City Council Meeting - Regular Meeting

And welcome everyone to the August 17th pre-council meeting for the city of Joliet. The honorable Mayor Terry Darcy presiding. We'll begin with roll call. Mayor Darcy? Here. Councilman Cardenas? Here. Councilman Clement?

Here.

Councilman Hugg? Here. Councilman Navarro? Here. Councilman Marino?

Here.

Councilman Mudrin?

Here.

Councilman McQuillan? Here. Councilman Vernon? Here. 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 review tomorrow night's actionable items.

Before I begin, I just want to introduce Nolan Ming who's here. He's our new deputy city manager.

Wanna wait for him, Alan?

Yeah, so I have to get time together for everybody to meet him, and he's been a huge help so far. One weekend, he's still here, so that's good. Good indicator. Tomorrow, we will have appointments to the Committee on Citizens with Disabilities, Council Committee Reports from Communication Technology and Information Systems, Finance and Public Service, Consent agenda, we'll have approval of the minutes, invoices to be paid, council memo 40726, approval of purchase of one NAPIED specialty body for the fire department technical rescue team, use in the amount of 77,600. Chairman Clement did talk about this at the last meeting. Council memo 408 26 approval of a bulk road salt sales agreement between the city of Joliet and Midwest salt LLC to purchase road salt at a unit price of 117 dollars and 37 cents Anybody have any questions about that? Yeah.

Hey, but how many tons are we getting for the bulk? So, you know Sean Yes, there's a couple different orders The reason what, sorry to interrupt you. The reason that I asked, I read that there's a, I forgot the source, it was that there's a shortage, so villages. Shortage. Yeah, shortage.

Yeah, there's a big time shortage. We did not get everything that we normally get through the state contracts. The other agencies and communities affected who did not get any salt as well are all surrounding us. So Will County, Aurora, Plainfield, Shanahan, Crest Hill, Manhattan, Romeoville, Shorewood, and many other communities in Cook, DuPage, Kane, and Lake counties. And so Morton Salt is still in the business. There's another company by the name of, what was the other company's name, Sean?

Cargill.

Cargill, that's not gonna do salt anymore, so that's why we're seeing this. And speaking to salt suppliers, if we wait till the middle of the winter, it could be $250 a ton. So we'd like to just lock in this $117 per ton, so we're not paying more than that. And then we'll be stocking and storing.

Good, so to your original question, based on what we have right now, we're about 5,400 tons will be on the first shipment in 2026, and then in 27, when we go to that, it's about 4,400 tons.

Okay, thank you. I just wanna make sure we're covered for the, in case we get a bad storm, you know? Oh yeah. With Mother Nature, we never know, especially with all this rain.

That's why we're stocking up now. Thank you. That's exactly why. Council Memo 40926, Award of Professional Services Agreement for the Southeast Joliet Sanitary District Phase II Water System Improvements Project to Baxter and Woodman, Inc. for the not to exceed amount of $65,400. Council Memo. Oh, fair? Yes, sorry.

Clarify the question here. We're all aware, at least the committee is and you guys are, this is reimbursed by the county. I want the public to know this is not city tax dollars. It's reimbursed by the county.

Thank you, Larry. Thank you. Council memo 41026, award a contract to Sierra ITS for professional services funding in the amount of $275,000. Council memo 41126, award a contract to CDWG for the renewal of Cradle Point NetCloud mobile router licensing in the amount of $49,207.09. Council Memo 4-12-26, award of contract to Lenovo for 2026 PC Life Cycle Program in the amount of $85,000. Council Memo 4-13-26, award of contract to SHI for a three year Microsoft Enterprise Licensing Agreement in an amount not to exceed $1,278,214.47. Council Member 41426, award of contract to Video Tech for access control and surveillance at 9 Osgood in the amount of $72,927. Can I ask a quick question on this?

Hey Chris, are these cameras just external? Are these internal and external?

