City Council Meeting - Regular Meeting

At pre council meeting for Monday, 04/06/2026 at 05:30PM meeting in City Hall Council Chambers. Call the roll, please.

Okay. We'll begin with roll call. Mayor Darcy? Here. Councilman Cardenas?

Here.

Councilman Clement?

Here.

Councilman Hogg? Here. Councilwoman Abarra? Here. Councilman Moreno? Here. Councilman Mudran? Here. Councilwoman Quoman? Here. Councilwoman Reardon? Here. Okay. Next, we have two presentations. I believe Hugh is stuck at a bridge. So we are going to have Alison Swisher present the 2026 water main replacement program, director of public utilities. Good

evening, mayor and council. We do this presentation once a year about the time that construction starts. I guess with the good weather also comes the construction. So this is gonna be an update on our 2026 water main replacement program. I was gonna provide a quick reminder of the background of why we're doing this, talk about the details of the program, and then talk specifically about how we provide communication to our residents.

So as a reminder, this water main replacement program, we began in 2022. The goal is to replace all of water main that are older than nineteen seventies. These have been identified as the pipes that have the most leakage. It's about about a 192 total miles and a cost of about $600,000,000. So just the progress of where we're at today, we're about halfway through the project.

Over the past four years, we have been we first two years at about 20 miles and then almost doubled that amount in '24 and '25. So this year, again, our goals are, number one, to reduce nonrevenue water and then also to reduce the number of customer water outages due to water main breaks. So we have a lot of coordination that we do to make this a success. A lot of planning and prioritizing has gone into establishing the program. We do have our funding strategy in place.

So this has all been funded with SRF, which is the state's low interest loan program, as well as WIFIA, which is the federal low interest program. We do a lot of communication with residents. And then we have to coordinate all of this with other programs going on the city, such as the work being done by Public Works, the work being done as part of the Alternative Water Source Program, and then a lot of coordination with the work that IDOT is doing with the I-eighty improvements. So our 2026 program is about 20 miles. Construction costs about $53,000,000.

The loan funding for this was approved at the last council meeting. As you can see on the map there, we have projects in four of the five council districts. So Councilman Hogg in District 1 has most of our newer systems. So a lot of these replacements are focused in the older part of town. And if you recall from the nonrevenue water presentation that we did a few months ago, this is where we have the highest water loss is in that older part of town on either side of the river.

So also this year, we are going to do one of our first alternative water source program projects. This is called AWS PO eight zero four. This was awarded at the last council meeting, and this is a major transmission main on Morgan Street. So that project will also be a component of the work being done this year. Also, as part of the water main replacements, we do do the lead service line replacement.

I'm very proud of Joliet. It's been very proactive in the lead service line replacement where we do replace the full lead service line at no cost to the owner. So when we encounter a lead service line, we coordinate with the homeowner to get inside the home and do that full service line replacement. So our schedule, we have a project that actually started today. We have a number of these projects on our around some of our major thoroughfares, such as Larkin Larkin Avenue and also on Glenwood.

So you will definitely notice the construction as you're driving it around town. These projects are all sequenced with different start dates, but the goal for all of them is to be complete in in December. So our construction services approach has been very successful over the past few years. We assign inspectors to each project working with our consulting firm, Burns and Mcdonald. They have a resident engineer who oversees multiple projects and an overall program manager.

So we're able to get in touch very quickly to identify any issues that might be brought to our attention. We have a very robust website and map on our website at joliet.gov/constructionzones. We do really say if a resident wants to be informed of what's going on they can go to the website, they can click on the project specifically and it will provide them an update. We provide updates on there each week. It also has contact information and other status of the project.

So really, if you're having residents asking you what's going on, they can go to the website. We also have projects that are in planning phases as well as construction phase so you can see what's gonna be coming up as well. We also start off a letter that's in both English and Spanish that is sent to all of the residents that are in the project area. And this just provides them, again, with that link to the website as well as general information about the project. We host an open house.

We actually had the open house last week at our East Side Wastewater Treatment Plant building. And we also are very active in the community going to the neighborhood meetings. We also use social media and Everbridge frequently. We always encourage everyone, please sign up for Everbridge. That is the way you're gonna find out if there is a water main break or other other impacts to your water service.

So please, if you're talking to any residents, sign up for Everbridge and you can do that on the City of Joliet website. And then lastly, if all the other communication failed, we do do door tags. And so there's a series of four different door tags. We have the contractors hand them out at the start of construction before any water outage. And then, again, with an update on landscaping. A lot of people have questions. The project, you know, finishes in July and they don't see anyone working. We're not gonna plant grass seed in July. You know, they come back later and do that in the fall. So we give people a door tag and again in both English and Spanish that provides that information.

All right. So that's just a quick update on our water main replacement program for this year. Are there any questions? Thank you.

Next we will have Will County Governor League, Will County Governmental League presentation by Hugh O'Hara.

Mayor and council, my apologies for being late. I didn't realize that part Of 80 was shut down this afternoon. So made traffic a little interesting. So I'm here tonight. The Will County governmental dues are are on your agenda. I would have been here tomorrow for your actual council meeting, but I'll be in Springfield with Allison and Mayor DeBold asking for money for the water project. So hopefully, you'll understand the importance of that. Why suddenly is the governmental dues coming to council? Well they finally went over $25,000 so they require council approval from now on. That change only occurred in the last year.

Can get into that here in a second. So for anyone that doesn't know who the governmental league is, we are a not for profit organization founded in 1968. We are currently at 33 local governments. That's 31 municipalities, the County Of Will and Grundy that are all members. And we work on regional issues, different things that are of mutual concern to all of our municipalities.

One interesting thing is in our office we had the original agenda from 1968 in there and some of the topics that are on there that I think you may find interesting. Industrial development, the need for additional housing, a third airport in Will County, parking concerns in Downtown Joliet, and our water supply. So I don't know if that's good or bad, that those are the same issues from 1968 that they are today, but here we are still working on some of them. The league has an oversight board of nine members, six mayors, two administrators, and the county executive, four full time staff. And then we also have 60 corporate and supporting members.

Those are businesses that do business with municipalities across the county. So think engineering firms, law firms, banks. Anyone that's looking to do business with local governments tends to be members of the governmental league. We are one of 11 councils of government in the Chicago Land Region, so there are groups like ours all throughout the area. They're all slightly different. The Cook County ones are a little different to the Collier County ones. And even all the Collier County ones aren't the same. Some are part of the county government. Some are independent. This gives you just a brief overview of who those municipalities are.

You can see who our board of directors is. Currently, Noch from Romeoville is our president. You can see several of the members chair our legislative and transportation committees. And then you can see we have a four person staff there at the bottom. So what we do? Several main areas. Number one is legislative advocacy. We do a lot of work in Springfield. We do a lot of work with our federal partners as well on larger municipal issues. So if you're thinking of, like, well, Joliet has its own lobbyist.

What's the difference? Well, Joliet's lobbyist is gonna tend to work on Joliet centric projects. We're looking more at the policy level where issues impact all of the municipalities across Weld County. So things like LGDF funding, pension concerns, the governor's new housing proposal, things related to the Open Meetings Act and FOIA reform. So all of those types of issues are are things that the league works on as opposed to going to request specific dollars for specific projects.

