It is Thursday, November 6th, 2025.

It's at 8 31 a.m.

Call to order the Lake County Board's Financial and Administrative Committee.

Please rise.

Vice Chair, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

In addition to being able to attend in person, remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom.

This meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

Per our rules in the Open Meetings Act, attendance via remote means is permitted for qualifying reasons as long as the majority of the members are present.

We've been notified in advance by member main that they request to participate electronically due to work.

Can we have a roll call, please?

Member Clark.

Chair Frank.

Here.

Member Hewitt?

Member Maine.

Present.

Vice Chair Parek.

Member Peterson.

Member Belitzik.

Thank you.

Do we have any addenda to the agenda?

No addenda.

I have one brief chair remark, and that is we will all endeavor to use our microphones appropriately today, preventing any need for reminders to use our microphones appropriately for those attending remotely.

Do we have any unfinished business?

No.

Motion on these items by member Clark, second by member Hewitt.

Anything that needs to be pulled, discussed.

Comments, questions.

I just want to clarify that item 8.3 was amended by HCS.

It is a whereas clause as well as one of the staff bullets that stated that this is grants, but um it will be revised to correctly state that this is actually a fee revision when we take it to the county board.

But it had to come forward the way it was originally on our uh agenda because that had come out before the HCS agenda came out.

But um item 8.3 will be approved as amended by HCS.

Any questions on that item?

Anything else?

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

Consent agenda items are approved.

Regular agenda 8.20 is an ordinance providing for the levy for the direct annual tax efficient to produce $50,000 for SSA number eight.

Motion to approve by Vice Chair Parek, second by member Bulitic.

Morning.

Anything we need to know anything different about the Loon Lake SSA this year.

Oh, good morning, uh Chair Frank members uh Regina Tuzak, Chief Financial Officer.

Uh, these ordinances, there's um annual tax levies for six special service areas, which are included in the presented budget.

Uh these levies are requested by residents of the applicable areas and have previously been approved by the lake county board.

Um, these special service areas exist for purposes such as lake maintenance, street maintenance, or in some cases, uh debt service.

Okay.

I see now that we have several on here.

Um do we want to amend the motion to include them all?

So that would be item um 21, which is the Northeast Lake Facilities Planning Special Service Area, item 22, special service area number 12, item 23, special service area number 13, item 24, SSA number 14, Oak Pond Lane, item 25, SSA number 17, Ivanhoe states.

I think that's all.

So uh 20 through 25.

Is that okay to amend that motion?

Yeah, that is good.

Yes, okay.

Great.

Any comments or questions on the SSAs?

Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed, those items are approved.

Item 8.26 is an ordinance recommending a real property tax levy providing for apportionment of taxes, the amount of 186,114, 186 million, 114,787 across various items in the fiscal year 2026 appropriation ordinance as adopted by the county board of Lake County, Illinois.

Motion to approve by Vice Chair Park, second by member of Lisic.

This ordinance identifies the amount of tax dollars to be allocated to each of the county property tax funds for tax year 2025 collected in 2026.

The amount is consistent with with what has been presented in the budget hearings.

Just as a reminder, in September, the board accepted and placed on file in an estimate of the full allowable tax levy, which was over 188 million dollars using the property tax extension limitation law, which would be an increase of 2.9%.

But this budget, which is a balanced budget, only uses half of the allowable amount under the PTL or 1.45%.

So approximately 2.7 million of the allowable amount is not included in the budget.

Okay.

So this is the approval of the property tax levy to support the fiscal 26 budget, as you said.

Um I appreciate and commend your department and all of uh all of your colleagues for the great work we did uh together on this year's budget.

I think um, you know, there's been a lot of discussion about are we are we keeping enough in contingency?

Are we preparing for the future sufficiently?

And and I feel confident that we are, and it is a balancing act to make sure that we we have enough revenue to support our goals and operations and also provide for contingencies that we we don't know what they're gonna be yet.

So um I think we landed in a good spot.

Other comments or questions on the levy itself.

Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Why?

Oh, I'm sorry.

I had my hand up.

I had my hand up.

Go ahead, member main.

Well, have you voted?

You will have not completed the vote, no.

Okay.

Um, yeah, because my question is this is and it's uh a little bit obvious, but the budget contains money that's not in the tax levies, correct?

Is that correct?

Yeah, there are there.

Go ahead, Edmunds.

Yes, the property tax is only about a third of the total revenues.

That's correct.

But the but the levy has built into it assumptions in the budget.

So if I have it, my let me cut to the chase.

If I have issues with the final budget, then it would follow that I would have issues with the levy.

I'll say not necessarily.

Yeah, that's what I was that's why I asked.

Um I'll be yeah, but but the levy it I this is determining in the different departments, but there is an aggregate amount that has built into it the full amount of the the CPI and new growth.

Is that correct?

This um amount is half of the allowable CPI and our new growth.

Okay, then I then thank you, and I will be a nine.

Yeah, and and to your question, if I may just elaborate, please yeah, we did not modify the the levy from scenario one, right?

That this is this is where we're at.

The modifications that are uh going to be discussed and considered today um are funded by other other sources, but not by the levy entirely.

Thank you very much for the explanation.

Okay.

Sorry that I missed your hand.

Any other comments or questions?

Okay, on 8.26.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, 8.26 is approved.

8.27 is an ordinance recommending fiscal year 2026 2026 annual budget and appropriation ordinance for the county, having budget said budget having been made conveniently available for public inspection at least 15 days by posting in the office of the county clerk and on the county website.

Motion to approve the 2026 annual budget by Vice Chair Perak, second by member of Olitzik.

Good morning.

Uh Michael Wheeler, budget manager of finance.

I believe uh deputy county administrator is handing out the actual amendments.

Essentially, what this is is it's the FY26 budget.

It includes the recommended budget document that's been posted on the website that we've all gone through that you all have gone through in the hearings.

Uh, and it also includes amendments that have been discussed throughout the budget process, including in the budget hearings and last week.

And I believe what uh he just handed out is the actual list of amendments, which I'm prepared to walk through.

Uh, assuming that's what the committee would like would like, I'm happy to do that.

Okay, and um, does member main have the handout?

It's attached to the agenda.

I just thought that it would be a little bit easier to read um on paper.

Great.

Would you like us to walk through the amendments?

I I will say the only one that has really changed since last Thursday is um PTO 7 on page two and SR one, which both relate to the new circuit clerk operations and circuit court clerk operations and administrative funds.

Um as discussed last Thursday, um the direction of the committee was to maximize um the use of the operational funds, the new fund, and therefore reduce the um circuit court clerk's general fund budget.

So PTO 7 removes um 750,000 roughly.

It's not quite that much.

I don't know what the I like 701, just a little over 700,000.

Okay, yeah.

Can you calculate that for me, please?

Um, and then we didn't take it completely out of the general fund.

We moved it into contingency.

So you can see that the second grouping of lines in that same PTO seven just moves it into contingency.

Um then down below, because um the original budget that you passed included only commodities and contractual services.

The there was a modification to the circuit court clerk's operation administrative fund to include some money in regular wages, salaries and wages as well.

Subsequent conversations have been held with the circuit court clerk's office, and they do have an alternate um budget that they would prefer for the circuit court clerk's operations and administrative fund.

