Island Lake board moves to bring control back to discussions

If the Island Lake village board can agree on one thing, it's that they don't agree on much else.

With contentious village board meetings sometimes stretching well into the night, the board took action to try to streamline that process.

The board voted unanimously Jan. 24 to approve a proposal by Trustee Don Saville to limit debate to 20 minutes on any one topic, and set an adjournment time of 10 p.m.

"Our meetings have been lasting a long period of time because of windbags like myself," Saville said. "This way there are going to be some controls."

The board also approved letting the chair -- the mayor -- speak only twice on any topic, identifying the trustee bringing items forward and creating "old business" and "new business" categories on the meeting agenda.

Even trustees who frequently wind up on the other end of arguments with Saville agreed with his plan.

"We should be able to discuss in 20 minutes any issue that we have here without repeating ourselves," Trustee Rich Garling said. "We need to get down to business."

Others concurred.

"This is something I recommended when this board first convened," Trustee Deb Herrmann said of the new and old business plan. "We have left many things unfinished."

But the same night trustees approved the plan, the meeting went past 11:30 p.m. and debates on subjects lasted well beyond the 20 minutes allotted.

Herrmann said her understanding of the rules was they would take effect 10 days from the date of approval.

Others said it showed how much the board needed the controls they had just implemented.

"It's something to which we're lacking," Saville said. "We're really going to make some great decisions here and move forward in a positive manner."