends to pass uncontroversial items with unanimous support from the Committee of the Whole before moving on to other votes that can be contentious or pass fairly easily. Certain votes, like budget votes that increase spending, can often require a supermajority to pass.

June's regular County Board meeting agenda packet is available here. The most recent videos of the County Board meetings are available on the County's facebook page (and later the County Clerk's YouTube channel here after it is processed). The June regular County Board meeting is available here.

Even with the beginning of the meeting cut off, the video of just this meeting is over two and half hours long. For folks with limited time, jumping to agenda items of interest can be a bit of a guess and test. I have a process of jumping ahead and listening to hear which agenda item the Board is on to see if I jumped too far, or not far enough.

The debate on the mental health funding resolutions begins just before the 1:42 (hour:minute) mark on the facebook video here with a reading of the first resolution. The resolutions were discussed and voted on together. Both required 15 votes to pass. The agenda had a long description of the item purpose:

This [American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)] funding will be utilized by the CCMHB to expand grant funding for local agencies providing mental health and substance abuse treatment services to individuals and families in Champaign County. This expanded grant funding will allow local agencies to continue to strive to meet the growing need for these services in Champaign County. The CCMHB grant year runs from July 1 through June 30. In order to provide consistent, uninterrupted grant funding for these local agencies throughout the entirety of the upcoming grant year, 50% of the ARPA funding will be utilized from July 1 through December 31 of FY21. The remaining 50% of ARPA funds will be utilized from January 1 through June 30 of FY22.

The debate and discussion revolved around the timing and a disagreement about why this specific ARPA funding needs to be approved so quickly compared to other funding to be discussed in future meetings. This approval would only be for a small percentage of the overall funding, but related to programs and grants that need more immediate funding. It failed mostly along partisan lines with Democrats in support and Republicans opposing.

A deeper dive into the details of this resolution and the programs involved is available in the agenda packet on pages 98-122 (pages 103 through 127 of the PDF).

County Board Members:

Beyond the arguments you might hear in the County Board and committee meetings themselves, County Board members are generally happy to explain their votes and positions on issues from previous meetings. You can contact them from their contact information on the County website here and district maps on the County Clerk's website here (currently more up to date than the Cheat Sheet with Samantha Carter joining the Board). If you follow them on social media, you might get long arguments on various subjects or links to more information and resources.

Often Republicans and Democrats will simply complain about the other being partisan or political, like Board member Jim Goss criticizing the Democratic majority's redistricting vote last month. This month Democrats complained about the Mental Health care vote, such as on board member Jennifer Traub's public facebook page that took issue with a few Republicans leaving without putting their name to a no vote. Board member Samantha Carter echoed the frustration on her own public page and shared a longer criticism of the Republican no votes and not voting.

One can sometimes find some public comments or even extended arguments by board members on various local social media groups and neighborhood apps as well.

Other Organization Meetings:

Following up with the various impacted organizations and communities related to or directly affected by County Board votes is probably one of the more difficult and time consuming end of catching up on County Board business. It's also probably one of the most important. It'll be interesting to see if there's any discussion on this contentious funding vote in the upcoming Mental Health Board meetings next month at the end of July. 

The previous MHB meeting in June, just prior to the regular County Board meeting had some discussion on the violence in the community as it relates to mental health starting with MHB President Joseph Omo-Osagie and then Executive Director Lynn Canfield at around the 9:15 mark in the meeting video (agenda available here). Lynn Canfield's report directly addressed the County Board resolution, the doubts about whether the vote may succeed, and what that may mean going forward.

Follow up on the rural broadband issue will likely be simpler to follow up as the Board works through the issue in study sessions like the one last night (agenda packet available under the Committee of the Whole page). That meeting video (the first fully in person County Board meeting since the pandemic) is available here. It has presentations on the County's role in broadband expansion, groups and service providers with introductory information on the topic. This is working towards work that will be done by the "broadband committee" going forward.

It's definitely a challenge to keep up with all of the various local government and organizations related to local government on the County level and the C-U Local Cheat Sheet. The goal is still to help make it easier to stay informed and involved in your local government.