Ersel Schuster
Joe Gottemoller
Yvonne Barnes
Thanks to a friend of McHenry County Blog for the following analysis of the attendance of McHenry County Board members for 2013, 2014 and 2015 through October.
| County Board member meeting attendance records | |||||
| Includes Board meetings and primary assigned committees | |||||
| Excludes attendance as liason members of other committees | |||||
| Rank | Last Name | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | Average |
| 1 | Schuster | 100% | 98% | 99% | |
| 2 | Gottemoller | 100% | 98% | 97% | 98% |
| 3 | Barnes | 99% | 96% | 96% | 97% |
| 4 – t | Schofield | 98% | 95% | 94% | 96% |
| 4 – t | Rein | 96% | 96% | ||
| 6 – t | Smith | 95% | 95% | ||
| 6 – t | Heisler | 99% | 87% | 99% | 95% |
| 8 | Evertsen | 93% | 91% | 96% | 93% |
| 9 | Aavang | 95% | 87% | 93% | 92% |
| 10 | Chirikos | 89% | 91% | 90% | |
| 11 | Draffkorn | 94% | 93% | 81% | 89% |
| 12 | McCann | 86% | 88% | 90% | 88% |
| 13 – t | Hill | 85% | 79% | 96% | 86% |
| 13 – t | Kurtz | 76% | 84% | 97% | 86% |
| 15 – t | Provenzano | 91% | 75% | 91% | 85% |
| 15 – t | Hammerand | 76% | 95% | 85% | 85% |
| 17 | Skala | 89% | 76% | 88% | 84% |
| 18 – t | Jung | 82% | 77% | 88% | 82% |
| 18 – t | Yensen | 78% | 87% | 82% | |
| 20 | Miller | 83% | 75% | 84% | 81% |
| 21 – t | Gasser | 80% | 80% | ||
| 21 – t | Walkup | 76% | 73% | 90% | 80% |
| 23 | Martens | 87% | 61% | 85% | 78% |
| 24 | Nowak | 79% | 68% | 82% | 76% |
| 25 | Kopsell | 70% | 70% | ||
| 26 | Wheeler | 69% | 69% | ||
| 27 | McClellan | 53% | 80% | 67% | |
| 28 | Salgado | 21% | 65% | 43% | |
| V. Hi Cem.Bd; C.O.W.; Facilities; Liquor & License; PH & HS; | |||||
| Legislative; P & D; Transportation; Law & Justice; Human Res.; | |||||
| NERC; Fin & Audit; Mgt. Serv.; County Board meetings | |||||
What would be even more enlightening is to have a chart which displays who reviews their Board packet and committee meeting packets prior to attending meetings.
You can have perfect attendance record but if you do not do your homework, you are an elected ‘rubber stamp’.
Relative to Board meeting packets it is helpful to track who PULLS items from the Consent Agenda.
For Committee meetings an indication is to sit in on the meetings and monitor who asks pertinent questions.
Board members who never pull consent agenda items or sit quiet at committee meetings display a “rubber stamp” attitude – whatever staff presents to them is a.o.k.
Those members are not representing the voters.
The problem is that the larger the governmental unit, the less involvement by those elected to serve and the greater the control by staff.
Why do government budgets continually increase?
STAFF puts those budgets together.
Most elected officials are too LAZY to challenge the numbers presented by STAFF.
This is very evident within our school boards.
Can we put in a column for telephone attendance from the beach?
@rawdogger
Personally, I would rather have a board member who was prepared (by knowing their board packet front to back) participating by telephone than one who faithfully attends the meetings in person but hasn’t much of a clue other than they enjoy socializing with the other board members
Why not have all meetings conducted virtually?
As a taxpayer I really do not care where you are when you are voting on resolutions and budgets.
I do care how you vote!
I have zero use for Board members who sit in the room like ‘post turtles’ and vote whichever way the wind blows!
Board members should have to show up in person so that they are forced to look voters in the eye while they screw them.
There is a different dynamic that occurs in a meeting where people are physically present. Not the same as the dynamic when they are “phoning it in.”
Moreover, at the technical support currently available, hearing what is going on seems to be a problem. Hard for the remote attendee to follow all of the discussion and hard for others to hear the remote attendee.
It looks like some by their sparce attendance at board meetings taking full-time benefits and full salary offered by the office are taking advantage of the taxpayer.
If this were the private sector, he or she would be fired; but because it is government, we are forced to tolerate paying more than what we get in return.
This attendance sheet says everything about McHenry County government . . . paying too much for too little.
I think Ms. Schuster is correct, maybe it is time payment to County Board members be contingent upon actual attendance at meetings rather than success come election day. As for the full-time benefits, well I think you know my thoughts on that.
The McHenry County government gravy train continues to roll!
It is important that in the spirit of transparency that board members attendance be reported to the public.
By the same token I think the information contained in it should be 100% correct.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
While I might have missed a couple, yes two board meetings this past year, I did not miss three as stated in the meeting section.
I am told that when they put an asterisk next to the number of meetings attended to reflect attendance the spread sheet automatically defaults to one meeting this was corrected a while ago when I first brought it to managements attention but now appears to have manifested itself all over again.
The biggest flaw on the county’s board member attendance website however is when a Board member is added to, or replaces a board member on a committee.
The site acts as if a board member was appointed to the committee at the beginning of the year even though they weren’t appointed until mid-October.
I have attended all the committee meetings of Valley High after being appointed.
But looking at the website one would ascertain that I missed 7 of 8 Valley High committee meetings.
This would be grossly incorrect.
I thank this blog for bringing it to my attention and I have notified the county officials about the error and correction should be made on both errors forth with and I apologize for any misconceptions this might have caused.
Also it appears that the same committees are listed twice which doesn’t even make sense.
Cautious Voter is correct in his assertions that it is not necessarily the quantity but the quality of the work that a board member does when determining the value perceived or achieved.
Since my inception to the board along with the other new comers to the board, we have actually “lowered your property taxes” as promised in our campaigns. This has never been done before.
Showing up is important I will grant you, but getting something done is something totally different.
Chuck you Waltz well. LOL
I have problems with a couple of websites also and programming nonsense.
Chuck: Based on the committees named at the bottom of the posting, Valley Hi Cemetary Board is included but the Valley Hi Nursing Home committee is not represented in the numbers.
I kinda wonder what would happen if I only showed up to work 69% of the time?
I understand there are circumstances, but aren’t we paying these people to handle our business?
If you TAKE a job, shouldn’t there be some sort of attendance policy, as in any job?
I know what would happen if I only showed up to work 90% of the time….
I would be fired and then I would have time to run for a County Board Seat!