Today is October 31st, 2025, and I call the Lake County Technology Committee meeting to order at 8:30 a.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 being recorded through Zoom.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Yes.

Vice Chair Castan here.

Chair Clark?

Here.

Member Dan Forth.

Member Frank?

Member Peterson.

Member Roberts is also absent.

Yes.

They're both absent with prior notice.

All right.

Under, let's see, public.

Do we have any public comment today?

We do not.

All right.

Uh chairs remarks.

I just want to say happy Halloween, everyone.

All right.

Uh unfinished business.

There aren't any, isn't any?

So our new business is our consent agenda.

Item 8.1.

Can I get a motion in a second, please?

Motion by Dan Forth, second by Frank.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Okay, item on to our regular agenda.

Item 8.2 is a joint resolution approving a contract with Granicus Denver, Colorado, in the amount of 71,000 71,531 dollars and 85 cents for Gov Delivery Experience Engagement Cloud Essentials.

Can I get a motion in a second, please?

Motion by Kasman, second by Frank.

Good morning.

Good morning, Tammy Chapman, Chief Communications Officer.

Alex Carr, Deputy Communications Officer.

And I'm going to turn the presentation and questions over to Alex.

Real quick.

This is a contract for gov delivery.

While you may know gov delivery through board member newsletters, almost every department uses it to send mass emails to the public.

For example, the county clerk's office sends out information on elections.

DOT uses it for road closures, and the health department sends regular updates with it.

Charging by how many contacts an organization has in the platform.

LA County, we're really good at growing our subscriber lists as we currently have more than 291,000 in Gov Delivery across all the departments.

So this contract allows us to have up to 350,000 contacts in Gov Delivery's Cloud Essentials platform and continue to use the platform in fiscal year 2026.

I know it's good to we do reach a lot of people through our network.

Now that we're gonna have this new ERP system, are we does the new, and I don't know the answer.

Does the new ERP system support like an email platform also eventually?

Or are we always going to just probably stick with this one?

Do you want to I'm gonna I'm gonna uh uh give that question over to uh Patrice or someone put it in and if that's yeah if if we if no one knows the answer to that we can just like hold on that but I guess probably no but I'll I'll hand it over there.

Or it can we'll wait on that question.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so for now this sounds good.

So this works for us.

All right, any questions about this one then?

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Item 8.3 is a joint resolution authorizing an agreement with DFM Associates, Irvine, California for voter registration and electronic management for the Lake County Clerk's office in an annual amount of 191,868.

Can I get a motion in a second, please?

Motion by Frank, second by Dan Forth.

Good morning, happy Halloween.

Anthony Vega, Lake County Clerk.

Uh DFM has been in the county um since early 2003.

It is our data management um uh platform to run elections.

It is akin to the computer aided dispatch for law enforcement, akin to to ICMS for the courts.

Um it, you know, it houses all of our voter registration information.

It houses um, you know, as we're right in the middle of petition filing for candidates.

It houses our candidate management along with our incumbent management.

So it is it is encompassing of all the different facets to uh to set up an election.

Uh we've they've been a really great partner.

There are very few vendors that have this entire suite, uh, mainly because in other states, different comp different components of an election are run by different offices.

In California, you have a county clerk, a register of voters, and uh and a recorder.

Um, and they handle different functions.

Illinois, we're a bit unique, which means that our options are limited.

Uh they are a good partner.

Um, there's only one or two others that can do this, but usually at a higher cost, and one of them is brand new, uh, and they haven't even run an election.

So we like to stick with our current partner and see how the landscape develops in the coming years and kind of go from there.

All right.

Any questions?

So this is the is this so I know you're gonna get we're looking at new voter like so.

This is unrelated to actually like election day voter software.

Is that correct?

Correct.

This essentially houses it's like it's our Microsoft version for elections.

We set up the election parameters in there, which means in in those parameters, we house our candidates that have filed.

We uh create uh we start creating the template for the election ballot.

It's but it's not necessarily what actually produces what voters see on election day or what our judges see.

It is really data management.

It's our data management platform.

Okay, that makes sense.

And I saw there's a five-year um renewal.

So does that mean that does can eat both parties can renew each year?

Can decide to like if you found something different in a couple of years, you could you could do that.

You wouldn't have to automatically renew.

We we would um it's a five-year contract.

Um we do have an exit clause, so we want to exercise that.

Um, we work closely with purchasing on that.

Um, but right now this is the best partner for Lake County.

Um, to move to a new vendor is a massive data conversion um you know, effort, uh, which we have a midterm election next year, which we got.

And do you feel confident about but like the so the cybersecurity round all this data?

Is that hosted like here or is the data hosted?

It is on a secure server, and we actually have to, you know, we don't have necessarily have direct access to it from our computers.

There's a different and another layer of security.

