Good afternoon.

Today is September 2nd, Tuesday 2025.

I call Lake County Legislative Committee meeting to order at 1 p.m.

In addition to being able to attend in person.

Remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom at the link on the agenda.

This meeting is, of course, being recorded through Zoom.

Burke County Board Rules and the Open Meetings Act.

Attendance via remote means is permitted for qualifying reasons as long as the majority of the committee members are physically present.

We've been notified in advance by members Compost, Volitzik, and Hunter that they will be participating electronically.

Do we have any objections to that?

Okay, thank you.

Gina, would we know why they're not here?

Well, um, I know that uh members Hunter and Compost are doing it for work reasons, and uh member of Litzik was for a personal reason.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

And would you lead us in the Pledge of Alliance, please?

For which it stands.

One of the Liberty and Justice for all.

Thank you.

Could we have a roll call, please, Matt?

Yes, voice chair campus.

I'm here.

Uh member Hunter.

Member Kyle.

Member Roberts here.

Member Schlick.

Here.

Member Volitzick.

Here.

And Chair Wasick.

Here.

Thank you.

We have a quorum, including Chair Hart.

Um if I may, I uh was not re I was not given notice that members were not going to be here in person.

And I have uh I want to be watching the press conference today because it directly impacts Lake County.

So I'll stay for this, but then I have to leave and would just request again if people could give me advanced notice.

I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

Please note in the minutes.

Do we have any addenda to the agenda?

We do not.

And uh just for the chair's information.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

No, we do not.

Okay.

Uh brief comment from me.

Uh we're going to do an overview of our legislative agenda, some major items here for discussion, only no votes today.

I had the privilege of meeting with uh director Hoff and getting an excellent tour of the Libertyville Health Facility.

And uh thank you for that.

And we'll be talking with him later.

And uh that's it.

Um, and do we have any unfinished business?

No.

New business, uh consent agenda, which is which are the minutes from our last meeting, June 3rd.

Do I have a motion and a second, please?

Motion by Gina, second by Adam.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Those opposed.

Uh motion passes.

Thank you.

Good there.

Um, we're going to start with our Springfield update from Mike and Derek.

Gentlemen, can you hear us okay?

There he is.

Yes, can hear you just fine, uh, John.

Thank you.

Um, so we'll keep our our our update uh related to Springfield brief because we know we've got a big agenda, and frankly, uh not a lot has happened uh in Springfield since our last uh uh meeting where we gave an update.

Um I would just say, and and I'll I'll turn it over to Derek here in a minute to talk a little bit more about budgetary issues, but uh, you know, since uh the end of the spring session, uh, you know, the governor is continued to take action on bills and sign them into law.

Uh I don't believe he's vetoed any of the legislation yet, which portends uh, I think a very light veto session uh scheduled for the uh um I believe it's the second and third week of October.

Uh you know, there's been a lot of talk about uh some of the big issues that did not get handled at the end of the last legislative session, most notably obviously would be the transit issue.

Um, you know, there's been talk that they may try to do transit um in the veto session.

Uh Derek and I's feeling is that that is unlikely for a couple of reasons.

Number one, um, there just doesn't seem to have been a lot of uh discussion or movement on the main issues since uh since this past May.

Um, and second and most importantly, when you look at the uh vote thresholds required uh to get something done in the veto session to get something with an immediate effective date requires a supermajority vote.

Uh supermajority vote is going to be very difficult on this because um at some level there will need to be revenue attached to a transit package, and that's going to be a difficult vote regardless.

And so most of what most of what uh our intelligence is telling us is that um it's likely that transportation uh the transportation should get punted until uh potentially early January, um, because there's really no uh uh there's you know, the the cliff is already, you know, prior to this was already um looking uh to occur at the end of the calendar year.

And I believe there's been some additional revenue that's come into Metra to the tune of about, and Derek can correct me if I'm wrong, about 75 million dollars, which allows them to push it off a little bit more, which buys some time uh early in the legislative session to hopefully try to bring together a deal.

Um beyond that, I think we're expecting a fairly um uh a fairly focused uh session that'll be largely built around the budget.

Um it goes without saying that the passage of the uh of the um uh U.S.

Senate budget reconciliation package, or actually U.S.

Congress uh budget reconciliation package uh earlier this summer um has blown significant holes into expectations for next year's budget, uh particularly in the area of Medicaid.

Uh there's there's real threat to uh up to as many of as nine um hospitals in the state of uh potential closure in the very near future.

Um how that gets dealt with from the state side, whether they can find revenue to deal with those types of Medicaid holes that have opened up, uh, how they're gonna deal with the elimination of SNAP SNAP benefits and things like that, are all very uh uh difficult issues that are probably going to take up a lot of the oxygen in the coming legislative session.

So um I think we, you know, as we look forward to this next budget year or this next legislative session, we should be very mindful of the fact that it's going to be uh in a lot of ways more difficult from a budget perspective than the one that we just went through.

Um, and it will probably take most of the attention.

Um, Derek, do you want to say anything about the uh just general, you know, state of the budget and uh any thoughts you have to add?

I won't be repetitive, Mr.

Chairman, and I'll be very, very brief because of your agenda today.

As of today, revenue collections for fiscal year 2026 trail slightly historical averages.

Counted to mass transit, outstanding pension tier two safe harbor, unknown Medicaid factors depending on administrative rules pending in Washington, D.C.

It is likely no agenda for the fall veto session will be set for at least another month.

Historically, seven to ten days prior before the convening of veto sessions when the agenda would begin to solidify.

There should be no other expectation this year because of unknown factors across the board.

I'm happy to stop there and answer any questions and obviously look forward to discussing agenda items with you later in this meeting.

Thank you.

Any questions for Mike or Derek?

I just have one question that's purely speculative.

What are the odds that the transit bill is going to be shuffled over into the regular session?

I would say high.

More than 60.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Um, that should do it for now.

And uh let's move.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Let's move on to Greg in Washington.

There he is.

Hey, Greg.

Hey, Chair.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, good.

Thanks.

Uh same sort of story as what you just heard uh from Mike and Derek.

Congress has been in recess for the month of August.

So not a lot happening, but both chambers returned today.

All eyes are really on the September 30th deadline for the end of fiscal year 25 and whether or not Congress can get uh all their appropriation bills done by October 1st for fiscal year 26.

We've been um we've been pretty successful as a county in getting projects selected by members of Congress for inclusion in fiscal year 26 appropriation bills.

Now the big what if and when is will they be able to pass all 12 of them?

And you've maybe heard me use these fun terms before, but they talk about well, will we pass an omnibus budget where we take all 12 bills and package them into one?

Will we break it up uh into smaller bills, which we might call a mini bus, six and six, as they did a couple years ago?

Or will you see what sometimes is uh jokingly called a cromnibus, where there's a continuing resolution for some items and appropriations are passed for the fiscal year 26 for others.

Uh, if we if we pass another CR, a continuing resolution that that delays the appropriation of projects we've had selected for the county.

And as it stands right now, there's about three million dollars worth of projects for the public works department, as well as for a uh housing project in the Waukegan area.

And so we are I, you know, I I can't I can't tell you where this is going to go.

A lot of chatter seems to point to a continuing resolution, maybe through the end of the year, maybe it's 30 days, maybe it's 60 days.

But hopefully, if they do that, it buys them time to pass the 12 bills.

The struggle we're seeing really is that the Senate is passing bipartisan bills, and the House bills are a little more partisan.

Not many Democratic votes on the Republican packages uh with the Republican leadership in the House.

So there's a lot of what ifs and to be seen as it relates to that.

Uh, one other curveball just for your awareness is the administration pushing for another rescission package.

These are not really popular amongst rank and file, but some of the more uh conservative members and supporters of the president do like them.

This latest one is targeting previously appropriated funding for the Department of Education.

There's been no bill language release, but that's what uh the next package is looking like.

The reason this is a curveball is it really impedes any bipartisan negotiation on the fiscal year 26 appropriation bills.

Members start to say, why would I vote for a package where I'm appropriating funds uh that the White House is going to come back and try to claw them back?

This really gets into a whole separation of powers debate that's really uh bouncing around in Washington right now.

So that's that's the the big elephant in the room.

