Correction: My eyes were not working well enough yesterday when I copied the following information from item 14.2a in tonight’s McHenry County Board Agenda. Most of my mistakes were in the Public Health Committee.
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On the Tuesday night agenda of the McHenry County Board is a resolution containing the following committee assignments:
Mike Skala
Finance and Audit
- Mike Skala Chairman
- Mary McCann, Vice Chairman
- Mike Vijuk
- John Reinert
- Kelli Wegener
- Chris Christensen
- Larry Smith
- Vacancy (4)
Michele Aavang
Administrative Services
- Michele Aavang, Chairman
- John Jung, Vice Chairman
- Yvonne Barnes
- Suzanne Ness
- Carolyn Schofield
- Lori Parrish
- Kay Bates
- Carlos Acosta
Robert Nowak
Law & Government/Liquor
- Bob Nowak, Chairman
- Michele Aavang, Vice Chairman
- Tom Wilbeck
- Jeff Thorsen
- Kelli Wegener
- Chuck Wheeler
- John Jung
- Carlos Acosta
Larry Smith
Planning, Environment & Development
- Larry Smith, Chairman
- Carolyn Schofield, Vice Chairman
- Bob Nowak
- John Reinert
- Vacancy (3)
- Pam Althoff
- Paula Yensen
- Jim Kearns
Chris Christensen
Public Health & Community Services
- Chris Christensen, Chairman
- Paula Yensen, Vice Chairman
- Michael Vijuk
- Suzanne Ness
- Lori Parrish
- Kay Bates
- Chuck Wheeler
- Mary McCann
Jim Kearns
Transportation
- Jim Kearns, Chairman
- Tom Wilbeck, Vice Chairman
- Yvonne Barnes
- Jeff Thorsen
- Vacancy (3)
- Pam Althoff
- Vacancy (4)
- Mike Skala
HR is eliminated.
Not sure what Government/Liqour is. Maybe that includes HR?
Environment/Development has replaced Planning and Development.
Not sure what Administrative Services does.
The previous committee also was supposed to handle Board Rules so now that will be done by the Ad Hoc.
All are chaired and vice chaired by Franksophiles.
The Franks Takeover is complete.
Sounds like a train wreck all the way around…it’s going to be a seemingly loooong term before elections again!
Also, this is illegal as the current committee configuration and current Board Rules still apply until they are changed by the appropriate committee.
The committee which has sole jurisdiction over Board Rules is the current Internal Support Committee (formerly Management Services with the addition of the Building Committee).
Even after the terms end and people leave, new members who are elected from the same districts were customarily inserted into the committees corresponding to their districts for intervening meetings.
So two people from District 2 would replace Kurtz and Heisler, who have left.
It still exists, and is chaired by Yvonne Barnes.
That committee has not considered any Rules changes so current Rules apply, which include committees and committee descriptions.
Will anyone on the current Board dare to raise their voice in protest on Tuesday?
my only recommendations are that no person should be able to be a chairman/vice chairman more than once (see Wilbeck and Aavang), and since there are 48 slots available they should be equally divided among the 24 board members for two appointments each. (some have three appointments, others, like Vijuk and Wheeler, just one)
in the first section you wrote lori wegener. looks like two different names were combined.
But idk if these are stacked.
You have six committees and not one of them is chaired or vice chaired by a Democrat.
How would you assemble these, if you think they’re stacked with RINOs/Frank-o-philes?
Correction made. Thanks.
American:
All of the Chairs and Vice Chairs of committees are people who have previously bowed humbly before The Great Franks (TGF) and failed to raise any sort of questions or objections to the various power grabs that characterized his first two years in office.
It doesn’t matter what party they are from.
They are all followers, not Leaders.
They were followers under King Ken, Queen Tina of the Hill, and Joe the G, and are followers under TGF.
They follow whoever is in power, regardless.
The only exception in this bunch is Jim Kearns who occasionally shows an independent streak.
Yvonne Barnes has voiced dissent in the past but usually won’t do so unless she has sufficient back up, which she no longer has.
Chuck Wheeler will go it alone at times.
Neither of them have any leadership positions in this scheme.
Aavang and Wilbeck have both been given two leadership positions.
Again, there is no authority under the current Board Rules, for this reorganization.
If, however, it is voted favorably upon at the full Board meeting, that will waive any defects as the full Board is the ultimate arbiter.
Yeah, but if there are only a few good people on the board, can’t really expect them to chair all these committees.
Plus, members of the committee don’t have to do what the chairman of the committee tells them to do.
There’s this weird theme from commenters on this blog that the county board is a rigged game because of committees or because of Jack Franks.
Why don’t we hold our individual county board members accountable?
It’s not that difficult to skim a packet and consult with colleagues before a vote to understand an issue.
If these committees are so obviously stacked, then why would the whole county board go along with them?
Wouldn’t they be skeptical and want to do some of their own research to corroborate whether the resolution is good or not?
If I were on the county board, I wouldn’t base my vote solely on what a committee says.
These are independent representatives who can say yes or no.
They owe it to their constituents to know what they’re voting on, and, in my opinion, if they don’t do that then they should step aside.
If you don’t know what you’re voting on, err on the side of NO or abstain.
This lazy hopeless attitude that diverts blame away from the entire county board and to so-called gatekeepers is just not constructive or responsible.
Issues come before the whole board.
If a bad resolution passes, blame everybody who supports it.
Maybe it’s naive of me, but I think we should start holding government officials to the high standard of competency.
When in doubt, vote “No.”
That was pretty much my modus operandi in my sixteen years in the Illinois House.
Well, in theory the committees can do what they want but Franks was able to stymie any independence by illegally keeping items the committee wanted to discuss from being printed in the agenda.
There was even a States Attorney opinion that he couldn’t do that and he went right ahead and kept doing it and the County Administrator went along with it every time.
Now they will probably amend the Rules to give him veto authority over committee agendas.
The only hope for this Board is that Althoff has ambitions to become Chairman and will start to voice opposition to build up credibility to run against him.
People would coalesce around her I believe.
Meanwhile things are looking worse for Individual 1 so this may impair the GOP from gaining or even holding seats on the County Board in 2020.
Another train wreck of the GOP!
The leadership of this County Board and the past 2 years is why the GOP is a train wreck!
They can’t see past the nose on their face!
Democrats will be more formidable because of the lack of spine from this GOP County Board!
Good luck but Jack has nothing but total control and they are all puppets!
Jacko gives them a nugget of power and they salivate!
Good luck to the few remaining people on the board that have a spine!
Known Extremist: It appears you have not seen the picture of the LIAR and Althoff sitting at the Court House bar / counter and being served by Peter Austin.
Talk about a picture speaking volumes!!!!!
Kay Bates? Really?
Here she is trying to work over a McHenry taxpayer for even more moolah!
Acosta on the Law/Government Committee?
You gotta be kidding me!
I forgot the Kay Bates photo for my above comment:
https://larryfire.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/misery_2-1.gif?w=580
All the changes were approved unanimously, 23 to 0.
The next shoe to drop will be further changes to the Rules which give Franks even more power.
Enumerate the power increasing rules, please.
Sure Cal.
One thing is he can give himself the express power to set agendas for committees.
Second, he can legitimize the creation of Ad Hoc committees for any topic for any reason even if that would normally come under the jurisdiction of a standing committee.
He can also eliminate the practice of having each District caucus at the organizational meeting and pick members of the Committee on Committees and give that power to the Chairman as was previously the case.
As a practical matter, however, he doesn’t need to do that anymore because there are no hostile committee majorities or committee chairs to deal with.