Sometimes we have to do updates and sometimes we have to uh do exports to our other systems, but we work with um Enterprise IT um and my team on opening up the firewall to allow for some of the data exchanges.

So it is on a secure platform.

Um, and we work closely with with uh Chris Blanding's team on making sure that that data integrity is protected.

That is really good to hear.

That is very important.

All right, any other questions?

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item 8.4 is a joint resolution authorizing an agreement with Xvision Inc., South Jordan, Utah, for construction and materials management software and equipment for the Lake County Division of Transportation at a maximum cost of 87,238 dollars and appropriating 105,000 of the quarter percent sales tax for transportation funds.

Can I get a motion in a second?

Motion by Kasmin, second by Frank.

Good morning, Dr.

Committee members.

Uh Shane Schneider, County Engineer, uh, happy Halloween.

So this is our construction management software that we use at the DOT to pay our contractors.

Um it's uh a five-year uh the contract allows five extensions.

This is the fourth of those five opportunities.

Um this is a software that was originally provided by the state by IDOT, but they uh the end of life of that software occurred in 2021.

So we've been using Exhibition since then.

It's a cloud-based software.

Um, just a little bit about the software.

So with a standard transportation project, we pay out all of our um work on a pay item basis.

So a minor reservicing project might have a hundred pay items, and you know, a larger, more complex project might have 500 pay items.

And then we have to track each of those pay items on a per unit basis and pay the contractor on about a monthly basis.

So this software helps us keep track of all those quantities.

Um go through a series of approvals that's shared with the contractor, then we pay the contractor.

Umftware and it's kind of the new platform throughout the state.

Member Frank.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh couple of very couple of spit specific quick questions for you.

So does it also sort of manage the per uh project cost for fixed costs, like uh equipment trucks, things like that that are part of the DOT inventory already?

This would just primarily be for work that we're contracting out to another contractor, so it wouldn't keep our um individual inventory.

Uh we use other means to track the what the work we complete.

And is it primarily costing, or does it help with like the estimating like, hey, we're doing half a mile here and it helps with the estimate of materials and things like that?

Oh, it does, but only on the payout end.

We don't use it to develop project costs or project estimates, but we use it to manage what we're paying the contractor and we keep track of the daily work.

So we have to keep track of like what the weather is, what equipment's on site, what work was performed that day.

And that's all put into a digital diary that this manages.

Okay.

And were there any issues with the previous software that you got from IDOT, or is it just time to make a change?

It was um the software had been around for about 20 years called iCores, and the state just uh ended it because it was so antiquated and it couldn't run on modern uh computers any longer.

So I'd move to this platform as well, Exavision, but unfortunately they didn't offer it to the counties for free any longer.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yep, you're welcome.

Is this hosted here or is this like a cloud, like um like when you look at the data, because I'm always worried about the data, like security part.

So is it like they are the ones who have the the they're hosting the data like at their place and they keep it secure, or is it like we have part of it in like our like on in our part of the cloud or like to keep it secure?

Yep, exavision uses uh Microsoft's cloud network to host all the information.

So we just go in through a secure website.

Um, so our resident engineers in the field are easy either using a laptop at the field office or they're using a tablet and they're entering the data into uh this cloud-based platform, nothing stored locally on our servers.

Oh, right, yeah.

And so it feels there, you have their like you have it's only secure entry.

So everyone who's using from the tablet or whatever has their own login and it's correct, so password protected.

And um, it's probably worth noting that all the information we put into the software is you know public, publicly foyable information.

So if there was a compromise, you know, um, hackers wouldn't be getting anything they couldn't get through a FOIA.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Any other questions?

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Item 8.5 is a joint resolution appropriating 145,000 of the quarter percent sales tax for transportation funds for the Lake County Division of Transportation's project tracker system.

Can I get a motion in a second?

Motion by Frank, second by DM4th.

So this is um somewhat similar, but it's on the other end of the spectrum.

So this is our planning software that we use to program all of our projects in our five-year plan, and sometimes even projects that are a little bit further out.

Um, so uh this is our fourth one-year uh contract extension.

So we've been using this for for this will be the fifth year.

Um this is uh utilized for all of our projects in the five-year tip.

It's also used by CMAP and IDOT to do their programming.

It's kind of the industry standard platform that's used throughout the country, about 40 different states use this uh platform.

There's I think nationally, I heard there's like 400 billion dollars of transportation programming that occurs through this software.

Um we've got about one billion dollars worth of projects programmed through it.

Um one of the key advantages to this software is it has a public facing module.

So as we put information in throughout the year and update our projects, um, all that is available to the public.

They can see the schedule for every single project that's in our five-year tip.

They can see the funding uh by fund source, and it also has some kind of neat visuals and graphics as well as a mapping aspect that's all available to the public.

