Lake County Municipal League Legislative Initiative

The crafting of public policy has been compared to making sausage (thats what is going on in the picture by the way), the implication being that the process may not be quite as attractive as the end result and not necessarily to be witnessed by the faint of heart.
Anyway, Round Lake is a Member of the Lake County Municipal League which is a Council of Government (COG) formed under the Illinois Intergovernmental Cooperation Act.
Its members include cities and villages within Lake County as well as the Lake County organization that represents unincorporated areas. The League enables member municipalities to better fulfill their mission through legislative action, training and information sharing.
Municipalities are subject to a wide range of costly state and federal mandates and our civic responsibilities require resources and tools that are only obtainable through the legislative process. In order to deliver vital services to our constituents, the League has developed a Legislative Initiative that outlines and explains its legislative priorities for the upcoming year. The purpose of the initiative is to raise awareness of the challenges Lake County faces with regard to transportation and our fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayer.
The League works with a variety of municipal organizations including other COGs, the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus and the Illinois Municipal League. Our Legislative Committee meets regularly, monitoring the progress of important initiatives. This years legislative committee was Thomas G. Adams Mayor Village of Green Oaks (Chair) Terese Douglass Trustee Village of Grayslake Michael J. Ellis Village Manager Village of Grayslake and Bambridge Peterson Village Administrator of Round Lake.

Executive Summary
Lake County has 644,356 constituents, representing just over 5% of the population of the State of Illinois. In addition to being a large population center, the County serves as a major seat of commerce and is home to a number of large global conglomerates such as Abbott Laboratories and Motorola. There are 367,930 registered voters and 320,367 employees in Lake County. Over $1.5 billion in property taxes were collected in 2004.
To support the future prosperity of our member communities, the League has established the following 2006 legislative goals that recognize the importance of controlling the taxpayerÂ’s burden, enhancing economic development opportunities and improving our quality of life:

• Obtaining funding for certain unanimously endorsed Lake County consensus transportation initiatives. Improve the pension funding process, with special attention to controlling the impact on taxpayers.
  
• Secure legislation for certain administrative reforms regarding motor fuel tax funds that will cut costs for both the State of Illinois and local governments.
  
• Restore dedicated funds to their intended purposes and previous funding levels.
  
• Include school districts in the discussions of the Local Government Consolidation Commission.

Sponsorship of needed initiatives and support of our proposals as listed in the 2006 Lake County Municipal League Legislative Initiative will be greatly appreciated. So when you see a statelegislatorr tell them about these issues.

For those of you with an intense interest in the document, I will email you a PDF of it. Since I know I mentioned schools, loyal reader Tim L. will be asking for it I ought to just send it to him now! Lets see if he gets down this far on the article!