Now we might add, say, large regional projects for advocacy efforts, I 80 reconstruction, some large intersections, things like that, but not down to say local streets and issues for that. There's 33 members of our ask list would just be way too long to try and get anything done. Transportation funding. The governmental league receives currently between 10 and $11,000,000 every year in federal surface transportation funds that were responsible for programming. Those are dollars that communities can use on federally designated routes.

The city of Joliet and the upcoming program is proposed to get $2,000,000 in those funds in 2031 for Theodore Street, and there's 3,250,000.00 in contingency funds. So should another project fall off the list, this one would move up for Essington Road. That that program's been around since the eighties. The city has received at this point tens of millions of dollars over the years from the league for that. For instance, Infantry Drive was funded largely with STP dollars.

It was spread out over multiple segments as that road was built. A lot of dollars went into that. We also coordinate a lot with CMAF, IDOT, Metropace and the NEDA board which will replace the RTA here starting in July. And we work with them on on not only regional planning but just making sure that Will County's perspective is heard. As you can imagine, with a region as complex as ours, there's always variances between not only communities but but counties and different areas.

So we really advocate to make sure that Will County, that our perspective is heard by those groups and that our work is included in their plans. Then we do a lot of shared services programs. The suburban purchasing cooperative, for instance, that's a program where the municipalities come together and purchase anything from a paper clip to a fire truck. You can buy through the purchasing cooperative. Sometimes they have a better pricing than you can get locally, sometimes not.

It just depends on the the item, but that's a program that communities can take advantage of. I MED is the Illinois Metropolitan Investment Fund. We just had an update from them at our last managers meeting. That's a group where municipalities can park some of their dollars. They know that it'll be invested in a wise and safe way where the relative risk is incredibly low.

EAP is an employee assistance program. Joliet doesn't participate in that, but we do offer it to our other municipalities. That program was widely popular before employee assistance programs became part of your standard insurance. But as that's changed, communities have been getting on their own. We had some municipal auction arrangements, and then we do quarterly manager lunch and learns.

And then the last thing we do, what looks like all fun stuff there, special events. Golf outing, lobby day, legislative breakfast, and holiday reception. What we try to use those for is really to not only for the two that are obviously legislative related, but to really build a sense of community and a sense of working together amongst the municipalities. As I'm sure many of you know, whenever a disaster strikes you know, in Joliet, you might be big enough to handle some things by yourself, but we have a lot of communities that are not, you know, the size of Joliet, that need need help when disaster disaster strikes. Strikes.

When the tornadoes hit Coal City and Diamond several years ago, there were dump trucks, there were wood chippers, there were things from municipalities across the county on their way to Diamond and Coal City before those mayors could even ask for help. And part of that is because you do have this sort of sense of togetherness and sense of a region. And I know when I spoke to those communities after the fact, you know, that was one of the things that they were very proud and very happy that they were able to get. Came in and said, we didn't even have to ask

for help.

Other communities just came. And they came because we got to know them at governmental league events. We see each other. The mayors get to know each other. The managers get to know each other. It makes that phone call a little bit easier and that ask for help easier. So that is one of the biggest things that we do. And then we also work with all kinds of, you know, local and regional partners like the CED, the chambers. We we talk to pretty much anyone and everyone. More importantly, how are we funded for tonight's purposes?

Municipal dues are the biggest contributor. Municipal dues are based on a combination of factors, community size, and then whether or not they take part in transportation program. Not to get too in the weeds, but of the 33 members of the of the governmental league, 21 get their transportation dollars via the Will County governmental league. The rest get access to their transportation dollars from another council of government, but they're also happen to be members of the league. So they pay a little bit less because we're not doing certain services for them.

All communities over 35,000, by the way, pay the same amount. So it's not like Joliet and the county are getting hammered compared to everyone else. Anyone over that size is all paying roughly the same amount. And then we do receive a federal grant from CMAP that comes from the FHWA that helps us to staff our transportation person. And then lastly, we have corporate and supporting member packages.

We have a little over 70 corporate partners and supporting members right now. Their dues go to pay for the fun things. The holiday parties, all of our meetings are lunch meetings where the cost of lunch is taken care of by our supporting members. So we try to use them to backfill the cost of any events that we invite our municipalities to so that the municipal members don't have to pay to participate. That in general is the governmental league.

Like I said, we're a small staff, four people. We try to get a lot done for our municipalities. I think we we provide a good service. I know the mayor and Beth both take advantage of it as well as other members of your staff who come to lead meetings. If you're wondering why you as councilmen maybe and and women aren't really as active.

Because we have 33 members, we focus on the mayors and the managers. There are simply way too many council members if we were to invite everyone from all 33 municipalities and way too many opinions. At some point, there's gotta be one or two point people for each community. And I know a few of you have been at different league things in the past, whether it's a quarterly meeting or some of our more fun events. If there are any questions, happy to answer them at this time.

Any questions? Hugh, I would say that the work I've done with you over the last few years has really and will make a difference for Joliet and Will County. So thanks for all your efforts.

Of course. Anybody else? All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Next is citizens to be heard on agenda items. Is there anyone who would like to speak on an agenda item this evening? Okay. Seeing none, we will move on to the city manager reviewing tomorrow night's actionable items. Okay. Good evening, everybody. We will have an appointment to the Planning Commission.

We will hear from Communication Technology and Information Systems, Land Use and Economic Development, Public Safety and Public Service Committees, Consent agenda, approval of minutes, invoices to be paid. Council memo one eighty twenty six purchase of 10 AirPack x three pro SCBA, one AirPack x three pro and eight AirPack x three pro CGA for Joliet Fire Department from MES life safety in the amount of a $157,225. I'll just pause after each one in case you guys have questions. Let me know. Council memo 18126, approval purchase order number one for the 2026 Ghoul Zone Flasher Materials purchase to Mobotrex Inc.

In the amount of 41,312. Council memo 18,226, approval purchase order number two for the '20 26 traffic signal materials purchased to traffic control corporation in the amount of $29,642 councilmember eighteen thousand three and twenty six approval of amendment number one for professional engineering services related to the Northpointe development plan review to Hutchinson engineering in the amount of $20,000 So on staff here, we do not have structural engineering expertise. So we are going to be using Hutchinson Engineering for that. Northpoint does pay those bills. And this is for the bridge that goes over the UP.

Council Member 01/2006, award of contract for the 2026 utilities restoration program in the amount of $700,000 This is related to what Alison was talking about earlier and how we wait until the weather's nice enough to restore or lay seed or do all those things. We do that in one big contract every year councilmember 18526 award a contract for the 2026 sanitary service lateral lining program to performance pipeline in the amount of $719,939.64 and award of the 2026 sanitary service lateral professional services agreement to RJ and group in the amount of $71,700 Council memo 180 six-twenty six, award a professional services agreement for safety consulting services to Sheffield Safety and Loss Control LLC in the amount of $485,750 Mayor. Yes.

Yeah. Thank you.

Mhmm.

I just had a few questions, comments. I know this was on the agenda for Larry's committee and mayor if you want to chime in. I learned a lot in the last like thirty minutes just throwing it around. But you know what? Can we in layman's terms let the public know and everybody up here on the council? I know this has been going on since what 2019. What do they actually do for the city? If somebody can explain that. It is close to $05,000,000 And my thinking is, I'd like to see down the road have our own people do this in house. I understand we did, I learned today, we didn't have enough staff. Didn't.

We don't.

And safety is paramount. I get that. So if somebody could explain to the public what we actually hire Sheffield to do for the City of Joliet.