So it it really adds a lot of transparency to what we're what we're doing.

Yes, I enjoy that part of the website where you can see all that.

So this is where that comes from then.

Correct.

Interesting.

Member Frank.

Thank you, Chair.

So you mentioned that CMAP uses the same software.

Is there some interoperability in terms of hey, they can have uh visibility of things that are on your short-term, long-term project list?

Do they have access to that data?

They do.

And and one of the nice things about using the same platform is uh CMAP keeps a keeps track of every project that's federally funded in Northeast Illinois.

So when we have projects that are federally funding, those two databases can talk back and forth.

And then the state also uses it.

Um, and the state has to approve all the federally funded projects in CMAP's plan.

So it makes the approval process much easier when we're all on the same platform.

Is there ever dialogue or feedback from the planning agency regarding something that's on our list where they're like, hey, you're doing this road and a quarter mile away in McHenry County, they're doing something that's a parallel route, like, hey, you guys, you know, it's it's a redundancy here, et cetera.

Is it are those conversations happening?

We we do have those conversations.

They don't necessarily come from CMAP, but all of the counties in our area share our five-year plans with each other, and then our staff reviews them to make sure that kind of stuff um doesn't happen.

Okay, thank you.

Make it sure.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Okay, so there can be data sharing then between the different like governmental entities that are using this.

So like you can see, oh, that is really interesting.

That makes a lot of sense to use it.

And is you know, is there a reason that this and the left previous item are separate software?

Like the like could it ever have a software solution where they're both together?

It like where you it tracks both the paying out and the projects.

I'm just curious if so, I mean they're individual companies, they've kind of made their business decision where they want to focus their efforts, and and currently they're they're two separate uh platforms.

Um we we we did you know present both of these softwares to our workday partners, and they did an analysis and they determined they currently don't offer this functionality, but um, you know, these are one year renewals, so we're constantly looking to see if there's something in the marketplace that could serve our needs better.

Oh, good.

Yeah, I'm glad you looked because I know work day can do a lot of interesting things.

So we'll see, maybe in the future.

Did you have a question?

No.

All right.

And the questions all in favor, aye, any opposed motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, item 8.6 is a joint resolution authorizing a contract renewal of core view with C DWG of Vernon Hills, Illinois, in the amount of 134,000 347 dollars.

Can I get a motion in a second?

Motion by Kasmin, second by Danforth.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Chris Glanding, CIO.

Eric Carlson, CTO.

Uh, before you is a renewal of a piece of software we use to manage across the enterprise, so all departments it manages our we use it uh for onboarding, and Eric will talk about it, but our Microsoft environment, so email calendar, Teams, et cetera.

Um, again, throughout the enterprise, so all departments.

Eric will tell you a little bit about it.

Sure.

In a in a nutshell, CoreView provides us really three critical functions.

The first is it automates, it brings automation really to the table.

It automates uh account creation and it reduces a lot a lot of our provisioning time by about 90%.

Um the second thing it does is it enforces uh very consistent and reliable um security configuration um for all the accounts that get created, um, and also an audit trail for everything that we do.

And then the third uh feature it does is it allows us to delegate administration.

Um just as a quick example, if a new user is onboarded, uh it can take up to 40 manual steps um to get them um set up.

Um that process is usually very slow, it's time consuming.

Um, it's very prone to human error.

And in that case, if you make a mistake, it could expose sensitive information, which could even lead to a security incident.

So this software allows us to automate that process um and reduce errors, um, also enforce standardization across all the departments.

Um so we've been using this for three years, it's been very successful and really essential.

So happy to answer any questions about Core View.

Yeah, I know I've read this, and then I still in what was your first thing it does?

Could you repeat that?

Yeah, because that's one thing I just didn't really automation.

So it's automation automation.

So uh it's a very manual process, and you can picture we have 28 departments, all different configurations, different groups within those departments.

Uh, some of these people have very sensitive information in them, and you can't make mistakes.

Right.

Um, and so setting that up, you have to like pick the groups and add the person to the thing.

Um, it is a very um tedious and very error-prone.

And this does that instead.

It does that.

It's basically we set up templates across all the departments, and then they can just click a button and it does it perfectly every time.

Also audits it so we can run reports and see what everybody has.

Send those reports to departments to make sure things like so it's like permission.

So, like you could say, like if you're this person, you should have these permissions of to access this data.

And then it can so it can do that, and then it also can check to make sure that it's being done properly.

And and and who's accessing.

Those audit trails are very important if we ever have a security incident.

Yeah, we have to go back and figure out what happened, what changed, who changed it, when it changed, those are all very critical things, and uh that's very difficult to do in the default Microsoft environment, and it's really what Core View does exceptionally well.

So you could find out if somebody allowed a certain permission or this is like the detective software part.

Yep, exactly.

All right, and it's across all it's just the Microsoft products.