And I believe that they are prepared to discuss it today if allowed.

Yeah, and I think it's appropriate that we, you know, uh can consider the the input on this.

Um, but I I think you know, like you said, administrator Sutton, this amendment aligns with what we discussed last uh last time, and this is the direction that we gave the administrator.

Um if the reason I think it's important that we have a little bit of discussion on this is because uh there are still questions being raised um about allowable uses of the fund.

And it's one of the reasons why I sort of landed on the side of of caution in terms of hey, if if we have these funds in contingency and we're wrong about the allowable uses, we need to make an amendment later.

They are they're there for us, and we can make a transfer.

None of us have the goal of under budgeting the circuit clerk shorts office or handicapping their operations.

That's that's not what we're trying to do.

We're just trying to ensure that we're budgeting accurately and making sure that that funds are there that are needed.

Um so yeah, I mean, we're open to open to comments from the circuit court clerk's office uh on on this approach, but this amendment is what we directed administrator Sutton to do last week.

I don't see them present.

Erin just walked.

Oh, Aaron is here.

Yep.

Circuit court clerk Weinstein.

How are you?

Good.

So we were just talking about um the budget amendment that is uh here with us.

We do have a handout, which is your proposal on how to spend it.

And I don't know if you wanted to take a minute to talk about it.

Um, but the the amendment that we have in front of us, just for your awareness, does align with what we had um as committee had directed county administrator to prepare last week.

Yeah, we can assist with handing those out so that you can speak.

Yeah.

So good morning.

Um we worked through this with um Patrice as well as myself and um Jennifer Ruthundi to try and figure out exactly how we could make this fund make sense.

So we had we had received from all of or from you last time a budget, which we have put in line three here that didn't align with any actual expenditures.

So we went through all of our expenditures, figured out exactly um what we could use the fund for, and we went through and we lined up in your column for what we believe is appropriate under this under this fund.

Additionally, I don't want this fund to drain down to zero and then we can't budget from it next year.

I think we need to be able to find a consistent way to maintain the fund and use the fund, but not have the fund run out.

If we go with what was proposed when we were here last time, it runs the fund down to zero before next year, and it doesn't define what expenditures come out of it.

Every single special revenue fund has its specific expenditures that come out of it.

And when we receive a bill, my business coordinator sends it over to my finance department specifically to pay that bill out of a specific fund, whether it's special revenue or it's general fund.

So this lines up with what the statute allows us to do.

The final two columns show you how the fund can be used pursuant to our suggestions in the second to the last column.

And then what funds have to come out of the general revenue fund because they don't apply to the circuit clerk operations fund.

We are still at approximately $400,000 of use of that fund this year.

I believe that the number it's about 400,000.

That allows it to remain flush enough that next year we can still continue to take my CFO's salary out of this fund.

If we run it out, then we're going to be back in the general fund next year.

That doesn't really make sense to me.

It feels I feel that we should be for budgetary purposes continuing to appropriately budget out of the fund, allowing for that fund to be able to continue with those expenditures year to year.

So we do have a few expenditures in here that are one-time deals.

And we also have one spot where we have a little bit of a contingency because we are switching to another credit card processing company, and we have to do new status or statements of work on that.

So we gave ourselves a little bit of room in order to be able to do that as well and cover those things because that's appropriate out of that fund.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I just have a question about your proposal to say, hey, we should retain funds here and not run it out.

Some of these expenses that you're proposing here we covered with general operating funds last year.

Correct.

Right.

And so I it's it's not really an actual actual issue from us from a budgetary perspective if the fund is spent out and we have to cover it with operating expenses in the future.

Is there is there an actual like statutory problem with that?

I mean, we're just I think I'm a little confused with your question.

I'm sorry.

So you're saying, hey, if we spend all this, spend the whole fund.

Right.

Then we have to go back to using operating expenses from the county to cover CFO salary or other items.

Correct.

But that's how we paid for them last year.

Correct.

Okay.

All right.

That I just want to clarify.

Correct.

So we're using last year this fund didn't have enough money in it to have been able to support her salary.

So there was it was a there was a it brings in about 230,000 a year.

This is not a huge flush fund.

So that's why if we use some of this fund for what's appropriate under the statute to cover some of the expenses that we have coming up with the case management system, then we can also, you know, be able to pull the personnel out and then continue, hopefully, to be able to pull the personnel out in the future if possible.

So that's the goal is that it just stays steady.

So that makes sense.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I guess this fund is ongoing though, right?

Like it keeps going.

So like every month more money comes from like the $5, whatever that goes into this fund.

Correct.

It's about $230,000 a year.

Exactly.

So if we spend all the money, then it's just going to get more money the next year.

Like we would just budget it.

And I guess I what I what I really try to figure out is why is why would the state want to budget enough, like have extra money in this fund, like just to sit there?

Like when we have funds, we have them, we budget them and we spend them.

Like it's like an ongoing thing.

So when you say we don't want it to run out of money, I think we actually do want it to run out of money because the way, but I mean all the funds we do, like we bring in the money, then we budget it, and then we spend the money.

Like that's what we do.

We like, can you imagine if we all said, let's bring in some more tax revenue to have it sit in funds?

Like this fund is defined by statute.

There's nothing right, right?

I can't change what the legislature have defined that this fund should be used for, right?

That's the same thing with my court auto, doc storage, e-citation.

Any fund I have is defined specifically as to what it can be used for.

As is this one.

Okay.

So we don't mind using the fund, but in a going forward future budgetary analysis that we do, we try to continue to be able to use the fund for the same type of thing every year.

So for example, document storage, we continued and budgeted, knowing in the future rental storage for our files is going to be X amount, right?

And we're always going to be able to use this fund to be able to cover that and not have to come back to the county to cover it under general revenue because we ran out of money.

It is planning ahead for this fund and making sure not that the fund maintains thousands and thousands of dollars.

It's that the fund doesn't go down to zero, which is what happened to court auto.

If we had continued spending court auto the way it was being spent, it was going to go into zero and negative.

That's not the goal to go into zero and negative with these funds.

The goal is to use the fund for what it's appropriately used for for the statutory purposes and use it consistently throughout.

So when I pre-plan, right?

I'm saying I'm not gonna have to come back to the county board and say, hey, I now need you to cover Jen Ruthundy's salary because I have already pre-planned how it will be paid for out of this fund for the next few years.

So that I don't have to come back and then make changes to it.

So I'm trying to keep the fund consistent for what it can be used for.

It also can be used for projects.

So for example, our case management system, anything that is linking up to it regarding the collection and disbursement of funds, I can use this fund to cover.

But if it's at zero, then I can't.

So that doesn't, but and it's not gonna go to zero anyway, based upon how I can use it.

But I guess I'm just really confused why because I understand that, and I understand because that's what we all do here, right?

Is budgeting and planning ahead, and we can say, okay, this is how much this fund brings in every year, and this is how much it's gonna bring in next year.

So we could budget all of that in.

So I just I don't understand why you keep saying that you don't want to budget all the funds, like like because you don't want to, because you don't want it to go to zero.

Well, that's what this says, right?

You don't want us to budget the whole funds, isn't that what you're asking for?

Wait, but it doesn't even if you do budget the whole fund, I can't use it for everyone.