Sure so I think who Allison's probably best at because she's been working with them since 2019 with public utilities and has implemented her own safety protocols We haven't implemented them in public works, but that's what we've been working on for the last two years because safety of employees is just a non negotiable for anyone. I think they all need to be safe. And so for last year and this year, we expanded it citywide. But mainly it's public works and public utilities. So Alison's got the most experience with them. I'll let her take that.

Thank you.

Yeah. So as you mentioned, in 2019, we actually had an incident in my department with safety. And an employee was hurt. And so it became obvious to me that we did not have any safety protocols in place and there was no staff within the city who could assist with implementing a safety program. So we issued an RFQ to hire professional.

And that's who Sheffield is after we received I believe like five qualification packages. They were determined to be the most qualified. And so we then from that point began the process of developing a safety manual and developing safety training programs, PPE, which is like the safety equipment that is worn. And all those recommendations were made and then implemented. And so since that time, the program has evolved.

One of the main objectives that Sheffield works on now is basically auditing the program. So they have staff that are in the field with our staff just observing, making sure that safety practices are being followed, and really being a resource to our employees if they have questions. A lot of the work that we do is very dangerous and so it's again very important that we have these resources available to our staff so that they can confidently do the work that's necessary within the city. And so we have now transitioned into looking at more of our facilities and developing lockout tagout programs which are required by OSHA as well as confined space entry programs. And these are very time consuming programs to develop because we have to look at every facility that we have and then look at every piece of equipment that can be electrified and every vessel container that can be entered.

And so we have been working a lot in specifically public utilities over the past three to four years after the initial program was implemented on those objectives. And there's still work to be done on those.

And I understand, you know, we had an injury like you like you said years back. Is there any data showing I mean obviously one is too many we don't we do not want any but is there any data showing that this is working or is it?

Yeah and I mentioned this at public service. I I know that my department and you can talk to our employees they work much safer now with the PPE that they have, with the training that they've had. I know there's been a lot of questions about, can you correlate that to workers' comp reductions? And the honest answer is there's a lot of other factors that go into reducing workers' comp claims. And it has nothing to do with the safety program.

Like I said earlier, I'd like to see and the mayor and I spoke on way way up here tonight. Like to see us do it in house at some point. I mean, have our own people be trained or certified in in this matter. Not nothing that against Sheffield. Just I'd like to save half of this and the fees here and see if we can do it in house down the road.

That's definitely what we're working on with Liz as the new HR director and additional staff that she now has in her department. That's definitely the goal to move forward is to take the resources that Sheffield has provided to us and be able to then implement those and look at other ways that we can use our staff for those purposes.

And then my last comment or question, we going to move forward with having our own people take the OSHA ten thirty training? I mean, I know they can do it online. I mean, that would probably be our I would think our first step to make sure the entry level and our current people have that type of training.

Yeah those trainings already implemented in public utilities and recommended for the other personnel who need them. And like you said, there is an online option. We talked about that at department head level. And a lot of these trainings are much more effective in person. So that's something we'll discuss. And based on each department, each position, make that recommendation about how to implement that. But those trainings are definitely already being done in utilities. And that was the objective is to take what we're doing there and then have that done in other departments.

Thank you for taking the time. Thanks.

Thanks Joe.

I got one more question. Allison for the lockout tagouts I was reading the approver report. I'm surprised that we're not already doing it. For example, every shop should have it for the most part. Our shop mechanics should know, hey, I don't know. To me, since I come from this field a little bit, everywhere I've been at, that uses them. So I was honestly shocked to know that we were not using it.

Yeah, mean it's unfortunate that, like I said, this was something I recognized as soon as I became a director, was that we were very, very far behind with safety culture at the city. And that's something that city manager has prioritized and we're going to continue to prioritize. But that is definitely where a lot of the funding has been going is being put into that but it's something that's very time consuming and it's you know we've been phasing it in over the years that we've been working on the program because to do it all at once would be very very costly.

And every facility that we have has a, like a, how do you say it? Like a, like for each shop it has a mechanic, right? A dedicated mechanic for each facility that we have? What, of any equipment that we may have?

There's not particularly a person who has a title mechanic, but what we're doing with our program is it's all going to be, you know, employee is trained who would potentially be working on that equipment, which is all almost all of the employees at our plant facilities so they will all get that training and all have the knowledge of how to utilize the procedures applicable for lockout tagout and confined space entry.

Thank you.

K council memo one eighty seven twenty six approval of amendment number two to the professional services agreement for the storm sewer g I s mapping project contract two to TWIG Technologies in the amount of a $153,140. Council memo one eighty six twenty six, approval of change order number one for the Fairmont sanitary sewer rehabilitation program to hair construction for deduction in the amount of $77,241 and payment number four and final in the amount of 44,002 and 24.9. Council Member 18926, approval of change order number two for the Hagie Park water main improvement project on behalf of PT Faroe Construction for a deduction in the amount of $291.17 Council memo 19026 payment of the 2026 membership dues for the lower Des Plaines watershed group in the amount of $105,826 Council memo 19,126 award of contract to Tyler technologies for implementation of enterprise permitting and licensing solution in the amount of $156,009 additionally plus an amount not to exceed $260,100 for one time implementation fees. Council memo 192.26, award of contract to Tyler Technologies for time clock upgrade in the amount of $47,700. Council memo one ninety three twenty six, award of contract to Xerox Business Solutions for three year managed print services in the amount of $349,698.23.

Council member 19420 six authorized an authorization to fund draw 15 for the tax increment increment financing District Number 7 in the amount of $1,368,951.12 This is for Rock Run and going to deconstruction. Council memo under agenda items, Council Memo 190 six-twenty six, award a contract for the 2026 On Call Excavation and Underground Utility Repair Program in the amount of $500,000 Council Memo 190 seven-twenty six, approval of amendment number one to the professional services agreement for the 2027 water main rehabilitation program for detailed design services to Baxter and Woodman in the amount of $1,323,900 Council member 01/9826 approved payment to Will County governmental league for annual membership dues in the amount of $25,077.45. Council memo 199.26, approval of an amendment to contract for security services to Universal Protection Services, LP, doing business as Allied University Security Services in the amount of $80,516.37

Excuse me.

May I Yes. You may. Oh, sorry.

Before we met today, I had a lot nice little meeting with city manager Beth to discuss this security services. I believe it is needed for sure. But I was thinking it should have come to public safety, not public assets so that we could talk about it further. And I understand that, for example, a security person, we don't know how well they're trained. And if something happens, you have to call the police anyway.

So my thought on this was bring it back to public safety and see if we couldn't use this as a union job, which would be I know that the guys like to work some overtime. Some do, some don't. But it would not take away from when our police officers, it would just be an extra job for them, and they would sign up for that. And I just think that this is something that we should look into because then we'd have a policeman here all the time, but they would be here on their overtime. They call them union jobs.

And because we can't afford to have take somebody from our force right now because we're short, and we wanna keep everybody that we have. But this is a thought of mine that I thought we should have discussed before we go hire a security guard that we don't know that could actually help us or protect us or have whatever. In the end, you have to call police anyway. So I would like to bring this back to public safety and discuss it there and then further have conversations with the chief.

I can put that Can I piggyback on that? Do you mind? Sure. So this is for the train station, right? Not City Hall?

