CESSA - Region 7 Committee Meeting Approved Minutes 03/27/2025

March 27, 2025

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM CST

TEAMS Meeting Minutes

  • Call to Order/Introductions
    • Dr. Sharronne Ward (Co-Chair), called the meeting to order at 9:01am
    • Attendees: Dr. Sharronne Ward (Co-Chair), Sarah White, Chief Robert Kopeck, Matthew Fishback, Manuel Gonzalez, Marianne Bithos, Kristi De Laurentiis, Candace Gunby, Joseph Thomas
    • Absences: Dr. Dave Mikolajczak (Chair), Chief Mitchell Davis, Chief Marc Maton, Jeffrey Carey, Dr. Leodis Scott, Ryan Dillon, Whitney Bunts, Douglas Jones, Kevin Bernard, Bonnie Hassan, Anthony Marzano, Alyssa Marrero
    • Guests: Brenda Hampton
  • Open Meetings Act
    • Dr. Ward reviewed the Illinois Open Meetings Act.
  • Approval of Minutes
    • Dr. Sharronne Ward (Co-Chair) conducted the roll call, and it was noted that there was a quorum to approve the February 20, 2025, meeting minutes. Chief Robert Kopec moved to approve the minutes and Sarah White seconded the motion. The RAC unanimously approved the minutes.
  • State Updates - Brenda Hampton UIC HUB
    • An amendment was entered into the Cessa language that passed the house - House Bill 3697. There is also the Senate Bill 2500. The only thing I will say about that. Is that one part of the amended language is to extend Cessa implementation full implementation to 2027. That's very good because we've been getting year-by-year extensions and it's hard to do a long year plan, a full plan when you have 12-month increments. For other states, and the only other state that has a Statewide consent decree. They started out with a 5 - year time frame, so that would put us in alignment with that.
    • The other state updates for the mental health providers, the Mobile Crisis Response Team providers, were alerted yesterday, that SAMSHA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration) / Federal government. A notice was sent terminating federal funding, effective immediately.
    • Mobile Crisis Response Teams have blended funding from COVID and the American Rescue Plan Act funds. There's also state dollars in there, so it's not all reliant on that, but it's about $28 million that the Illinois Department of Human Services will be impacted based upon this termination. There's no more information yet. The state is trying to sort out what this means for Mobile Crisis Response Teams. They try to sort out the impact on the Statewide MCRTs.
  • Please see the video (MP4) and slide presentation for elaboration
  • All 9 Pilots were officially launched as of late February 2025, and they are conducting touch base meetings regularly, the PSAP's and the administrators have weekly meetings already with 988 and Centerstone is the provider. Priority Dispatch and APCO updates. They began with the four Pilots, which started on March 3rd, and the Pilots are meeting and planning to kick off on April 1st. 
  •  9-1-1 Flow chart slide - There are only those four pretest sites right now, Illinois regional, Bloomington, West Central joint and or 4th Central. This is a flow chart for 911. And of course, once our RAC is ready. Then we'll, once our community is ready to move on with the Pilot project, we will be starting that Pilot project, and you know with those projects or those Pilots or RACs that were involved in the projects who had APCO and were ready move.
  • RAC 7 is not part of the Pilot, but we started construction and renovation of the new Southland Community Dispatch Center, which is consolidating ECOM and South COM into one joint. With construction underway the estimated completion date of 2026.
  • Sub-regional committee planning - Southland Community and South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association. Matt Fishback from Cook County Sheriff's Department, along with Doctor Ward, presented a CESSA update at the Mayor's Managers Association, which is about 40 municipalities throughout the South suburban region. The discussion included public safety legislation and related issues with police and fire chiefs.
  • Please see the video (MP4) and slide presentation for elaboration
  • Will County - We have 6 communities in Will County. Not quite as extensive as CESSA or, you know, with our RAC 7, but we incorporate a lot of by-county activity and I think in addition to the police and fire chiefs, we also coordinate with the respective mayors and managers.
  • What came out of that meeting as well was individuals who are interested in joining the sub regional committee for RAC 7, within the Southeast area and Dr Dave will provide some leadership for developing the subregional committee members and the West area of Will County
  • OMA updates - Just making sure that just as a reminder that everyone completes their training and that's essentially what OMA updates are.
  • MCRT Embedding - Chief Kopec - We received a draft MOU from Grand Prairie which will be going to our legal team for review. Grand Prairie will continue to be supportive with its Advocate Aurora Hospital usage and its 24/365 crisis residential program.
  • Please see the video (MP4) / slide presentation for elaboration
  • State and Federal Funding alignment - Dr. Ward - the RAC mission is worthy of funding consideration by the federal and state agencies. However, the RACs should continue to discuss any alternative or improvised funding streams
  • Pending RAC 7 Requirement - Goal #3: Stakeholder groups understand the purpose of CESSA, what crisis response services will be available, and how to access them:
  1. What are the strategies for this goal in FY 2025?
  2. What are reasonable metrics to measure this goal?
  3. What are ways to understand if we are making progress?
  4. What can your RAC membership and Subregional
  5. Committee(s) do to contribute to realizing this goal?
    • Please see the video (MP4) / slide presentation for elaboration
  • Public and Committee Questions and Comments: None
  • Next Meeting Date: Thursday, April 17, 2025, via TEAMS (9:00am - 10:30am)
  • Adjournment - 10:43am Motioned by Kristi De Laurentiis and second by Chief Robert Kopec.