Efforts to Decentralize Power on County Board Defeated

The McHenry County Board started meeting at 9 and didn’t finish until after one.

Sitting there through the whole meeting, especially during the rules debate, was like watching paint dry.

The beginning of the meeting.

The beginning of the meeting.

After the first vote, it was obvious that insurgents would have as little success as they had during the organization meeting after last fall’s elections.

Leading off was newcomer Mike Walkup of Crystal Lake, referring to the “script” sent out by McHenry County Board Chairwoman Tina Hill on Friday.

Hill interjected that she had just summarized motions that others had sent her.

“When they say there’s no backroom deals in McHenry County,” he continued, referred to Chicago Alderman Paddy Bauler and asked,

“Is McHenry County ready for reform?

“It doesn’t look like it.”

Walkup, a member of the Management Services Committee, pointed out, “The purpose of the Rules was to give each individual member power instead [of] hierarchical order.

“Visualize the person you’d least like to have sitting up in that chair,” he urged, suggesting that there would not be enough time to change rules after his or her election.

Hill disagreed, pointing out that there would be two years after the possible countywide election of the head of the County Board to change rules.

Joe Gottemoller explained that under his first motion, which would change a committee suggested requirement for a two-thirds majority to waive rules back to a simple majority, it would be “virtually impossible for a minority to waive the rules.”

The motion not to change the rules passed 16-8.

An attempt to limit chairman/women to six consecutive years in office was shot down 15-9.  Only three chairman have served more than six years in the history of McHenry County, Gottemoller pointed out, the most recent Ken Koehler, who served for eight.

Mary McCann took on the proposed change to take appointment power for the committee that selects committee members away from newly-elected chairmen/women.

Ersel Schuster, who ran unsuccessfully against Hill, explained that this proposal was “at the heart of the entire process [because] when we throw that power [into] one person’s pocket, we abdicate our responsibility.”

In partial rebuttal to Hill’s comment that there would be plenty of time to re-visit the rules should the referendum to elect the county board head at-large pass, Walkup pointed out,

“Right now we have a reform-minded majority on the Management Services Committee.  Two years from now, I doubt we’ll be allowed anywhere near the committee.

“We’re going to be in a closet.

He suggested that “a well-funded, well-known Democrat will have a good chance at winning election [in 2016 in a Presidential election year with perhaps leading that ticket and] I don’t know when we will have an opportunity [to change the rules], not to mention that it will royally tick off whoever is elected.

“The worm turns.  People on top will be on the bottom.

“This amendment goes to the heart of [making members equal],” Donna Kurtz added.

“If we pass this, we empower all of us.”

Carolyn Schofield took the other side of the issue.  She said the current method was a “way of organization.  Every business has a leader.  If you had all your employees running that business, you wouldn’t have much business.”

Accepting the status quo, Schofield said, “It is the way it is.  It is the way it came to me.”

Middle of the meeting.

Middle of the meeting.

“That you for praising my organization,” Hill said.

Democrat Paula Yensen, head of the Management Services Committee, pointed out there could also be some very powerful Republicans running for the office.

“That powerful Democrat may be offered an ambassadorship somewhere else.”

Anna May Miller echoed Schofield: “It is the way it is.”

She compared the County Board Chairwoman’s appointment power to that of a village president.

John Hammerand suggested that if efficiency were desired, “we have the wrong process.  Elections are pretty messy.”

He mentioned a king or president, such as Syria has, didn’t work out.

“I think this has been a futile effort.

“Remember what has happened and vote accordingly.”

Mary McClellan pointed out Presidents’ being able to chose their own cabinets, complaining that proponents of rules change were “trying to gut the chairman’s ability to lead.”

“There’s a vast difference between leadership and dictatorship,” Diane Evertsen said.

About 11:30, two and a half hours into the meeting.

About 11:30, two and a half hours into the meeting.

“We initially had a regulation that [committee] chairmen would have [had to] serve on that committee before.  That, of course was changed out of the box.

She referred to the elephant in the room, but not to be partisan changed her analogy to an 800 pound gorilla.

She said it appeared to be “cronyism.”

“This process works,” Sandy Salgado said.  “This is not a dictatorship.  It think this is part of the democratic process.”

Schuster echoed Evertsen’s elephant in the room reference.

She told of “the buying of votes with the awarding of chairmanships.

“I have been approached but I was accused of being too principled.

“Is the chairman going to take what the Board thinks or will the chairman have an agenda?

“Viciousness is what’s going on.

“The chairman is not put in place to run the show…but to carry out the direction of the county board.”

“If we think that having the county board vote about the appointments [is a check or balance], I wonder what planet we’re living on,” Walkup added.  He pointed out that there are twelve committee chairman, plus the board chairman, a majority of the 24 members.

Near the end of the meeting.

Near the end of the meeting.

And, then he said the “well-funded, well-known Democrat” he previously referred to was the head of the Management Services Committee.

“Oh, my God!” said Yensen at that turn of events.

“We are electing our chairman as a peer,” Kurtz asserted.

And, she explained that companies are going to a flat organization chart, one that stresses “servant leadership.”

Finished off the debate on the motion to spread power, Gottemoller said, “There is no reason that an elected chairman shouldn’t be allowed to pick the committees.  The alternative is close to anarchy.”

The vote was 17-7 to allow Hill’s successor to have the same power she and her predecessor Ken Koehler exercised.

 


Comments

Efforts to Decentralize Power on County Board Defeated — 2 Comments

  1. Sounds like the sitting chairman thinks this is Chicago and that is fine with her.

    She speaks to the organization being hers much like I hear the president has recently referred to “my military”.

    Here is a clue to everyone, this is the people’s military and the people’s government.

    The people pay the bills and those who end up in office are supposed tp be honest guardians and guides, not gods.

    Take your egos and powertrips and look in the mirror to see who is really ruining the country.

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