No. This one's for City Hall. So last year, the council did approve a contract for us to have a security guard because we were having issues at our front desk or with other people. And just having a presence here to make our staff in City Hall feel more comfortable and secure. We would love to have a police officer. But right now, we have two sixty one police officers. And we don't have the bandwidth to put someone in. I can have the chief make comments to that effect. So this is the same contract as last year. I can't do any more without council approval.

I don't go over my approved amount of $25,000 And that's where we're reaching. So I believe that we just have him through the end of this week. Is that correct, Dustin?

We have negotiated a verbal agreement to allow him to be here through tomorrow.

Through tomorrow. So if we don't move forward with this now, then we'll have no one there. And we'll have to have police coming in and out. Could you speak about our limitations on staff, Chief Evans?

So as far as our staffing right now, we're than we were when I got here even though we're have a constant hiring cycle. 261 isn't even a good number because some of those bodies are counted of people that are in the academy, people that are in FTO, people who haven't finished FTO. So it's really a little bit less than that. What we're trying to accomplish here is sometime in the next couple months, we're trying to put more people on our special services bureau. The reason for that is because you have a multimillion dollar development downtown, and we want to have police presence there and to the the Chicago Street corridor.

If we had two or three more people in special services, we would be able to put somebody at city hall. But right now, we really don't have that availability. We'd love to have a policeman here. We'd love to have two policemen here. But right now, I just I'm just trying to be realistic. I've had this conversation with Rob Brown, who's operations deputy chief, probably four times in the last two weeks. You could decide to make it a a union job, but then you also have to remember that all union jobs don't get filled. We see that a lot where a vendor needs an officer and the and the position doesn't get filled. So that is where we stand as a police department. Any questions?

Nick, I mean, can we see what the numbers are? I mean, I don't know if it was under the old administration or one before under Jorani. I just remember there was an incident, and we would fill hourly slots or two hours here, three hours here. It was probably before you were here.

Yeah. It

was. And I just remember that that's how we were handling it because they it we just couldn't put an officer there all day long.

So So at that time, they didn't have the resources to put an officer there all day long, but they were able to kind of platoon officers is what you're saying?

They were. And and, you know, maybe we do a I'm just throwing things to spitball here. We throw a four hour union job there, and we gotta see from finance if it's if it's less than is is a feasible. What maybe we throw a three or four hour slot there, union slot. And then we have we fill it with you know, maybe a detective could come for two hours. And a and and a boss in in the watch commander's office can come for two hours and we fill it that way. I I don't I don't know what the answer is. I just I hate to give up the spot. And obviously, safety is important. There's there's no doubt about it. But I hate to give up the slot when I when I believe we we could do it in house.

Yeah. And and from a police department perspective, there was never any idea of not wanting to have a cop there. We wish we had cops all over the place. But, you know, the biggest problem for us is just being able to staff people right away. Mhmm. We're we're down in detectives. We're down in the tech unit. We're down in every specialized unit we have. Saturday night, I hired five people back just to cover the sectors. That is tough, And and it and it does have a price tag with it.

And as hard as we try to make sure that we don't overspend, we still have to have a commitment to the public where we have to have these beats filled. So we we we could we could talk about a few things, and we could probably open it up to conversation to see if there's a way we could get this done. I have no objections to that at all. What we were really hoping is we were hoping by the time the park opened, we would have we would be in a better position. We just really aren't. It just, we get hit we get hit with retirements the last two years more than, quicker than we can hire people back and put them through the rank and file.

Hey, Dustin, one quick question. This has got a thirty day out clause, this contract, doesn't it?

I believe the master contract for all services to which this is an amendment of has a thirty day out clause.

I know, Joe, we are looking at all the alternatives. But when tomorrow rolls around, it is imperative to have somebody here.

Yeah. I spoke to Beth

and then Yeah.

Oh, definitely. But I would rather a police officer here

So would we. Security here. I think that's what the chief's saying, too. All were.

The way we were talking, we thought that might be a way to be able to do it. You know, like Joe was saying too, split it up like a four hour shift here, four hour shift here. But I can't see nobody wanting to come here for four hours.

Yeah. I mean, I I don't know. I I wouldn't have the answer to that until we took a harder look at it.

Right. But just something we had to look at. But I to me, I would feel safer if we had a regular police officer. But I understand the parameters of what you're working with, and that's why I talked to Beth about

it earlier.

Yeah. I'm I'm I'm glad that the discussion was opened up because it was it was something that was I've been on my mind lately.

I know. And I didn't get to talk to you about it. But, you know

And there there was also some some schools that had requested a an additional officer. Some schools requesting at least an officer. And right now, we we we can't do that for them. And I hate to tell them no Mhmm. But I just can't do it. So we we do the best we can with what we have.

You're doing great with what you have. I'm telling you that right now. There are no complaints.

You know, we'd like we'd like to be able to go to battle with what we need instead of what we

have. Mhmm.

You know? So we'd be open to any conversation. I would like to include most likely deputy chief Brown in those conversations because that is his his division that he oversees, and he has a lot of knowledge of the inner workings, who's leaving, who's coming, who's who's who's gonna stay. I know we are gonna look at some retirements in the next ninety days. I don't know how many that'll be, but there's some retirements where people have told us that they plan on leaving, but they just haven't submitted paperwork on it yet. So I'd love to have that conversation so we could work and probably work this thing out somehow.

Mayor. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm one of nine up here. I I can support this, but I'd I'd still like to have this conversation, see if we can, you know, have some discussion about how how we can move forward here. You know, either it's a union job for three hours or we can we can backfill it with with some personnel from across the street for two hours here, two hours there. But I hate to give up this position here. You know, we don't want it vacant. Right? So

Yeah. And and and and, well, I guess our philosophy was we weren't giving it up. We were just more merely postponing it until we had the right bodies

for it.

Because even if you do a union job, that's still going to cost you. Still going to cost the the the city money for that union position. Mhmm. But it's police officer. A little bit more than what a security guard would charge you. And I like I said, I would love to have a cop here. I'd love to have more than one cop here. Mhmm. Just would make me feel better more than anything. But I I we'd be open to the conversation for sure if we can put our heads together and maybe work something out.

I may. That that's why I brought it up. Wanted to open the conversations to see how everybody felt about this, and it was I felt it was important looking into. But I know what we're dealing with right now, but I wanted to open it up for future.

Yeah. And, you know, sometimes it's it's it's hard on us when the rank and file request these these union jobs, and then we can't fill them. Mhmm. You know, then we for certain events, we have to do forced overtime and things like that. We have to allow that

to happen. The other I was just talking about I was just focused on city hall.

Yeah. I I yeah. I totally totally agree.

Yeah.

But, yeah, if you guys wanna get together and talk about it, I'm I'm all for it. Chief. We'll figure it out sooner or later.

Yeah. What are we currently down for the the officer's unfilled positions? Do you know?

Well, we have two sixty one. We feel we'd be comfortable around $2.85.

But how much are how many are you authorized

for right now?

Oh, three zero two.

Alright. So you wanna get to two eighty five Yeah. Which is still only halfway to 302.

Yeah. The the thought of 302 was because in the next couple years, if we do have a rash of retirements, it wouldn't impact the department the same way it has for the last four years. So that's why we requested over 300 on this last budget, and we we received that. But I think we would be in good shape if we were around that $2.85 mark.

And a question, Beth.

Yes.

Is the security guard downstairs, is he armed?

He is.