What's going to happen on appropriations for fiscal year 26?

Um, so to be determined, September 30th is our deadline.

Just two other sort of items of note.

Um there was an executive order about grant making that was uh released the other month, and it really seems to put a little more authority into the administration and there are political appointees to have oversight over grants that are submitted from entities such as the county.

Uh it's to be determined, you know, what happens with that, but it's given some people pause that it takes some of the uh um review process away from the agencies and puts more power into the White House.

Uh the other item of note is there was an executive order.

This is sort of state-related executive order as it pertains to jurisdictions that have cashless bail, including Illinois.

Now, this executive order instructs agencies in the Office of Management and Budget to uh identify these jurisdictions, aka Illinois, and then potentially look at within the what is considered legal, uh, withholding some of their federal funds.

Uh, I will this is purely speculative, what I'm telling you here, but I just wanted this executive order on your radar.

You know, there has been a recent uh injunction issued in a court in uh federal court in San Francisco on a similar uh attempt by the administration to withhold federal funds from state and local governments, and that injunction is is blocking the feds from doing it.

That court case was pertaining to whether those jurisdictions were working with or not working with uh immigration services from the federal government.

I I mentioned that case because I think you're going to see similar lawsuits on this executive order that they would argue this isn't, you know, you cannot withhold our funds basically because you don't like a thing we're doing.

Time will tell.

Uh Illinois Attorney General Kwame Rauls made some statements, you know, just disapproving of the executive order.

He pointed out that a lot of federal courts don't have bail systems.

It's not for every federal case, but it's for many of them.

So we'll see what happens, but this is just one more executive order that we're kind of keeping our eye on that, you know, makes us have pause about whether federal funds are going to flow or not.

That was a mouthful.

I feel like I said a lot really quickly, but so let me pause and take any questions.

Sure.

Uh Gino.

Thank you.

I know it's the president.

He can do all his executive orders he wants.

Is it legal in the state of Illinois for him to do that?

Yeah, meaning is it legal for him to decide the state of Illinois can't have the safety act.

Let me preface this by saying not an attorney.

Um it does not appear the way the executive order is written that they believe they can compel local governments to uh drop their or rescind the legislation that they passed or pass new laws to get rid of it.

The executive order really seems to say, well, if you have this on the books, we're going to withhold federal money within the boundaries of what's legal.

That is a very broad statement.

So what they're doing is I in my opinion, a little bit of saber rattling.

I do not believe they have the authority to just eliminate state of Illinois' cashless bail.

They merely can threaten to withhold federal funds unless the state decides to get rid of it.

Do you have a question, man?

Okay.

And I just have a point of clarification, Greg.

So the reconciliation bill that was passed um what, two months ago.

That wasn't it didn't directly impact um rec um appropriations, right?

So appropriations are actually getting the money to do these things.

And the reconciliation bill, my understanding was just a template, right?

The budget reconciliation package is an interesting thing, and I won't it it's a it's a vehicle, a legislative vehicle that does not require the the uh 60 vote majority that's typically required to pass a bill in the Senate.

But relevant to that is that the bill to answer your question, no, it is not the appropriations process, it's a separate budgetary bill that can only impact sort of tax related items.

So, for example, they can't shrink Social Security or other things.

There's really weird parliamentary rules about what it can touch, is the long answer.

The short answer is no, it is separate from the appropriation process.

Okay, thanks.

Clears that up.

Uh Isaiah, you had a question.

Uh, I do.

Uh so perhaps you have been able to uh Greg, if you haven't been able to read uh what just came on in the New York Post.

I know I've seen it somewhere else written.

Um it says uh Trump's used the National Guard or in Lily's immigration protests violated federal law judge rules.

How would that um I again I know you're not a lawyer, but um if you could give some thought and some uh if you had been able to read it, if you had been able to um, you know, um you've heard about that.

If you could talk about how that would affect us here.

So I haven't seen this.

So the court just ruled today that uh use of National Guard as it relates to immigration enforcement is illegal.

Is that what it said?

In LA, yeah, that's correct.

In LA, you know, one of the complicated matters, I shouldn't say complicated.

One of the interesting matters with some of the lawsuits that have come out against the federal government is if a temporary restraining order or an injunction is is awarded by the judge, typically these cases only that injunction or TRO is only applicable to the plaintiffs in the suit.

It doesn't mean so.

If if the city of Los Angeles is the only plaintiff and the state of Illinois or the city of Waukegan is not party to that uh case, that the the injunction does not apply then to people that aren't plaintiffs.

So that I think is one relevant item for that case.

I I don't know which case it is, so that's possible that the state is is a party to it.

Uh, there is a lot of hand wringing about whether or not the federal government is going to drop in federal law enforcement from various agencies as it pertains to immigration enforcement.

Um, I believe there's been an argument made by the governor and similar allies that uh they have to request it that they may not just show up without being invited, but I'm not sure that that's true.

So that's the little bit I know about it uh as of right now.

Okay.

And then my follow-up question, uh, and sorry, I don't have a bill number, but uh it is dubbed the uh no secret police act of 2025, which makes it uh to ban state, local, and uh uh federal law enforcement from uh wearing masks uh when going about uh their duties as law enforcement.

I know True Garcia's a sign on to that to that bill.

Um have you is it on your radar?

Is there is is or can we put that on your radar?

You know, I think I've heard of it, but I'm not tracking it.

That's um don't interpret this as dismissive.

It is that's a bill that's gonna go nowhere that's merely a sort of talking points type bill.

uh wearing masks uh when going about uh their duties as law enforcement i know chewy garcia is a sign on to that to that bill um have you is it on your radar is there so is is or can we put that on your radar you know i think i've heard of it but i'm not tracking it that's um don't interpret this as dismissive it is that's a bill that's gonna go nowhere that's merely a sort of talking points type bill for sure but i mean so yeah uh i mean given the political makeup of the congress for sure it may go it definitely will go nowhere um unless you know the the political makeup is different um and there's it uh you know there's votes in congress to get it through um i'm wondering how the committee would feel if we would sign on to that in support of that no secret police act of 2025 that is in congress so that we can get uh some more information and have uh Greg look at that more closely well what we can do is uh ask Matt to research a little bit more and and bring it up on next month's uh committee agenda for consideration does that sound feasible Matthew yeah absolutely and then if I could uh finish uh finish up really quick um with Mike and sorry I didn't ask earlier I was looking for the bill number um Mike there's a bill in Springfield HB 4086 um which effectively does the same thing that uh no secret police act of 2025 and I believe Joyce and Laura Dias have signed on to that as co-sponsors um and and and um my question regarding this is in the bill summary it says federal law enforcement as well it's my understanding that we won't be able to do that we wouldn't is that correct we wouldn't be able to legislate what the federal government would do.

We can change it as my statements uh earlier in the week um for state and local uh but not federal correct you said it was 4086 4086 yes sir yeah let me just pull it up really quick I mean you know I think you know I think I think part of what we're dealing with right now is some a lot of unprecedented things.

And so you know I know that in other jurisdictions there's been talk of trying to hold uh law enforcement to a standard of you know not being able to wear masks requiring them to identify all that stuff and uh you know certainly they could potentially try to pass something like this but I'm sure it would be uh uh challenged in court uh fairly quickly uh but it you know unlike you know the situation with Greg we have a the opposite political situation here in in uh Illinois where you could you could see something like this moving and getting signed into law and being challenged in some way shape or form um we haven't heard any intelligence on that yet as I'm looking at it right now the the lead sponsors represent Barb Hernandez but we do have as you said Joyce Mason uh Laura Favor Dayas I'm looking uh you know you've also got uh you you've got a pretty strong uh list of pretty house sponsors already and it was and it was introduced uh back in July so I would expect when they come back in in uh uh veto session you'll at least see a good number of uh other democratic members jump on it as as sponsors but I wouldn't expect to see something like this move uh until the spring session unless uh it's something that the governor wants to do as part of you know whatever uh occurs over the next coming weeks as we're all kind of on tender hooks over uh what may or may not happen with uh the federal administration and what they decide to do here in Springfield or in in Illinois.