It's across the entire Microsoft environment.

Um it's a tough one to explain.

We've really and Eric has a whole like story.

Uh we're trying to balance a line between the case.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

It is a it's a behind the scenes type thing, right?

When a new user starts, we got to set up their email and permissions, like you said, and all that stuff, and it's a very manual process.

So the gap there, uh, companies like this come up because they see gaps and oh, we can make this much more efficient, et cetera.

So companies like this offer these pro services.

We tried it out.

We've been using it for three years and find it very uh effective basically because of the lack of errors and the consistency setup templates, and then it's just all automated.

So we will look at um competitors potentially moving forward.

Uh their prices are increasing, you know, a little bit beyond the standard, you know, cost of living or whatever you call it.

Um but uh at this point, so we'll take it year by year.

We have the option to renew in this request.

Uh, but we are going to look at some competitors.

Yeah, because it was a cooperative purchasing agreement, right?

So this was uh you just needed that.

Yeah, so that would that's good to know.

Thanks, Chair.

So I I'm interested to know has Microsoft ever attempted to come up with something like this, or just improve that?

That's my first question to Eric.

Why doesn't Microsoft do this?

And uh yeah, he explained it just kind of like I said, they they just do the product and and somebody comes along and says, Yeah, we can make it better to manage it.

And for whatever reason, well, what you said, Microsoft will probably buy this up at some point.

No, what we've seen in the industry is there's lots of products that come up around Google, Microsoft, Amazon, because they're they and they end up buying these companies one by one as they see it fit into the performance or they want to focus on it.

So that's how a startup becomes part of that's how we become we find uh find a gap to make it better, and then they usually get gobbled up.

But uh that is the first question I ask.

Why do why doesn't Microsoft offer this?

Yeah.

All right.

So this is a one year, do you say uh with renewable with four additional potential renewable options?

But you're gonna keep an eye on the market and see if anything else comes up that you'd like better.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Thank you, Eric.

All right, item 9.1 is our enterprise resource planning system implementation update.

We've been waiting with baited breath.

Uh I don't have Patrice Evans with me.

Um, the internal project manager, but I am going to give this update here.

And I didn't prep as much as I thought back there.

I forgot.

So um current status project is paused.

We know that, right?

We paused it uh about the end of September.

And the reasons in general, um, you know, we talked about you do configuration, you do testing, you do they they set everything up, and then you get to end-to-end testing where people really start seeing like, all right, I'm gonna do this process, it goes through, I'm seeing errors, all that stuff.

And then they clean up the errors and it's this ongoing process.

Well, we found some I'll call them kind of foundational gaps uh through that testing and with our our um our finance data model, uh, which is the chart of accounts, et cetera, based around did we set it up for the most efficiency type things like that?

Do we take advantage of the software as much as we could?

Um, or did we kind of build it like the current system is built, which is a big challenge when you do an ERP.

Um, and a lot of that is related to change management and process changes.

So we're pausing strategically to go back and say, all right, do we do these things?

Are we taking advantage of the software?

Um and we're working with our system integrator to say, how are we gonna identify these things?

How are you gonna identify these?

Um, we don't think it was done uh as we envisioned it.

So we're challenging them on that.

And that's where the pause is right now, working with them saying, how are you gonna do this?

How are we gonna move forward differently?

Um, and not just uh do the same thing we did before.

And so is that with the thank you.

Is that with the consultants are gonna be redoing that?

I mean, like, are is that who you're challenging, or are we challenging?

Yeah, and I don't mean to say challenge, challenge.

Just like, hey, we don't want to we're taking a pause strategically to make sure we got it right, because through end-to-end, there seemed to be some errors that kind of led us to that.

Did we really take advantage of this?

Um and we found ourselves perhaps touching on customization, which you don't really want to do.

And then why are we doing that?

Um, in fact, instead, let's go back and make sure we did do this.

I won't call it centralization, but in some cases, our workflows and our processes, that's the biggest challenge with an ERP is that you're looking at those and saying, let's not just do it how we did it today.

Could there be a more efficient way that the software does it?

And in some cases, the software you have to customize it if you're gonna go outside that and not do that um those efficient ways of doing it.

So, yes, the system integrator, when we uh engaged with work day, you get a system integrator as part of the program.

So we engage with this company, and they are the ones that we are talking to about how are we gonna do this moving forward.

Am I right that every customization equals more money and it's more burdensome and um right?

Isn't that one of the reasons why we wanted to move on from the current?

I mean, obviously the fact that it's very antiquated is one of the reasons, but it's all these custom customizations and band-aids.

Um I think um, so the consultant, um, I would assume hopefully they've worked with county style governments in Illinois before.

And so they're informed by that.

Like they'll look at the way other counties are set up and sort of be informed by that.