I totally understand.

Right.

So it's gonna sit there.

It's going to sit there with money in it anyway.

I would prefer to use this fund and say these are the specific things that can come out of it and pre-plan all of those things.

So we're pre-planning 400,000 this year of 518,000 that's sitting in there right now.

The fund is not going to continue to be at that rate because we also were earning 50 grand a month in interest on it.

So once this fund is used and the money starts to go towards the expenses, it's not going to be earning interest either.

So I just want you to know that the five part of the 518,000 in there is also significant interest.

Uh 50,000 a month in interest.

Yeah.

I think that's when on 500,000.

She's gonna, she's Jen's gonna pull it.

I may be off.

This seems like okay, well, she'll get it for you.

Just 500, maybe.

Uh so I'm sorry.

If I miss the member Clark, if I misspoke, I apologize.

She's gonna pull it for now, okay.

But I guess I'm not I'm not arguing that you shouldn't that this shouldn't be spent properly.

I I just I guess what we do here is we budget.

And so I I just think all the money should be budgeted.

There shouldn't just be extra money.

And that's what I'm not understanding is why it isn't okay just to budget all the money.

Because then I can't pre-plan for next year.

But but you could pre-plan because you know how much next year is gonna be maybe, maybe we also well, well, you just said that you knew it was 250,000.

Right now it's bringing in 230,000 a year.

Yeah, we also have the safety act.

We're still bringing in bond money and paying things out of the bond money.

We're not gonna have that anymore.

We have changes with the expungement laws where they have said you no longer have to pay your fines and fees to be expunged.

So when those cases go away, we don't get paid on them.

We aren't right.

So there are a lot of plan that just plan though.

I'll stop that.

I think and honestly, member, I can't plan that.

I'm happy to bring have you come down to my office and have Jen show you the different pieces to it, but no, I don't know what the new legislation is going to do.

I don't.

I mean, we're still going through the changes.

We've gone from bringing in 30 million dollars a year and dispersing it when I first started.

Now it's 20 million.

It things are changing with the statutes.

And next year they're talking about modifying our criminal traffic assessment act again.

But you know this fund, and that's all I want to do.

So I will just actually no, but I want to follow up on your comment, which is you know, we have some specific expenditure types that we do budget and reserve funds for capital contingency things where we we specifically for a purpose have fund balances that we retain, but operating expenses we generally don't like, and so I think that is some of some of our concern is like, hey, why are we why why would we not spend it if it's allowable to cover something?

Use all the operational expenses under this fund.

So what we did here is we defined exactly what operating expenses fall under the statute that we can use it for.

So under the circuit clerk admin fund and expenditures, she shows you, for example, counterfeit moneymakers, replacement bags, change bags.

We can pay the courier out of it.

There's certain things we can pay out of it.

The remaining stuff that is listed here under general fund expenditures, those are not gonna fall under the circuit clerk op fund.

So I'm not gonna be able to use it for those certain things.

So we can certainly, we're gonna budget out of it for what we can, but I can't budget out of it for things that I can't.

So that's why they're all sp and you and I had spoken on the phone, and so we went through and identified like 90% of it.

Okay.

Thank you for clarifying that, Chair Hart.

Thank you.

So you had said, hey, there's gonna be a few expenditures that are one-time deals.

And I would look at this as sort of a one-time deal when you're saying, hey, this is not sustainable.

You can't spend $750,000 for 2027.

You're totally right.

We're having to make up for the fact that money was not spent for 18 months.

That's not true.

I think you after we made repeated requests for bank statements and received none of that is true.

Sorry, but we have to be honest, Chair.

We have to be honest.

Aaron, we finally got the bank statements the evening before our county board meeting.

The day you requested them.

Incorrect, but regardless we received those, and uh no money had been spent out of that fund.

Now, if money was spent prior to going into that fund, that's that's something different entirely.

But my only point is if this is a one-time thing, you've got some one-time expenditures in here.

I might consider that what we're talking about is sort of the same thing.

We've got to draw down that amount because it's usually about 250,000 a year.

Uh, we've got $518,000 in there from just 18 months.

So it sounds to me that it's going to be greater than $250,000 a year.

So I'm totally in support of leaving it how it is.

Um, and I'm looking at the section of the statute right now, and all it says is this fund may be used to defray the expenses incurred for collection and disbursement of the various assessment schedules.

So I would think any of those, you know, if you're have expenses, that would include salaries.

So I would be there is a salary in here.

I'm sorry, I'm still speaking.

I've well, there is a salary.

So that could be used for salaries.

So I would be good with that.

The other piece that, as I was just looking that up, um, right after at that, it says the money shall be remitted monthly by the clerk to the county treasurer and identified as funds for the circuit court clerk.

And that's in um that's in there's like three statutes that I've been looking at.

That's in two of the three statutes.

So I might just suggest since um the funding from I think it's the felony offenses uh bypassed going to the county treasurer and instead went into this separate bank account.

It feels like it would make sense to me.

Uh, and perhaps this could be a budget policy moving forward, that a forensic audit is done on that account just to make sure that everything was done appropriately.

Um, so that's something that I would consider.

I don't know if that needs to be a conversation right now, but just as it was it, this account was audited by the Go ahead, Aaron.

Go ahead.

This count was audited by the county auditor as requested.

I'm not sure it usually when we're doing a forensic audit, we're doing it to dig into where money was spent and whether it was spent appropriately.

Well, that's not the case here because as chair just said, that money specifically wasn't spent out of that account.

Prior to that, it went into the general fund and it was spent by the county.

So the statements are just not quite accurate.

Um, additionally, the only statute that Chair Hart's talking about is the 735 ILCS one third, or I'm sorry, is it 705 ILCS 135?

That is the criminal traffic assessment act.

There are two acts related to this to this particular account.

There's civil fines that or civil fees it receives and their criminal traffic assessment fees that those receive.

We have already broken that up and taking care of that in my office.

It is being dispersed where the criminal traffic assessment fees are being remitted through the treasurer.

So that's all been broken up.

I'm not sure why we're back there again.

Um, I know we've had this discussion about 15 times, but that is only one piece of the statute.

So we very specifically had a conversation with with our county administrator yesterday.

We don't throw money at our at our accounts and say, oh, well, you just can budget whatever you want out of them.

When we budget under these revenue funds, we specifically budget.

We specifically budgeted Jen here, we specifically budgeted certain expenses and any one-time fees that we are gonna have with the case management system that we can associate to this is being done.

We budgeted $80,000 for one of our statement of works that is coming through.

We budgeted $16,000 for another API that's coming through, and we have very specifically given ourselves an extra $70,000 on other statements of work that we believe are coming through associated with this.

And we have very specifically given ourselves an extra $70,000 on other statements of work that we believe are coming through associated with this.

If anything else comes through that can be associated with this and we didn't budget, we can always come back to the county board and say, this is an appropriate expense.

We're going to run it through here.

Can we please add more money?

Which is what we do with our document storage and our court auto.

So it's this is we're treating this exactly the same as we do our other revenue funds.

My staff needs to know when money comes when a bill comes in, which fund is paying that bill.

And that is when we send that to the finance department saying this is the account this gets paid out of.

MCP was done that way, journals done that way.

