Good morning, everyone.

Today is July 7th, 2026, and it is 8:33 a.m.

And I call to order the health and community services meeting.

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.

Per county board rules and the open meetings act, attendance via remote means is permitted for qualifying reasons as long as the majority of the committee members are physically present, which is the case today.

Do we have anyone that is planning to attend remotely?

Okay, we've not been notified by any members.

Physical quorum is present.

All right.

I'd now like to ask members for a moment of silence for Vice Chair, Dr.

Mary Russ Cunningham.

Rise with me.

Thank you.

Member Casman, if you can join me in the Pledge Allegiance.

Thank you.

Can I have a roll call on members, please?

Vice Chair Altenberg.

Here.

Member Kasman.

Here.

Member Danforth.

Member Kinesitnik.

Member Maine.

Chair Parrick.

Here.

And Chair Hart.

All right.

Do we have any addenda to today's agenda?

No addenda to the agenda.

Do we have any public comments?

No public comments.

Or public comments.

And chair's remarks.

I mean, obviously, this is uh the first time we're holding this meeting since one of our members, Mary Ross Cunningham passed.

So I'd like to reflect on a few comments uh regarding member Cunningham.

Um, but I'll keep this brief, obviously.

I think all of us want to speak further at um county board next meeting.

Uh but I think it's important that we acknowledge her here in health and community service because this committee reflected the work that I believe, along with judiciary, which she chaired, was closest to her heart.

Uh people will call Mary Ross Cunningham a legend.

They'll say that she was one of the finest county board members we've ever had, and one of the most public effective public servants this county is known.

All of that is true of Mary, but accolades and titles can sometimes obscure the simpler truth about Mary.

She was relentless because she never lost sight of what was to serve here.

Her focus was was always on the people who had the least and needed the most.

Families facing homelessness, seniors trying to be housed, veterans needing support, people struggling to access health care, or residents who simply had nowhere else to turn.

All of us care about our constituents, but few of us lived the commitment the way Mary did.

She wasn't a county board member only when meetings were in session.

She was one every hour of the day.

If someone in Waukegan called, Mary answered.

If there was a barrier, she pushed through it.

If she felt government wasn't moving fast enough, she made sure it did.

What I hope we remember of Mary isn't the votes and policy she voted for voted for or passed in these committees and in the committees she chaired.

It's the step, it's it's that she reminded us of why the committees even existed in the first place.

Every item on our agenda represents a person, a family, or a community looking for help.

Mary never let us forget that.

She insisted that behind every report, every budget request, and every policy discussion was a human being.

So thank you.

Do we have any unfinished business?

No, finished best.

All right.

Uh consent agenda.

Uh item 9.1 is the committee action approving the health and community services meeting minutes from June 2nd, 2026.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kasman, second by member Kenny's member Holzenberg, sorry.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Item 9.2 is our regular agenda is the director's report from Director Sereno.

Welcome.

Good morning.

Thank you for having us here today.

I want to present to you a recognition that my team received, workforce development received from Legacy Foundation.

But before going into there, why is this important?

And what is it that we do as a team that elevates our work that gets this level of recognition throughout the communities as well as the state and the nation?

This is our strategic plan that we set in and the work that we work towards to achieve these imperatives going forward.

Two of the areas on the strategic plan is to create a culture of equitable prosperity, which means to establish access and opportunities in all communities and also drive scalable industry-led workforce solutions.

We need the employers, we need the industries, we need the jobs to be successful when we're creating access and opportunities.

In the work that we have done with Legacy Foundation, which Tamara Harris will talk in detail, we did just that.

We understood the needs of the communities, the individuals in the community, and we created opportunity and access to those individuals by going where the individuals are at Legacy Foundation.

But we couldn't be successful if we didn't have the employers, the industries that have the jobs.

Here's an example credit, the consumer credit union.

They've worked closely with us over the years to create that access by having grant-funded work experiences, internships for individuals that didn't have access to those jobs.

And not only did they do that, they worked with us then and the College of Lake County to build that program and education for the related instruction coming from a college class, from college credit, earning a college degree while individuals are growing and learning on the job.

Again, we connect the employer, the jobs with the individuals, we create that access and opportunity.

So as Jennifer mentioned, as a part of the strategic plan and the key imperatives, one of those key imperatives was creative culture of economic prosperity.

And so we wanted to highlight as it pertains to the Relentless Hope Award that our workforce development board and department received.

Legacy Reentry Foundation was part of our job center on the move initiative.

This is where we go to those communities, certain communities, and we bring our service to those non-for-profit agencies, whether it's resume workshops, interviewing skills, direct placement, or mentorship.

And so we wanted to just highlight how they're one of the partners as it pertains to that initiative.

Within this slide, again, continuing with the theme of creating a culture of economic prosperity, we wanted to show what has transpired over the last 2025 and 2026.

210 individuals have received job readiness preparation in partnership with Legacy Reentry Foundation and the Job Center of Lake County.

There's been 12 direct job fairs done at Legacy Reentry Foundation and the Job Center of Lake County over the last year, along with 12 job center to move events.

This is a clear, again, clear example of intentional efforts and strategies and tactics as we're trying to address the needs of the residents within these communities, but also addressing the business needs within Lake County.

The other additional program we want to highlight is I think it's imperative to understand when we have our workforce development board members that are supporting uh the implementation of our grants, they're not just providing that oversight, but they're engaged with some of our um our practices and the strategic imperatives that have been developed by the board.

And here's an example of our board chair, Carlotta Roman, who went to Legacy Reentry Foundation to provide mentorship to young women and letting them know how it's important for them to start looking at employment and training opportunities at a young age.

Outside of that, um, when we're conducting these intentional efforts over the last year and a half, we've had three paid internships at Legacy Reentry Foundation, along with these four positions, the four interns over the last year and a half have been directly hired.

And so again, when we're looking at partnerships, they're strategic in nature.

We don't want to just only expose individuals to industry, but how are there are there opportunities for direct placement for the individuals that we're serving within uh that community or within that agency?

One of the other items as it pertains to the partnership with Legacy Reentry Foundation and the Workforce Development Board and Department.

Um, they do have a niche where they assist individuals that have been justice impacted.

They are part of our circle of partners as it pertains to ensuring that we're assisting individuals that might have a misdemeanor or a felony.

Justice um Legacy Reentry Foundation receives referrals from the Lake County jail.

They work closely with the sheriff's office to make sure that they're offering mentorship opportunities for those individuals that are released.

And from our partnership, we then can embed our training services, our employment services to their justice impacted individuals that they're serving.

And so on this slide, we really wanted to just highlight uh the additional portfolio items in regards to the partnership and the collaborative effort.

Continuing with that theme, I wanna we we definitely want to highlight that we currently have a revived Lake County program within Lake County Jail, and that's where we do partner with Legacy Reentry Foundation where they're able to refer their individuals to our revive program, but also we have this program externally.

And so part of that external revived Lake County program where it is a six-week course where anyone that has been justice impacted can go through six modules over a six-week period of time, and then there is a capstone at the end where they present to their peers about what they learned during that period of time, and they're also presenting to an employer as well.

And so Legacy Reentry Foundation has been part of that referral network.

And over the 2025 program year to 2026, we have serviced over 50 justice impacted individuals as pertains to that programming and the general programming of the job center.

Last but not least, we always think it's important that we don't just provide services to any non-for-profit or any entity, and we just come in and we're just gonna provide the general job center services.

We're strategic in regards to who we're partnering with.

And so this slide really does illustrate the return on investment and the outcomes from that strategic partnership.

Again, before we work with any type of partner, we're making sure is there a flow of individuals?

Who are you serving?

Are we gonna set up metrics and benchmarks in regards to the activities that are gonna take place?

And so I won't go through each outcome, but you can see here, just as an example, there's been over 30 job fairs since 2019 to 2026.

There's been over 50 jobs center on the move events that have transpired at Legacy Reentry Foundation in partnership with the Job Center of Lake County.

And from these outcomes, I would be remiss if I did not mention that this work is only done by the personnel that are at workforce development and at the job center of Lake County.

This magic would not happen unless we had staff members and personnel to do the good work.

And Jennifer and I are just blessed to be able to speak about it with you today.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Any uh questions or comments?

Yep, member Kazman.

I just want to thank you.

Um and congratulate you on this uh amazing award.

Um, I've been able to see a couple of those presentations at the jail, and I've been moved every time.

Um I want you to know that I see your concerted effort to reach out and um find the people who need your services the most.

And I've been so impressed, just in the six years I've been on the board at how much you're working to reach the people who need you.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Um Remine.

Thank you.

Um, and I've been to a few of those job fairs, and they're so well attended, like once at the Marriott.

It's just just jammed.

That's great.

I'm a little f unfamiliar with the term justice impacted.

Does that mean anyone who's been in the justice system, or is that those who've been wrongly convicted?