I know every county is different, but yeah, absolutely.

We ask for state and local uh government experience.

Um that's another thing where we're looking at some of the team and saying, hey, look, perhaps we need some more in some more depth in those areas, et cetera.

So that's also part of the the pause as we work with them.

I wouldn't say customization equals money at this point.

It could, if it goes outside of the scope, and then then you're into a change order where it equals money.

For me, it's customization.

You don't want to do customization when you buy a piece of software, especially like workday that is meant to work efficiently, you should adapt to the software and use it that way.

And that's where we get into change management, because you get into, well, this is the way we've always done it, because the former ERP solutions couldn't do everything people needed.

So you had to customize it.

And now you get 20 years later and you're looking and saying, well, we could do things differently, and you run up against that challenge of, well, this is how we do it, and that's a change.

So it sometimes it's not really a technical problem, it's a change management problem, is what we say.

Yeah, I know as someone who went through a workday um implementation at my other job.

I do it was but the whole first year was like, well, we used to do it this way, and now we have to do it this other way.

So I get that, because it can it is sort of jarring to it's a whole different system, and you know, you register, but so I guess I'm I only can is it but did we not know that from the beginning?

So that's why, like, was this a surprise right now?

Like I understand, I mean, we you know, there's there's a it's a lot to implement this, but what was it a surprise that this was like that the there were systems that we needed to adopt to, you know, like what you know, this doesn't seem like it would have been a new thing that you you know they just figured out.

Was it the maybe the planning wasn't quite right, or that consultant team, or or is it you know, or it's a great question.

Um, so I try to stay away from pointing fingers.

Uh yeah.

Um because I yeah, we're working forward a partnership.

We knew it was gonna be a change management effort versus really technology.

And that's hard to do.

And we built it into the obviously into the contract, and we were gonna do that.

And it just we were new to it too.

That's why you have a system integrator and you you trust there.

So it is something we knew would be a big challenge.

We know it's a big challenge.

We deal with it every day.

This is a difficult environment, you know.

And um, so it didn't get done to what we our expectations were, we felt at this point.

And we said, let's pause and make sure we do that, even if we have to step back a bit versus just forging ahead and then end up with the system that is not taking advantage of the efficiencies of workday has.

And so good news is now we're a lot, you know, smarter having been through it to this point.

And so we're gonna reset and make sure we do that change management.

Yeah, and I'm glad to hear that, because I know I mean, nothing would be, I think it's it's much worse to have it and then have to keep making changes.

Because if you're gonna change it, you might as well change it all at one time instead of being like we changed it, oh now we're changing it again.

So I'm glad you're taking the time to make sure it is the system you want before you implement the big change.

And so my last question, I don't want to delab it, is um people ask me, so when you say pause, what does that mean that like when it's paused?

Does that mean like who no one's working on it or like who is working on it, or like what do you mean by like by pause?

Is it like a rest break?

Like what is uh or is what's going on during this pause?

Yeah, another great question.

So the the way the project, I mean, it was on a tight timeline.

Yeah.

And so just gonna keep going.

Meetings, people then asking, well, why are we continuing down this road?

End to end was done.

So now you're really moving towards that go live, which was gonna be 12-1.

And so we said, no, we need to pause.

We need to stop work on the project.

And so that's what we did.

We are doing some work behind the scenes on on our part, kind of to start that change management and understand some of the chart of accounts stuff and and how we might design that.

So we're doing that work to not totally be stopped.

But the project team is not forging ahead at the pace they were before.

Do you know about like just a general your feeling for now the new like how much longer?

Yeah, six months, like yeah.

Um, so that's one of the things we're discussing.

And you know, it's easy to pick a date, but we're saying, well, show us how we're gonna get this change management done.

Um the advice is that a quarter is a good time to go live.

So if you take that advice, I think it looks at July 1st or September, whatever.

The end of September.

Um it's also ARPA funded, so it has to be complete by the end of 26.

So that would probably be a logical latest we would do it.

It doesn't mean we couldn't do it off quarter, but that's the advice I think that our team agrees with.

Um, so we're looking at potentially a July or September or somewhere in between, if that gives you some reference point.

And so there's gonna be a budget change, I would have think with all this extra time.

Or maybe not.

Um be good news.

Working that out of the way.

We'll state news on that one.

Yeah, well.

We'll see, right?

I'd like to pause and just see if our our sponsor, Administrator Sutton, wants to add anything that I may have not said clearly or wants to clarify.

Yeah, so I I think when we introduced this project to you, uh, we can, you know, we were very, very clear that we were using a rapid implementation methodology.

Um, you know, it personally gave me pause just because this organization is uh very complex, you know, and and all county governments are.

Um, but you know, we needed to pay extra attention to trying to figure out how to make this system work for all of our departments.