Yeah thank you Mike uh again I would like the if we could look into this as well uh and keep this on our radar uh I believe this is directly impacts us directly it's given the uh our current situation with um uh the naval station uh I would appreciate it if uh HB 4086 could be um heavily considered and we look at it very closely um as well as you know I I'll talk with state's attorney Reinhard and whatnot uh about the other things um okay but I think I think I mean this is something that directly affects us and this is something we definitely want to uh sign on to um perhaps even put it in uh you know uh our list of legislative items that we want to see pass and put our full weight behind um and also given that Joyce Mason and Laura Favor Dias uh you know our our our our Lake County content uh contingent out in Springfield is is behind it.

uh you know uh our list of legislative items that we want to see pass and put our full weight behind um and also given that joyce mason and laura favor uh you know our our our our lake county cont uh contingent out in springfield is is behind it uh i'll i i'll call around and ask why the other ones haven't signed on um and what their um what they're saying and what they're what their thoughts on it and hopefully hopefully we can get get them on but uh all right I as we've as we're speaking uh member campus I've just added it to our tracking list for Lake County and uh my guess with the with the other members is you know it's been summer this was this was dropped in the middle of July um I would imagine that uh they're just not watching uh the smattering of daily bill filings that are occurring over the summer and are kind of holding back and waiting to see what happens uh as they get closer to next January but you know if there's uh if there are people calling and asking them to get on and uh see this bill I would I would think that a lot of members of our uh caucus um uh in Lake County would probably want to sign on to that uh I'm not uh I'm not aware I'm looking here uh but I can't uh it doesn't appear that there's been a Senate uh companion file that I can say it that I can see but I'll I'll look more into that to see if there's a Senate version as well that got for yeah I and I didn't want to insinuate uh that they wouldn't are not in support of oh no no I understand what you're saying a hundred percent thanks for that we're gonna move on we'll take another look at it uh next month thank you and Sandy you had a question I do uh Matt can you talk take us through the process of bill tracking for our lobbyists with respect to something like that yeah just anything do we just need does each each board member have a certain number of bills that they can request to have tracked by our lobbyists or does this need to have this committee approve it and go to the county in this particular instance the the request was coming to staff to take a look at it we'll look at it with our lobbyists report back next month.

So um while Mike stated he added it to the list it's something that I assume we'll we'll discuss further prior to putting on a list for tracking.

Okay so if I could add just if I could add something really quick Matt you know we we track a lot of bills um and then you know once we've had an opportunity to go over it with uh Matt and his team um you know we we talk about what the recommended position should or shouldn't be and all that stuff and then that ultimately comes back to the legislative committee and then uh once we've got uh guidance from the committee then we update our list with the uh proper position for the county and then proceed accordingly thank you thank you if I just might just pardon me I'm sorry Saya Isaiah floor thank you so just for future reference though so if I have a bill on video gaming or John has a bill on the carpet uh recycling or the all how do we sort it given there's 19 board members on what our lobbyists track and what they don't do we present just like we would for sort of the two hour rule if you will do board members present to this committee and then they come back and you just remind us basis is the legislative program which we're developing for 26 and then that'll include all of our priorities that we have for the coming year.

If there's things that come out throughout the session they all come back here discussed staff given staff direction if that's something a priority that we want to monitor support or oppose.

So it's all going to come back here.

So this is sort of an idea funnel if you will then legislative committee okay I just wanted to make sure that I understood you know because it differs from how we do it um on the forest preserve side so okay thank you chair okay thank you any other questions for Greg or Mike Jim.

I I don't have a question I just want to um support member compost on this campus on this because you know I'm reading it now and I can see where the concerns might be because if you take your mask off and you're in you know doing a getting anywhere near a drug that could harm you I could see where they may not go for this but this is basically I you know ice on the streets covering their mask and nobody seeing who they are so I guess my concern would be if you know they're moving in quickly to I don't know what happened at the press conference today but if they're moving into our county sooner than later we I would love to see this move quicker.

We'll definitely put on our agenda for next month.

Okay.

We get to it sooner uh well I I mean next month would be great if it could come back.

Yeah well there's a sense of urgency we all can always do a special meeting but um we'll see how we we do on the research first.

Thank you.

So this this year, just to um kind of talk about process uh for the 26 program.

Um, and I've kind of prepped the committee in the previous months as to what my intention was to provide department heads, countywide elected officials um kind of a submission process that I do every year with um a multi-page document that I put together with Mike and Derek.

Um, and and it kind of walks the request tour through certain questions um to ensure that we're thinking these things through appropriately, what impacts could they have, um, what kind of opposition could we receive based on the concept or idea that's coming forward.

So I received a number this year, a number from uh Planning Building Development, uh, specifically Dominic and Eric and uh the health department.

We have one with the administrator's office and a couple of a couple other departments.

And what I wanted to do today, based on the amount that we received was to bring forward the requestors to present the topics in brief summary.

Have the committee have an opportunity to ask any questions that they'd like.

And then ultimately what I would like is consensus from the committee to move forward with drafting that into our 26 agenda from a timeline standpoint.

Um, this is the opportunity to hear from those requesters and to solicit requests from from members as well and topics such as uh what member Campos had just brought forward, and then um I will work with staff to draft the actual program, a draft program that I'll present to this committee next month to review.

It'll include any items that we talk about today.

Um, it may include another one or two items from like Swalco, which I'm still working on, and um that'll be another opportunity for us to kind of um hash that out.

I'm not I wouldn't even be looking for action next month, that'll just be a draft discussion and presentation with the hope that we get it finalized and then brought to the November committee and board for for adoption so that Mike and Derek and Greg, if there's anything, can start working with drafting those bills and working with our legislators to get things set for the state kickoff in January.

Any questions on process?

Okay.

Otherwise, I would invite uh Dominic and Eric up if they'd like to present.

There are two that they submitted this year, one related to Illinois tax credits and one uh related to the state task force recommendations that I'll let them present.

And afternoon, gentlemen.

Please state your names and titles for the recording, please.

Eric Wagner, planning building and development director.

Dominic Strasel, the community development administrator.

I'll start out by um framing this um in sort of the the big picture goal that uh we're working towards at Lake County, which is to increase the supply of affordable housing throughout the region.

Um as the committee members know, we're uh co-uh leading the Lake County uh coalition for housing, which is a regional initiative designed to increase the supply of housing at all income levels within within the region.

Um, as part of our overall program, we're looking at very local solutions toward that uh increasing the housing supply.

But we also have opportunities at the state level.

And so uh what Dominic is going to share with the committee members are a couple of different uh legislative items that we'd like to the committee to consider for inclusion within this coming uh legislative program.

Sure.

So, like Matt mentioned, we did submit two requests, if you will, to this committee.

The first one I'll talk about is more of a general to kind of monitor back in September of 2024.

Uh, the state completed um a report called the ad hoc missing middle housing solutions report.

So that was about done through the governor's office.

And that report was roughly you know, 30 to 40 page document that came up with 27 recommendations, so the um wide ranging, uh most of them obviously focused on what the state can do.

So I we'd ask that this committee and like kind of kind of monitor what comes from those recommendations.

Um of them are are pretty general and not likely to spin off into bills quickly and specifically.

Um, but some and and I'll point out maybe three right off the bat that I kind of marked down as kind of extending the existing uh taxes, Illinois special assessment program that is already in effect that's scheduled to sunset in 2027, so potentially extending that past that, establishing a statewide tax credit program, which I can talk about more specifically.

That was our second request, and then also just putting more teeth around the existing affordable housing planning and appeals act.

Those are you know three of the 27 recommendations that came out of that report that could you know more quickly evolve into specific bills.

But in general, for this first request, we just want to monitor um what the state does in response to that report and as things come legislatively to look at them individually to see how they would um help Lake County.

So at this point, we're we're considering these under the umbrella of areas of interest.

And there's not specific bills that we're asked to support or or oppose, and we're just saying, okay, these are the areas, and there's been some data, and let's see if somebody else proposes some specific legislation, right?

That's right.

Um, there are some very prescriptive prescriptive ideas identified in the report from the missing middle task force that will likely make their way into legislation.

We just want to be able to track um the status of that those initiatives so that if and when they do get filed, we're ready to to take a position at that point.

The way we would draft this is uh an item of monitor and showing that it's a priority to the county, and then any items Eric and his team would track, we'd track with Mike and Derek, and then um we'd bring those items forward to the committee for discussion and position.