He is armed? Mhmm. And so he's got all the right paperwork, right?

Yeah, he does.

And the mayor brought up a good point. It's a thirty day out clause. So I don't think we're going to solve the $2.85 in thirty days. No. I hope we could, but we

know.

But whenever we reach that, and we do have enough then we could obviously give them thirty days notice, so to speak, and say when we don't

That's the goal is to have police officers in this building. That's what we're working towards.

So I think it might be

a good We kind of the same thing, Councilman. We kind of thought maybe when we do get up this speak. Good example would be we hired seven this morning. Of course, those seven count towards police officers, but they're absolutely no good to us for another nine months. Right. Because many of them have to go through the academy, then you have sixteen weeks of FTO, and then you have two weeks in house. And then finally, they're of of service to us.

And for people watching, how many weeks of the academy? Sixteen. What does FTO stand for?

Field training officer.

Just I've been watching. I got month of my life.

After the after the officer has has graduated, successfully completed the police academy, he will go through sixteen weeks with a veteran officer who will train him how to be a Joliet policeman. So that's approximately six week sixteen weeks itself. And then we have another two or three weeks of in service training for new officers. So it's quite it's quite a

quite a long term. Okay. I just want you to people watching wouldn't know what it what what it meant.

Yeah. I probably should've.

No. It's alright. We we work together. We're a team.

You know, we have a lot

of acronyms.

There you line of work.

You know? Alphabet soup.

Yes.

Yes. Chief, are are you asking me to back? Is that

You yeah. If you wanna come back, you'll

take Don't you chief, don't you want younger people that can move?

What's the age limit?

Fucking move.

I have no room to

talk. Yeah.

You'll get security pay, though, not the police pay.

Hey, chief.

I just wanna excuse me.

I just I just wanted to bring up the conversation for us to talk about. I just thought this was good. And since Beth and I had just had this conversation this afternoon, I thought just bring it up now.

So Put

it out there.

I'm glad it was put out there so we can work on it.

Thank you.

How many applications are we getting right now? I know we're we're hiring and We have 285

as of today. We have 285 returned to us. And there's still seven days left for them to submit. Now, typically, what happens is people wait till the last minute, and then they they send in their their completed application. So we do expect to have a pretty good year with this. We've got a lot of laterals. The word is getting out to other departments that our lateral program is is a good one, and the pay has increased. The residency has been taken away, things like that. So we have been getting some more laterals looking to come over to the JPD as well, more than last last go around.

I He has the best department in the in the Yeah. I think so. The county.

So It is.

I know a planet. What do mean? The planet.

Universe. Yeah. The universe.

There Thank

you, Steve.

Appreciate else need anything? Everybody.

I got a question for Beth. And how much did we pay for the service last

80,000. It's the same amount. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Sure.

Okay.

Moving on to ordinances and resolutions. Council memo two zero one twenty six, ordinance approving the reclassification of 717 Henderson Avenue from an R three, which is a one and two family residential to R two single family residential. This is a petitioner who has a house. And he uses this side lot as his yard. It was recommended by the Plan Commission six to zero.

What district? This? Is mine?

Sorry?

Is what? Yeah, I'll look into it.

And my understanding is right. They want to restrict it down to single family from multifamily.

They want to use it, yeah, for their yard.

Right. Yeah, the petitioner put in for that.

All right. Thanks, Cesar.

Council memo two zero two twenty six, ordinance amending chapter two, article two, city manager authority for succession hiring and temporary appointments. So I know that there's been questions on this one. Right now, the reading of our ordinance says that I cannot even post for a position until that person is gone, which for the last couple of years has been a challenge with people leaving and not being able to get them in even a couple of months before someone leaves to train. So what we're left with is months of we're not really operating like we should be because there's someone new that we're onboarding and then trying to train without the previous person still being there. So all of this is budgeted within salaries, which is the budget.

So we can't go outside of whatever budget that you approve. But for these people that are leaving, like Krista will be retiring in July, it'd be very helpful to get a new deputy city manager in that can learn the institutional knowledge that Krista has to the best of their ability and also learn what the position's about and really be ready to hit the ground running when Krista leaves. So that's been a challenge. It's been a challenge for really, staff brought this to me. So Allison's had some challenges.

I think a lot of people have had challenges here. So I know you've heard from Allison on them. But if you want to hear from any other directors on challenges that we've had because we can't fill them before they're gone and out the door. Have a question Happy. You

answered my question. My first question was, what are you doing now? Are you waiting for someone to pack up their desk and walk out the door so you don't even have authority to even post it until they're gone, they vacated their desk. So I looked up the national average for nontechnical jobs and technical jobs. I'm wondering why maybe Liz can answer why six months was picked, like why that designation was picked.

So six months is the maximum amount. Typically, we would be looking at ninety days prior to. But for more technical positions, let's say, water treatment, individuals who have been here thirty years plus need longer term individuals to train and ensure that they get up to speed prior to the other person departing.

So if so once this is made into an ordinance, then down the road, fifteen years from now, we get someone who is abusive with this? Because it does say six months. So we could get someone down the road when all of us are gone. Once it's made an ordinance, how do you unmake it an ordinance?

The same process that we're doing today. The other thing that Beth mentioned in the beginning is that it would still be within the budgetary constraints that you've approved for the year.

Okay. So is there no possibility? I'm just wondering if there's any possibility to bring it before us instead of making an ordinance, changing it within our ordinances. You know if it was really important to really get someone in the water department could it be something that could just come to us for a vote

I might think operationally that just gets tricky because we have people leaving every day and like I said we're still operating within the confines of our budget. If we had to make an amendment to the budget for some reason, we would have to come back to you anyway.

So can I ask you really quick? Yeah. How many times you've been here for two years. So how many times over the two years would you say this would have really benefited a situation that came up?

I mean, can think of like five off the top And of my that's not even including what directors have brought to me with people that they have retiring. Thank you.

Mayor? Yeah. To follow-up on the councilwoman's question, you were saying we had, you know, she she was saying what I was thinking. The question I was gonna ask is, it's a rarity. It's not something that happens literally every day. Like you said, five times roughly in two years. Mhmm. So, yeah, you know, if you need an ordinance to establish it, but it should be by a permission or vote of the council. You know, you can't the council can't give away all of its managerial or governing abilities. And you would say, well, you got people quitting every day. Right. But this is supposed to be people that are giving notice.

Right. But two weeks notice, I mean, is not enough time, really, for us to get somebody else in place for operational reasons.

That's where you're losing me. Two weeks notice, then why are we going six months? Because

Well, can go for shorter. We're just trying to make it as easy as we can to make sure that our operations don't come to a standing halt because we don't have someone else in there. So I'm happy if you want to go to like ninety days or something else.

No, no. What I'm saying is if somebody if the predominance people give only two weeks notice, this is a moot point. Two weeks can't do anything. Can't, can't, even with an ordinance, can't post and hire in two weeks.

Yeah, well, I mean, Allison, can you speak to your instance? I know from mine, sure. Like

question, if you don't mind. I get it. What I'm saying in a general sense, you said two weeks notice is sometimes right. Disorder isn't gonna help that. If somebody only gives you two weeks, it's not gonna help that. If somebody gives you the six months or ninety days, whatever it is, noticing, hey, I'm gonna retire like Krista has done, Then you this option would work. Yes.