And um unfortunately, when you're kind of using a rapid implementation model, it is the organizational change management that goes first, frankly.

Um we were really focused on configuring the new system.

And the best foundation that our team members had for doing that was kind of doing what we currently do in our current system.

And um, as we got to end to end, I I first of all, you know, wasn't sure that we had maximized the use of the system.

And um, second of all, you know, had we included the right mix of people to really ensure that it was gonna work um for all of our um departments with their complex needs.

So I do think the rapid methodology for us uh was a little bit of a challenge from the very beginning.

And um, you know, we may not have maximized the use of our time during all of those phases.

So um as to the question of you know, why the pause, how long is the pause?

Um, we're in the process of you know, just trying to figure out what you know wasn't done according to the contract before, rather than just adding more cost.

So it's it's a negotiation, it's a contract um time period, and it's uh not in our opinion a good idea to plow ahead on things um without kind of confirming what what we're redoing from before or what we are changing for the future, um, because you know, whether the county has to pay more money for that kind of thing is is um what we need to determine.

So that being said, you know, when you don't have um the expertise guiding you, it's a little bit probably not a great idea to plow forward.

Um that being said, there are things that we feel confident that we can be working on during this time, and I think the team has good done a good job of figuring out what those things are, and they are working on some items of the project.

Thank you.

And and I'm glad to hear, I mean, and I do want to thank you, Patrice and Patrice who's on here and Chris and the whole the whole county for working on this.

I mean, the good news is I mean, I think taking your time, making sure this is the product that when we un when we unveil this, it works and it does what we want, and we can use it for the next 20 years, perhaps, um, is so important.

So I'm so glad to hear that's being methodical.

I'm also glad, I mean, from our ARPA deadline, we still have through next year.

So we can still be on time, have this done, you know, done right.

And I as I said, as someone who's been through this change management, if it would be a lot more difficult if we rapidly did it and then it wasn't what we wanted.

And then because people then get frustrated and won't use it, and then they start doing workarounds and things, and we do not want that.

So I really want to thank everybody involved for taking their time to make sure that this is exactly what will make us more efficient, we'd be effective, and that after the initial like, what is this?

People will be on board and and using it.

So and I know this is a lot of work for everyone.

So I really want to thank everybody involved.

And I'm glad that you paused when you needed to and to make sure it's done right.

All right, any other questions?

All right, thank you.

And then I was gonna say, do you have a director's report so that we could if you wanted to do that first?

I do not have a director's report.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I know I'm sure we will hear more as this goes with our ERP system.

Okay, item 9.2 is a broadband update from our broadband team and digital equity team.

Good morning, everyone.

Kay Crandall, Digital Equity Manager.

Good morning, Kim Lund, digital equity coordinator.

All right, and we've got a presentation for you all.

Um right, so today we'll be giving some updates on the uh bead process and provisional awards that have been announced by the state of Illinois, as well as some updates on our digital navigator program and uh some recent um information on our September meeting.

That was our in-person meeting.

And uh first, I want to welcome three new staff to our team.

If I can have them stand, we have um Anna Edot, uh Chanel Garrett and Khalila Clark here, who are three new digital navigators to our team.

And thank you so much for being here this morning.

They're already in the field doing great work, and uh, so we're happy to have them on board.

Welcome.

And so we've got a full team of 10 people, which is really exciting.

I started last March working on this, and I can't believe how much the team has grown.

So thank you all for your support, and we're able to do a lot of good work in the community with this robust team.

So I will get us started with uh discussing the Bede Provisional Awards and just some background context.

Um, that the uh Illinois uh broadband team submitted the broadband equity access and deployment or bead final proposal to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on September 30th.

Now Illinois is moving toward uh the curing phase, addressing questions and feedback from the NTIA.

And NTIA has committed to completing its final review of the proposal within 90 days of submission, which means the grant awards will move from provisional to final at the start of the new year.

So in the meantime, uh in the meantime, we can explore the provisional awards on maps.

Uh so this is what's depicted on the slide here, and this is just an example of um it's our county, and on the right, I've got one of those dots selected.

It's actually a community anchor institution, the Fox Lake Police Department, as an example of a community anchor institution.

And the those are the blue dots on the map, and the green dots are all of the underserved or unserved locations on the map.

So uh this interactive map is available for view at Illinois Bead.org, and it's being updated on a regular basis with new features and data.

And it is a really well put together map.

Um we are looking at um this map to allow users to visualize the awards by location type, broadband provider, and technology.

So I've done some of that here.

On this next slide, you can see two different providers.

So on the left is Amazon, uh, which is providing a satellite service and all of their dots.

Uh so the green dots have now become color-coded to the technology being provided by um the provider.

So then on the right, we have Comcast providing coaxial cable fiber, and um, they have uh or coaxial cable and fiber.

So there's two different colored dots on that map.