Okay, questions for Eric or Dominic.

Yes, Gina.

Um you picked only three.

Just is that because that's enough, or you're I just wanted to highlight those three because I in my opinion, those are the ones most likely to come faster.

Um, I want to talk specifically about about one of them, the tax credit one.

Um, but those three I just think are more likely to spawn uh more quickly into bills.

The rest are can be general and unlikely to come in front of this committee.

Other questions?

Do we have a consensus to to move this idea forward?

Okay.

Have some direction on that, man.

All right.

Um there's one more, I think, Don.

Yeah, the so the state tax credit program.

So this uh there is an individual bill around this.

I think it's SB0062, I believe.

And the reason it's not specifically identified in that report, it existed before that report.

So um, if you're familiar, and and a lot of you are with the new housing production, it's dominated the financing mechanism is dominated by the low-income housing tax credit or LITEC, we call it.

Um, that is the only way we've been able to produce new construction affordable rental projects here in Lake County.

It's a highly competitive, it's allocated by the state housing finance authority or Ida.

It's highly competitive.

We're lucky to get one, maybe two projects every year.

Um, we we support these projects with our home allocations.

Um, but again, highly competitive, and the only way these things get done.

There could there's a this bill essentially puts forth a statewide tax credit program to mimic the federal tax credit program.

So creating dollars to finance these projects through the state tax credit.

Um, it would help spread out the existing federal tax credit program.

There's only a set number of allocation credits that Ida gets to allocate.

So theoretically, it could result in multiple projects per year for Lake County.

Um there really is not um a ton of fiscal impact.

Uh so the way the tax credit works, uh, these projects sell the credit to private investors, and they get to use them to reduce their tax liability, but that that is offset by the tax that when the housing gets built, so the property tax and the things that get reinvested back into the community.

So there's not a ton of downside.

It exists in 20 plus, I think 23 other states have programs that mimic the federal tax credit program.

Illinois does not, our only statewide tax credit program is a donation tax credit, where you only get 50% of the value of land or whatever you're donating into a project, you only get 50% of that as uh money into the project.

This would be a much more successful project.

I think the ask is 120 million over six years in terms of allocation, and that would just kind of help supplement it would also be run by Ida, and it would just supplement their existing tax credit program.

Yes, Gina.

Yeah, go ahead, Adam.

Thanks, Gina.

Thanks, Chair.

So is there any like as they lay this out as they're trying to build this tax credit?

Is there anything built in there that says how it would be allocated throughout the state, like the collar counties would get tax percentage as opposed to downstate, or is it or is it just kind of a free for all whoever gets there or whoever has the best lobbyists?

And my understanding is they would mimic the federal program and the way the federal Ida administers the federal program.

There are set asides for uh Cook County in Chicago.

There is a rural set aside, and there is a metropolitan um side aside as well.

Okay.

Yeah, that was just I was just wondering because I'd like to see some type of you know, lanes where you can all of know where you're know where you're going as where you best suit, and you know, not just that the city of Chicago, Cook County gets 90% of the funding.

So yeah, perfect.

Go ahead, yeah.

Thank you.

I guess I'm gonna try to understand this.

So this is just for tax credit for for the builders, not for the because I think of you know what's happening in my district now where people are getting credits for rehabbing or rehabbing their apartment buildings and in lower incomes and it's affecting the the tax role in my in my underserved underprivileged community.

How does this affect that?

The mechanism is a little it's a little complex, but like um it's a tax credit for the project.

Project and then so a developer gets a million dollars worth of tax credit, they then sell that to a private investor.

So that's one of the reasons this program is so successful is it attracts private investments.

So like a bank banks are usually the type of investor.

So your bank then buys the million dollars worth of tax credits to and so they give money to the developer and they take those credits for their in this case their state tax bill.

So that's where that's their incentive is to reduce the amount of money they would have to pay to the state on their tax.

It would not would not affect like local, they would still have to pay.

Yeah.

The other questions for Dominic or Eric.

Uh, just a quick one, Dominic.

So just a point of clarification.

So if we expand the state tax credit program, will that fill in the gap from loss of the federal tax credits, which I'm assuming are going away, right?

I don't believe Litech is going away.

It will help it will expand it because they'll be able to spread it out more across more projects.

Also, there are allocations.

So LITEC has two different variations.

There's a 9% tax credit and a 4% tax credit.

We almost exclusively focus in on the 9% because you get more money there.

Like you can get 70% of the project cost, the 4%, it's more like 30%.

So we could pair the state if if it existed, you could theoretically pair the state tax credit with the 4%, which is a lot less competitive.

Oftentimes there are credits unallocated on an annual basis.

So you could do a new construction project with a 4% tax credit if you had an existing state program as well.

And what Dominic's describing is a stacking process to help these projects pencil out.

So they're um they're buildable.

And we supplement any LITEC funding with uh whether CDBG or home funds, in some cases, we can even use the affordable housing funds from the county.

Um, but this is a way to make these projects work from the div from the nonprofit development standpoint.

We need these incentives in order to continue to um move the pipeline forward in the production of of uh subsidized units.

So as far as we know it, Lightchik isn't being totally eliminated.

No, it'll still be around until further notice, right?

Okay, good to know.

All right.

Thank you.

So do we have a consensus to move this item of interest forward?

Thank you.

All right, thank you, gentlemen.

Appreciate it, Eric Down.

Thank you.

And again, this won't be the last time that uh the committee will have an opportunity to review, discuss, question the ideas when I bring it back next month, it'll be in draft form.

So that that'll be another opportunity.

Um so the next two I have are from the health department.

So I'd invite Chris and Emily to come up.

One is related to local health protection grant funding, and another is related to um impacts of federal policy changes.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Chris Hoff, uh, executive director for Lake County Health Department.

Hi, everyone, I'm Emily Galbert.

I'm the public policy strategist for the Lake County Health Department.

Uh, thanks for the opportunity to share a couple of uh ideas with you for follow-up this session.

Um certainly this year has been a lot of change around health and human service policy environment, um, both for things like Medicaid and long-standing programs.

So we brought two for you today.

One is really still focused at the state level for funding core public health programs that our residents rely on every day.

Uh and another, uh it's related to the federal impacts around all of these health care programs.

So I'm gonna let Emily share the specifics and then happy to get into details on questions if there are any.

Sure.

So um first I'll talk about local health protection grant funding.

Um, this is a grant through the state.

So we are looking to increase state funding for it by 10 million dollars statewide.

So to a total of 31.1 million dollars.

Um, the local health protection grant pays for services that keep our community safe.

So this includes things like food inspections, um, infectious disease control, immunizations, uh, ensuring you know, safe uh water and septic.

Uh these services are also state mandated.

So because we're a local public health department, we have to provide these uh these services, and the grant from the state does not cover the full the full uh cost.

So they aren't reimbursable and they can't really be covered by other grants.

Um the state cut funding for fiscal year 25 by 5 million dollars, um, even while diseases like measles, which used to be eradicated, are uh coming back.

Um we're seeing you know, cases of syphilis, pertussis, um, and you know, TB.

So this is important work that we do.

Um, and you know, this funding is really uh crucial to that.

So right now, Illinois ranks 40th in the nation for state public health funding.

So without uh restoring and increasing this funding, taxpayers will shoulder more of the costs and health departments fall behind uh with this support.

We can respond to new health threats, keep up with the cost of staff, stretch local property tax dollars further.

Um, this proposal is championed by the Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium.

Uh, this is a group that brings together local health departments across the state.

They cover more than 80% of the state's population, and the increase is just a kind of small piece in the context of a broader effort to modernize public health funding through a statewide public health transformation initiative.

Um any questions on that proposal before I talk about the next one.

So this is basically the things that you do on a daily basis that the state cut um five million dollars out last year, right?

And you're just asking them to restore and enhance your budget on that so you can do say TV monitoring or something like that.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, these are the core services the health departments across the state are required to do by state law.

So it's not expected that that fully covers the cost of those services.

We blend funds from other permit fees from property tax, but the expectation is that those services are provided across the state at a foundational level.

We want to make sure that we're receiving a similar amount of funds and similar levels to other counties and make sure that that investment is strong, that these things are there behind the scenes to make sure that people are safe every day.