But you

would also have plenty of time to bring to the council. It would be, at the most, two weeks later at a council meeting to say, hey. We just got a notice from Krista. We would like to start hiring and get permission to hire her replacement starting now. And we could say yes or no.

Right. So this is the form of government that Joliet is. This is a city manager form of government. So I'm responsible for all hiring and firing of all of our employees. And so that's just the law for how Joliet functions.

Right. But the reason we need an ordinance is because we control the purse strings. You can't do it without our

No, no. And I wouldn't dare try.

So without this ordinance, I didn't say you should come to us and give us a candidate so we could pick a candidate.

I

said, if you say you want to start hiring somebody, put it out there. Yeah, it's up to us to say, yeah, we'll give you that ability budget wise. I would support that more than a blanket, regardless of who's in there now, being you Beth, or maybe they're in five years, ten years, twenty years.

Right, you need to plan for the future too.

So again, I didn't mean I don't know if I misstated that. I don't think I did. I didn't say that you should bring the candidates to us. But when you say, hey, we got a situation. Krista just said she's leaving.

We'd like

to start a process of hiring so we can get them in three to

Yeah. Five I do that. Often in closed session, I'll ask about a specific person that we can And

we'll worry about specific. But then you bring it us and we vote on it. Yeah, we agree with you. That's a pivotal position. So yeah, we'll give you the permission to start the hiring process. And then you go hire because you're the city manager. That's what I'm more supportive of.

Mayor. You know, I I understand the when somebody retires that wealth of knowledge, it goes right out the door. And we really need to capture Mhmm. That for somebody new. I understand that. Yeah. Just don't know. I mean, when somebody's hired here at the city, and this may be for Liz, human resources labor issue. I mean, can they not can we not put that in, I guess, the the contract or or whatever that they have to notify us within so much time. I mean, is that

I don't

know if that's currently in the contract. Liz, do you know?

No. There I mean, it would be great if it was in every contract that they had to provide us with a certain amount of notice. But currently, there's a minimum of two week notice.

I mean, I would feel like that's maybe moving a different direction. Maybe on top of this, this could be like the Band Aid, and then we can put that in there. So they have to notify us two months before they leave or three months or just throwing it out there.

Yeah, no I mean these are all good points I would like you to hear from directors though who have come to me asking for this change.

And I can speak this was specifically something I brought to Beth's attention. Because what has happened typically in our department is our senior positions, we do get notice because they're retirees and they have to give their irrevocable notice I believe it's, what, six months in advance because then they can start drawing their sick and vacation time as part of the pension package. So we do get that notice. And so the positions that affect me, one is one of our highest administrative positions at our plant facilities. She helps Nick Gornick with his EPA compliance paperwork.

And this is a position that if he had to fill after she was gone, it would take away his time and doing his job to train someone. And it's not training that happens in a week. There's a lot of different work that this person does. And so they extended time to see all the different work that is performed. I know another question we received is why isn't that cross training happening?

And it's because we don't know who's going to take that position. It might be someone in Kevin's department. So that cross training isn't really feasible given how we do hiring within some of those positions. So it's something that we would benefit greatly from having that training time. Another position is one of our water treatment operators.

He is retiring. And again, we have given that notice. And again, that's a senior position. And it's important, again, that someone step up into that role. Or if we know that there might not be someone able to fill that position, which is another problem we have in our department. And those positions are very difficult to fill just in the current environment. We don't have a lot of people who are qualified. And that position could be time consuming to find someone, qualified candidate. So our ability to start that process sooner, it's important that we have people in those positions. So those were two examples specifically within my department that are critical.

We also have a wastewater operator retiring this year, our chief wastewater operator. And cross training or not cross training, the training in advance of his retirement is very important just to our continued operations of our facilities.

I

think I'd like to comment on this. I would support it just simply because I think like you mentioned it's not, we're not, you're not going over the budget that we've already approved as counsel to say this is the dollar amount and for for you to have to bring it back to us then we determine whether six months, three months, five months that's going to become a very tedious kind of deal where well I don't know, don't think you need three months for that Allison, I think you could do it in two months and having to determine that whether we're here or anybody else is here I think it becomes very complicated and I do believe that we need to, not that we don't but you're right we've got to have faith in our city manager and our professional staff that they're doing the right decisions based off of that budget. Now if it goes over the budget then obviously yeah it has to come to us because we're asking for more money that was already allocated for the year. So I would support it just for that reason of just not. For us to determine whether something's a six month, three month, four month out shouldn't be something that we should decide.

Go ahead, Pat.

Similar to Cesar, this was vetted at the finance, all the items that Cesar just mentioned with going over the budget, being in the budget, were talked about, and I

feel that, as Cesar just mentioned, we

have all the safe guards that are needed to let the city manager do her job.

Man, real quick.

I was gonna talk to

you. Oh,

go ahead.

No. I'm sorry.

I'll go I'll wait.

Do I need

the ballot?

Do we

need do we need

the gambles?

No. Just kidding. Alright. Jokes aside, right? Back to work. I It's not that I support it. See where you guys are coming from. I get it. But six months does seem a little bit lengthy. And my my my the way I think is, okay. We're gonna hire someone in. Right? They already know how to at least have an idea of what what they have to do. They're not coming in. You're not training someone brand new to that job. You're let's say, Chris, I'm gonna pick on you. Right? I'm gonna I'm gonna say, hey. We're gonna hire a new deputy city manager. We're assuming that we're gonna hire someone that for that position is because they have a an idea of what to do.

So that you know, I I get what you're saying. I I understand where you guys are coming from and the necessity it may pose, but at the same time, it just seems six months is a little far out. So those are my comments.

Really? Can I ask a

question before you finalize the contract? Okay. Don't mind? Go ahead. Yeah. People are are making this it it's within the budget. They can't be budgeted for. We don't know when people are gonna retire.

What do do?

So what what you'll be doing is what? If we have open you know, there's extra money in the budget because this position hasn't been filled with that one. But the but this particular one has not been budgeted for, and you would be paying for both

two people

at one time.

Right. Because someone has to come and learn the job so we don't lose that knowledge in between. Kevin, can you speak more fully to the budget?

So as an example, Allison's positions, she had advanced notice, I think actually longer than six months. The staff notified her that they intended to retire in '26. And so during the budget process for her positions that was included in the budget to do I think three months?

Yeah. We we did know. And so I did present this to Kevin during the budgeting process that the three positions I mentioned had given us notice that they were retiring, which we appreciated. And so then we did plan for three months. Now those positions, those retirements are mid April. So a couple of them, we are already in the position of being behind. So those three months won't even be utilized. But we do have three months of each of those positions included in the budget.

And does the ordinance, how does it provide for somebody who withdraws

I'm sorry.

These so again, the ones the positions I have, they're irrevocable. So when someone turns in their notice for retirement and don't know, Liz can chime in if that mean, irrevocable to me means you can't. So these positions are not they cannot withdraw their plums to retire.

Plus, the ordinance states that as well that it can't just be a give notice. It has to be an irrevocable notice. And then as it relates to the budget, you're right. Normally, we do not budget for an overlap. I think since I've been involved in Allison's is the first one that I've dealt with here. And so when it comes to, you know, being in the budget, really means that they department has to create a savings somewhere else. And that could be from a vacancy somewhere else. It could be from hiring at a lower level. But from a standpoint, you know, I cannot expend funds beyond what's in that budget. So they have to either have it within their salaries or somewhere else in their budget to free up funds to pay for that overage.

