The DeWitt County Board Thursday night voted to eliminate Committees.

Newly appointed DeWitt County Board Chair, Sherry Brown at Monday's meeting explained she would like to see the Board as a whole work together for the Committee meetings. She says they would divide when committee and department heads would address the Board.

[audio:12712nocommittee1.mp3] [/audio]

Brown put together a proposal for the County Board members to view. After a 15 minute recess for each member to review the proposal, discussion followed. State's Attorney Karle Koritz had many issues with the proposal. One issues was the agenda was not specific to the modification of the code book, along with issues involving adequate notice of changes.

[audio:12712nocommittee2.mp3] [/audio]

He also had concerns with the ordinance specifically. He says the wording suggests the County Board can flip flop back and forth when wanting to go back to Committees. He suggested providing wording of having a super-majority vote because that change could be made several times during a Board's tenure.

[audio:12712nocommittee3.mp3] [/audio]

Many questions were raised about the ordinance involving decisions to be made by the Board before everyone had the opportunity to review what decisions they were making. Questions also surfaced about Board members voting on Committee recommendations without knowledge of the items they were voting on. Board member Camille Redman suggested perhaps the new Board members should take part in Committee Meetings to learn how they work before making major changes.

[audio:12712nocommittee4.mp3] [/audio]

Koritz was asked if he had seen a copy of the ordinance prior to the meeting, and he recognized he had, however, changes were made to it. Koritz later would state, he could not give his blessing on the document that would be called to a vote.

[audio:12712nocommittee5.mp3] [/audio]

The ordinance to eliminate Committees passed by a vote of 6-4. Those who voted against the ordinance were Dan Ballenger, David Newberg, Camille Redman, and Sue May. The Board as a whole will now meet the first three Thursday's of each month and will hear from department heads at those meetings and approve purchases, hirings, and any other items on the agenda.