Uh questions.

Do you have a question, Gina?

Okay.

All right.

Uh then we'll move.

Uh do we have consensus to move this forward?

Okay, thank you.

All right.

And uh next, I can talk about um the assistance we need in responding to federal policy changes.

I know that we've already kind of talked a little bit today about um, you know, what might happen to hospitals, right?

What we expect um with people losing their their health care coverage.

Um, you know, some of the changes that have been made recently um from HR one to there was a proposed reinterpretation of the personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation act um that would also potentially, if it's applied, remove uh people from their health care coverage.

Um, so this could impact thousands of Lake County residents, um, especially families with low income uh and uh people who are immigrants and immigrant families are at risk of losing kind of Medicaid um health insurance through the ACA, so like subsidized health care coverage, um, and even food assistance programs like SNAP.

So when that happens, they'll turn to the health department and our community health center, but we already have a wait list.

We don't have space or staff to absorb that kind of surge.

Um, so the results will be more ER visits, worsening chronic health conditions and strain across the entire Lake County Health System, um, not just our own, you know, department.

Uh so this will impact every resident in that way.

So we need your support uh as we kind of monitor different proposals that come up at the state level to kind of insulate against some of these things.

Um ideally we'd have kind of support for legislation that offers kind of sustainable and flexible funding that keeps people insured, protects access to care, and kind of softens as much as possible the impact of federal cuts.

Okay, thank you.

Um Director Hoff and I discussed this informally a couple weeks ago, but roughly how many people are impacted by the Medicaid cuts and how much money we talking about here.

So the Medicaid cuts, I mean, there's there's just on like Medicaid expansion alone, we have like 27,000, and that's in Lake County.

Um that's just expansion.

So that's part of the Medicaid program.

Uh as far as patients, we have about 25, you know, we have 25,000 patients receiving care.

Um, the it's difficult to kind of put together a precise estimate for Lake County because there's going to be changes like work requirements, things where if someone has challenges um maintaining those, they may get kicked off if we have ebbs and flows and uh employment that could change.

Um I mean, I would put it, I guess at the let's see, I think I have one for the state here.

It was like 330,000 Illinois residents.

Lake County has about 150,000 people on Medicaid across the entire county.

So we're expecting some number in there.

We can get you a better ballpark, but it changes basically.

Um, the estimate is about 14,201 for Medicaid.

24,000 total losing health insurance.

So it's a lot of people.

If those changes in one big beautiful bill um are in effect exactly as they're proposed.

And some of those things don't kick in until 2020, late in 2026.

Um, work requirements aren't scheduled to take place until October 1st.

So part of the reason we talked about moving this to a monitoring status versus a specific bill is there's a lot that can and will probably happen over the next 12 months.

So if there's the opportunity for lobbyists to be able to track each of these things and for us to be able to influence as they come up to minimize the impact as much as possible, we'd love to do that.

And then you had also asked about SNAP.

Um, so at least for our clients at the health department, um, knowing that about half of Medicaid recipients are also part of the SNAP program, we estimate around 13,517 of our clients use SNAP.

Um, the state estimates one in five are vulnerable to losing benefits.

So that's about 2700 people, uh, just our clients, so not community-wide, just people that come to the Lake County Health Department for services.

Well, though those wouldn't necessarily include the people working with uh you of our extension, right?

Just people come into the health department and are there for other reasons, right?

Right.

So the impact with large likely be much greater, yeah, across the community.

And dollar amount of these services, roughly, I mean.

I don't have a good answer on the SNAP one.

I mean, the benefits we we administer the enrollment process, but we don't manage the funds associated with that.

So um we could ballpark this.

At this eight level, there's like a 700 million dollar shortfall, but I don't know how that's gonna I I don't have like a smaller number of what does that mean for Lake County specifically.

I mean rephrase that a little bit.

So it's gonna leave a hole in your budget that you have to fill somehow.

Um what would be the size of that hole, roughly?

SNAP not necessarily SNAP doesn't necessarily impact our budget directly because those are benefits directly to the consumer.

The Medicaid side, um, we're talking tens of millions of dollars potentially if Medicaid were wiped out uh in the ways that have been proposed that we would reduce eligibility as much as has been proposed.

Um health department sees primarily patients on Medicaid.

That's why we exist is really that safety net health system for people that don't have access to other places.

So it's designed to be there for people who need a higher level of support um than they could access through a commercial carrier.

So that number, you know, depending on whether rates go down with that or the eligibility is as broad as it is, it you know could be tens of millions.

Okay, thank you.

Tina.

You might I'm just curious about this on the SNAP program, you said 2700 people.

Is it uh proportionately the same for is are they more elderly or children or equally for both?

That are gonna do you know that who will lose this?

You mean like our enrollment?

Yeah.

Our clients directly.

Um I would say most of our clients are not necessarily older adults.

So for our clients, it would likely be families.

Families.

So it's 2700 families.

Families?

Our estimate is people that was based on, yeah.

Um clients that are served under Medicaid.

So it is an estimate.

It's not, we don't like track enrollment in that way.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I'm just trying to track this.

Um so of the patients you see.

So I'm not as worried about the SNAP because it sounds like that's kind of more something we do, you know, administratively to help people sign up.

It's not that I'm not concerned about, but um, the Medicaid.

We bill Medicaid, obviously for services provided.

What percentage of your patients that you see are Medicaid versus Medicare?

You you just said most of them are families, not oil elderly, so they're probably Medicaid.

Is it a high?

Yeah, over 90% of our patients are on Medicaid.

We do see some Medicare um in certain situations, but it's primarily Medicaid.

And of the Medicaid reimbursement, how has it historically been it's been strong?

Has it been getting us at 100%?

Or it's never been 100% of what it costs to provide that care.

So it certainly helps to cover some of the costs, but it's never been 100% of what it actually costs us to deliver that care.

So in your your opinion, is if this Medicaid reduction happens, these folks come off the Medicaid roles, they're still gonna come to the health department and it's just gonna now be an onus on us to bill and hope there's a private payers type system set up, but it could be just now instead of getting any reimbursement you're gonna get.

Yeah, these two things are linked because the the reinterpretation of this personal work responsibility act if from 1998 said if we would see anybody that showed up at health centers.

Health centers needed to see anybody that walked in the door regardless of status.

That reinterpretation now could mean that people can't come to us because we cannot serve them.

We could have people come who lost their Medicaid coverage, are still eligible to see us.

They come in.

We have sliding fee scales that attempt to align cost with what people can pay.

But if you can't pay, we can't squeeze that out of you.

And we don't want to.

So we would be delivering less access to care.

At some point, we can't deliver those services.

We would have to cut back the services that we provide.

Yeah, that's that's in essence what would happen is because we wouldn't be, we can't operate at a loss.

We would just be reducing service.

We couldn't offer.

Not at that volume.

The volumes we're talking about are extraordinary.

So if you know thousands or tens of thousands of people are coming off Medicaid eligibility and now are in an uninsured pool, you know, we've made tremendous strides over the past 25 years in the United States of trying to increase access to care through a number of different mechanisms.

This is pushing us backwards to say, sorry, you just don't have health care.

You need to pay out of pocket, you need to find a plan that you know may be prohibitively expensive.

I'm certainly fine to support and watch to see what the state's answer is going to be.

I will tell you my confidence is I'm all right.

I think you folks are on top of it, and we can certainly watch to see what the state's gonna come up with, but put me in the very uh unlikely they'll come up with something valuable, but that's just me pontificating.

So thank you.

So we have a consensus to monitor related legislation on these topics then.

Okay, thank you.

And one unrelated question, Chris.

I know we talked about this informally, but uh, did you have a chance to talk to your team about restoring funding for the volunteer lakes monitoring program, which uh would allow us to better monitor toxic bacteria?

Um, yeah, so that was a grant we used to have with the health department that paid for us to do some monitoring of lakes across Lake County.

Um, certainly of interest of us to try to restore funding.

Um it we had that conversation after these proposals went in.

So I would be happy to share that, you know, going forward as something to monitor, similar to the new items.

So otherwise, that we're consistently working with legislators and you know the board of health to push things that make sense for public health broadly, and that's certainly one we'd be interested in restoring funding for.

