Chicago City Wire

Forest Preserves of Cook County Rules Committee met Feb. 25.

Here is the agenda provided by the committee:

PUBLIC TESTIMONY

Authorization as a public speaker shall only be granted to those individuals who have submitted in writing, their name, address, subject matter, and organization (if any) to the Secretary 24 hours in advance of the meeting. Duly authorized public speakers shall be called upon to deliver testimony at a time specified in the meeting agenda. Authorized public speakers who are not present during the specified time for public testimony will forfeit their allotted time to speak at the meeting. Public testimony must be germane to a specific item(s) on the meeting agenda, and the testimony must not exceed three minutes; the Secretary will keep track of the time and advise when the time for public testimony has expired. Persons authorized to provide public testimony shall not use vulgar, abusive, or otherwise inappropriate language when addressing the Board; failure to act appropriately; failure to speak to an item that is germane to the meeting, or failure to adhere to the time requirements may result in expulsion from the meeting and/or disqualify the person from providing future testimony.

20-0158

COMMITTEE MINUTES

Approval of the minutes from the meeting of 01/14/2020

20-0156

JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS

SECRETARY TO THE BOARD, Matthew B. DeLeon, presented in printed form a record of the Journal of Proceedings of the regular meeting held on 01/14/2020.

20-0105

Sponsored by: LARRY SUFFREDIN, Forest Preserve District of Cook County Board of Commissioners

PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENT

ORDINANCE REQUIRING GENDER NEUTRALITY IN CODE LANGUAGE

BE IT ORDAINED, by the Cook County Forest Preserve District Board of Commissioners, that Title I - ADMINISTRATIVE, Chapter 1 - OFFICIAL FOREST PRESERVE DISTRICT CODE, Section 1-1-3: - AMENDMENTS and Chapter 3 - DEFINITIONS, Section 1-3-1: - CONSTRUCTION OF WORDS of the Cook County Forest Preserve District Code is hereby amended as Follows:

1-1-3: - AMENDMENTS.

A. Any ordinance amending the Forest Preserve District Code shall set forth the title, chapter and section number of the section or sections to be amended, and this shall constitute sufficient compliance with any statutory requirement pertaining to the amendment or revision by ordinance of any part of this District Code. All such amendments or revisions by ordinance shall be immediately forwarded to the codifiers and the said ordinance materials shall be prepared for insertion in its proper place in each copy of this District Code. Each such replacement page shall be properly identified and shall be inserted in each individual copy of the Forest Preserve District Code.

B. The Forest Preserve District Code is hereby amended to remove all gender-specific references within the Code. All future amendments to the Code shall be drafted with gender-neutral language.

1-3-1: - CONSTRUCTION OF WORDS.

Plural to include singular: Whenever any word in any section of this Forest Preserve District Code importing the plural number is used in describing or referring to any matters, parties or persons, any single matter, party or person shall be deemed to be included, although distributive words may not have been used.

Singular to include plural: When any subject matter, party or person is referred to in this Forest Preserve District Code by words importing the singular number only, or the masculine gender, several matters, parties or persons, and females as well as males and bodies corporate shall be deemed to be included.

; provided, that t These rules of construction shall not be applied to any section of this Forest Preserve District Code which contains any express provision excluding such construction or where the subject matter or context may be repugnant thereto.

The word "ordinance" contained in the ordinances of the Forest Preserve District has been changed in the content of this District Code to "Title," "Chapter," "Section" and/or "subsection" or words of like import for organizational and clarification purposes only. Such change to the Forest Preserve District's ordinances is not meant to amend passage and effective dates of such original ordinances.

Each of the words "woods," "timber," "forest" and "preserve," whenever used in this Code, means land owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County.

Effective date: This ordinance shall be in effect immediately upon adoption.

Legislative History : 1/14/20 - FPD Board of Commissioners - refer to the Rules Committee

https://fpdcc.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=760640&GUID=B8483FFA-730F-4808-915A-B72D231D25CC&Options=info&Search=