Is that a newer term?

Or I'm just out of date.

No, definitely anyone that has anyone that has been in the justice system.

Great, thank you.

Member Altimer.

Well, congratulations and this well-deserved award.

We're so we're always so proud of all the different programs you have, the people we're serving, especially for incarcerated individuals.

I think giving them every opportunity to get trained, to get help, to get supported is super important.

And we're trying to move them forward.

And this is a really important way of doing that.

And I'm really glad we're able to give those types of opportunities.

I have been to your job fairs.

They're great, they're well attended, and um, and I know you guys are you know really working hard.

So I'm glad to see that your efforts are um appreciated.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Member can well, I have not been to one of your job fairs, and apparently I'm missing out.

So I'm going to put that high on my priority list.

I don't want to miss the next one.

Uh, I just will add my comments to my colleagues.

I honestly cannot imagine any entity doing what you do better than you do, you and your staff.

So um there's that, and I'm just always astonished at how effective um workforce development team is and super proud, right?

Um but I also just want to say I love uh the way this award really illustrates how you're working together with community partners, CBOs, community-based organizations.

That is exactly what I want to see more and more and more of in county government.

And I really think you know, you're doing that and approaching that um that that approach to doing good in the county and serving the people who need our services the most.

Um, that collaboration, that cooperation.

I mean, you're really serving as a great model to other agencies.

The county and I'd like to see that kind of uh inner inner personal or that kind of cooperation between state and federal governments as well.

So thank you.

You're doing an amazing job.

Not news to anyone here, but it's great to hear about it.

Thank you.

To her.

Thank you very much.

So really, I I couldn't say it better, but I certainly just wanted to say congratulations to you and your team.

Um, I think it's really great that we are taking some time to help all of us better understand um the work that you guys are doing, right?

You can come in and give us a lot of data, right?

But when you're really talking at this level of detail and about the partners and the work that they do, I think it just really opens our eyes.

I'll say to something that Chair Parrock was talking about before.

Uh, that vice chair made sure that we remember that these programs are really, you know, she reminds us that it's about the people.

And I think you've done a really good job today.

Um, and really bringing that home to us about about the work that you do.

So thank you very much.

It's really great, and we look forward to hearing about more successes in the future.

Thank you.

Member Alsener?

I just you just reminded me, Sandy, that um vice chair, Dr.

Mary Ross Cunningham sat on your workforce development board.

She talked about it often.

She was very proud of being on that board for so many years.

And I think this particular award and the work you're doing would have meant a very lot to her, and I think it's worth mentioning today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean to echo member Altenberg.

Uh Mary would have been proud for for for what you've done and for and also for the recognition.

Um, so thank you for presenting this.

And I and I enjoyed this one today, too, as member Chart Hart was saying, it was not just facts and figures, but really how we're impacting people.

And so we uh really appreciate that.

So thank you so much.

I I did have one kind of question on this, not this specifically, but you all do such great work in so many different areas.

And I wonder is there an opportunity to do some type of longitudinal study to show people who you impacted in the high school programs where they are today, you know, seven years later, or folks that went through these types of programs where they were to show the long-term outcomes that you guys do.

Is that would that be hard to do at some point, or could we look at starting it today to see we're in 10 years your folks, and that would just show like, hey, those that went through some type of workforce development, look at where they are today versus those that that didn't, you know, one of your pro, you know, some of your programs.

I don't you may have thought about this already.

We could share some snapshots.

Um, one of the biggest challenges we have with longitudinal data studies is we have multiple systems.

There is not one system that contains this information.

So even internally, we would be pulling from multiple systems.

But we could do a snapshot of a program and demonstrate from there.

Yeah, I just think it would be great to show and frankly help us get even more dollars, maybe right in the future of what this does in the long term.

Because we're ultimately we're working in the moment, but we're hoping to impact the long term ultimately.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming, Tamar.

Thank you.

All right.

Item 9.3 is a joint resolution approving an emergency appropriation of 87,000 dollars 875 for fiscal year 2026, accepting additional funding for the Illinois Department of Health of Human Services Suicide Prevention Call Center enhancement grant.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kasmin, second by member Kenesnik.

Welcome, Michelle, Michelle and uh Sam.

Hi, good morning.

I just want to say uh Sam Johnson, deputy executive director for the health department, um, representing Chris uh Hoff today, our executive director, he's out of office.

So and with me, I have Michelle Lesser, our director of behavioral health.

Hi, good morning.

Uh behavioral health services crisis care program receive this additional funding to increase our capacity to provide 988 suicide and crisis lifeline services to the community.

We are going to use these funds to hire three full-time 988 call takers.

So this additional staff will allow us to answer more calls and reduce call overflow.

So I am asking that the emergency appropriation in the amount of 87,533 for the suicide prevention call center enhancement grant be approved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions from the committee?

I I just had a couple.

With the hiring of the three, how how much is the overflow now that we're missing?

Did you meant Michelle mentioned this was to help because of the just the sheer volume, the overflow?

Yes.

Yeah.

So right now our call answer rate is hovers around 81, 82%.

Um calls have been steadily increasing um just through the years and over the months.

So what happens now is the caller will kind of get bounced around to different call centers until someone's available to answer their call.

So we hope to get our call answer rate up from 81%.

And does this get when you say bounce around, does it get bounced around?

So if someone calls from Highland Park, um, and there's not enough uh capacity, do they maybe get bounced to Cook or McHenry or something like that?

Or is it is it a coordinated effort in that capacity?

Yeah, so there's six call centers in the state.

So that would ideally be bounced to somewhere else in Illinois, but it it can go across the country.

Geolocation has helped with that with the cell phone companies using geolocation.

Um so it's staying more in our area in Illinois, but the potential it can be bounced outside of our state.

Okay.

And I just one more one more question.

And so Michelle, you were saying the numbers are going up.

Yeah.

Can you tell us for the time frame generally since are you saying since 10 years since COVID since do we have any sense of why?

Um definitely since COVID.

Um 988 started about 2023, 2022, 2023.

Um, and call rates definitely increased since the start of 988.

Prior to 988, we were, and we still have our general 988 crisis line.

Yeah, sorry, 988.

Um, so we still have our general crisis line, and we have had that for many, many years.

When we became a 988 call center, our calls increased um since then.

So the past couple years, definitely calls have been increasing.

Yeah, this year we have had about an average of 1,400 calls per month.

Now, is it because we've just because of our new the 998 number?

Is that why, or do we think there's more people who need support?

I think there's more people who need support as well.

And we're trying to get the word out there too that we are available.

Um, but yeah, we have even prior to 988, we since COVID, we have seen just a steady increase.

Member Kasman and Member Altamer, did you have to um is there any way to mention or to measure the due-tos on that?

Like, is it because people are in more financial trouble because of rising costs?

Is it because or you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I mean it could be all of the above.

You know, it's it's hard to really pinpoint um, you know, the exact reason, but we know there's been a lot going on.

Um, you know, we had a little spike with um when there was ice activity in our community.

So we do see spikes when there's like an event or something that we can kind of tie it to.

We will see some spikes.

Okay.

Um when they get off the crisis care line.

Do you find that there are enough places for them to get help from a mental health standpoint?

Yeah, so uh every call that comes in, we do offer um mobile response.

So we have a mobile crisis response team that is available to go out like right at the time of crisis to assist if it cannot be resolved over the phone or if the caller prefers um face-to-face.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Member Altenburg might follow by Member Dan Forth.

Okay.

So with the net so are all the calls to that line, are they all coming through 988 or are they also coming through some other places?

It's coming.

So our crisis care program is the call center for 988.

And we have our general crisis line.

It's we call it our 8088 number.

Yeah, I was curious about that.

And um I had another question.

So I come back to me.

Okay.

I'm just curious.

This would provide three additional staff members to take these calls.

Yes.

How many, how many and this is for like suicide calls?

I mean, that's um primarily what it is.

Yeah, it's I mean any sort of mental health crisis, really.

So it's not not everyone who calls is experiencing suicidal ideations, could just be like increase, you know, in symptoms or just feeling kind of it's basically.

I mean, this is specifically for like suicide prevention is yes, for our 988 grant.

How many calls do we get in a month for this?

I mean, to have three additional staff, and I'm not saying it's not necessary, but to have three additional staff to take these types of calls.

How many calls do we get a month for this?

Average of 1400 this year.

1400 a month.

Yes.

That many.

Yes.

So how many staff do we have now that are taking these calls?

We have per shift.

It's eight out three eight-hour shifts per day.

Um there are say three daytime, three evening and two overnight staff that are taking calls.

And when our mobile response team is not out on a call, they will do some um call taking as well.

So these three additional people, would you just add like a person in each shift?

Is that what you think you're doing?

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, so we're all so I was wondering how quickly if somebody calls in, how quickly is their call getting answered?

