The Cook County Board’s Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee meets today to vote on several appointments to the Board of Ethics, the Cook County Department of Human Rights and the Cook County Justice Advisory Council, including Chief of the Bureau of Human Resources.

Board President Toni Preckwinkle appointed Velisha Haddox to Chief of the Bureau of Human Resources. She is currently listed as Bureau Chief on the County’s website. Haddox previously worked as Associate and General Counsel in Gov. Pat Quinn’sadministration from 2010 to 2013, where she managed legal issues for the Departments of Labor, Children and Family Services, Corrections, Human Rights, and several others. She also reportedly helped overhaul State’s Worker’s Compensation Act. She also serves on the Board of Directors for South Central Community Services, and has worked at various law firms in Chicago and Philadelphia.

Board of Ethics:

• David Grossman - Founder and CEO of The Grossman Group, a communications consultancy

• Professor Juliet Sorensen - Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Northwestern’s Center for International Human Rights

• Thomas Szromba - Principal Senior Counsel, Litigation at The Boeing Company

Cook County Commission on Human Rights:

• Gia Orr - Director of Community Rights, Relationships and Resources, Chief Results Officer and EEO/AA Officer, State of Illinois

• Amber Smock - Director of Advocacy, Access Living

Cook County Justice Advisory Council:

• Edith Crigler - Associate Executive Director at Chicago Area Project

• Lisa Stephens - Chief Operating Officer, Institute for Nonviolence Chicago

• Dia Weil - former President and Chief Operating Officer of Mercantec, Inc.

The Labor Committee will also meet to vote on a collective bargaining agreementbetween the County and the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) representing Deputy Sheriffs in the Cook County Sheriff’s office with a term from December 1, 2012 through November 30, 2017.

And the Workforce, Housing & Community Development Committee will vote on the allocation of four Community Development Block Grant loans totaling $9 million. Loans will cover partial costs of the following projects. The first three are qualified as “Disaster Recovery”:

• $1.3 million to BEDS Plus Care of LaGrange, Illinois for new construction of 20-units of permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless.  

• $2 million to the Hines Veterans Residences Limited Partnership for new construction of a 52-unit multi-family rental housing project in Hines, Illinois.

• $3.2 million to Ford Heights Cooperative, Inc. to support renovation and flood mitigation of a 100-unit single-family rental cooperative housing project in Ford Heights.

• $2.5 million to Related Affordable, Inc. This project loan will be utilized to support HOME-eligible project costs incurred during the rehabilitation of a 145-unit multi-family rental housing project in Park Forest, IL.