Lee County Board replaces 5-member zoning board of appeals with one hearing officer to streamline process

DIXON — The Lee County Board approved an ordinance Thursday, May 22, to replace its zoning board of appeals with one licensed attorney.

Going forward, all public hearings on petitions filed with the zoning office will be held with Mandi Florip, a licensed Illinois attorney with a background in small business law, instead of a board of five people appointed by the county board chairman and confirmed by its members.

“Living in a small area, everybody knows everyone, so we repeatedly run into conflicts of interest, or perceived conflicts of interest...which creates mistrust from the public,” Lee County Zoning Administrator Alice Henkel said.

“It was also getting harder and harder to find people to serve [on the ZBA],” she said.

Currently, the ZBA has two vacancies – one member and one alternate.

For those reasons, the county started looking at what surrounding counties are doing and several of them, including Whiteside County, are switching or have switched to a zoning hearing officer format, Henkel said.

Whiteside made the switch in December 2020, Whiteside County Building & Zoning Administrator Suzan Stickle said in an interview with Shaw Local. Stickle became that office’s administrator in 2018.

She said that before the decision to switch was made, the prospect of reducing to one hearing officer had been discussed by the previous administrator and the county board for several years because Whiteside was having issues similar to those facing Lee today.

“We were having trouble getting a quorum sometimes...and just getting them on the [ZBA] board to begin with,” Stickle said. “There was also a request by the assistant state’s attorney at the time to make sure that the hearings were more objective.”

Since making the switch, Stickle said those issues have been resolved.

“I think it’s been going very well,” she said, adding that scheduling hearings and meetings are a lot easier with just one person.

“I personally like it because it is more objective and it runs more smoothly,” Stickle said.

She compared the hearings now to be run similar to a court proceeding.

“The zoning hearing officer is an attorney, so it’s a little easier, because that’s the wheelhouse she does anyway, whereas volunteer board members, that’s not usually what their livelihood is, dealing in that type of situation,” Stickle said.

As zoning hearing officer, Florip will be paid $750 a night per hearing, which will include travel time and any time she spends outside of the hearing to prepare her report, Henkel said.

Originally, the board set the pay at $500 a night, but Lee County Board Chairman Bob Olsen said they weren’t able to find anyone to do it for that price.

“We’re looking forward to seeing how this works,” Henkel said. “I will miss my board, though. Several of them had served for many, many years. We really appreciate their hard work and dedication over the years. That did not go unnoticed.”

Serving on Lee County’s ZBA were Bruce Forster of Dixon as chairman, Craig Buhrow of West Brooklyn as vice chairman, members Tim Crawford of Dixon and Luke Phalen of Compton, and Nathan Hummel of Dixon as an alternate.