Like are they do they have to wait or um well, ideally it's immediately, but we don't always know if you know all our call takers are busy.

Um, it's hard to tell where you know the waiting calls might be going.

They don't see that they don't go on hold.

No.

Yeah, they're no minutes or if we don't answer by a certain number of rings, it goes to the next available center.

Okay, so somebody's gonna pick up 100%.

Yes.

And that's why it sometimes goes national to guarantee that no that no call goes unanswered.

All right, that's really good.

Very good.

Okay.

And that was the that was the advantage of the 988 network being built, so that all these centers were connected.

Yeah.

It's local preferred, and then it moves national if you if we can.

But they're gonna get a professional talking to them.

So that's really important.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So of those 1400, since we're part of that consortium, do you have a sense of how many of them have been moved to us because other facilities across the country don't have enough staff?

We we don't take we don't take those.

So we're when we joined the network, we agreed to only take calls from really Lake County.

Right.

So they let you like you help us, but we're not helping you.

Wow.

They did a lot of it.

Yeah.

No, I mean that was a great, yeah.

Wow.

Okay, interesting.

Yeah, we told them we were supported by local tax dollars and we didn't we didn't have the capacity to answer.

And they were they needed enough, they needed call centers, so they were willing to agree to that.

Okay, right, because it took away from what they had to handle.

Very interesting.

Thank you.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much.

Lots of discussion.

I think you you're really enlightened us.

So appreciate the the conversation.

Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.

All right.

We'll move on to 9.4, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

9.4.

Uh joint resolution approving emergency appropriation of $20,000 for fiscal year 2027 26, accepting additional funding from the Illinois Department of Public Health, tobacco-free communities grant.

I have a motion.

Motion by member Kasmin, second by member and easnik.

I didn't see Lisa.

That's why I was like, wait, right.

Am I a 9.4 or not?

Right.

Yeah, uh, I'm speaking for Lisa today.

How's that?

So we didn't want to make a correct criteria.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sam.

Yeah.

Double duty.

Um, this is a long-standing grant.

So this is just a small addition uh to it for this fiscal year.

And we plan to use these additional funds to do some extra anti-vaping social media messaging.

And then we're also putting together some um kits for teens like lip balm and stress balls and information on vaping and tobacco uh that we'll give out in the fall when school restarts.

So some additional um communications.

Member Maine, and then yeah, so that was pretty much my question of well, for this sounds like it's all going towards vaping.

These additional funds are going to go to vaping.

And if you were to look at excuse me, overall, how much of your efforts are percentage-wise are now focused on vaping.

Uh a quick clarification, just so we're uh the the kits in the fall are for vaping, smoking, and alcohol, just to clarify.

And to be honest, I'm I don't know the exact numbers.

Lisa would probably know that if she was here, but I know vaping is far overtaken all smoking for sure.

Uh member Altimer.

Yeah, that was part of my question.

So vaping is the bigger issue over smoking now.

There's more kids vaping than smoking.

Right, and and and numbers of people doing it, right?

And I'm fascinated by that because there was that point where there was a lot of people getting I don't know, black market vapes or whatever it was, and there was a lot of deaths associated with these bad vapes that were going around.

And I think it alarmed people for a little bit.

And then they kind of forgot about it.

And vaping continues as it continue to be on the rise.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

That was only a little glitch, and then like you said, people forget.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Chair Hart.

Thank you.

Um, I know Member Maine will often talk about what she's read in the New York Times.

There was an interesting article.

I think I read it just yesterday, about the um prevalence of these pouch um things like zins and how and how the popularity has really exploded.

And uh the federal government is actually having a different perspective on these and saying, you know, hey, this is great for smoking cessation um because it is tobacco free, but of course it has I I can't remember what the milligrams were of the chemicals and the milligrams of nicotine, which are so much stronger than cigarettes.

So I'm just wondering about um if you guys are are targeting that because uh I went down and visited my son in college, and uh, you know, you can walk past other kids' dorms room dorm rooms, and they have a display, some of the young men in their dorm rooms of zins, and they make towers out of them.

And it's a little crazy um how it is just glorified.

So I guess I'm just wondering um what what the health department can do and if there's limitations because of how what I'm understanding the federal government is looking at uh how they're viewing you know these new pouch products.

Yeah.

Honestly, I do wish we had Lisa here, she she would know much more about it than me, but sometimes it's an issue of of the harm reduction, you know, which we've talked about before, you know, like nicotine gum is is not as good as just regular gum, but it's better than smoking a cigarette, right?

In terms of healthiness.

So sometimes people use Zen to replace smoking, and that's a win, but then our preference would be they would stop using the zen.

But so you take, you know, you take and the wins where you can get them sometimes.

So I I I think it's just like nicotine gum, it's been used as a replacement tool, but the ultimate goal is hopefully people would get off the addictive substance altogether.

But you should see if the use of the zen then because so addicted to the nicotine, if then they end up turning to smoking.

I don't have to point, yeah.

Okay, thank you very much.

Like a lot of people have used vaping to stop smoking, but then they never stop vaping.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh member Danforth.

Chair Hart's point.

I mean, obviously, we have you know a culture full of all different types of addicts, right?

Whether you're drinking your 10 cups of coffee or your five monster drinks a day or whatever stimulant of your choice.

I mean, at the end of the day, I would have to agree with what you said.

It the delivery system is sometimes what we need to be most concerned about because of the health issues as to tars and all the uh additives that are put into cigarettes and other tobacco products.

At least this is a pure form of you know the nicotine, uh just like we now have when you and I were growing up, you know, the marijuana cigarette that would be in the fraternity house would be a lot less powerful than it is today when it's you know 150 times the strength of THC today.

And so our kids aren't getting what we as now adults uh we're getting back in college.

They're just getting a totally different product.

So here's my two cents.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other comments, questions?

All those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Okay, 9.5 is a joint resolution approving emergency appropriation of 12,880 dollars for fiscal year 2026, accepting additional grant funding for the Illinois Department of Health of Human Services Psychiatric Medications grant.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by member vice chair Altenberg, second by member Kniesnik.

So we received behavioral health services received this extra funding to continue to purchase psychiatric medications for our eligible mental health program clients.

Um this helps ensure that our clients without prescription drug insurance coverage or access to other resources are able to continue to receive the medications they need, and this allows them to remain stable in the community and in the least restrictive level of care.

So I asked that this emergency appropriation be approved.

Michelle, I just said one question.

I mean, 12,880.

I mean, that's great, but it in the grand scheme of things, it still feels small.

Um what is can do you have a general sense of what is our hopeful funding for for psychiatric medicine for those that don't have insurance?

Um so we were running out of the grant that we initially got approved for.

So they did um agree to give us this extra 12,000 dollars.

Um and just the grant next year has actually been decreased, and I think we're only receiving about like 20 some thousand dollars, which is significantly less than past years.

So do we have alternatives for these individuals then?

Are there any medication programs that we can there?

We this is last resort.

So you know, some of the um medications we can use good RX, you know, and they're pretty inexpensive, but you know, this is used for the more like really expensive psychotropic medications.

Um, some of the drug companies have um like medication like assistance programs, which we will help link our clients to.

Sometimes a client might use this once um while they're waiting for assistance to come through.

So usually this is not used repeatedly for a client.

It's not their only primary source of medication.

Okay.

Right.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Chair Altenburg, followed by Member Kniesnik.

So I'm wondering, so is this connected the reduction in money for this service?

Is that connected to the reduction we're seeing from the federal government to the states and to the counties?

I don't know.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, but yeah, I'm not sure.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was it.

Member can you sit?

Okay.

Wow.

Great minds think alike.

No.

Seeing no other questions, all those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

We will now move to item 9.6, which is a joint resolution approving emergency appropriation of 745,850 for fiscal year 2026, accepting additional funding from the Illinois Department of Health and of Health Services, fixed rate substance use disorder and gambling disorder grant.

And I have a motion.

Motion by member uh has been second by member main.

So this is another situation.

Um, we get funds every year to help pay um for substance use disorder treatment for our clients that do not have insurance or other sources of funding.

Um, the past couple years we have run out of uh funds to cover treatment for these clients, so leaving many people, um individuals not having access to this treatment.

So the state um we did request more funds, and the state did um give us more funds to continue to assist paying for substance use treatment for these individuals without funding.

So I asked that this emergency appropriation be approved.

Questions?

Questions from the committee?

Member Altenburg.

Um I'm wondering, and maybe I don't know if Ruth Ann or Patrice can answer this.

Um besides these funds, 745,000, we're also contributing.

The county is contributing from our video gambling uh proceeds.

Are we also contributing like another 800,000 to this?

Is that correct?

No.

Plus, but yeah, this is a very different program.

And um I I'm gonna defer to them to explain that these are services that they're providing directly, which is very different than what we're doing with our video gambling funds.