And this is my last question is, you know, you you read about it from even smaller communities. Everybody's picking on on you tonight. Right, Christa? But you'll read, oh, the new deputy city manager, they promoted the finance director city manager left. We failing at preparing other people to step in? Is that something we should be addressing? Why aren't we training other people? You you call it the ordinance refers to succession. There is no succession if we can't promote people from within that we have to hire from without or and hire people that we have train from the ground up cold. We're failing.

Our our business model isn't working in that. And and, you know, we've got deputy not that I'm getting you to retire chief, but we got deputy chiefs that could step in because they've been trained to understand what it is to be chief. Why aren't the other departments doing the same thing?

That's something I've been asking for the last two years and something that we're trying to implement department by department to make sure that we have those succession plans. I'm confident there's at least three people that could take this job right now that I have and transition smoothly. Everybody's, at some point, replaceable. And I think that we all work closely enough that we used to operate more in silos. And we're not doing that as much since I've been here.

We meet weekly. Everybody knows what people are working on, how can we help. I know that it doesn't seem like it, but our staffing hasn't changed since we were like, what did you say, Kevin, the 70,000 people that we've had before our population We're at the same levels now. So everyone is multitasking. But we still have some issues.

Like in purchasing right now, two people have just retired. So we need someone to be able to take that position and learn purchasing in advance. This is how every other municipality I'm aware of operates. So it's really just for productivity and operations to continue to be able to provide the services to the residents that they deserve.

Mayor, I know you're dying to talk, but may I

I'm like Rodney Dangerfield, you know?

You didn't ask me.

No respect. No respect. Correct me if I'm wrong. One of the components of this current ordinance is that we can't even post the job. We can't even go looking for a new employee until the other one has left.

Correct. That's the reading currently.

When we say we're giving six months, we're giving six months to post for the position, to hopefully find that qualified candidate, give the interview process. And then maybe we have a few months left. I've hired many people and taken me six months to try to find the right person. So just because we're saying six months doesn't mean we're starting to train somebody at six months. We're starting the process at

six months.

Oh, yeah.

And right now, we do not have that.

Correct. Okay. Mayor, it's

your turn.

Sherry just took everything I was going to say.

I'm trying to get you in.

Thank you. One of the things though that that when I looked at this, I felt the same way. We're not gonna hire somebody and for six months have them paired up with their trainee. But like Greg Ruddy, I'm gonna pick on you a little bit. We know how difficult it is to get engineers right now. And if we don't have at least a six month runway to get this thing posted and have an opportunity to try and get someone in here, I mean that market's red hot right now. Wouldn't you say Greg it's?

Yeah. Excuse me. Getting a civil engineer is is a challenge right now. And we're hearing that industry wide. One thing I would say is some positions are more easy to promote someone.

Like in my instance, I have two deputy directors. I feel confidently if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, one of them can take over the job. But we also have a veteran engineering staff of engineers and engineering aids in public works. And I expect some upcoming retirements here. And because of the technical nature of their work and the project oriented nature of their work, if I could get somebody in ahead of time to understand the project, you know, road construction project that's a year or more or whatever the project might be that could get that knowledge transfer ahead of time instead of waiting for that person to retire and then it's left on remaining staff to kind of cobble together what was going on and then try and get the new person up to speed.

If we could get like a position like that ahead of time advertised for an engineer, it's difficult to get civil engineers right now for whatever reason. So I think that would be helpful in that sense.

Yeah, think that conversation you and I had is what prompted me to think we need that six month window just to get that ball rolling. We're never gonna have anybody duplicating a position for five and a half months because we hired them in two weeks. It it's it takes a long time now to get good qualified staff. And like you said, we've got projects that are two years long, but you got somebody leaving in a year. And and we need a we need a runway to have that baton handed off.

So that's why I agree that this six month runway is pretty good for what we need to do in some of the position. Not all. I mean, we're not I don't see abuse here. I think there's positions you can take a two week resignation letter and have somebody in there and and keep it going. But we can't wait until someone leaves to try and hire someone. It's it's a tough pool out there to get good people.

Here's my thoughts. One last thing. Can we still look into the, this would be for legal or human resources. Can we still have the maybe answer to the question of can we require our employees to notify us at a certain amount of time, not two weeks before. Is that legal or not?

It is not because we're talking about at will employees here in Illinois because the employer, the city of Joliet is not required to give any notice of termination. The employee also is not required to give notice. And if we wanted to head down that path, it would likely turn into a contract job which we can't do for supervisors.

Thank you.

Alright. Thank you.

Moving on to resolutions. City Council memo two zero four twenty six resolution approving a property tax abatement at 33835 Youngs Road Joliet for a Hyundai Translead Incorporated. And I know that we have Doug Prior with us and a representative from Hyundai. Happy to answer any questions. This is a big deal for the city of Joliet Getting the Lions Electric building filled and bringing manufacturing jobs, it's really a wonderful opportunity for the city.

You, Beth. Again, Doug Pryor with Will County Center for Economic Development. I have with me Sean Kenny, the CEO of Hyundai TransLead. Sean has been our partner and lead on this project. Maybe I won't say how long, but it's been some time that we've been working on this.

This project in total contemplates both the 3835 Youngs Road Building, what we locally call the former Lyon Electric building in the city of Joliet, and also what we call the former Caterpillar building, 2200 Channahon Drive. This will ultimately take the full footprint of both of those buildings, about 2,400,000 square feet, and put both of them back into manufacturing use. The estimate is that this will help create 2,475 jobs here in Little County and in Joliet between the two buildings. And a CapEx number that is approaching three fifty million although I think yeah, maybe a little more. But overall, look, this is a project we've worked on for a long time.

This is something, as we've looked at the growth of transportation industry around the Joliet area, we spent a lot of time talking about how we capture the next thing, more value add within this industry. This partner, this project is a perfect way for us to do that. And as it stands today, the ask in front of you is for a five year 50% abatement of the new increment at 300835 Youngs Road. I do want to point out that because of the investment in the facility, this is, even during the abatement period, accretive from year one to the City of Joliet. In other words, it will generate more revenue than it does today even during the abatement period for the city.

And in addition to that, I will acknowledge that several years ago I stood at this podium and asked for something similar for a previous project at this building, the Lion Project. I do think it's important to clarify that no local dollars were ever spent on that project. They never reached the jobs threshold. So no abatement ever took place at this facility previously. So this would be, again, a new project, new revenue, but also a lot of new jobs with a partner that has been incredible throughout that process.

And look, I'm certainly open opening it up to questions. I don't know, Sean, you want I will open it up to questions.

Is the job threshold here to activate? What are the jobs threshold in this group?

20 fourseventy five. So Oh, for the total project,

24.75

for City Of Joliet and the Youngs Road Building.

Hold

on. Councilman, are I'm gray now and need the glasses.

You and me both.

Youngs Road is 1291. 1291.

But as far as it goes through the tax abatement, you know how the Lyons was tied to it? They had to hit certain numbers. What are the numbers here? Same. Yeah.

That's the numbers I'm giving.

One thing I'll point out for the time I did spend, which was a lengthy time on economic development, this is not a huge economic development ask. It's not. Five years, we lost the Toyota dealership to stay in the car theme because we wouldn't go above our this is kinda like Joliet's minimum, just so people out there understand that. So it's great because they're not asking more than the minimum, and they're tying it to the jobs. Correct. So, you know, I don't regret the Lions thing. You got sometimes you you gotta you gotta pull

the trigger on it. I don't regret it because we were protected.