Every single project and a bill we have has a very specific place it goes.

So just putting, we're just gonna send spend 700,000 out of it.

First off, you can't, and second of all, when I go to go have a bill paid, they don't know where to pay it from because it's not associated with this fund.

It needs to be specific.

And that was the problem with throwing a number at this.

So we are asking to very specifically budget from this fund.

If we need more money going down the row, we can come back.

So this also, if you blow all the money out of it and speaking with our county administrator, I can't afford to have Jen in there next year.

Her salary and her benefits and everything are too high.

So now you're pushing her back out next year and the following year, if I follow my budget.

That was the nature of my clarification.

So I have a very specific budget and a specific plan.

So I'm very detail oriented with this as Jennifer Ruthundy, my CFO, she is incredibly particular.

And she went through this with a fine-tooth comb.

And we also spoke with your county administrator about it.

Okay.

Apologize for interrupting.

That was the nature of my clarification because, like I said, we had paid her salary out of general fund before.

Yes.

Okay.

So I'm trying to cover that here.

And as I had indicated to you previously, when if I didn't, I was told previously not to budget my staff out of special revenue funds.

I and so I asked the state's attorney's office, they provided me with a case, which I then forwarded on to you that says that I can do that.

And I am so we are doing it.

Vice Chair, that member.

I just wanted to just to clarify in the event this fund went to zero.

There's nothing preventing us from utilizing our current just operating budgets to pay for everything that occurs in the clerk's office.

Is that correct?

Generally viewed.

So there's no, I don't see any way that we're going to run out of money.

That's, I guess that's my question.

If we're not going to run out of money, then I would say just let everything get to zero and we budget and we just add in more money the following year as we do in every situation.

Right.

Am I thinking of it okay?

The risk is that we have to provide operating funds to the to that office, as we had done before.

Yes.

Okay.

And then just my other question in this in this scenario proposed, we would go from 475 to 155 for salaries and wages.

That's just room removing one person.

No, we did the 475 did not put any personnel in there specifically.

I specifically put a personnel in, but then I also, if you go down the list, you go into commodities and you have her health insurance, her retirement, and a retirement benefits.

So that's that commodities piece.

It kind of bounces back to that because the other one did not have her have her um benefits coming out of it.

I guess my just my question is the 475 reduction to 155.

Is that the removal removal of just one person?

We didn't have any number in there.

There was a there was a number without staffing correlate to any individual.

Oh.

If I may, it's the removal of one person from the general funds.

So yes, the answer to your question, I believe, is yes.

So we're putting it's exactly the same person $320,000 in the middle.

No, no, I'm okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So the $475 had a much broader um definition of the individuals involved in the collection and disbursement of funds.

Um this circuit clerk's interpretation is much more defined.

Exactly.

Okay.

So that is why they've identified the director of finance as the one person that they believe should come from this fund.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Sorry, I must not have understood.

Yeah, sorry.

Member Valenti.

Thanks, Chair.

Um, I think you know, at the end of the day, we can go over all this and and talk of in circles, it feels like, and there's a lot of um a lot of numbers and concepts and ideas and arguments being thrown out, but really for I'll just speak for myself.

I think at the end of the day, that this money was um not just that it was moved and and um created uh an account was created for it and seemingly in good faith and and and it was discovered that that was supposed to have been done, but that it wasn't spent.

Um so just speaking for me, uh you lost some of my trust in moving forward.

And so I because that's not our job to hold money, we're not a bank.

Um, you know, uh getting excited about how much interest we're creating based on holding that money um rubs me the wrong way to say the least.

So I our job is to utilize use taxpayer money and fees that um people pay wisely and judiciously and prudently um to provide services.

So I I am supportive of um is everyone okay, sorry, I thought someone fell.

Um I'm supportive of moving forward as this committee directed staff uh last week.

And um I would be supportive uh of an a forensic audit.

I think that is a prudent move in in cases like this to learn from perhaps mistakes um to make sure that um we have everything in order that we should because we are guardians of a ton of money and 250,000 is a ton of money.

500,000 is a ton of money.

It's not not small.

I can't remember the words that you used um earlier.

But um, so I'm supportive of moving forward uh with the the staff proposed um scenario.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions?

Chair Hart.

This is just my last one, sort of related.

I just was looking through an old email.

So um maybe we need to come back and talk about this one, but there's still the funds in that independent bank account uh that the clerk at the circuit court had sent up.

And now I just want to understand what happens with that bank account in the future, because I think since we uh made a decision at last month's board meeting that now those felony revenues are going into the general fund, they're co-mingled, but they're still set aside for the operation and administrative fund.

So now it feels like there's two, there's a bank account here, and then there's this fund here, which sounds I don't know, too a little complex, more complex than perhaps it should be.

If I may, before you answer, I just want to add on another question, which is do other special revenue funds have their own bank accounts or are those operated by the managed by the treasurer.

I can't say with 100% certainty, but with 98% certainty, all other special revenue funds run through um our treasurer cash accounts.

Okay, so are you can you think of does it doesn't it make sense that that bank account would be closed and these funds, any future revenue would be collected would run through the treasurer's office?

So that that's a ongoing discussion between the attorney general's office, the state's attorney's offices, and my office and other clerks.

So that is every clerk is doing it differently.

They have uh, you know, canky key, um DeCal, McHenry, they all have um or they some of them are using special revenue funds, some of them have their own bank accounts.

So it's all Winnebago has their own bank account, it's all over the board.

So that is why I had indicated previously that this is a work in progress with all the circuit clerks to come to consistency, but nobody's doing it the same.

Okay, and you know, we're voicing our opinions, but just to be clear, that's an operational decision for your office.

We don't have the authority to tell you you have to do it this way, but I do think it's important that we have an understanding of what how we do things for special revenue funds in the county, and that you know, we have and they're different.

It depends on how the legislature sets the statutes up.

Okay, all right.

Any other comments or questions?

Okay, thanks for engaging us in the conversation.

Thanks for bringing this forward.

Okay.

Um any other comments or questions on the amendments as uh discussed by county administrator and the handout and attachment.

Okay, seeing no other comments or questions on item 8.27, all in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

Yes, eight point.

I'm opposed.

Member Maine noted as opposed.

So uh we only do in a voice vote, so we'll just say the item is approved.

Thank you, Member Maine.

Um 8.28 is discussion and presentation of the results of the South Lake Mosquito Abatement District audit procedures applied to claims, receipts, history, inventory, personnel, property, and debts owed by the district.

Morning, Rithanne Hall, assistant county administrator.

Good morning.

So with respect to the South Lake Mosquito Abatement District, financial audit procedures designed to be consistent with the Illinois statutes 555-5-44025.

The procedures that were performed are documented in the memo that's included as an attachment to the agenda.

In summary, as of September 30th, which was the date that we performed our procedures, the district uh holds over 1.2 million dollars in current assets, uh, which is comprised of cash accounts and certificates of deposit.

Uh there are other than operating expenditures that of course are payable on a regular basis.

There are there is no debt outstanding.

There is no real or personal property.

Um, and I also want to thank um the board president Kim Stone and Board Treasurer Hockward for their cooperation and assistance to Lake County staff in getting these procedures completed.