Oh because your funds are going they're powered by places that help people, right?

And this is coming from us, like we're we're giving these services.

Is that the difference?

Okay, yes.

All right, thank you.

Um Chair Frank, Vice Chair Finance Chair Frank.

Thank you.

My question is similar to Vice Chair Altenberg's, which is can you maybe just talk a little bit more about the spectrum of needs in this area?

So, like the vice chair mentioned, we designate a minimum of $800,000 a year from our video gaming funds to be used for gambling prevention and uh addiction services.

Um, and so it seems to me like this is similar.

Can you help us understand to make sure that we are funding the needed services at the right level and not overfunding in certain areas?

That um, you know, um the detriment of other areas that might need funding.

How do you look at that?

How do you scale it properly?

Uh Michelle could probably talk about the need, but it it does there's there's a lot of need out there.

So that's I don't want to uh I don't know uh how all the um video gaming money is being designated, so that's going to other agencies, so I can't speak to whether that's being spent correctly, but we um this money is goes to um funding our uh like our inpatient programs for uh rehab and detox and our women's rehab program, uh which costs each cost over two million dollars a year to run.

So if if we had client when we have clients coming in with no insurance, we don't get paid for serving those.

So that's what this money goes for.

And as Michelle said, we had already spent the money given us.

So this is going to be an additional additional funding.

So um for uninsured people completely, but there's plenty of need out there.

This so you're the the video gaming money, I think, goes to agencies like Nikasa and other agencies, and they they have full wait lists as well.

So if in the question of need, there's there's lots of need.

Um chair.

Uh, just quick follow-up.

Thank you for the explanation.

If I'm getting to your helpful question, I know I think that that is helpful for us to understand.

Um essentially, this is like uh uncompensated care, right?

Like correct, providing uh inpatient services to people who have high levels of need, and these are some services that the state is reimbursing to help department for, correct?

That's correct.

It's a grant to pay for uninsured people to get substance use care.

And then so yes, you you're absolutely right.

The intention of our video gaming revenue policy is that we fund those agencies that do education and treatment.

But again, it feels like there there may be some connectivity and overlap.

It would be helpful for us, I think, just to understand where the connectivity lies so that we we make sure that we're funding the needs appropriately.

So for a future conversation, yeah, yeah.

And if you have a better sense of how we could help support that discussion, we'd be happy to help.

I'm not 100% sure I'm grasping it, but yeah, maybe just how we can communication between the agencies and and our folks so that when we're budgeting, we understand what's needed.

Yeah.

100%.

Thank you.

Great chair.

Thank you.

Yeah, interesting.

Um question, sir.

Perhaps a little more clarity, excuse me, on this grant because it's from I Illinois Department of Human Services, fixed rate substance use disorder and gambling disorder.

So you mentioned WRS.

So women are in WRS, which is actually part of the judicial program there, right?

We take people from the digestive program.

We take people from WRS as part of a uh judicial program.

So is it it says and there?

So is the point is I guess part of to the point of this question.

Is this money all being used for people with gambling disorders?

Or is it this and this?

Yeah.

Then that is I'm glad you asked it is a confusing question.

That's the name of the grant from the state.

Yeah.

Our up, our application was to the state was to use it only for substance use services.

So we don't spend any of this on gambling disorder.

I think I think that helps clarify.

Maybe that helps.

These other questions that this is substance abuse.

It's not moving disorder.

Ours is 100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you, Ann.

Yeah.

That's the state's name of that program.

Right.

That is confusing.

Remember, Casmin.

Thank you.

I think I'm hearing what Paul is saying.

I know that part of Live Well is, you know, for psychological services, and this would fall under that.

Is there a coordinating entity to sort of look at all of the need for these services across Lake County and how you can work together to meet those needs for both a financial standpoint and a service, you know, providing standpoint.

We we do a lot of coordination actually.

So we we have El COI, which is a lot of organizations coming together.

That one's mostly specific about opioids, of course, but it's the same treatment facilities.

So Nakasa, Health Department, NERCO, multiple others, gateway, things like that.

And then we have Lavoe Lake County as well, which is you know pulls together uh a couple of hundred, I think, agencies.

So to coordinate care, talk about gaps and services.

Um, and then um NERCO, I can't remember the name of their ROSC, the Rosk Council, thank you.

Recovery oriented systems of care exists to pull together uh specifically substance use organizations to coordinate care and share our ideas.

So there's a lot of that that goes on.

Um, you know, the funding doesn't necessarily get shared, everybody has their own funding, and they can't share it necessarily, but a lot of coordination does go on.

Thank you.

All right, seeing no further questions.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Paul.

All right.

We're gonna move on to community development 9.7 is a joint rules resolution approving the home consortium agreement for federal fiscal years 2027 to 2029.

Welcome, Penny Rayful Ray.

Rafal sent.

And I was kind of expecting to see Dominic, and I guess I'm I'm wrong in the in this moving forward.

Nope, this is just today.

Okay.

Uh Dominic is out of town, and we are telling him he must take a stay out of town.

Excellent.

So good morning.

I oh, you have to.

Oh, yes.

Uh can I have a motion?

Motion by member Kasmin, second by Vice Chair Altenburg.

Thank you, Penny.

Thank you.

Good morning.

So I'm Penny Rapelson, community development grant manager.

I'm here for Dominic Straito, who is hopefully out of town.

And uh first we have the home consortium agreement.

This is an agreement that is done every three years.

Um the home consortium was formed in 1991, and this renews our status as an entitlement community for home funds.

This is not a competitive process, uh, but we have to complete this process in order to receive those funds.

In the agreement, the funds are distributed with Lake County, taking first the administrative piece off the top, since we are the ones administering the funds, and then setting aside funds for our Cotos, our community housing development organizations per the home requirements.

Um after that, the remaining funds are distributed with 8% going to the city of North Chicago, 26% to the city of Waukegan, and the remainder 66% to Lake County.

These are the same percentages as in previous agreements.

Uh any funds that are not spent, Lake County does have the ability to reallocate those to make sure that they are going to our community and not being returned.

Mostly Lake County uses those funds for new construction.

North Chicago, mostly for owner-occupied rehab, and Waukegan, primarily for down payment assistance programs.

Thank you, Penny.

Any questions from the committee?

No, I I would like to say that if Mary were here with us today, she'd be very proud and excited for the continuation of these programs.

So thank you so much, Penny.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, the motion passes item 9.8 is a joint resolution authorizing intergovernmental agreement for the provision of grant administrators administration and management services for North Chicago Community Development Block Grant, also known as CDBG funds.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kenniesnik, second by member Kasmin.

Uh, like the um home funds, this is also completed every three years.

And this is to certify us as an entitlement community under the urban county CDBG program.

All municipalities in Lake County are reached out to to ask if they would like to participate.

They have a couple choices.

They can choose to participate with Lake County.

They can opt out and apply for state funding.

They can split their municipality if they are in more than one county.

All of the counties, all of the municipalities have opted in, with the exception of North Chicago and Joaquin because they get their own entitlement funds.

So they are not part of ours.

This agreement in front of you is from was created in 2014 with the City of North Chicago, where we administer their CDBG funds.

So we receive their funds.

We work directly with uh the city to uh make recommendations on services to their community with those funds, and then we administer those funds and um monitor compliance for all of those funds.

If they are unable to be used, we can reallocate them to other programs across Lake County, and we do receive the administrative percentage for those funds for doing that work.

Thank you.

Any questions from the committee?

Member Maine.

Yeah, um, is the administrative funds is that just set as um uh percent uh percent of the total grant?

Yes, so there's not a sliding scale like bigger grants, don't necessarily require more effort.

Um regardless.

And then do we is that percentage set by state, federal, us, and if it's us, how do we determine what that is?

It's set by HUD.

Okay, thank you.

Excellent.

Seeing no other questions, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any more any of those opposed?

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

I'm really excited by item 10.

Me too.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Oh, you do it.

Okay.

So we're gonna first get a for uh Lacey's gonna do a quick introduction and then we'll move into item uh 10.10, which is a county administrator's report.

Uh good morning.

I want to briefly introduce the safe gun storage presentation on the HCS committee agenda today in fiscal year 2024.

This committee supported a new program request on this topic.

So we're providing an update on the progress and impact that this NPR has had.

Please welcome State's attorney.

Come on.

All right.

Welcome, State's attorney.

As well as Rachel Jacobi is here as well.

And here I am only going to use uh my words to say a few things.

Welcome.

While they're handing out some information, good morning.

My name is Eric Reinhardt.

I'm the state's attorney.

I'm very proud to be partnered with the amazing individuals handing out some material today.

Um, I'm sure I will give other comments in other places, but obviously I want to acknowledge the loss of uh Vice Chair Dr.

Mary Ross Cunningham, who, as everyone has said, beautifully today, and I thought Chair Park's uh uh comments were particularly eloquent this morning.

