I will be abstaining tonight on the vote for appointments. I thank the appointees for coming forth and volunteering their valuable time and please do not consider this an affront to your personal abilities or motivation. However I cannot condone the actions of the County Board Chairman whose process of soliciting and selecting candidates appears not to be in the best interests of people of Boone County.
The Chairman with the advice and consent of the county board makes numerous appointments to fire districts, county advisory boards, the Health Department and other semi-autonomous boards representing the people of Boone County. These appointments occur at various times during the calendar year and are not well known by the general public. The dates and length of terms are not always even available in the Boone County Year Book, the unofficial government fact book compiled by Boone County’s Clerk & Recorder.
In my opinion, actions by the Chairman and the administration have not enlightened the public regarding the need for citizen participation nor granted a real opportunity for new people to apply for these open positions.
- · The Chairman and the administration of the county have the responsibility to advertise and post vacancies for such appointments. In today’s electronic age this is usually done by use of email news releases and special postings on the county’s website. I fail to see that this has been even attempted.
- · Please note the appointments for less than full term terms with the Regional Planning Commission. These positions were occupied for over a year by individuals who continued their duties despite their appointed terms being expired. Some submitted requests for reappointment months ago. One member of the Planning Commission with several decades of professional experience in planning withdrew his application and resigned because of the Chairman’s inaction on his request for reappointment.* This is not right.
- · It is standard business practice for an applicant for any post to submit a letter of introduction or a resume. One of the proposed appointee has submitted only a one sentence request to be appointed to the position. Is this acceptable? I do not criticize the applicant but rather the Chairman, who apparently did not give a suitable request for written information and who accepted such a short letter.
For the above reasons, I regrettably will be abstaining from voting on these appointments this evening.
SEE the application letters: http://www.boarddocs.com/il/boone/Board.nsf/files/94WU4H7A3C79/$file/appointments%20Feb.%2020%2C%202013%20mtg.pdf and http://www.boarddocs.com/il/boone/Board.nsf/files/94WU527A5026/$file/planning%20commission%20appointments%20Feb.%2020%2C%202013.pdf
*See Mr. Luhman’s letter of resignation: http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2012/12/mrwalberg-decides-not-to-reappoint-bill.html
I have been advocating a more open process since 2010. As a private citizen I addressed the county board in 2010 in part in support of Ms. Terri Glass’ questioning of the appointment procedures used by Mr. Walberg. SEE:http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2010/06/public-imput-to-county-appointment.html
Belvidere Daily Republican’s story on the vote:http://www.belvideredailyrepublican.net/news/appointment-process-brings-scrutiny-from-county-board-member/