Yeah. Were protected.

If if you don't mind my saying so, I appreciate you saying that. It's It's one of those things that, look, it was a new industry. We took a shot. That's how you find success in development work is often you have to take some risk on a new project. Hyundai Translate, very different. Experienced company in this space, already doing it at scale, on a global scale. But I appreciate you saying that.

The electric car industry has grown quite a bit since its inception. I got a bit. I still supported it. But looking at it, I'm like, buses? I'm not so sure there's going be a demand for that. And unfortunately, my doubt came true. This this is something I say. It's already established. They're expanding to meet the market, you know, and therefore expanding the market share. And I just wanted to point out this is not a huge ask on on the abatement. It's it's 50% of the taxes for five years. After that, they're paying full boat, and they don't get that unless they meet the the the employment requirements. And I needed I needed the people out there, the public that we serve, to understand that. So that's my comments, mayor. Thank you.

Mayor, can I something? Say Sure.

Okay. I just wanted to thank you for coming to the State of Joliet. I am not in favor of tax abatements ever. I think we have something that industry should want here, and everything exists. But this is so amazing to have not one building, but two be completely revived and no longer stagnant with an amazing company that is a fantastic partner. So I'm definitely in favor of this project. And I wanna thank you for coming to the city of Joliet because I hear all the time that Lion Electric is sitting sorry, shouldn't have said that name is sitting there vacant. The Caterpillar Building is sitting there vacant. So it's very exciting to have both of those projects in District 5. Thank you.

Thank you. And good job, Paulina. Good job. Thank you. And the city manager, of course, and the mayor. Thank you. I'm very happy about this.

I'm always last, if that's Okay.

Lats will be first, Mayor.

Thank you.

So you guys are making your dry vans, right? 53 footers? Your logo blue,

right? Good

traders, the way. I've driven them. I moved them around, and nice traders. So welcome to Joliet. Thank you. Those are my comments.

Yeah, I do want to thank you, Sean. This is a big deal for the city of Joliet. And we appreciate you choosing us. I'm sure you had other sites. And Doug, thank you for all the work you put into it. But we're really grateful to have you here.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

May I have one other question? Let's get it out there. Do we know what the average projected salary is for the 2,400 positions?

We're still working through that. It'll be a wide range, though. So of the 2,475 jobs, 2,455 will be hired locally. And of those, approximately 230 are salaried. So it's a wide variety. They will be market plus with benefits. Okay.

Thank you. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks.

Council Member 20526, resolution authorizing the execution of a property tax incentive with Mercado's El Guerro and the amount, Inc. At 118 East Jackson Street for tax year 2025. So really, the county clerk needs for their records an official document certifying that the improvements of Subramarcato have been made and therefore can proceed with applying the property tax abatement. And so that's what we're doing here. In 2019, you approved this tax abatement, but the county needs some documentation to make sure that they can pay it out.

So it's really just housekeeping. Council memo 20626, resolution authorizing execution of an intergovernmental cooperation agreement between the city of Joliet and the Joliet Park District. So the city and the park districts has identified a need for enhanced security measures at the district's property, which can be achieved through installation of cameras. We were bringing this to counsel for just one, for the Hagie Park. But more intelligent heads prevailed.

And we're just entering into this IGA with the park district so we can really put cameras wherever they're needed. Council memo two zero seven twenty six resolution approving easement agreement for water facility construction with Plainfield Park district. The Rob Ares soccer Complex Southeast of Caton Farm Road and Ridge Road. So we're working with five other communities on alternative water source program to design and construct the pipeline. This program requires the city to provide modifications to its water system to enable the delivery of Lake Michigan water throughout the cities.

The addition of a booster pumping station and water transmission main at the existing water storage tank located at Plainfield Scythe High School is where we need to make those modifications. And the Plainfield Park District owns the soccer complex located southeast of the intersection of Kate and Farman Ridge and has agreed to grant the city a temporary construction easement on the district property for staging and storage of materials and equipment for construction and installation of the booster pumping station. Council memo two zero eight twenty six resolution accepting a grant of public utility easement from Burton Place apartment for the Larkin Avenue water main improvement project. This easement agreement will provide access rights for installation of the water main loop on Burton Place's property. Last but not least, council memo two zero nine twenty six, resolution authorizing approval and execution of an encroachment stipulation letter with Kinder Morgan for the 2026 Glenwood And West Acres water main improvement project.

That concludes the agenda.

Next we have public comments. Is there anyone who would like to address the council this evening?

Mayor. If there's not, just real quick. Greg, we spoke earlier. I just wanted to get that Catherine North Of Glenwood, South Of Black Road on the list for paving if we can for this year.

Yeah. Understood. We checked it. There's one section that I believe the section between Glenwood and Mayfield that's in a little worse condition. So we're looking at trying to

Thank you. I want to let the resident know I would say that publicly. And then I want to make sure we get on these weeds citywide. They're already starting to pop. Make sure we have a plant plant in place for that. And then lastly, I guess there was a a senate bill that was passed last year, SB twenty one eleven. It's the people over parking law. I just didn't know if legal could maybe look into that and see exactly how that's going to affect the city of Joliet. I guess, it has to do with parking around a transportation hub or something along those lines. I was trying to read it and decipher it and I didn't get around to it yet.

We did look into it briefly. The amendment to the law is effective in June. We at this point do not believe that it will affect the standard street parking in the city lots of the downtown area. We don't we are not aware of any developments within the city of Joliet where it would be an issue under the definition of the development project. But we are going to communicate with community development to confirm that it will not be an issue.

In layman's terms can you can you let us all know?

It shouldn't affect us for parking. I

got that but the actual law that was passed. What are they trying to do?

They are trying to ensure that where there is construction that there is still parking for people around those construction areas.

Mayor, I have one thing. I'm so sorry, Joe. Okay. City manager, I've been getting a lot of complaints, and I mean a lot of complaints, of the Mill Millsdale Road cul de sac. I don't know who it is who's doing this, but they've sent me videos of people driving up over that cul de sac. I'm wondering, is there anything we can do? Can we put a sign like this road is now cul de sac, you can't go down?

Absolutely. This is one of our priorities right now as well. We've heard the public comment and also talked to you about these concerns. Northburn's working on expanded landscaping, including trees, but the trees are small right now. They're also looking at putting in a fence. And if we need to, we'll have to put in a bollard. But, yeah, people just are jumping the curb and doing what they like out there. So we are working closely with Northpointe to make sure that is taken care of moving Thank

you so much because you worked so hard. Like the mayor, you guys all worked really hard public works all of us up here to call the sack and for them to just ride over.

I know. No way we're going to let that continue.

Thank you. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. Seeing

there are no more comments, I did receive a request for closed session. Is there a motion to go into closed session to discuss personnel, collective bargaining, land acquisition, or conveyance pending or threatened litigation after which the meeting will adjourn?

So moved. Second.

It's been motion and seconded to approve. Councilman Cardenas. Aye. Councilman Clement. Aye. Councilman Hug. Aye. Councilman Navarro. Aye. Councilman Moreno. Aye. Councilman Mudrin. Aye. Councilman McCorman. Aye. Councilman Meriden. Aye. Mayor Darcy. Aye. Motion carried.