So that concludes my remarks with respect to the procedures performed, but I'm happy to go into more detail if you'd like they are outlined in the in the memo provided.

I'd like to just add in um as part of this item, we talked about the next steps.

Um proceed, the next step would be to submit an authorizing resolution for the board for consideration that is to come 30 days after the completion of the audit.

Umce the authorizing resolution is passed by the county board, it provides for a possibility for a petition for a what they call a backdoor referendum.

So 30 days after it's the authorizing resolution is passed by the county board, we have to leave it open for a question for the voters for a referendum.

It's a simple yes or no question.

Do you want to move forward with the dissolution or not?

The question is actually stated for us in uh the ordinance.

Um if there is no objection to that, um, and no referendum is submitted in, we move forward with the appointment of a trustee in dissolution, who will then be the one who is in charge of determining how the remaining 1.2 million dollars in assets are distributed among the entities that are part of the South Lake Mosquito Abatement District.

Um, I also wanted to point out that once the court appoints the trustee in dissolution, um, it dissolves the current board, and the state's attorney or its designee becomes the unit's legal representative.

Our county treasurer assumes the role of the treasurer for dissolving the unit, and the county clerk becomes the unit secretary.

Um, and so that process continues.

Um, and the trustee and dissolution works with the courts to finalize the decisions and get that information out to the entities that are part of it.

Thank you.

So it may not have been part of the resolution language, but I think we had an understanding when we approved the resolution that directed this audit that this audit results you uh you know would be shared with the municipalities within the district, and we would solicit feedback.

And I know there's been a lot of communication, and uh I've received a lot of email correspondence from the municipalities, but I just want to make sure that we're being thorough and that that's part of the the next step.

Have we formally shared this with the municipalities?

Has it been distributed to them?

I can distribute it to them after this meeting.

Great.

Thank you.

Chair Hart.

Thank you very much for this.

Um I thought it was interesting the two CDs that they had for almost a million dollars.

But um just so everybody knows, we did receive emails.

I think member uh Main, Frank, and Parek were maybe post or excuse me, copied on the emails or letters from each of the municipalities.

Um I didn't bring my count with me, but some of them were saying, hey, we we want to eventually go to North Shore Mosquito Abatement District.

I think that was what Highland Park wanted, and maybe Deerfield.

I think another, maybe Bannockburn wanted to stay with South Lake Mosquito Abatement District and not dissolve it.

But I would say on the whole, um, the village boards had or city councils had said, hey, we would prefer not to change.

So I just want to share, you know, I I do advocate continuing to move forward on the dissolution of the South Lake Mosquito Abatement District.

Um I I only checked in with one municipality, and that's on me.

I I need to continue to do that, but um, at that meeting, the city council members were not informed of how much their residents spend versus the costs to other residents in other municipalities that do not have mosquito abatement districts, and it is um three to four to 10 times more than what a neighboring municipality and their residents spend.

So just for example, Lake Forest spent $5,500 on mosquito abatement.

Highland Park spent 255,000.

So 5,500 for Lake Forest, 200, just short of 255,000 for Highland Park.

There is no difference in the rates of of human transmission, right?

For West Nile virus or any mosquito-borne diseases.

Um and personally, I there's five municipalities that have a mosquito abatement district.

That's like I can't let me just take a look if you don't mind bearing with me.

24 square miles.

Okay.

The rest of Lake County, 47 municipalities, the unincorporated area, 94% of Lake County does not have a mosquito abatement district.

And somehow the rates of um of these uh mosquito-borne illnesses are not higher in the rest of the county, and so I just feel like it is a disservice to the people who are paying this these additional monies, and maybe it's just a few dollars here and a few dollars there on a tax bill.

But I mean, I recall not that long ago at the Forest Preserve meeting, we were talking about differences in, you know, hey, should it be $15 or $20 to get into this or that?

And it just feels like um if the rest of the county can figure it out, for us to be a part of continuing this just feels wrong to me.

Illinois has more taxing bodies than any other state in the country, and Lake County is a leader.

The civic federation just did a story about the work that Lake County is doing because we're carefully looking at these things.

So I I would just urge us to continue to move forward on dissolution because if I understood what Ruth Ann said just now, if we move forward with dissolution, there is the opportunity for a backdoor referendum, but you don't get that backdoor referendum unless you move towards that dissolution.

So that backdoor referendum is essentially asking the people within that mosquito abatement district, hey, do you guys want this or not?

So to me, that is really the question is what do the people who who are paying those extras pay for?

So again, Lake Forest Highland Park, right next to each other, $5,500 and $255,000, and no difference in transmission.

So that's where I am.

Thank you.

Uh member Maine, then Vice Chair Park.

Member Maine.

She's mute.

She's on mute.

I was trying to get them mute off.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, well, I think the whole story wasn't being wasn't being told there.

Um, and that is that the um there has been correspondence back saying what Lake Forest does and what Lake Forest does is a lot less than what those other um communities, what Highland Park does, and we know that Highland Park has the most representatives on the mosquito abatement district.

So the wishes of the public of um Highland Park are certainly well known.

I would also say that you're right, other areas don't have mosquito abatement districts, and they're paying for it in their taxes in a different way.

And a number of these villages have looked at, okay, if we take it on and we do the level of service, it would cost the same, or in some cases it would cost more.

So I also think it's a little disingenuous um because uh to say, well, their rates are the same, because if you have an area near you which has a higher prevention level, that is a spillover effect.

That's just a basic public health approach that when the areas around you have done a really good job, you get a spillover and positive effect.

It's essentially like a herd immunity in another way.

So um, I don't think that you can compare two communities right next to each other.

In addition, there's a lot of other factors that look at um transmission as well as um who gets sick.

So you'd have to do a lot more analysis than a back of the envelope.

So the communities involved, um their boards have spoken and they're not interested in changing this.

Vice Chair Park.

No, my question was stressful.

Okay.

Member Hewitt.

I'm not going to repeat what was already said, but I'm in agreement with member um Maine.

The um, you know, when you look at an area, this may be the boundary on the ground, but where is that boundary in the air?

And when you're dealing with mosquitoes and mosquito abatement, this is an entity that flies or goes with the wind.

So maybe this month, this community is okay because the wind's going that way, or maybe the next month it's coming back.

So you just can't go by ground boundaries because it constantly changes with the wind and with the temperatures.

So just because you have this community that does per se nothing, but all the communities around it are doing something as far as mosquito abatement, this entity in the middle is taking advantage of that.

And that's where member Maine was saying spillover and that.

And that does happen.

It's just not this is Waukegan.

It never comes here because we're surrounded by everybody else that does something.

Member Clark.

Yeah, I know we I appreciate all this information we've gotten.

It's been a long um conversation.

I've had this conversation going for a while.

I know for me, I I go back to when we first started discussing this with the people who came.

And what worries me is that I still feel that the people who live in these areas do not have a good voice in this board.

And so, you know, in where I live in Libertyville, if they're, you know, because mosquito spraying, spraying chemicals, spraying this, it can be people want to have a say.

And science is changing, whether or not we should be full on spraying everywhere.

That kills pollinators, it kills wildlife.

It isn't good for people to breathe in, which I mean, if you've got if you're like spraying that much, that could be really hurting everything.