So between all the green dots, it's broken down by provider, and then we can see the technology.

So uh Amazon is bringing in a substantial amount of satellite technology that's covering a huge part of the county.

It's really just that western part in there that's that's not covered with the satellite.

And then we see more of the coaxial cable and fiber coming in on the northern part um of the county, and it's kind of zoomed in to show the coverage area.

And then uh there's two others.

So on this next slide, we have Illinois Bell or ATT, and then strategic management.

And so these are both fiber to the premises, and you can see that the ATT side is pretty sparse, and then strategic management is targeting the western part of the county where we saw that gap in satellite services from Amazon.

So we're really excited to see three of the four providers that have received provisional awards from the state are bringing in fiber to the county.

And so that is really what we're looking for as far as future-proof technology and providing quality service to households.

And this is just on the bead side of things.

So these are the awards uh and areas that we can expect implementation to be happening over the next however many years.

We'll find out more once NTIA has uh announced confirmation of these provisional awards.

But uh just uh another background is is there are other providers coming in, not with these BED funds that are implementing technologies.

So we're seeing an increase in competition over uh these different technologies satellite, coax and fiber to the premises.

And so it's it's really an exciting time to see all of this shifting and increased competition.

As we know, um, some areas of the county, it's it's not easy to get a good connection if you've been working from home or trained to connect um to the internet in any way.

So any questions on that?

No, this is really exciting.

I mean, I remember when we first started looking at this, how little fiber there was in the whole county, and between the Bede program and you said other people coming in just for competition.

I feel like over 10 years, it's just gonna be totally transformed.

And hopefully, it'll be interesting to do a survey again in 10 years and see what percentage of our residents have fiber access.

I'm hoping I do by then, fingers crossed.

But for across all these underserved areas and unserved areas.

So when you looked at the maps, like just eyeballing it, it for me eyeballing it too.

It looks like some of our areas we had that had areas residents that did not have and maybe any or very slow, like DSL access.

It looks like that they are probably going to have um be covered.

Yeah, absolutely.

And looking at this, the map on the right here for strategic management, I think this is primarily member Danforth's district, actually.

Um, and I lived in this part of the county, and so it was limited to certain providers.

And so seeing more fiber coming in from another provider, I think is huge, especially as uh we think about the topical like or um like the actual landscape.

Uh we have a lot of bogs, lots of waterways, and that has inhibited providers from coming in to complete construction on these types of projects because it's a little bit more challenging.

So it's exciting to see that uh fiber implementation coming through, despite those challenges and up into the north through Fox Lake as well.

Um, lots of waterways up there, but um, there's a lot of people that live there, so it's it's good to see that they're going to be getting that option.

And I think this is happening in the whole country, all part of that infrastructure bill a couple of years ago from the federal government to see, you know, under the Biden administration to see that this is gonna really change our country and make this so much more accessible.

Now, the affordable part I'm a little worried about, but that I guess is a story for another day, since that has changed with our new um administration.

Did you have a question?

Yes, vice chair.

No, it's really more of a comment.

I I think um I don't know if you recall during one of our public uh info sessions, people really were worried about competition.

It's exciting to see it open up because I think competition will yield a certain amount of affordability, hopefully, um, and a certain amount of quality improvement in quality standards, right?

I mean, if you're the only you're the only game in town, and I mean you you're not really incentivized to improve quality or or or speed for for neighbors, and that's I heard a lot of that while I was talking to community members um in, you know, in 2019.

Um so it's it's it's just exciting to exciting to see things open up to to more competition.

I think that will in itself yield uh better, uh better products and and and hopefully, hopefully better price.

Thanks.

Yeah, and a lot of this goes back to the work we did as a board on putting our that map together on all the mailings we did, all the outreach to make sure the map was good.

And when I talk to, you know, ISPs now, they're like that map really made us see the need the need that was here and has brought all this competition here.

So I'm glad that we all as a board have really supported this.

And that our team has done such a great job.

All right.

So um I want to show all up to date what we have accomplished uh with our uh our classes and our uh devices and all of that.

So ultimately through September of this year, we have served 3,286 residents, and that is with 2708 hours of engagement.

And then we've held 2464 sessions, as well as giving out 806 devices.

So exciting, wonderful, keeps keeps going up.

I wanted to show here a couple of our classes.

So this is uh most recent University Center of Lake County, cohort number three that we've done there, and then the Patricia A.

Jones Center as well.

And both of these locations we are continuing our partnership with.

And then I just wanted to go through the um coalition meeting from September, which was an in-person meeting.

We had 47 attendees there.

Uh 38 were not um 38 attendees were not related to our team.

Uh, so there were nine of us that were on the team and 38 other individuals, 30, 23 organizations represented, and there were eight community members there, which is exciting to see.

