The Powers that Be: New Trustee, Gun Laws
EAST PEORIA ― At their December meeting, the ICC board of trustees guided Illinois Central College through two influential moments as they filled the board’s vacant trustee position and discussed how the college should react to Illinois’ new concealed carry firearm laws.
About 10 minutes into the Dec. 19 meeting, Michael Everett of Washington was appointed to fill the seat formerly held by Tim Elder, who resigned from his trustee position earlier in the fall due to his moving to Florida. This came about two months after the board began searching for candidates for the position.
A Peoria native, 60-year-old Everett was never a student at ICC, but he did develop connections with the college over the years. He collaborated with ICC in many professional settings, including at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the trade union where Everett worked for 25 years. Furthermore, his daughters and wife all ICC graduates, and his wife’s employer once operated from ICC.
“In real strange ways I find myself always connected to the college,” said Everett, “so now that I am to the point in my life where I get to pick what I work on, this seemed like that it would be a very interesting thing to go for.”
Everett will carry out the remainder of Elder’s 6-year term, which ends in the spring of 2015, but he is not sure if he will seek to be elected to another term.
“April of 2015… At 60 years old that’s kind of out there,” said Everett. “It’s definitely open. It looks like a very exciting and very worthwhile endeavor so I am not going to discount it, but a lot of things would factor into that decision – my family situation, health and things like that.”
Everett said that his wife, who coincidentally was to retire the day after he began his role as an ICC trustee, would also play a key role in his making that decision in 2015.
Elder had been a trustee since March of 2008, and the board officially recognized the contributions that he had made in that time.
“Timothy Elder has used his unique perspective as an ICC alumnus to help guide the actions of the ICC board of trustees while acting as a tireless advocate for students in the areas of academics, services and college costs,” said acting board chair Sue Portscheller at the meeting.
After Everett’s appointment, the board moved on to the meeting’s next point of business, how the college should adjust its policies in reaction to Illinois’ new laws allowing the the concealed carry of firearms.
In February 2011 the board adopted a half-page “Weapons on Campus Policy,” which basically stated that no one, except law enforcement, may carry firearms on campus without the approval of the ICC police chief.
Since the July 2013 passing of the Illinois Firearm Concealed Carry Act (FCCA), the college had decided to update their policy. Now a revised policy is being proposed, and it is roughly ten times the length of the current policy.
Tom Larson, the ICC police chief, helped write the revisions and explained why he thinks they are needed.
“I just think that it’s in everyone’s best interest to rely on people like our officers to protect them,” said Larson. “I think that it’s going to be controversial, I think that there are going to be problems along the way, but my professional opinion is that even though folks should have the right – by the state law – to carry, I don’t think the campus is an appropriate setting for bringing weapons unless you’re a trained professional.”
The board of trustees and the college administration will be further discussing what the new policy should be, and the board plans to have it ready to vote on at the January meeting.