Ringing in 2012...the Ingham County Board of Commissioners 2012 Board and Committee Makeup and Schedule

Happy 2012!

After taking a few weeks off, I am resuming the Schor Report. This will be the last year of reporting of Ingham County business, though, as this will be my 10th and final year as an Ingham County Commissioner. As you know, I am running for the State House of Representatives and hope to continue this blog as a State Representative next year, but will no longer be a county commissioner after 2012. But more on that later in the year!

The Ingham County Board of Commissioners met on January 3rd for our organizational meeting. At that time, we elected our Board Chair and Vice Chair for the 2012 year. The main responsibility of the Board Chair is to attend all of the committee meetings and be the one person that knows what is going on regarding all of our issue areas (because he or she is a member of all the committees and has attended all of the committee meetings). He or she also chairs the full Board meeting, and works with the staff to organize leadership meetings and other venues for the Commissioners to get together and make decisions.

For 2012, we elected Commissioner Dale Copedge as the Chair of the Board. He will be attending the County Services, Human Services, Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Finance committee meetings in addition to the full Board meetings. He will also be working with the staff to facilitate and receive direction from the County Commission as they offer up recommendations for policy and operations. He has indicated a readiness and willingness to take on this responsibility, and I was happy to support him as a result. He has already scheduled a Board workgroup meeting on Tuesday (called a Board Leadership meeting) to discuss bargaining with our employees.

We also elected Commissioner Victor Celentino as Vice Chair of the Board, and Commissioner Vince Dragonetti as Vice Chair Pro Tem (this post is reserved for the minority party).

Finally, we appointed out internal committees, and selected Commissioners to serve on external and regional boards (such as the Tri-County Office on Agency board, which I will again serve on). Our internal committee roster is:

COUNTY SERVICES COMMITTEE
Chair: Commissioner Dianne Holman
Vice Chair: Commissioner Andy Schor
Members: Commissioners Grebner, Celentino, De Leon, Vickers

FINANCE COMMITTEE
Chair: Commissioner Mark Grebner
Vice Chair: Commissioner Brian McGrain
Members: Commissioners Nolan, Bahar-Cook, Tennis, Dougan

HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE
Chair: Commissioner Deb Nolan
Vice Chair: Commissioner Todd Tennis
Members: Commissioners Schor, McGrain, Vickers, Dougan

JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
Chair: Commissioner Carol Koenig
Vice Chair: Commissioner Rebecca Bahar-Cook
Members: Commissioners Holman, Tsernoglou, Schafer, Dragonetti

LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMITTEE
Chair: Commissioner Penelope Tsernoglou
Vice Chair: Commissioner Deb De Leon
Members: Commissioners Celentino, Koenig, Schafer, Dragonetti

As I mentioned, we have a Board Leadership meeting this week, then committees will begin meeting the next week (the third week of the month). We have a two week schedule where each committee and the Board meet in a two week period, then we start all over again. So every committee and the Board meet twice each month. The full schedule can be viewed on our website at www.ingham.org.

I look forward to a busy and productive final year on the Board of Commissioners!