So with that, um we had a wonderful warm welcome from Vice Chair Kasbund, and we had our we had new team member introductions, and then we did a spotlight on the Lake County libraries that we're working with.

Um, and so we had an overview of some of the libraries, but Laura Ramirez, the library director of Highwood Library and Community Center presented, as well as Vanessa Burns, the adult services manager at the Waukegan Public Library.

So that was nice to hear from their perspective, how we're impacting them.

We also did a fun activity centered around specific resident scenarios and how our program and partners can work to ensure digital equity in those scenarios.

So we got a lot of good feedback on that.

That um uh it was just uh impactful, I believe, in getting into those individual scenarios of what somebody experiences when they're just trying to uh get to the doctor and how all of the things transportation, uh you know, getting into their portals, all of that is so important.

Um, so it was great.

And then we did an update on our metrics and had our marketing toolkit presented, talked about the digital equity uh activities in October.

And then we had an amazing personal closing from Vice Chair Kasbin, uh, which finished up that meeting.

So we've received a lot of good feedback from that meeting and yeah, that was it.

So with that, any questions?

Yeah, vice chair.

So I just want to comment on the group activity.

I thought that was a really I've I've done a bunch of group activities and a bunch of, I thought that was really helpful at bringing out um what the power of the coalition could do for organizations.

I know in in at least in in the session that I was in, um, we got to a point and they were they thought, well, what what would we do?

You know, what would we do at this point?

And I said, well, what you could do is you could call, you could connect with with the county staff, and they can help turn you toward an organization that can help plug that gap for you.

Because that was one of the things that I found when I was doing, you know, when I was first researching was this organization had this part of the puzzle, and this organization had this part of the puzzle, but they didn't know that.

And um, together they could serve their their clients so much better if they had if they had a partnership for that.

So I I love that um that that particular exercise brought out the power of all of us working together and sharing information that that was really lovely.

Thanks.

I know.

I I think the digital I I totally agree.

It's like when you've been going to the meetings, when you see people talking with each other, it's like, and I think that's the role we're playing, right?

As the convener is getting people together so that they can make these connections, we can help make it happen to make everybody more like more effective and have more ideas and help our residents even more.

And they are the most uh positive uplifting um things.

This is my little thing.

So I hope all board members at some point could come visit one of our in-person coalition meetings, maybe the next one.

When is the next one in January or April?

Oh, in April.

All right, so you've got lots of notice.

We're going to put it on everyone's calendars.

Um, that we can come in person um just to experience it to see how people's lives are changed, to see how having this access, like everything we've talked about here, having the access, having the training and the learn to earn programs are amazing.

All right, digital navigators are amazing, and how people's lives are made better and improved by just you know having these tools and the training.

And I'm really proud of the work we're doing.

And I'm I want to thank you both and your whole staffs for it's just a lot of good news here in Lake County.

And I'm glad that we're um it's it's an honor to be a part of it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

All right.

Do we have a county administrator's report?

We do not.

All right, then we are going to an executive session.

So items 12.1 and 12.2 is to go in executive session to review closed session minutes pursuant to five ILCS 120 slash 2C.

And then 12.2 is executive session to discuss a personnel matter pursuant to five ILCS 120 slash 2c1.

Can I get a motion in a second, please?

Motion by Peterson, second by Kasmin.

Can I have a roll call, please?

Mr.

Kasman.

Chair Clark.

Aye.

Member Frank.

Member Peterson.

All right.

Welcome back from we are now outside of closed session.

Um, all right.

So can I get a okay?

So for item 13.1, that is committee action regarding periodic review of closed session minutes.

So could I have a motion in a second to postpone this item indefinitely?

Motion by Vice Chair Kasmin, second by Peterson.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

And then items 13.2 and 13.3 are committee action approving the technology committee executive session minutes from March 28th, 2025, and committee action approving the technology committee executive session minutes from May 2nd, 2025.

Can I get a motion in a second, please?

Motion by Frank, second by Dan Forth.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Wonderful.

Do we have any members' remarks today?

I'll say happy Halloween again.

All right.

All right.

I declare this meeting adjourned.

Our next meeting is what?

Is it January 30th?

Oh, that's a good one.

Hold on one second.

Due to the holidays, there was um a cancellation or not an unscheduling of meeting.

Hold on one second.

I shouldn't have declared us adjourned.

We need one more second.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday and the Christmas slash New Year's holidays, um, there were some meetings that were left unscheduled for the technology committee.

So um, but we will have a need for a technology committee for the December board.

So um I'm gonna be working with the chairs to try and find a uh potential dates and just please look for the email from Teresa with uh a request to see your availability.

We will eventually maybe earlier in the month as opposed to later in the that's the plan.

Yeah, that is the plan.

Yes, but yes, there's too much technology.

We couldn't not meet until January 30th.

So all right, have a good day, everyone.