Um, as everyone has said, uh, a total a complete loss to this community and to this government and uh to the project of helping people.

And I loved uh that the chair's comments focus so much on helping people, uh, and that these programs are here to help people.

I will turn it over to uh Rachel Jacobi and only give the framing as this committee, uh Chair uh Park and a vice chair uh Altenberg uh uh a few years ago had the vision.

Uh I think while we had some different individuals in in county admin, um, even and and the current both it both county administrators and their staff have supported this work.

It sometimes makes it a little complicated in terms of some of the funding in terms of how we did it back then, but everybody is behind this work, and I want to acknowledge uh uh the chair and vice chair of this committee uh for uh having the vision, having the vision uh to move into this space, and I will turn it over to uh Rachel Jacobi from our office.

Thank you, State's attorney Reinhart.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for having me here today.

For those I don't know, my name is Rachel Jacoby, and I am our firearm risk reduction coordinator with the state's attorney's office.

Part of my role um includes leading our what we call red flag law work, which you've heard previously about related to firearms restraining orders.

But I'm here today to talk about the secure firearm storage portion of my work.

Um, so we can jump right in.

So we are going to talk about what secure firearm storage is, what existing program has been done in Lake County over the last few years, the impact that secure firearm storage has had, specifically within Lake County, some projects that we have on the horizon in the future, and then I will, of course, open it up for any questions.

Okay, so what is secure firearm storage?

Secure storage is a practice of storing firearms that reduces the risk of intentional and unintentional firearm injuries and deaths by children and those at the highest risk of harming themselves or others.

So when we talk about secure storage, there are usually three primary components that we include.

The first is that those firearms are locked.

So there are a few different ways to lock a firearm, whether it's a cable lock, a gun safe, a lockbox, et cetera.

But again, that locking component can help that gun from being misused.

The second component that we talk about is storing that gun unloaded.

So that means removing the magazine, clearing the chamber, making sure that there's no ammunition inside before it's stored.

And again, an unloaded gun reduces the risk of unintentional injury of someone, perhaps a child picking it up and causing harm to themselves or others.

And then lastly, whenever possible, um, we focus on this last component, which is storing it separately from ammunition.

Um, and ideally that ammunition is locked in a separate place than the firearm, and again, keeping the firearm apart from the ammunition adds a secondary layer of safety because every single barrier that we put between someone who is in crisis or a child or someone who might be at risk of harming themselves or others can keep that family, that individual in our broader community that much safer.

So why is secure firearm storage important?

We know that secure storage is an effective way to prevent shootings that result from someone misusing a firearm that they discover in their home.

Um, and we also know that when someone is in crisis or when there's a moment of crisis, easy access to a firearm can turn a dangerous or a tense situation into a deadly one.

And again, every single barrier that we put between someone who is in crisis and that firearm can give them time to seek help, access resources, call our friends at 988 and get the support that they need to again make sure that that situation doesn't turn deadly.

We also know that having access to a firearm triples someone write someone's risk of dying by suicide, and that nearly half of all suicides in Lake County utilized firearms in 2025.

Um, and on top of the suicide component of secure firearm storage, we know that parents tend to overestimate their ability to store their firearms away from their children in places that are hidden.

So, for example, maybe in a shoebox in the top corner of a closet in a nightstand drawer, etc.

But those same parents tend to underestimate a child's ability to have access to those firearms.

So parents, about 70% of parents think their kids don't have any access to those um firearms that might just be hidden, but well over a third of children know how to access those guns within five minutes of finding them in the house.

Keep going.

So now I'm gonna transition and talk a little bit about the secure firearm storage programming that we have here in Lake County.

Um the first is a campaign called End Family Fire.

We have created and developed this campaign in partnership with Brady, which is a national gun violence prevention group, the ad council, which has a lot of experience producing many of the public service announcements that you've probably seen over the last few decades, and our partners at the Illinois Department of Public Health.

And that this campaign is kind of centered around this idea of family fire, which is shootings that result from someone misusing an unsecured firearm in the home.

Um, and this is a you're looking at a screenshot of a dedicated website that our team developed with these partners, and that is nfamily fire.org/slash lake county.

When they click on that link or end up at that link, um from whether it's from a an uh public advertisement or another like social media push or something like that, they will have information about what secure firearm storage is, how it works, and then how to access local resources here in Lake County.

So this campaign has involves a few different components.

I mentioned social media already, um, thanks to the funds appropriated to our office in support of this initiative.

But we also have a lot of a significant digital out-of-home presence through billboards, gas stations, video streaming.

So residents of Lake County are geo-targeted based on their location, but also based on their likelihood to own a firearm or engage in in different content online that may signal to the ad targeters that they own a firearm or are interested in a firearm.

So you would see it in video streaming.

So if you're streaming Hulu, Disney, Amazon with ads online, all the different places we stream our content.

Then we also have the same ads in audio version.

So if you are on Spotify with ads, Apple Music with ads, Pandora, et cetera.

And then we've also developed custom brochures in English and Spanish, which should be in the folders that you all received.

And would you mind playing the video now, please?

This is an example of one of our.

I was in the United States Navy and I served overseas in the Middle East and Africa.

Early on in my career, I had a commander that taught our suicide prevention training on a Friday afternoon, and the very next day he took his own life.

90% of suicide attempts involving a gun are fatal.

You don't know how much somebody can hide what's going on inside their head.

Store your guns securely help stop suicide.

So this is just an example of one of the advertisements that residents across Lake County have received.

And these at this is not a localized version, but the residents of Lake County received a localized version.

So at the end, it says, and go to nfamilyfire.org/slash lake county for more information.

And you'll notice that this one is really veterans focused.

So a lot of our like kind of micro-targeting within this campaign was targeted to veterans and families with children just to reduce access for those really high-risk groups.

So going on to the next slide, these are examples of the brochures.

You can see them probably much more easily in the brochures in your packets.

So we again created them in English and Spanish, the content was translated and then also reviewed by local native speakers as well.

So front, back, definitely encourage you to dig in.

We are really proud of kind of how these have come together and the different message testing we are able to do them.

So in addition to the end family fire public awareness campaign, our team has also engaged in pretty extensive gun lock distribution over the last few years.

We have partnered with the Illinois Department of Public Health to distribute over 7,000 gun locks to Lake County residents completely free, no questions asked.

But we recognize that one of the most critical components of secure firearm storage and education is giving people both the education and the tools.

So we never distribute gun locks alone.

We always distribute them alongside information about secure firearm storage, suicide prevention, et cetera.

We also know that a lot of residents are not necessarily comfortable with us as the state's attorney's office as a government entity giving out gun locks or coming to our office even to get them.

So we're really intentional about being out in the community.

So you will see us at Back to School Affairs at Trunk Retreat events, at school safety conferences, suicide prevention events, mental health trainings, national nights out, et cetera.

We probably average like four events a month or so out in the community, depending on the month, of course.

But we really try to be intentional about meeting community members where they're at.

So the burden is on our team to get to them rather than residents to come to us.

In addition, we have partnered with a local local groups across the county called Be Smart.

These are locally organized groups across different counties.

There are chapters in all different communities, everywhere from Waukegan, Granny, North Chicago, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, Barrington, et cetera, many more.

And we partner with a lot of these folks, many of whom are moms active in the community to reach more folks through libraries, schools, et cetera.

So what you're looking at now is a gun lock distribution map that our team created in partnership with the GIS team, who's been a really wonderful partner for us.

So this is a public site.

If you Google Lake County gun locks, this is likely going to be the first result that comes up.

Residents can enter their zip code or a specific address, put on a filter for how far they'd like to travel and see all of the places in the area that provide free gun locks.

So as you can see, there are many throughout the county, and they are color-coded by the type of organization as we've discussed.

Some folks are more comfortable going to the police department, but some people want to go to their mental health provider or a gym or their local community organization that they have a lot of trust in or their FFL.

We have a few FF uh federal firearm distributors called FFLs, um, gun gun sellers that participate in this program too throughout the county.

So they can go to wherever they're comfortable to get those locks and information.

And we restock those partners regularly with again free gun locks and information.

Okay, so we wanted to also talk a little bit about the impact of secure firearm storage.

And I'll preface all of this by saying that as we all know, correlation and causation are not the same, and we cannot explicitly prove that investment in secure storage or other violence prevention programs has led to the decrease in homicides.

However, we do know that there is strong data that shows that limiting access to firearms can reduce what researchers tend to call expressive shootings, which are shootings that refer to acts of violence driven by intense emotions like anger, frustration, etc.

And again, that means putting as many barriers as possible between someone who is in crisis, someone who is ready to act on violence, and a deadly weapon.

So what you can see on the graph here is that since 2022, firearms homicides have decreased from 38 to 11 in 2025.

So far, there have been three firearm homicides in 2026.

We are halfway through the year.