And so I know in my town, if I don't like when the trucks used to go by all the time spraying and spraying and spraying, um, people complained and they knew they went to the village, we went to village meetings, and they really looked at the mosquito abatement, but they really changed a bit what they did to make it more, you know, responsive to the people of my town and also for like wildlife.

I what I worry about with this district is that it is very difficult for people to find out who these people are that are making the decisions.

It is I and they're just not accountable because they're not elected.

So if you are someone who lives in Highland Park and you're like, I don't like all the spraying, who can I go complain to?

Well, they could go find this board, which is difficult to find, but they also aren't elected, and they can just be like, whatever.

And I'm not saying that they do that, but I I don't like the lack of like I don't it bothers me that the people it's very difficult for people to have input in this.

But also, this is not my district.

So I do want to hear from the people who live in this, you know, who represent this district because you know it better than anyone about how this is going on.

But I do have those are my main concerns.

Thank you.

Okay.

Members Valitic, Vice Chair, then Member Maine.

Thanks.

Um, I'm supportive of moving forward for um some of the reasons that Member Clark just spoke of.

I don't think that quote, like the people have spoken.

I uh understand representative government, and I think that the representatives of the villages, their voices are important and and matter, but I'm not sure how many people at this point are paying attention to um, you know, various city council meetings.

Maybe a lot.

This isn't my district either.

Um, I don't have a big dog in this fight, except for that um environmentally.

I'm surprised we're still having discussions like this.

Um, I don't think we should be spraying whole, you know, whole cloth for mosquitoes when so many other insects are killed in the process.

As to herd immunity, as we learned from COVID, you need a heck of a lot more than 5% sprayed in order to have an effect around the rest of the county, I would imagine.

I I get I'm my brain went there too.

I'm sure there is spillover effect, but I'm not sure how pervasive or how um how effective um or influential that that is.

Um this smells to me a little bit like uh understandably the municipalities don't want to take on the cost of this or the responsibility, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't move forward and that it's not like prudent to move forward to remove partly because of the disparity in the um municipalities and what they're paying versus people who are not part of the district, but even within this district, as I understand that there's some um disparities between uh the costs to residents in various areas of this whole district.

So I I mean, why not push this forward, let the people discuss and review and vote if that's where it ends up going to referendum or or not if if the people decide um that they that they don't need that, but I I don't see the harm or the hurt um in moving forward.

Vice Chair.

Yeah, so um a few things.

One is I I think we're we're assuming that X the dollars spent equates to more spraying, right?

That's not necessarily true.

The the South Lake Mosquito Basement District, I have not seen having higher spraying rates than other places, and places where there has been mosquito outbreak, where it's not within a mosquito abatement district, has sprayed, right?

And what the municipalities are worried about is not having the knowledge.

And when something happens that they default to spraying, and they don't want to necessarily do that, right?

In terms of cost, we are I'm on I live in the district, clearly represent the district.

I'm not happy with the dollars spent for this.

That's why the board has looked at joining the North Shore Mosquito Abatement District that covers it much larger area of Cook County, combining it would reduce the costs of the residents in the area and take advantage of better environmental practices.

Third, the chair of the South uh Lake South Lake Mosquito Abatement District, Kim Stone is an ardent environmentalist who joined the board who had herself been deeply concerned about having this board for 20 years, joined the board and has now felt that the best opportunity is to combine with North Shore.

Right.

And following, I don't think she, I think she had mentioned to me, and I don't want to quote, but North Shore has not sprayed in a long, long time, right?

And are looking for other ways of mitigation of this effects.

So I think we and all of the lastly all of the villages and and surrounding city councils want to do not do not want to take this on because they don't feel they have the best environmental capabilities.

Right.

So I don't think it's fair to just characterize this as spraying, expensive, all that, right?

We need to take into the full account.

I was totally and have been pushing to do something about this for four years and trying to get more people on the board who are like we should disband and disband and disband.

And they've all come back and said we think there's a better solution here for this, and as well as the villages and towns that are represented here.

So it's not an action in front of us.

I just wanted to give you some of the thoughts that I've been having with these different folks.

Um they are looking to combine with North Shore, right?

That is their goal right now, and to fire and to have more environmentally steward practices in what they do.

So I'll stop there.

Yeah, member Maine, and I'll share my thoughts as well.

Thank you.

Um, member Perek spoke really well.

I wanted to address, I I don't know where this conversation has come about spraying, spraying, spraying.

That's not what the district does.

And then from two sides of the table, I've heard conflicting information or conflicting thoughts, doesn't mean, you know, one is like, hey, they're not elected, people don't know where to go.

If they were elected, um, you know, if the village were in charge, then that would be better.

And then the other side of the table says, well, people aren't paying attention to what their village boards are doing.

So I think we're also inadvertently maligning our residents and our fellow elected officials and kind of casting aspersions on their goals and their willingness to represent the needs and the wants of their residents.

Uh uh, I know many of these um um managers and mayors personally, and they're not paid for these jobs, most of them.

And they put a lot of time and effort into understanding what's going on.

And just as we look at running an efficient government and providing services, they're trying to do the same.

So I'd like us to step back from this.

Hey, they're not paying attention, they're just looking for an easy way out.

They're just looking for an easy way out.

No one's paying attention to what these villages are doing.

These villages know exactly who's been appointed.

And so if somebody goes to their village and has a complaint, the villages certainly go forward.

I I know the mayor of Riverwoods has attended numerous, as have trustees, numerous South Lake Mosquito Abatement District in the initial goal of learning more and understanding more.

They spent untold hours.

I think Member Parek's point about Member Stone and others.

I think it is speaks.

Once they've gotten in and understood what's going on, have kind of changed their minds.

And then finally to this um 5% of herd immunity.

Um keep in mind that uh villages such as Lincolnshire, where I live, they're not in a mosquito abatement district, but they pay for um mosquito um dunking and testing and things like that.

My point being for Let Lake Forest is that there are many villages around them, either in a mosquito abatement district or directly themselves in their own village budget, who are paying for those resources, and thus the three times a year that Lake Forest does, which is pretty low, um, they do get that coverage.

So I I'm well aware of what herd immunity is, and it actually depends on the type of illness that we're talking about.

That's all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Member Bain.

Um, I just want to um uh make a comment based on something you said, which is none of the appointees I recommended for this board.

I never uh recommended with the explicit direction that they should go there with the goal of dissolving the district.

The conversations I had with each one of the folks who I recommended was I want you to be open-minded about how we're doing this.

I want you to look at it and analyze it.

And um, yeah, I'm I I voted in support of the dissolution um resolution earlier this year.

I have had concerns about the way this district operates, probably for more than 10 years.

And Kim Stone was one of the first people to ask questions about it and educate me about why the district was not you know doing public service and over spraying and over taxing, frankly.

Um they've they've made some changes.

I think they have reduced their levy a little bit.

Um, but two chairs in a row, including Kim Stone, have spent time there and have now said, hey, maybe this is not the best approach.

Kim's recommendation is to consolidate with North Shore, as Vice Chair Parak said.

The North Shore district has a different approach.

They are not governed by the um uh by the contractor, they have staff who makes the decisions about if to spray and they don't spray for nuisance spraying like uh South Lake has historically.