Could you submit like a brief to Matt and we'll bring it up again for a more thorough discussion, perhaps next month?

Yeah, happy to do it.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Are any other questions for our great health department team?

Okay, thank you.

Next, I have uh Betsy to talk about a proposal related to some challenges that the county and um a lot of our municipal partners have been facing uh recently this year with respect to FOIA submissions.

So and the one thing I failed to mention at the meaning of all this is all these proposals and submissions that I've gotten.

I we obviously ran through Mike and Derek and sat down and talked about each one and talked about strategies as to how we can move forward on them.

Should we get this consensus?

So with that, I'll give it to Betsy.

All right.

Good afternoon, Betsy Brandon, assistant to the county administrator.

I'm here today with Jana Phillip, who is um your operations and program coordinator for the county administrator's office and also the FOIA um officer for county admin and county board office.

All right.

Um, so I am here today, as Matt said, to talk to you about an item for your consideration regarding the Freedom of Information Act, also known as FOIA.

Um, so for those of you who might not be as familiar, FOIA is our state public records law that allows for members of the public to make requests to public bodies for copies or inspection of public records.

Um, as some of you may know, I started here at the county as the FOIA coordinator, which means that um, as part of my duty still, I talk and work with every single FOIA officer in every single department of the county, including commissions and agencies.

That's about 50 FOIA officers.

Um, over the last few months, county departments have experienced a flood of FOIA requests from just one or two individuals.

So, for example, one individual sent county departments 230 requests within three and a half months.

These floods of requests include numerous repetitive broad requests that hinder sometimes halting regular business duties of departments.

Um, these requests and other states known as vexatious requesters often use artificial intelligence or AI to rapidly submit numerous requests per day that often require an incredible amount of staff time to respond to.

Um items for your consideration today would address this problem by adding some provisions in the FOIA law for bot generation generated and vexatious requesters.

The addition to the FOIA law would allow public bodies who receive numerous requests within a 24-hour time period from what they reasonably ascertain to be generated by a bot or AI as unduly burdensome, which is a provision that's already written into the FOIA law.

Further to address vexatious requesters, the addition to the a law to the law would allow public bodies to send a review of these vexatious requesters to the PAC, which is the public access counselor at the attorney general's office.

The PAC can then deem the individual as the vexatious requester, which then would allow the public body to not respond and require the requester to possibly compensate the public body for any hours that they've had to respond to frivolous requests.

So other states, such as Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland have some form of vexatious laws.

Washington state has a bot law to help mitigate the number of bot requests generated by AI.

Other local governments across the country, across the across the state are seeing an increase in bots and vexatious requests.

Uh these items for your consideration are not meant to deter or stop people from making FOIA requests or using even AI to make FOIA requests.

The aim is just to ensure that FOIA resources are answered, or FOIA requests are answered timely by not dedicating all of our resources to just one or two individuals.

If these types of requests aren't addressed, all other requesters will see an increase in the amount of time that it takes for public bodies to respond to their FOIA requests.

And eventually local governments may need to staff up or increase their head count to address these FOIA requests from just one or two individuals.

Questions, yes, Gino.

Could you repeat that number again?

How many did this one person do?

230 requests per year.

Within three and a half months.

Yes, Adam.

Thank you.

I would love to see a number attached to that monetary thing and like to see it like escalate, to be honest, because I do think some members, very few members of the public, use this as a you know, a weapon to come after government employees, government elected officials.

I just I would love to see it be as stringent as it can.

So thank you for bringing it up.

Thanks, Kevin.

Thanks, Chair.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Um, this has been used as a weapon.

Um, and the people that know how to use it do it the best.

And having AI generated makes it even worse.

Um, uh, but I think there's got to be some sort of quantitative tied to it.

I mean, I I agree with watching, let's see where it goes, but this it's I think something's got to be tied to it.

So that says, okay, this is all that we're going to tolerate, uh, or there's going to be a charge for it.

Or it I like the concept of it, but there are abusers.

And the problem is you can't staff enough.

I mean, and every department's got enough FOIA.

Like you have 50 people that are coming to you right now.

It's the amount of time and the frivolous nature of some of this stuff is criminal.

So thank you.

AI support that.

Did you have another question, Jim?

I just I I absolutely support this, and I agree there should be a number tied to it.

That is insane.

I can't imagine how anybody has that much time in their hand in their life to do this kind of work.

AI or not.

This is that's just crazy.

Thank you.

I do support this, and I know how this has kind of gotten out of control, especially with AI.

It can just be generated with a couple of queries, literally.

But I'm also curious who or what determines what vexatious is.

I mean, is that a legal definition?

Is it something that the AG determines?

Do we determine that?

Um is it written into some part of the FOIA law that we haven't seen that needs to be written in?

It would be uh defined as a person who has an established a pattern of conduct that amounts to an abuse of FOIA by sending numerous broad and repetitive requests by a public body.

So it would be left up in to interpretation by the PAC, the public access counselor.

So that bounces back to the state attorney general there for sort of a wouldn't be a ruling, but it's sort of an formal administrative review or something like that.

Correct.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh sorry we have consensus to move this one forward.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um next, I'd invite Robin up to talk about the Zero Emission Vehicle Act and Great Lake C CR protection is I think that's one we've we've talked about for a number of years.

But go ahead, Rob.

Hi everybody.

Robin Groom, sustainability programs manager.

Uh the first bill I wanted to talk about has had a couple revisions as it's gone to the state.

So uh addressing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector so far has been insufficient to reach the science base back targets for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

And our current market availability for low emission vehicles of all kinds have remained too expensive or too rare to acquire at the rate desired by local leaders, including Lake County board members.

And the government Zero Emission Vehicle Act establishes a standard that would increase the availability of zero emission vehicles and move state public fleets to zero emissions while increasing build-out of charging infrastructure.

So the reintroduction of the bill in the 104th General Assembly requires that beginning on January 1st, 2030, all passenger vehicles except for law enforcement vehicles purchased or leased by a government unit must be manufactured, um, must be manufactured in the United States by a company that is headquartered in the United States and is uh lower zero emissions.

So back in and I uh some of the details that's that was in the original proposal was uh included in a bill version from 2024.

So some of those previous provisions had a lot more of establishing these make ready tariffs that were reducing the cost of EV chargers and kind of catching up with some of those California uh vehicle standards for manufacturing.

That's not what's in the current uh House Bill 1284.

So I think there was a there was an amendment that that happened there.

Um but the current the current of the version of the bill that requires government units to be implementing zero emission public fleets, that piece of legislation still aligns with our strategic priority of a sustainable environment by leading the effort to prevent further increases in global temperature and mitigate climate change effects, which is our goal statement.

And the bill addresses one of the most challenging sources of greenhouse gas emissions for both the state of Illinois and Lake County operations, and it would help ensure the transition of our fleet to zero or low emission vehicles, which is a current operational procedure of ours, and it would decrease the workload to make bids and find creative solutions for missing vehicle stock uh when we're trying to acquire vehicles for our needs.

So that is our first time questions for Robin on this.

Yes, Adam.

Thanks, Chair.

I'm just I'm looking at the summary.

So in the summary, some of these bullet points.

Are these in the bill like that requires Illinois to adopt California's vehicle emission standards, eliminating the sale of traditional cars, trucks, and SUVs by 2035?

Are they all in the bill?

So in this was a version of the bill that was introduced in 2024.

It has since been amended, and the vast majority of that language has been removed.

Okay, because that would be the only thing.

There's a couple of things in here that I would not be comfortable with.

Um, you know, the requiring businesses operating five or meet we want to require put a requirement on ourselves.

We can we can get there.

I'm not I'm looking at five or more medium or wide duty vehicles.

I'm looking at landscapers, you know, some folks that we could be putting a burden on a business, which I wanted, I think we're a business-friendly community.

I think that would be kind of difficult.

And the electricity rate hikes.

I'm not all right with giving comed the green light to start, you know, raising rates because they just raised the heck out of rates.

I know we all got our electric bill.

Um, so that that kind of makes me uncomfortable.

I don't know if that's in the current bill.

I guess we can kind of look at that.

So I would say my thumb's probably right in the middle to see where this legislation looks like.