So again, we are on track for another decrease.

Um all of the shootings this year have been officer-involved shootings and not community violence homicides or domestic violence homicides.

Um again, we are on track for another decrease.

You may be wondering if 2022 numbers are artificially inflated because of the Highland Park shooting that happened in July of 2022.

But even if you pull out the data from Highland Park, there's still nearly a 65% decrease from 2022 to 2025.

Without if you keep those the Highland Park shooting numbers in, that decrease is over 73%.

So compared to nationally, we are seeing so nationally we're seeing about a 20% decline in homicides across the country that aligns with a lot of investment in violence prevention over the last few years, and the results of that are coming to fruition.

But our decrease in Lake County is three and a half times that, um, just for a little bit of context there.

And again, we we believe that secure firearm storage is just one component of a successful violence prevention strategy that includes the work of our street outreach team, the Lake County Peacemakers, investment in coalition building, youth violence prevention, and other work done by my colleagues on the GDPI.

So let's talk about suicides.

Um we have seen a slight decrease in suicides since 2022.

Again, you see that it increases in 2023.

Um firearm suicides typically make up about half of the suicides that we see in Lake County and across the country.

So our numbers mirror the trends that we see nationally as well.

Um and we know that more than 700 children in the United States die by gun suicide every single day.

And a vast majority of those children, between 70 and 90 percent, access those firearms from inside their home.

So secure firearm storage is really important to putting barriers between kids who are in crisis and might be contemplating suicide or um experiencing suicidal ideation and the abil the ability to move forward to the next step in that process.

So nationally, um, we have seen a slight decrease in suicides, about 5%.

But since 2022, we have seen about a 15% decrease in suicides here in Lake County specifically.

So again, our numbers are slightly higher than the national average, our reductions are higher, and that is because again, we cannot prove causation, but we know it's because of um a lot of the great work that's been happening here in Lake County through our team, through the coroner's office, the Lake County Suicide Prevention Task Force, which our team is a really active member of as well.

Rachel County says do you have a sense of for 2026 how we're trending right now?

Yes, we have had 13 firearm suicides so far in 2026.

So we are on track again for another decrease, another slight decrease.

That's through through June.

Um through the end of uh through yesterday, actually.

Yesterday, yeah.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um, and lastly, I'll just say that we there's strong data that shows that households that lock both firearms and ammunition are associated with a nearly 80% decrease in self-inflicted gun injuries.

Okay, so we want to talk a little bit about a future project that we are very excited about.

Um, our team has won a grant through the um skip burn program, which is part of a national um investment that is distributed through ICEA to provide free gun lock boxes to late county residents.

So we anticipate that over the first year of our grant, we're going to be able to provide approximately 2,500 gun safes directly to late county residents.

And this matters because there is kind of a scale in terms of the effectiveness of different locking mechanisms when we're thinking about secure firearm storage.

Gun locks are the most common and the cheapest.

And these will be biometric and again distributed directly to residents.

So we plan to send and ship them directly to residents' homes.

The program will be modeled after the Narcan distribution program led by the health department.

We've had a few conversations with the team that led that campaign, talking about like Sigma comfort, how to best engage with residents on a sensitive topic.

And again, these funds are provided completely grant funded.

And we're really looking forward to moving forward in initiating this program.

So that is all that I have, and I'm happy to open it up and answer any questions that you all may have.

Thank you.

Member Altenburg.

Wow.

We are so pleased.

We've been talking to Eric about enhancing our safe storage messaging to the county.

And this really does that.

And we are, you know, mission accomplished.

We're so happy about this pars and I worked on this, talked about this for a long time.

And you listened and you found funds to do even more that than I think we had imagined.

So we are really, really thrilled.

And I can't say enough about the G VPI program, the gun violence prevention initiative.

Oh my goodness, you guys have outdone yourselves.

And our money has been so well spent.

And the crime numbers are, you know, the decreases in crime have been unbelievable, amazing.

And, you know, that program is worth its weight.

It really is doing incredible things.

I wanted to acknowledge Tierra Lemon is here, and she's the leader of the G VPI.

And, you know, Eric had a vision, and that vision is coming true.

It's really, you know, made a huge impact on our county, and we need to have it continue.

And all these programs, they're super successful.

And I do think suicides particularly are going to keep going down because of the important work that we're doing here.

And I think people are so surprised to hear that that's the number one with unlock guns.

And we just really need to hammer home to all our constituents how important it is to lock your guns.

Nobody wants to take them.

We're happy for you to have them if you want them, but locking them up could not be more important these days.

And we really just, you know, everybody needs to send that message to people they know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Member Kasmin.

Thank you.

Um I want to thank you so much for this presentation today.

It was uh informative.

Um Rachel would never say, but she's one of the foremost experts nationally on this topic.

But um, so just wanted to help people understand that.

Um I've worked with our local B Smart chapter to help distribute gun locks, and we were able to distribute hundreds in a day.

Um, and I just thought every single one of these might be a suicide or a crime of passion, as they say, um prevention.

Um, so I I'm really grateful to you for for those efforts as well.

I had a friend of mine in high school kill himself by shooting, shooting himself with a gun, his parents' gun that was not locked.

So and I just think for every, you know, when I see those numbers come down, I just think for every one of those people, there is a whole circle of trauma and a and a lot of people who won't be affected and whose lives will not be impacted by this an awful tragedy.

So thank you so much for this effort.

My question is um for the gun safes.

How will people be able to get those?

How will you prioritize how they're distributed, et cetera?

Yeah.

Um thank you.

And thank you for the question.

We plan to um, we've heard from gun owners that most prefer biometric gun safes as opposed to ones with like a key and a lock because they can access the firearms faster if they feel like they need to, for example.

Um, but we what the health department did, which is what we plan to model is create a form that you can kind of fill out online.

Um, and then at a set interval, perhaps like every week, for example, our distributor will refresh the form.

Um, we'll review it, see, like make sure that there are no anomalies and that everything looks okay.

And then those gun locks will be shipped from the or sorry, gun safes will be distributed shipped directly from the distributor directly to the residents.

Um, so we plan to provide this form at a lot of our tabling events.

We hope to rely on um many of you in the county board to share with your constituents.

And we of course want to prioritize um providing these gun safes to people who might not be able to traditionally afford them.

The reason that gun safes are less common is that they cost more money than a gun lock.

The gun lock costs about like five to $10 at most.

Um, but gun safes run anywhere from like 50 to 100, depending on the size, the type, the technology, et cetera.

Um, so it's really important for us to make sure that communities that don't use gun safes because they can't afford that 50 to 100 are the ones that will be priority prioritized.

So I think for us that means really um prioritizing Waqegan, Zion, North Chicago and being intentional about using our community partners to spread the word about these resources and programs.

Great.

Thanks.

That's what I was hoping to hear.

Thanks.

Thanks for the question.

Thanks for your important work, uh very uh impressive, and your presentation was very good.

Um I have three questions for you.

So the first is could you expand upon you mentioned the beginning using uh geolocation data for targeting ads?

Um I was just wondering how you how you develop that kind of those those um metrics and specifically related to veterans who are trying to geo-target ads on things.

Yeah, so I I don't want to get myself into the trap of talking too much about what I don't know because our partners just in general, high level.

Sure.

Um our partners at the ad council led a lot of that work.

Okay.

Um, but basically um through our online presence is there they know a lot about us, right?

Like what we click on, how long we stay on a video.

Are we part of a um a duck hunting local duck hunting group on Facebook, for example, have we liked a certain company's page or interacted?

And they use that information.

Um to kind of build a profile of who is likely to be a gun owner.

Um, and I think they can do something similar with veterans.

Of course, it's not a hundred percent perfect.

Then the the targeting, the like the geographic targeting is really based on because a lot of this is digital.

Um if you are ever at a gas station, for example.

I was I'm gonna jump in because I think you've answered.

So it's uh the same as I look to buy a new rug online and now I get 18 ads for that.

Well, my point being, and and I have shared it with member Frank concern.

It's not my concern.

That people have that the county itself is amassing information through our things.

And and the point is is the ad cancer council is doing this and it's outside of us.

That's that's what I needed.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I have two, uh, since I'm a data person, I have two additional questions.

I was just wondering, um, do you have data from before 2022 and what that data looks like?

Um we do, yeah.

Yeah.

Um I'd have to look back.

I think the first year that we have like really we've partnered with the coroner's office on all of our data.

Right.

Um, and the first year they started collecting was 2020.

Um 2020 and 2021, I believe were slightly lower than 2022, but still higher than the data that we've seen the last couple of years.

Okay.

I just think it's always good if you can go back five years to have that for trends.

Understanding that there are they're going to be anomalies.

It doesn't take away from your good work.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

No, that's generally true.

We we we do, we're going a lot with the modernization of the coroner's office that happened in 2020 in terms of a lot of data.

