Will County Board chooses new leadership at end of marathon meeting

Will County Board members spent less than four minutes choosing their new leadership but close to six hours debating proposed changes to their rules and procedures.

At Monday’s County Board meeting, Joe VanDuyne, D-Wilmington, was chosen as the new speaker of the County Board with 19 votes. Steve Balich, R-Orland Park, was the lone dissenting vote. Judy Ogalla, R-Monee, served as board chair the past two years but VanDuyne will now hold the title as speaker.

Sherry Williams, D-Crest Hill, was unanimously chosen by her fellow Democrats on the board as their new leader. Jim Richmond, R-Mokena, was likewise unanimously chosen by Republican board members as their new leader.

The quick vote on the new board leadership capped off a meeting that lasted more than six hours as the board reviewed proposed changes to the board rules and procedures for debate and approval.

The board officially recessed for just 10 minutes for a break during the marathon meeting, although some board members stepped away for quick breaks.

By the fifth hour of the meeting, Katie Deane-Schlottman, R-Joliet, had left and was not present for the vote for county speaker or Republican leader.

Several Republicans, such as Richmond, said they had not had a chance to review the extensive changes to board rules proposed by Democrats and they had just received them Sunday night from Jacqueline Traynere, D-Bolingbrook.

“I think to be fair to everybody, we should go through this page by page and everybody should have a copy of the red lines so that everybody understands,” Richmond said.

Balich asked how Republicans are supposed to vote on a “Democratic proposal without knowing what the proposal is in advance.” He called it “totally absurd.”

“This is stupid. One side is going to start the next two years out with dictatorship,” Balich said.

Traynere called for a point of order during Balich’s comments. At one point, Traynere yelled out that he was “out of order.” Balich yelled back, “I’m not out of order, you’re out of order!”

Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant told Balich there was a motion, which was eventually approved, to review proposed rules changes line by line.

“I think you’re going to find that there is cooperation in this,” Bertino-Tarrant told Balich.

Traynere said she was not approached by Republican leadership to have any discussion about the rules and changes to the board rules, which were shared with Richmond.

“They had a caucus this morning. They could have spent time in the caucus this morning discussing any changes that they wanted to make or discussing these rules,” Traynere said.

After a few hours of discussion and debate over the rules, Traynere asked for approval of the rest of the changes as one vote so the board could move on to other agenda items. But Traynere later withdrew what became a motion to reconsider the vote to review each change line by line.

“We can just stay here till midnight, I don’t care,” Traynere said.

The board was able to finish their business at close to 4 p.m. Monday.