Remarks by Rod Sullivan
13 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 1
Just to note, John, that this is not the usual second Thursday.
Thank you. Supervisor Sullivan. Thank you. Let's see. Joint entities at the school district has been mentioned. As mentioned board members have been spending a lot of time this week in particular on department head evaluations I had the opportunity To attend the Iowa City Human Rights Awards breakfast this week. That's always a great event wonderful folks being recognized for all their wonderful work and Congrats to all them and thank you to the city of Iowa City for continuing that tradition and We had our systems of care meeting on Tuesday. This meeting focused heavily on substance abuse…
I've had a number of things crossing my mind with the first day of voting. First of all, I just I wanted to. Just share my thoughts of my old friend Gary Smith worked in elections for a long time, and we used to, the night before every election season, talk about whether or not he was going to go to prison this time around just for doing the good civic work. But, you know, it was a joke, but that happened in Georgia. You know, I mean, they didn't go to prison, but they were charged. With what? I don't recall what they were charged with, but there were precinct election officials who were…
Thank you. Well, we talked a lot about voting. I was going to talk a little about that, but a couple of ancillary things that I'd like to mention in addition to complimenting everybody on the great job they've done thus far. I want to remind county employees, especially elected officials, to lead by example and park where you're supposed to park during this time. Parking spaces are incredibly limited and really disheartening for the county employees to park where they're supposed to park and then see the elected officials getting out of their vehicle in a place where the public needs to be.…
I'm imagining, Scott, that this is going to necessitate the moving of those trailers that are in what's now going to be right-of-way that's dedicated.
I was there today. They're not yet. They're not, okay. Unless they did it after noon. Noon, okay. I think they did. I went by there at 1230. Good answer.
Three liaison meetings, Fiona at Ambulance, Lindsay at HR, Clayton and the ME office, and I believe you've gotten reports from all of them. We had a meeting with Terry Whitson to help us talk through some things. Three IT interviews. A couple other things I wanted to mention. I had the opportunity to attend the Ruby Bridges talk at ANTR the other night. It was really quite good, and I thought the thing that was most interesting was how much time she... She really didn't spend any time at all on her later life. It was all about the very moments that were captured in the famous photographs and…
Okay. Supervisors, comments? Well, I was going to say, you know, the 16 clubs, in case people don't know, are fairly geographically spread out. I think what a lot of people maybe don't realize about 4-H, they say, well, Johnson County is pretty urban, you know, is there really a role for me? But you actually have a lot of urban kids involved. Could you talk about that?
And my understanding is that no child is turned away for an inability to pay, correct? That is correct, yes. That's a wonderful rule, so thank you for doing that. Yes, yes.
I spent about 11 years a while ago doing what was then called Batter's Education Program classes and got to be very familiar with this organization and frankly with the efforts of the County Attorney's Office through that. One thing I wanted to mention that I think that DVIP and the Johnson County Attorney's Office were real leaders on. It's been a long time ago, but it's really critical. And that is, oftentimes, back a long time ago, charging decisions were left solely up to the victim, who was in a very difficult position. It's like, well, do you want us to charge or not? I think that kind…
Right. We're taking it away from you so that it's not up to you once again to be responsible. We're responsible.
You mentioned something, too, that I think is worth mentioning. Selfishly, however long ago it was, a decade or whatever, when you got your region, selfishly I was like, oh, man, they're ours, right? They belong to Johnson County. But, God, how good for all the people in those other counties that you've been able to provide your services there as well. you know, and spread across southeast Iowa and bring them that same high level of service because in some cases maybe they had it before, but in some cases they certainly didn't. And so, you know, bravo on you guys for not only continuing to…
Thank you, Mandy. Supervisor Sullivan. Yeah, thanks. Just a few things. I had a liaison with our Veterans Services Director, Mandy Coates. She is going to be coming to the board at some point to talk a little bit about they're getting, I think the legal term is jerked around by the legislature and They're concerned that the money that they've always gotten for training and supplies will not be forthcoming or maybe cut or whatever. So she is going to probably just ask the board for more money in her budget so that if worse comes to worst, she spends it. And then if it is reimbursed, it would…