And so uh, you know, Kim is convinced that they have a better approach.

Um, there have been a lot of in-depth conversations with the municipalities.

I was not invited to participate, but I know that the Chair Hart was there for some of those conversations.

Um, and the one thing I said earlier this year is I want to hear where they're at.

And um, the municipalities that we're hearing from are not in support of going forward dissolution.

And I think that Kim's approach makes a lot of sense.

Um, I consider her to be a leader in environmental policy advocacy and someone that I have a tremendous amount of respect for.

And so I I have a hard time sitting here today saying I'm supportive of uh moving forward regardless of what they are saying and what the municipalities are saying.

So that that's my concern at this point.

But again, like you said, this is not an action item, uh, but a good discussion.

I don't know if there's any other comments.

Member of Litzik, Chair Hart.

Thanks.

Yeah, I'm sorry if I missed that in previous um correspondence.

I I'm interested in this um this uh in Kim Stone's position about joining the North Shore water reclamation district, right?

That's what you're talking about.

North Shore Mosquito Basement.

Uh okay.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I said the right.

That's what I meant.

North Shore Mosquito Abasement District, and that they have different operations.

Can you speak a little bit more to that at this point?

Like what it's an idea right now, is the board supportive of Kim's proposal and or have they taken steps and what is that timeline look like?

They've had their attorneys research it, they've had conversations with the governing body uh of the North Shore Mosquito Abatement District, which those members are appointed by Cook County government, and they've looked at what the representation would look like.

And they've looked at what the representation would look like.

They'd obviously be the smallest piece of it.

So the representation would be diminished.

But like I said, that my understanding is they have professional staff who work for that district.

And so they're not, you know, one of the concerns that I've always had with the South Lake is there is no staff.

And so uh Clark Mosquito, who's the manufacturer and distributor of the chemicals.

So they do spray.

Well, no, no, South Lake sprays.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

But North Shore does not do nuisance spraying.

Right.

Okay.

Well, that's an important distinction.

Yeah.

Thank you.

It is a different approach.

It's not just Kim, um, both boards, North Shore and South Lake both seem are aligned to this idea.

So it seems like both would both feel they would benefit from combining boards.

And they they have that op.

And so one of my thoughts is like, let's go through the process.

They want to do that.

And does that help before we just say no, you know, to the situation?

So remember Clark.

You know, addressing my representation issue, I'm I'm concerned this doesn't this makes it worse.

In that who then are people going to talk to if they have a problem, they have to go to Cook County and talk to people.

I mean, I just actually wondering how would it work?

So, like if you were concerned about you wanted to find out, so it who would represent them then.

It would be people appointed by the Cook County board that people would have to find.

Like Lake County would have one representative.

Correct.

There'd be, I think there's five representatives.

We would have one of the five, I believe.

And then Lake County would have, well, we, I know we haven't gone down this road, but we would appoint then that person.

Correct.

Like the board, this board.

Yeah.

And so instead of so instead of Highland Park, it so it's basically divided with five today amongst the five, we would have one, but there'd be Evanston, Skokey, Glenview, Northbrook.

So it's much larger.

So there's 300,000 residents versus our 50,000.

So we'd have one fifth-ish representation.

I get a little nervous when we have less control over people in our area.

So but I I will listen.

It makes me nervous that but I don't, I think it's, you know, I'm not happy how it is now either.

So maybe I'm just not happy.

Yeah, yes.

Chart.

Thank you.

I just um wanted to circle back to something that uh member Mainon said in her first comment.

Um, you know, yes, that is correct.

Lake Forest does do a lot less.

They do kind of mosquito dunks in the sewer systems and um things like that.

But you know, South Lake um was doing helicopter surveillance, same thing for Lake Bluff.

Lake Bluff had a mosquito abatement district.

The costs were about 800,000 a year.

They had helicopters, they had all sorts of people out and walking around.

And so weird, the results are the same, whether we had the mosquito abatement district or we didn't.

So those costs are they're not hidden in the municipalities.

I called the municipalities and said, hey, how much are you spending?

So, you know, Libertyville is a little further away.

They're nine miles, they spend about $32,000 a year.

Um, again, Highland Park is 12, you know, 12 square miles, 200 and 271 for the 2025 levy.

So just the money, but again, you look at the level of service.

To me, that's irrelevant if your results in the end are the same.

Why would you pay all this extra money if what you get is the same outcome?

That would make no sense to me.

So um I I the other thing that I wanted to touch upon is just I want to make it clear that um if municipalities wanted to join on their own, if there was no South Lake Mosquito Abatement District, they can.

So if this was dissolved, then Deerfield could choose, or Highland Park could choose to join.

But if South Lake Mosquito Abatement District joins in its entirety, that means everybody's got to go with, right?

That's just the way it goes.

And then as far as the voting is concerned, um, I don't think that's accurate that Lake County would have a would have a vote because it's been dissolved.

And so those appointments are made by Cook County president.

So as I understand it.

So that's just I don't think it's accurate, but I don't know.

And maybe you want to touch upon that.

But I think you guys have already kind of saying, you know where you are on it.

I will say that more money often does equate to more spraying.

South Lake Mosquito Abatement District has done nuisance spraying for years, broad scale nuisance spraying.

And just my last thing on drainage districts.

Um, oftentimes, I'm not gonna say it's the case here, but oftentimes you do get people who join a drainage district and they're like, oh my gosh, we really need to keep this drainage district.

So it is very difficult to dissolve districts.

Um and I I look, I was thrilled to have um Kim Stone join.

And we've spent a lot of time kind of talking back and forth about all this.

And I'll just say, you know, trustee Dean Mosher.

Um, he's a he's on the South Lake Mosquito Abatement District.

And he wrote a letter at Highland Park advocating for the dissolution.

But um anyway, I I still think it's as an environmentalist, it is the right thing to do to get rid of a mosquito abatement district.

100%.

So that's where I am.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chair.

Anything else on this item?

Thank you.

Item 29 is resolution amending and partially terminating the Cunio Mansion and Gardens Preservation and Campus Development Agreement and intergovernmental agreement between the County of Lake, village of Vernon Hills regarding the Cunio property.

Motion on this item by member Clark, second by Member Hewitt.

Good morning, Matt Myers, Deputy County Administrator and Steve Rice, civil division of the state's attorney's office.

So I'll just throw a question at you, Steve.

Okay.

I saw this, and my first question to the administrator is why is this necessary?

Why do we have to partake in this um termination of this agreement?

I can't give you a completely straight answer to that, but I think the reasons are twofold.

Vernon Hills, you know, this preservation agreement foresaw that Vernon Hills and Loyola would consummate this transaction, that Loyola would transfer the property to Vernon Hills, not back to Vernon Hills to Vernon Hills, because the property, the mansion and the rest of the property, some of which has been developed was um held by a foundation and then gifted to Loyola.

So Loyola owns it, and then Loyola developed some of it in 2015 and 2016, which is how this agreement came to be, because the county serves sewer and water in that area.

And so there were lots of agreements.

This preservation agreement was one of them at issue in the development of the 120 or 180 homes that went in just north of the mansion.

Um at this point, I think they want it terminated in a clean fashion.

They want you to bless the termination of these provisions because in the hands of Vernon Hills or anyone else for that matter, but here we're talking about Vernon Hills, it would be a cloud on title.