They're both internal and external cameras on the 9 Osgood property. Okay, covering everything, thank you.

mayor and that just so people watching all they see is an address this is the old pace building the old pace building and the city is taking over ultimately will be turned into our public works uh main hub right right i just want people to know as opposed to why are they putting cameras in somebody's house yeah mainly roadways division so we'll be fixing all the cars and everything there that's right yeah dmv or mbr mmr all right thank you thank you

Moving on to agenda items, Council Memo 41626, approval of amendment number five to the Professional Services Agreement for the Alternative Water Source Program to Stantec Consulting Services in the amount of $34,792,038. Licenses and permit applications, Council Memo 41826, application for a drive-through permit for Hawaiian Brothers Restaurant at 1351 Shale Road. Ordinances and resolution. Ordinances, Council Memo 42026. Ordinances associated with the development of Joliet Catholic Academy Subdivision. Ordinance approving the final plan unit development of Joliet Catholic Academy Subdivision. And an ordinance approving the recording plat of Joliet Catholic Academy Subdivision. I see that they are here tonight, if there are any questions of them tonight. Okay. Council Memo 42126, an ordinance approving a special use permit to allow a resale boutique within an existing tenant space located at 124 North Ottawa Street. And we do have Savannah Wilhelmi here with us who will be the new proprietor if you have any questions for her. Okay. Council memo 42226, ordinance approving the reclassification of 303 South Ottawa Street from R2, single family residential, to R3, one and two family residential zoning.

Whose district is that? It's probably mine. Are we good with this? I'd have to look at it.

It's yours, Councilwoman Ibarra. It's in yours.

Yeah, I definitely will know. I'll call you later today.

Council Member 42326, ordinance authorizing an amendment to the 2026 annual budget for the city of Joliet. This was the state grant to purchase our turnout gear for our fire department that Chairman Clement has also reported out on. Moving on to resolutions, Council Memo 42526, resolution authorizing the execution of an intergovernmental agreement with the Will County 911 Emergency Telephone System Board to accept grant funds available under the 911 surcharge grant program. The agreement provides funding in the amount of $1,066,280 to support our dispatch center and public safety functions. Council Member 42626, resolution declaring certain City of Joliet property as surplus. This is a old police interceptor that's been taken out of service, and they're selling it for a dollar to the Special Olympics organization. Golf balls will be driven towards the vehicles and those balls that enter the vehicle will be entered into a drawing for a prize. And we have Shawn here from Public Works if you have any other questions about that. I know it's been a huge success when they've done it in the past and I think Special Ventures wants to keep that going. Council memo 42726, resolution authorizing the purchase of vehicles and declaring certain vehicles as surplus for the tri-county auto theft task force. So the task force will be trading in three vehicles for the purchase of three vehicles and it's solely funded by a grant from the state of Illinois. Council memo 42826, resolution approving a grant to the Joliet Area Historical Museum. Kevin can speak on this if anyone has any questions. I'm sure we'll see the museum here tomorrow. This is the same grant they receive every year. And finally, Council Memo 42926, Resolution Approving a Banking Services Agreement. Kevin is also ready to speak on that if anyone has any questions.

Mayor. Yeah, Kevin, can you talk about how is this benefiting the city of Joliet and our banking?

So we did a bid, or an RFP earlier this year. This would lower our fees and increase our interest in our earnings to the tune of almost a quarter, little over a quarter million dollars a year. savings to the taxpayers in addition to provide certain enhancements from what we currently see with our relationship through old national and fraud protection and additional efficiencies among staff and then also capturing you know when you pay online through your online bill pay it can be converted into an electronic payment which allows you know customers or residents to schedule those payments we anticipate additional

residents online bill pays being incorporated into that new service to go electronic which also saves the city some funds as well we're all about saving dollars you know i'd really like um to keep the banking here in joliet um you know i thought somebody here from i guess whoever bid i guess we put out the bid right yeah we did i thought somebody was going to be here to speak about it they're not here but jp morgan is in the in the audience i don't think it was them i think it was somebody else they were going to come here and speak about it i don't know maybe tomorrow maybe i'll just uh i'll reserve any more comments and maybe they'll come tomorrow yeah i know i've had discussions with our current institution and some of the other bidders as well um but yeah be happy to answer any yeah i'm good for now but maybe they'll come tomorrow we'll see mayor thank you