I don't like stringent language that's gonna put adverse impacts on our residents.

You want to tell us to buy electric vehicles, we've put that in our strategic plan.

Fine.

We can we can argue about that another time, but if it's got something that's gonna affect our public, our residents, I I wouldn't support that.

Okay, thank you.

Kevin.

Thanks, Chair.

I I you took the words out of my mouth.

That requirement to adopt California's vehicle admission.

I could never support that.

That's that's couldn't do it.

Um, the one thing I would like to see there if it goes forward is um law enforcement vehicles, and I'd also like to see fire and emergency fire and EMS added to that.

Um, that's an industry that just gets beat up all the time because they really don't have a lobby to work with them, and they've had to undergo some really expensive stuff because of the way the rest of we're they should have asked for exemptions and they didn't.

Um, so I I would ask that if we're going to do that, that that we would advocate to have the same thing for law enforcement happen with fire and EMS.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jessica.

Thanks.

I just wanted to say that I am supportive of this, particularly if it's as Robin said, um it is just for government bodies.

And um, I mean, it's the probably the le the least we could do.

I know I know it'll be hard maybe for some government bodies, but if you're if you're carving out public safety, and that's already the vast majority of government vehicles, uh, if I remember right, then um this is a good step, but it's not gonna make you know much of a dent.

And we are uh we've ceded territory to Europe and Asia in terms of um the new energy economy.

So I think this would be a good step to move us a little bit forward.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Other questions on this item.

Oh, yes.

Uh Paul, go ahead, please.

Thanks, Chair.

I just want to echo what President Politics said.

I'm supportive.

Thank you.

So this one, Robin, we'll get some additional details as to what is in that final bill, and we'll hearing the concerns today, member Schlick and Hunter, and we'll we'll bring those details back next month when we have a draft of our of our package.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we'll move the vague description of this forward and we'll have more detailed discussion next month.

Thanks.

Okay, and uh Walkegan power plant.

Thank you.

So coal ash is a toxic byproduct created by coal combustion, and there's currently a coal ash pond that it's on the Waukegan coal power plant site.

And the current plan by the owners is to leave the material where it is and place a cap on the pond, which doesn't address the long-term risk that the material poses to the surrounding area, the residents and the waters of Lake Michigan.

And this bill would amend the Environmental Protection Act, which would provide a requirement to remove the coal ash pond along with some other specifications.

And this piece of legislation aligns with the strategic priority of a sustainable environment by engaging state bar partners to enhance natural resource protection through long-term planning policies and investment, which is our strategy number four.

Uh, there would be no workload added to the county in order to support this bill as we have previously.

Um, just being part of the collective local message to protect people and the natural resources in Waukegan.

Thank you.

Questions on this bill.

Yeah, I I support this, and as you probably know, this has been around for a couple of years.

Every year it comes up, and they they try to get it through committee, and it's it's a real challenge.

But we like to see that coal ash removed from Waukegan.

Yes, Gene.

Yeah, I I agree.

I would support this too.

This has been going on for quite some time, and I grew up in this area, and I know what the how the impact of this, and I would support it completely.

Thank you.

Consensus to move this one forward.

Thank you.

Oh, I have another question, Isaiah.

Go ahead.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Um, this is uh Rita's bill, right?

She's the chief sponsor of this.

She she was she has been in the past, yes.

She has been in the past, okay.

Representative Mayfield.

Yeah, nonetheless.

Um I'm in support of this as well.

I know it's been a huge problem.

I know Gina knows more about it than anybody, but uh yeah, 100%.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thanks, Rob.

Thank you, Robin.

The next uh one I have is Bob, who has been waiting in the back for the whole meeting.

And this is related to an item that we had in um our last program with respect to PTAB hearing locations, and there were some concessions that were had, some discussions that we had, but this uh this is one that we would prefer at this time to keep in our program as we continue to navigate how those concessions are gonna turn out.

So Bob will thanks for your patience, Bob.

Hey, no problem.

Good afternoon.

For the record, Bob Glucker, Chief County Suspent Officer for Lake.

I'm back with a uh basically the same request I had the last time.

We learned some lessons in our last go-round with Mike and um Derek.

And um, I I certainly think this is important to turn around and uh pursue again.

In your, I don't know how inclusive your packets were, but I put some examples in of a recent PTAB uh case and the costs associated with it um for the uh gun club out in Avon Township.

Uh unbelievable.

The the praisers cost to Lake would have been $9,500 if we didn't turn around and settle.

That's on top of all of the additional cost to get folks down to PTAB and to turn around and come back.

In addition, Lake has been getting a lot of pushback from PTAP since we started this a year ago.

They've been, you know, um difficult to deal with in terms of extensions at this point and and different things that they're suggesting lake should be held out for.

I actually have a meeting with the state's attorney to discuss the legality of that.

But in the meantime, I think the answer is still the uh legislative effort.

I'd be glad to ask any answer any questions if you have it.

Yes, Kevin.

Thanks, Chair.

Yeah, I I'm 100% supportive of this for having the you know, we're one of the furthest away from down there, and and it's the cost to do this and take that out of where it should have been more local when it used to be.

It was just goofy.

So uh rack on.

Yeah.

Yes, Kevin, Adam.

So Bob, I'm just I think I'm a little troubled by something you mentioned there that you know, it almost sounded like how dare we question PTAB to bring these meetings back.

That's a little troubling to me that I think our request is very reasonable, and I would hope that we're not being held, you know, to some type of standard that any other agency is not being held to.

But um, I think we should monitor that as well.

But I I support your your efforts here.

I do think it's in our best effort, I think it's our best efforts and our residents too.

Like if even for our government, like a body, uh entity, you don't want to pay your lawyers to go down and to fight this.

So, yeah, I I would support this one represent and would just want to monitor any type of retribution we might be facing because of it.

And Adam, to add what you're saying, keep in mind it cost one PTAP job job, uh one PTAB officer comes up for that either commercial or industrial hearing down to to Lake County.

Now that means transportation for him or her, that may mean one or two nights stay in a hotel, as opposed to five to nine people coming down from our school districts from the county, from the assessor's office to do the same thing.

And in what I'm suggesting this time, we would be agreeable to doing this from a virtual standpoint, just like some of these board members are presenting here today, which would eliminate any of that travel cost on either side of the coin.

Yes, Gita.

Yeah, I am in full support.

I think this is occurred in my district, and it's it's it could be financially devastating.

Or maybe not devastating, but it's it's an expense that they can't afford in the in the first place.

So supported 100%.

And why you couldn't do it by Zoom is crazy.

Thank you.

Um, can you tell me we had presented this last year, and I thought, and I apologize I had to step out for a call, but I thought PTAB was like, oh no, we're super willing to work with the counties, right?

So what happened ever since then?

Because it doesn't sound like that's been a very quick, very kick recap would be our initial approach to PTAB.

PTAB turned around and we came to a a gentle persons agreement that basically said if we were to ask for a hearing, an in-person hearing in Lake County, that it would be converted to a lake county hearing.

Uh that agreement was broken on the part of PTAP.

And uh that's when we turned around and started with actually legislative action.

That was a year ago.

Um, and we may have miscalculated when we put together the amendment we were requesting.

We specifically limited it by population to Lake County alone, which then didn't gain the support of the other CCAOs or counties around because that legislation was so specific.

I think we've broadened that and we learned that.

And in addition, I might add, I also have gone to the CCAO Area One meeting and presented the same thing.

I haven't gotten their results back, but all seem to be in favor of the idea of supporting this as well.

This is a out of the 117 counties in in Illinois, it seems like the majority are in support of this, especially uh with the collar counties that have such a volume.

It's just getting the verbiage right and getting it out there.

And I think we've learned our lessons will be more successful this go around.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And and Bob, just one last question.

So this is really at its core a matter of local jurisdiction over something that happens here, right?

I mean, it's not like it's a statewide issue.

It's it's something where we want the matter decided, you know.

You know, even uh even uh taking it one step further.

I don't want the cost, I think it's wrong to factor in the cost of a hearing to determine the value as a uh as being a part of it.

It should be based the property owner should be paying uh a tax bill or have an assessment that's commensurate with what the property actually is and not being affected by the cost of the appeal.

Sure.

So that has a chilling effect.