Yeah, we do have we do have other pre-2020 data.

One of the, and frankly, one of the reasons why we we start in 2022 is a lot of the that's when the programming occurs.

And and and Rachel did a great job of talking about correlation and causation, but but we have the we we have the longer, we have the longer data on on generally on homicides, generally on uh, you know, generally on firearm homicides.

It's not quite as granular as some of the post-2020 data.

But but I think to your point, state's attorney that having data from before your program started actually is could could strengthen that.

So I include that.

Um, and then I don't know if you've you know, looking at your data, looking at national data, if you've had the opportunity or the um perhaps the intention in the future, because this is a public health issue, and public health often does um age adjusted rates, you know.

So there could be multiple factors and kind of pulling out and and public health does this, you know, 50% of the reduction is due to this, 20% is due to this.

Again, not taking away from anything you you have accomplished, which is a lot, but I think if you haven't or implant, I think looking at age adjusted, especially with violence, you know, what does our age cohort look like here in Lake County versus now that's a huge, you know, nationwide, that's a lot, but but that could also give you some some good data and information to to look at.

And you might find effectiveness, greater effectiveness in some age groups and others, which would then allow you to have even more impact by targeting it with your age adjusted rates.

Yeah.

Can I only say can I say one other data thing just because I noticed Rachel may have misspoken and I'm gonna ask Rachel to verify because she compiled the stats.

You commented that more than 700 children living in America die by gun suicide.

You may have said every day, I think it's every year.

Oh, sorry, every year.

Yeah.

Not every day.

Yeah.

My apologies.

No, that's oh, yeah, thank you.

Um yeah, thank you for that that point.

We I didn't include this in my presentation, but our team built a firearm fatality dashboard that with the GIS team that's like completely available to the public that has a lot of that breakdown that you referenced related to age, race, ethnicity, gender, uh, day of the week, month, a lot of different factors you can look at that I can share with you absolutely if you'd like.

Can I yeah, and that's great.

And I just want to make sure you understand what I mean by age adjusted rate.

It's not just looking at that age, it's saying if if gun violence is higher in a certain age group, a certain population could look like they overall have a lower violence rate because they have a smaller percentage of their population in that age group.

And when you actually it's a mathematical formula pretty standard, when you go through that, you can see, oh, this place looks like they have a very low rate.

I'm not saying us, when in fact, based on what percentage of the people are in that high risk group, they actually have a higher target.

So it's not just the breakdown, it's it's that normalization of data.

Yeah, we have some of that data I can share as well.

We do it by municipality as well to see like which are overrepresented, for example.

Thank you.

Other other questions, She Hart.

Thank you.

I'll just be really quick.

Um, I'm so pleased to hear that.

Well, I mean, you guys have just done such a tremendous job.

I'm not gonna totally repeat, maybe I'll repeat a little bit.

Uh, really a tremendous job.

Um, safe storage is so critically important and so simple.

So I love that you guys are doing that um storage box again.

Can you tell me again who you're partnering with?

And so some of the monies that come from are those kind of is the county paying for that through our budget, or how does that work again?

Yeah, um, so the county is not paying for it.

Um, a few years ago, back in 2022, the US government passed the bipartisan safer communities act and appropriated a set amount of dollars.

That's right.

Um, and that is was distributed to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, which distributed grants.

We applied for and received one of those grants.

So this program will be entirely grant-funded um when it when it launches and finally gets approved.

Great, thank you.

And now I remember that because we've talked about that and with the health department and things like that.

Thank you.

I think it's a tremendous program, and um the work that you continue to do is is saving lives already.

So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I won't be short because I I have a few things.

Oh, oh, Mary, uh, can you miss yes?

No, no, go ahead.

I don't, I don't have one.

So please go.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh well, I learned a new term today, expressive shootings.

Um, and it made me think about a point that I'd really like to make and highlight for everyone who's listening.

Uh, you know, I've been um observer and participant of the gun violence prevention movement for over a decade now.

And uh one of the most promising advances and signs of progress that we've made, I think, is for too long, uh, for decades, really.

People, most people thought of gun violence as a problem as a of criminals of crime, like all pretty much all gun violence, not all, but people that was the image people had in their head, right?

Of you know, gun violence is a matter of um people who intend to do harm to others getting access to guns.

Uh and I just want to congratulate the G VPI and your team on the very um prominent role you have played in the last few years in helping to change that perception among the public in the last few years.

You're certainly doing your part um and helping people understand that even um gun violence that we often perceive accurately as criminal, as criminal acts, uh can also be acts of expressive shootings, right?

Um it's helping change the mindset that I think a lot of people have about gun violence, why it happens, how it happens, and the best ways to prevent it.

Uh so I just wanted to congratulate you on that.

I think you're doing a great job, you know, spreading that really important public message and hearing about what you're doing with the ad cancel council really uh drove that point home for me.

So I wanted to highlight it for others.

And the other thing, I do have a question, but I'm not sure whether or not you can share it if it's kosher.

I would love it if you could share the the names of the two federally licensed firearm dealers who you've been um partnering with in order to get more uh gun locks um in people's hands.

Uh I think they deserve to be called out and recognized um for their cooperation with you and your team.

Yeah, um, I'm happy to share it because it's it's public.

It's on that publicly available website.

They've agreed to it.

Um one is the North Shore Sports Club, which is on the border of Libertyville in Lake Forest.

And the other, I would have to go to the map and double check.

I don't want to say the name wrong, but they're out um in the northwest suburbs, like a little south of Antioch, I think, the Ground Lake area.

I can, yeah, I'll make a note.

Sounds good.

It is on the map.

I'll I'll make a note.

I'll send you an email.

Thank you.

Yeah, can you send me that too?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Um, so I have a few comments and and questions.

Um, first is I just want us to remember um we had a discussion about Ethan's law, right?

Uh, was it two and a half years ago at this point, roughly years, right?

And I think that that really hit a lot of us um and saying, could we do something more about this?

And I think Chair Hart even brought a biometric lock, right?

To or store or gun storage box to the to the meeting, and that I think got a lot of us interested in what could we do more about this.

Um, and to see where that conversation's led to what you all have accomplished is really satisfying, right?

And just really great to see what we as a county are capable of seeing from someone brought that to our attention about Ethan's law to now all we're able to do.

Um, and it's only done because we have great people.

So thank you so much for everything that the Eric, you're in your office have done and Rachel, um, everything you've done, which leads into my next question.

Rachel, is this the first time you're presenting to this committee?

Yes.

So I don't think I've seen a finer presentation in terms of statistics and conciseness and thoroughness.

And I I was just really impressed by your presentation.

And so um I hope to see more of you because it was a joy to hear and learn from you.

Um, which goes into my third point is that when we started this conversation with um uh the health department way back, we were looking at maybe what the what the um was it King County, what they were doing and what we could do.

And I think it's now time for us to maybe Rachel talk to other counties about what we're doing, right?

Including GIS, working with the with the ad council and others.

So um maybe it's time to help others do what we're doing here.

My next comment is we all are gonna be voting on budgets in the not too distant future.

I hope we can all take into account and prioritize what state attorney um and I know I know the state's attorney is always thinking about budgets.

And so I am excited to for this to come back for us for next year and for Rachel for you to be involved and and for all of us to do um what we want to do in terms of thinking about prioritizing this.

I do have one question.

Do we say only three homicides to date so far?

Firearm homicide.

Firearm homicides, three.

And all have been officer-involved shooting.

Three.

Three firearm homicides, as everybody knows, but I have to emphasize we count homicides, which are the killing of one human by another.

Yeah.

So we always count homicides.

Every homicide number you see from this office is a homicide.

Uh the next question uh for my criminal team, of course, and our team is whether or not it's a criminal homicide, which is called a murder.

Sometimes, unfortunately, you will see the coroner.

I'm not blaming the corn, not blaming the current coroner, a coroner anywhere in the United States may use the phrase homicide, and sadly, a a sadly a community member of a press may pick it up and not understand that the real question for the for the office will be whether it is a murder.

We count all homicides.

Of course, we have data on officer involved and justified civilian homicides.

We we have all of that.

Um it is correct, knocking on wood, I believe in science and not superstition, that we should show another year of decline.

Of course, we want to get to zero.

But so far in 2026, we are at the end of the year or at the end of the first half, our homicides are four, with three being officer-involved shootings, and those are also our three only firearm homicides.

You heard that information correctly.

That's just amazing.

I mean and we are very close to having all of our non-fatal shooting data from our three, our three partners, uh, which is also very encouraging.

But to be clear, our goal is zero, and we believe that these programs get us closer to zero.

Uh so excellent.

Thank you.

Um I often make this request.

I I'd love to see something for our newsletter, but I think this would be I I think it's like a like an interactive story.

Like I think you guys have done such great work here that I'd love to see something that we could have a video or something to embed um if possible.

I know we're down on on communication staff.