Um, which is going to conflict a little bit with what I'll tell you next, which is the county doesn't have too many rights, and they're very derivative rights uh under this historic preservation agreement.

So how would it be a cloud on title if the county really doesn't have many rights?

Well, that's how cloud on title often works.

Like I've seen real estate transactions fall apart for very ephemeral reasons.

Um the other hand, maybe this cloud on title wouldn't prevent the the real estate transaction from falling apart.

But what Vernon Hills attorney told me was that you know, their agreement with Loyola is premised upon this agreement or these provisions of the historic preservation agreement being terminated.

If I'm Vernon Hills, I want that because I I want the certainty that we we as a village decide what happens with the property hereafter, and we don't have to worry about whether the county has certain rights.

Um if I'm the village, I also thinking forward uh, you know, that that might relate to the village's use of the property if it remains in the village's use, or it might relate to some sort of future development.

Um just not unincorporated.

We don't have any uh you know any zoning or jurisdictional rights here, right?

And we don't have any property rights, we don't own it.

Correct.

Okay.

I I'm not sure.

Is there is there other than the fact that there's some historic value to the mansion, and we would assume that Vernon Hills or the eventual property owner would recognize that and seek to preserve it because there's value in it.

Um I don't know.

I'm I'm just not fully even understanding the history of why we entered into it if we have no real jurisdiction here.

Doesn't make any sense to me.

Yeah, I mean, I think so.

Why we entered into the historic preservation agreement or why we're part of that, I think requires a kind of a more global understanding of the development that was occurring at the time, which was in part this Pulti development to the north, which my understanding is you know, Loyola takes this over, they're gonna make a campus out of it, they did make a campus out of it, they're gonna operate it.

They did make a campus out of it, they're gonna operate it.

And the mansion, frankly, it has historic value, but it is also a sinkhole of money, right?

And so Loyola is saying, okay, how do we pay for this, the upkeep of this mansion?

Well, one way is we can sell these properties to the north to Pulti and let them develop.

We'll take some of that money and dedicate it to the preservation of the mansion, and then hopefully Loyola can make a running, you know, business out of its use of the mansion.

So there's an escrow fund that was paid into for the historic preservation of the mansion, and that's really what this preservation agreement is talking about.

Like that fund is going to be used for the historic preservation for the upkeep of the mansion.

And Vernon Hills is and Loyola are really going to manage that fund.

The county gets noticeable it, can you know, uh exercise certain rights through Vernon Hills to ask for accountings or or you know, um, certain uses of the money are approved, some have to be asked for.

Um so why did this come into being?

I mean, it was a much larger real estate development in that area, and this was just one part of it at the time.

What did the parties need at that time?

They needed sewer and water because you couldn't develop in that area.

Vernon Hills is Lake County sewer and water, right?

We provide sewer and water to that area.

So even though it's not even though it's part of Vernon Hills, it's you know, to develop anything there for Pulti to develop anything there, there were agreements related to sewer and water.

And so that involves the county as it does in many other areas.

Okay.

Thank you.

Member Clark.

Yeah, I'm I'm happy to support this.

I'm I just very thankful that the uh village of Vernon Hills is going to be um taking over the mansion and preserving it.

Um, I think it's gonna be done very soon.

And so I'm glad that if and I understand this could just be just a small thing on a title.

I remember from my law school days how about title uh title issues.

So if we can not have this, I know the village is you know really talked about preserving it and how they're gonna move forward.

So I don't want to stand in the way of that.

So I would uh go ahead and member Belitza, yes.

Yeah, I'm supportive too, but uh just to clarify.

So in 2015, what you're saying is the the county said okay to the sewer and water, as long as we have some say in the historic preservation of the mansion.

Is that what this well the the overall development of selling the property to the north to Pulti just the pulti involved, you know, involved this mansion because it was the mansion property, they're splitting that off.

I get that.

I'm just reading, I guess maybe I should back up.

I'm reading the part of the transfer, um, the preservation agreement in the summary on our agenda.

So I'm so that's what I'm reading, and based on what you just said, is that correct?

Like that's that's why we're even part of this to chair's point.

I'm just trying to summarize what you said.

It's because they needed sewer and water, and the county at the time or the county board at the time was like, sure, um, we would like to enter into this IGA or whatever it's called, the preservation agreement in order to have some influence or say or over the preservation of the historic part of the property.

Yeah, I think I mean, I think Vernon Hills and the county were aligned in that, you know, they wanted broadly that this mansion be preserved.

I mean, I if you talk to people and maybe you have this experience, lots of people go have been there.

Yeah.

The Christmas lights, I've heard about many times.

I've not seen them myself.

Um, I've been to the mansion once before.

I mean, it's a neat old mansion.

Um, so I think there was just general, you know, okay, we're gonna allow development in this area or further development.

Obviously, that area's been developed like crazy over the last 30 years.

Um, but we want to make sure that you know that the mansion uh remains a mansion.

Now, I will say this.

I mean, Vernon Hills and the attorney, they they've talked openly to me about the fact that they claim that the mansion needs 17 million dollars worth of work was mentioned.

I think 10 million dollars of work was mentioned.

I mean, a lot of money.

So it's a concern.

I I don't want to mislead you in into thinking that if we terminate this, Vernon Hills will necessarily preserve the mansion.

Maybe, maybe not.

Yeah, it's a lot of money.

That's my and I think they came to the forest preserve, that's what I was told, and to see if the forest preserve was interested in it.

And it's obviously it's a lot of money.

Thank you.

Yeah, to your point, we we do have this agreement, but we don't have a fund for that.

We're we're not supporting the restoration.

Member Maine.

Thank you, Matt.

Yeah, I I'm in support of this.

It was an odd thing for us to be um pulled in in terms of the preservation.

And I totally believe that it is 17 million dollars.

I've I've been to weddings and other things there.

And um like many old places, it can be like many things in life, it can be the gift that keeps on taking.

So that's um, you know, I have no problem supporting this.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.29s is approved.

Um, members, I'll just note we do have a brief executive session.

County administrators report.

I do want to just clarify one thing, and I apologize for not bringing this up before the consent agenda, but staff would like to clarify that item 8.9 on the current FA agenda was postponed yesterday at PWT.

And while it shows on the agenda this morning, it was not included in the consent agenda action this morning as it was not acted on by the PWT yesterday.

This item will come before FA once it is acted on by the PWT committee next month.

Okay.

So just to clarify, what we approved was the consent agenda as amended for the item that you earlier mentioned, which was amended in committee, but not including item 8.9.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh we do a brief executive session to review closed session minutes.

Motion to go into executive session to review minutes by Vice Chair Prax, second by member Volitzik.

Roll call, please.

Member Clark.

Chair Frank.

Aye.

Member Hewitt.

Member Maine.

Aye.

Vice Chair Parek.

Member Peterson.

Aye.

Member Volitzek.

Motion is approved.

We'll head into a second session.

And then we'll have to go to an executive session.

11.1 and 11.2, our committee action approving the FNA executive session minutes from August 28th and October 9th.

Motion to approve by member Clark.

Second by Member Hewitt.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any member remarks or requests.

We are adjourned.

We'll see you on December 4th.