That bank actually does a lot of good for the community and Joliet and the Joliet region. Old National gives so much of not only their money but their time to our community completely selflessly. So I'm very kind of disappointed to see that go.

Yeah, I'd be happy to have a discussion with you on that. At the end of the day,

I also wanna thank them for their time and everything they've done to help non-profits in this city. We will still have business with them.

We will still keep accounts, as I mentioned talking to their CEO last week, we'll still have a relationship with them, we'll still have a significant balance with that institution. This is just for core services. The city currently today does business with, I believe it's My memory serves me, four different financial institutions and has some sizable deposits at pretty much all of them. And so we will continue to do that with Old National. They're still a part of the community, still anticipate them supporting the different functions throughout Joliet. This is just for our core banking services, things like our checking account deposits, ACH payments, but like as Beth mentioned, we'll still have accounts with Old National. We're not ending that relationship.

okay thank you mayor thank you i guess i i would have a question for uh chase bank um i know you guys are big bank do you guys uh get back to the community like other local banks do oh uh the guy from chase yeah glory those two here can you come to the

Good evening, Malik Thomas, JP Morgan as well.

Right, so your question about, yes, we do give back to the community. We have, we do the volunteer hours as well. Tomorrow evening we are actually going to be accompanied by our community manager who basically acts as the liaison between the community here in Joliet and JP Morgan. So we offer a slew of financial literacy, like how you know how to budget how to save for a home all those things to the community free of charge so you know we we do that um you know we don't we're not sponsoring as as an old National might do but that's just because we're highly regulated and we just we we don't cross that line in terms of uh you know any any misperceptions of why we're forgiving another another thing that I like to say is that you know we're we're actually giving to the city in the way of the as kevin mentioned the additional interest earned and the expense savings right so that is that is a way that we are actually providing the city of joliet a benefit okay thank you did that answer your question yes thank you you know we have uh we've got a lot of uh individuals that are client well actually let's give you the stats i think you want to give them the stats on on uh

how many how many uh julia residents we employ how many have chase accounts yeah so 77 jp morgan chase employees reside in joliet 44 work in joliet 3 000 um or more small businesses or clients of jp morgan chase 45,800 residents are active clients of the bank as well. So us partnering with the city at a larger capacity is not meant to unseat somebody who has a strong relationship with you. It's just to develop a stronger relationship across the board and give the city the resources that it needs to thrive.

Ma'am, you said that you guys don't do sponsorships like the whole national love because you're highly regulated. Aren't they regulated by the same federal and state regulators?

I can't speak to what they think. Aren't all of us regulated? They are indeed. Right. They are indeed. We're incredibly conservative. Maybe that's the better way to say it. We're incredibly conservative.

Okay, so it's a choice not to do one. Not a prohibition, per se. It's a conservative corporate choice to not actually sponsor.

Yes, and get back to the way of... you know additional savings and uh technology and capabilities that other banks might not be able to provide in a different way thank you thank you thank you thank you okay next we have public comments is there anyone who would like to address the council this evening on a non-agenda item non-agenda item

Okay, seeing none, 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 motioned and seconded to approve. Councilman Cardenas? Aye. Councilman Clement? Aye. Councilman Hugg? Aye. Councilwoman Ibarra? Aye. Councilman Marino? Aye. Councilman Mudron?

Aye.

Councilwoman Coleman? Aye. Councilwoman Reardon? Aye. Mayor Darcy? Aye. Motion carried.