Yes.

I guess so far.

I think we have a consensus.

Move this forward.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

The last one I have on the list is uh for member Kasmin.

If the committee remembers member casman um came and talked about um legislation that was out there regarding decriminalization of the homelessness, and it was at the end of the session, um, and the bill was no longer progressing.

So at the time the committee um talked about something we should possibly build into the 26th agenda.

So I worked with member Casman.

Make sure she was wherever you'd like to sit, Member Kasmin.

But um, but worked with Member Kasmin to put something together here and uh asked if she could come today and present the topic again and see what the committee's uh consensus was.

I'll start with a little history.

In 2024, the Supreme Court um in uh the city of grants passed B.

Johnson ruled that cities could criminalize homelessness by pr by um doing things like arresting people for um encampment camping out.

Um you can issue fines, arrests, um, and since then, 25 municipalities in Illinois have criminalized homelessness.

Um this is known to be its evidence-based that this is not a good way to handle the issue of homelessness.

Um issue of homelessness is more of a public health and high housing crisis issue.

Um it I don't think anybody could think of anything more pointless than fining an unhoused person or uh arresting them and throwing them in jail and giving them a record on top of all of the issues that they're currently experiencing.

Um it also has the unfortunate um result of enforcing the narrative of of homeless by choice, um, which is something toxic that we're we're always fighting.

Um so um this this the bill basically um reverses that for the state of Illinois.

I mean, that's the short version.

And it was that bill, HB 4 1429.

I don't know if it I saw a committee vote on it, so I don't know exactly where it died, or just you know, it was the end of the session, it wasn't able to be taken up, but um by the time it had gotten to us, um we didn't it wasn't on our legislative agenda, so we couldn't, you know, uh argue for it at the time.

And so I wanted to um put something on this legislative agenda this time around, so that when it does come up, or if it does come up again, we can we're in a position where we can track the bill and advocate for it.

Thank you.

Um Gina.

I I just see it's in the House Rules Committee if that helps.

I think I I'd be willing to support yes, Adam.

Yeah.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh thank you, Member Casb.

I know you're really passionate about this.

Um, the only thing, and I gotta put on a force preserve hat here.

I'm just a little concerned, is just I I don't want to be hypocritical either.

Um, you know, if we start wanting to support a law that bans you know bans criminalizing homeless, which I don't think I think you're 100% right, you shouldn't fine or arrest somebody because they're homeless.

But I also wonder if you pass a law of a sudden with a forced reserve, if they're in the forest reserve, that kind of tells force reserve you can't do some of the stuff.

I you know what I mean.

I'm just um I'm curious how this is gonna go because this could end up in our laps over, you know, down the way in Libertyville.

I think if we have somebody trying to camp out in the forest reserve.

I know that maybe not what we're gonna talk about in this building, but just something I I want to monitor to keep an eye on.

I I'll support because I I know your passion for us, and I think ultimately it's it's the right thing to do.

You don't want to criminalize, you don't want to find you don't want to do anything like that.

But I think we gotta be in search of a better solution.

Um, so you maybe can't stand the public property, we need to find other places to go.

But that's you know, a larger issue at hand.

But I'll support you, you know, and your in your mission on this, but just kind of with an open eye to say this could have some.

I just don't want to see this board be the board members be hypocritical somewhere down the road where we don't want a homeless encampment in the forest preserve, you know.

So that's just kind of a thought.

That's usually not an issue that's um that that we we see.

Um, but I would also say that I think the whole point is um there is a three-month wait for emergency shelter.

So it's saying, okay, you can't you can exist here, but also there's no shelter for you.

If you're in that position, then you're automatically a criminal, basically, per laws that are enacted like this.

Um, I I can ask Ty to see if um that's if if unhoused people typically camp camp out in um forest preserves, but I don't I can't imagine how anybody arresting or fining someone in the forest preserves.

I can I can we can check we can look at that policy, but yeah, it wouldn't be something we'd ever and and I checked in with the sheriff's office about this too um with Sheriff Eidelberg, and he said they would that's just something they would never do.

So he was in favor of it.

Jessica, thank you, Anna.

Thank you.

I'm supportive of this.

I appreciate you bringing it to us.

Um, member Casman, I think it's uh a lovely bill, and appreciate the um the thoughtfulness behind it.

It's a a fair question, um, Adam, about the forest reserves.

I haven't heard about that being an issue, although that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

I'm not sure, but I'm happy to check on that too.

Um, but regardless, I think you know this bill isn't saying you have to allow people to camp out wherever they might choose.

I think it's just saying you can't arrest and find them, which is perfect perfectly appropriate.

So I think there would still be um leeway for organizations to have control over their properties, but um absolutely support not criminalizing uh people for it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think we have the good fortune still having Dominic in the room.

So Dominic, could you give us some background on the uh data that you have on the unhoused population?

I I believe last report I saw said it was gone has gone up a lot.

Yeah, the last kind of hard data we have is from the pay count done early in January, and while it was down from the previous year before, it was the second highest in the past since we've been counting.

So homelessness on average is trending upward.

You mentioned the the wait list for shelter.

The resources that we have for shelter post-COVID are trending the other way, right?

The board was very generous with all the ARPAR dollars that were allocated to hotel dollar, uh hotel stays, um, but those are those are running out.

So you're correct that these people have they have nowhere to go.

But as you see it now, the there's great support for um recognizing that the young house population is at a high level, but it fluctuates from year to year, of course.

But we're we're aware of it, and we're pursuing various solutions, including your your housing coalition.

Yeah, uh numbers are trending.

I think the number one cause is the cost of housing.

You're seeing uh our numbers around first-time homelessness are up every year.

You're seeing more families who are just kind of teetering on the edge, um, one event, life event, medical emergency, loss of a job that entered into homelessness, and those numbers are rising exponentially.

Yeah, it's a significant increase in family homelessness, which that is unprecedented.

And I rents have risen like something like 50% in the last five years.

So as you can imagine, most people's wages have not risen that much.

So there you see the the issue.

Thank you so much.

It's very helpful.

Uh we have a consensus to move this forward.

Yes, thank you.

Okay.

Okay, so those were the items that I had uh that were submitted to our office.

I appreciate everybody coming and presenting those and answering questions to the committee.

And the last one um was I've been having conversations with Walter Willis regarding the Swalco program.

He's got to push his program through his uh uh board or committee.

And um, there's a number of things on there that were in our agenda last year that we'll re rule that he's basically requesting remain.

And then he's got one additional item that he'll be presenting at some point to this committee, but he just he's not ready at this point.

I'll probably end up drafting something and bringing it to you all next month.

If I can add to that, Matt, uh the Swalco Executive Board is meeting next week.

So we'll get a look at the legislative agenda at that time and we'll we'll vote on it, and you'll you'll know by and the business Thursday.

Thanks, go.

So that's the that's the number of items I have for the 26th program.

Again, I'll pull something together and there will be a draft of the program on next month's agenda for our discussion.

Okay, we have uh an executive session uh on our agenda here, but Matt has an explanation that might help us out here.

So this is the periodic review of executive session minutes that we uh have on the agenda right now.

There are two items, uh two sets of minutes, and it's actually from the revenue records and legislation committee.

If anybody was on that one way back in the day, so early teens uh 20 teens, um, that was the previous committee, those those minutes are now the the um owned by this committee.

That was the RRL committee.

There's two sets of minutes.

Uh state attorney reviewed those and recommends they remain closed.

If you want to talk about them, um we can go in executive session.

If you want to accept the recommendation of the States Attorney's Office, we don't have to go into executive session.

You would just need a motion and a second to accept and follow the states attorney's recommendations pertaining to the periodic review of executive session minutes.

So, Gia, go ahead.

Second.

Motion that we not go in executive session.

We accept the state's attorney's recommendations.

Accept and follow the state's attorney's recommendation pertaining to the review of the executive session minutes.

We have a motion, a second.

All those in favor, aye.

Any opposed.

Thank you.

So we don't go in executive session.

We accept the state's attorney's recommendation.

And do we have to approve this now?

Or no, we're set.

No other.

Okay, we're good.

All right.

Thanks on that.

Any member remarks or requests?

Very good.

Uh so we are adjourned until October 7th.

Thank you very much.