Yeah, so um, but it's just this the great work.

I just wanted just to just to I wanted to get out as far as and wide as possible.

And so I know we all have hundreds to thousands of constituents that read our newsletter, so getting it out to thousands and tens of thousands of people would be great.

Um my last comment is thinking about Mary, right?

Everything that we talked about today was about budgets and policies and everything, but it impacts people.

And I know Mary would have been here at the very end talking about how this impacted people.

So thank you so much for for ending our our meeting here today on this.

So um, I know Sarah, you you had member Kenisnik had something she wanted to say.

And member Altenburg or Member Dan Forth.

I'll be very, very quick.

I just want to comment on the the what the point you made, Chair Parek, about um Ethan's law.

Thank you for bringing it up.

I just want everyone to realize that um we did put Ethan's Law on our legislative platform that year.

Unfortunately, uh Ethan's law was not passed into law in Springfield, but a similar safe storage bill was.

It's a good bill.

We're very happy to have that safe storage bill in Illinois, but it didn't go as far as uh we really wanted.

And I just want to make sure one realizes what um Rachel and her team are doing is going above and beyond what the state law calls for in Illinois.

So I just um, you know, consistently this team does more than what's expected of them.

And I just want to end by saying, you know, I I watch the gun violence prevention movement nationwide and have been for years.

It is no exaggeration.

There is nobody in the country that does this work better than the Lake County State's attorney's office and its partner organizations across the county.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um, Member Danforth.

Reinhardt, um, in your figures that you were giving as far as the homicide deaths, do you include is homicide suicides?

Because it is the unlawful taking of a life of about another.

Is that because I know nationally we usually separate out that I follow the corn, I follow the coroner's coding rules, okay, which are definitely statewide and potentially even nationwide.

So I use the coding rules of the lake county coroner.

Uh and so no, that homicide number is not the suicide number.

So there, if you were to go to the coroner dashboard, you would see all of these numbers broken down separately.

It's a great question.

Um, we do have, I mean, the way I look at it, when you look at homicide by firearm in the United States and suicide by firearm in the United States, I think statistically, correct me if I'm wrong.

Rachel will know this.

Go ahead.

We have approximately twice as many suicides by firearm than we do homicides by firearm.

Yeah.

And while the gun violence, you know, um initiative with our interrupters and everything else is a good thing.

Um we have a real mental health issue as well, right?

So when you go out as an interrupt or you're out in the community, um how are we targeting people that may have mental health issues where we could do it maybe an earlier intervention?

Because, you know, obviously suicide is a criminal act in theory, right?

So when you have people out there that are committing this crime against their own body.

Okay.

I mean, if they survive it, you know, oftentimes there's things that we do to intervene from a mental health point of view.

But is there more that we can do to intervene before the suicide had?

Uh I I love your question, Member Dan Forth.

And I I really have loved our our our conversations over the years, because I think you're asking a data-driven question, a question that is centered on the morality that we don't want any life to end, right?

And I I appreciate you for that.

The quick numbers I did just while I was sitting here is not only nationally, I think Rachel probably knows that number, she'll be working on that in her head, um, but locally over the four years that we reported, I have 83 firearm homicides, and I have 137.

So not quite double, but but very, you know, about one 1.7 or 1.8.

So we have 83 firearm homicides uh and then 137 firearm uh suicides.

Obviously, we're not counting all homicides when we're looking at firearms, uh, but and we're not counting all suicides, right?

There are suicides that are not firearms.

So your point is not only well taken, probably nationally, but also locally that that suicides continued to be a bigger issue.

Um I was very impacted.

People may have even seen me react.

I know I don't have a uh a good poker poker face.

Um 1,400 calls a month to the health department's crisis line really impacted, uh really impacted me as a listener.

Uh and so I agree with you, Member Dan Forth, that the mental health crisis is massive.

Uh I would I have said publicly and will say here, we probably need a new deal style investment in mental health infrastructure in this country and certainly locally.

I think that the starting point of the CVI workers, and I've learned so much of this from Member Kenishnik and the places she has literally taken me, is that not only are our violence interrupters connecting with youth to de-escalate the mediations, but also to be the credible ambassadors to talk to those youth about the other services that they can get.

So our violence interrupters are trained not only in the space of talking about preventing a shooting at first street and second street.

I totally made those cases up, those streets up, preventing a shooting at first and second street, but how to talk to Billy, another name I'm making up, but how to talk to Billy about the other services uh that he could need.

Do I think that the most direct work that they do is the mediations of the de-escalations?

Absolutely.

But we have we also employ at the Joaquin Township, also employees uh case managers at the at the G VPI work or at the CVI work that at the peacemakers, excuse me.

At the peacemakers, so the the case, the two caseworkers are not necessarily at first and second street.

They're sitting in the office or going where they need to go to be the credible messengers.

So I totally agree with you.

The 988 system, the Lake County Suicide Prevention Task Force is doing the work.

Uh, the health department is doing the work.

All of the suicide prevention uh needs to be funded more.

And the CVI work is a critical component of that in the communities where I think we need credible messengers uh who have lived in those communities and and can connect with can connect with with at-risk youth.

Do you want to answer his question about the suicide versus homicide?

Um so nationally, about two-thirds of all firearm fatalities are suicides.

Um in Illinois, those numbers are actually flipped.

So statewide, about 40% of firearm fatalities are suicides.

60% are are homicides.

In 2025 in Lake County, based on the numbers that you saw, about 75% of our firearm fatalities are suicides, and 25% are homicides.

But again, I'll note that that is primarily driven by the decrease in firearm homicides from the peacemakers and and all of the violence prevention work that's happening in the county, because a few years ago those were much closer to 50-50.

Can we say two more things?

Yes.

I will also want to make sure that we're mentioning law enforcement.

I saw in the pathways, and I will answer your communications point.

Please make sure that your constituents are subscribing to pathways.

Um I don't I don't get any, I don't get any ad revenue from pathways.

Um but um for example, we we did the the the plurality of our trainings were with law enforcement when it came to firearm restraining orders.

And I always want to lift up the the work and acceptance of firearm of uh our law enforcement partners who respond to mental health crises, whether it's through coast, whether it's through co-responders or just good police officers who care about helping people.

We don't most of the work that those officers do to go help somebody in need never makes a never makes a headline or never makes a Facebook post.

They're just they're just out helping people in need.

Every law enforcement leader that I've ever talked to in this job for six years now thinks that we need more investment in mental health services, right?

Member Dan Forth.

I mean, everybody believes that this is something we can do.

And so it's a little bit different from safe storage, but but this the law enforcement partners, you saw law enforcement uh agencies on the map, they're a huge partner in the the fro work because the law enforcement agency has to trigger it.

So, or has to start it.

So I just I just wanted to mention that.

Um, and then I just can't highlight uh member Knishik's point enough about expressive shootings.

The research from as recently as 2025 says that 65% of all of firearm homicides are tied to acts of arguments and rage and not these sort of calculated decision, I think I'll go shoot somebody tonight, take a 30 minute drive, and then go kill somebody.

They turn into arguments, and the one I always think of is in Chicago.

Two people are arguing at a fast food, two people are arguing at a fast food place.

The one individual directs her son to go get her firearm, and she shoots the guy.

And so she didn't wake up that day and say, I think I'll be a criminal.

Um, she got so enraged, and that's why this firearm access is such an important part, separate from the work we do uh to hold accountable shooters and to deter them in our in our state's attorney's office work, but it's also to think left of boom, right?

With boom being the bad thing.

But to think left of boom about how did this happen, and it is my belief, and people can disagree with me, that it is the access to firearms because people get mad all across the country, all across the globe.

People get mad everywhere, but it is the access to firearms that turns that 10 minute window, which the University of Chicago researchers have described into something more fatal.

And that that expressive, that data about expressive shootings, fascinatingly, we think crosses all time uh going back to the 1960s and it crosses all locations throughout the United States.

Fascinating.

Um quick.

I did.

Um thank you so much for um the robust discussion.

I really appreciate um the time that we spent on this.

I've learned a great deal.

And um I wanted to ask you, have you I know you've been working with the health department.

Have you reached out to other mental health providers to sort of have information, you know, maybe even just there.

Um and gun locks there, okay.

Yeah, we work closely with mental health providers all across the county.

Um, everyone, we make a lot of referrals to Jocelyn.

Um, for example, we've worked really closely with the um frontline care center, which um provides services to first responders.

They have a lot of information about secure storage, gun locks for flag laws, et cetera, um, at their location.

And yeah, we um we have really prioritize building out partnerships with the health department and their behavioral and crisis team, um, as well as local um mental health providers throughout the county.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you so much for the really fascinating conversation that we had today.

Um there's no need for executive session.

No?

Um members remarks or requests.

Okay, seeing none, we are adjourned.

Our next meeting will be July 28th.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.