Prison Committee - Regular Meeting

THE SUMMER A LITTLE BIT. ALL RIGHT. IT'S TIME TO CALL TO ORDER THE CITY OF JOLIA PUBLIC SERVICE MEETING FOR MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2026. FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS IS ROCAL. COUNCILMEMBER RUHREN. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER MUTTER. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER HUGH. I AM HERE. NEXT, THE APPROVAL MINUTES FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE MEETING OF AUGUST 3, 2026. I WAS NOT IN ATTENDANCE, SO I WILL ABSTAIN. I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES FROM THE LAST MEETING. I'LL SECOND. I HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. TO APPROVE THE PUBLIC SERVICE MINUTES FROM AUGUST 3RD, 2026, AS PRESENTED. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. OPPOSED? ABSTAINED? NAY. ALL RIGHT. NEXT WILL BE CITIZENS BE HEARD ON AGENDA ITEMS. ARE THERE ANY CITIZENS THAT WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK ON AN AGENDA ITEM? SEEING NONE, WE'LL MOVE RIGHT INTO THE CONTRACTS. WE HAVE FOUR CONTRACTS. FIRST ONE IS 407, APPROVAL OF VIRTUAL ONE, AN APP HIGH SPECIALTY BODY TO THE FIRE DEPARTMENT EXECUTIVE RESCUE TEAM use in the amount of $77,600.

Yes, so this is for the fire technical rescue team. If you recall, we had two previous memos in previous time that we approved for this. This one is the, I'll call it the outfit for the body of that to configure what our team needs. In doing this, our shop will do this. It'll save us about $100,000 in fees to do it this way. by building it yourselves. But as mentioned, this was done in a previous memo as well. So we're looking for that outfit. We'd like to see that moved to council for approval.

Question or comments? Let's pay for our capital fund within the budget, right? Correct. Okay. Let's move to the next item, 408. Approval of a bulk road salt sale agreement between the City of Joliet and Midwest Salt LLC to purchase road salt at a unit price of $117.37 per ton.

Okay, good evening. This year, the city will always try to enter into the state joint purchase agreement, which happens in March. We submit our quantity that we want, and we jump on board with everything, and then usually in October, we get notified of what the prices are. Well, about three weeks ago, got a call that there are about 257 communities that are not getting salt. So the bidders did not submit bids for quite a few communities to supply salt to them. And since we got that, we dug into it a little bit, and it does appear as if there's going to be a salt shortage coming up this year. So we were scrambling and we reached out to a lot of different suppliers, tried to figure out what's going on. One of the major suppliers, Cargill, is pretty much out of business this year. They're not supplying salt and they've supplied a lot of salt over the years. One of our mines got shut down. They had another EPA issue in a different location. There's a lot of things going on with that, so they're not supplying any salt. So Morton Salt did quote us to supply salt to our Arbiter location at $89 and some odd cents a ton, and also to the Cass Street facility for $143 a ton. Now, past years we paid about $70 a ton for salt is what it's coming in at. So those are the two that we had. They chose not to supply salt to Cedarwood, which is our larger facility, which is 4,500 tons that we requested. So after digging into it, we looked around. I was getting quoted at like $180, $200 a ton for salt. and a lot of these vendors were requiring payment ahead of time before we even had delivered and that's not really a optimal solution for us i did find midwest salt who will supply us the amount of salt that we need for 117 a ton we're going to pre-purchase a bunch this year and stockpile a little bit and then roll into a purchase in 2027. So we have money in the budget right now to make these purchases for Cedarwood, Cass Street, and our storage location. So that's what we're trying to move forward with an agreement. We would have to do an agreement with Midwest Salt. to supply this, and then the end-season salt supplies for the next year. So 27 budget would take care of next year's, but the $633,000 we've got in the budget for this year because that's the other thing that's happened is Cargill would not supply our remaining 20% this year. They supplied the 80%, but they wouldn't do the extra 20% because with the state contract, they can supply 80% or 120%. We got our 80%. We're like, okay, we're going to fill up our storage facilities. They're like, nope, we're not going to do it. We're not going to honor that. So they backed away from it, and we had no one to fill the domes up right now. So this is filling the domes up, having a small stockpile, and then doing in-season purchases for next year. So after talking to several of the people, several of the suppliers, the price fluctuated. during the season is expected to be over $200 a ton, is what it is expected to be, as opposed to 70, which is in a normal year. So that's where we are. Our recommendation is that we move forward with this agreement with Midwest SALT and make these purchases now and get it locked up. So we don't want to be one of these communities that are in a jam when it comes January, February, March. the forecast is a little bit higher than normal for for snow and We're just trying to do what we can to get out of that Come back to me with your beginning opening statement about the state and how many communities from the I got a list a couple weeks ago, and this is when the guy at the CMS, the Contract Management Services of the state, he's the one who does the coordination on it, sent a spreadsheet out. It's a five-page long spreadsheet with 257 locations that were not getting SALT. We have one on there, so it's not the whole towns aren't necessarily getting it, but they deliver it and promise it by location. Some of the other communities, Will County, none of their orders were honored. Will County DOT. One of ours was honored, right? Well, and why was one of them $89 a ton and one $143 a ton? That's just the way the purchase program is set up. And usually, I know the last several years, it's all been within a dollar. But for some reason... I think it's the supply demand. Our cedarwood is a very large demand, 4,500 tons, and they couldn't commit to it. It was Morton Salt, and they could not commit to it because they had to commit to all this. They had to take over the whole market for Illinois because Cargill's out of it. It's usually Cargill and Morton are the main suppliers. There's a couple of companies, there's a couple other ones that do a lot of it. But with Cargill out, whoever does the bidding on it has to promise and has to guarantee they're going to supply all that salt. They did not have the salt. The shortage is 297,000 tons is what's not being supplied. Most of these yards may hold 100,000 tons at the barges where they can drop in, and that's all they can hold at a time. So they don't even have all this salt, so they're still waiting for it to come up via barges or being shipped up. There is a storage facility in St. Louis that's empty right now, and that's usually pretty full year-round. That one's empty right now. So it's all barge traffic, and everybody's relying on the barge traffic, and so... And it appears that Morton determined they couldn't supply everything, so they just picked and chose what they wanted to do. And that's where we end up at.

And this all comes from where likely?

A lot of it is domestic. There's salt mines located everywhere. One of the things they're talking about having to do this year is bring in Egyptian salt. That may be the option that will be coming in later on in the season, which isn't quite the same, but it works. So that may be something that happens later on in the season. Right now, they are trying to bring in all the salt from all the different salt mines that are around.

I did hear this report. I was telling them before you got here. I heard it reported on the radio and was wondering how it was going to impact us. So I'm glad you guys were ahead of it, at least. And then the two combined that you said, the other two locations, other than Cedarwood, when you kind of combined those costs, does that average out to about $117,000?

Well, it'll actually be a little more because with the state contract, we got the $89 a ton for 2,000 tons and $143,000 for 3,500 tons. And we can't say no to it because this is what's really weird with the state program. You agree in March, we'll take whatever price you get, and then you are committed to that price. Now, they did give us one option, and one of the options was that we could participate in the emergency program they're going to do, and they were going to go out and get emergency, you know, they're going to do another bid, basically, but you were locked in to whatever price they got. So they could get $200 a ton, $180 a ton. If you said yes to do that, then you were locked in to whatever price comes in. That does not seem very appealing. So at $117 a ton, it's not ideal. It's about $48 more a ton than we paid last year. But it's still better than a lot of the other pricing that I got when I was talking to a lot of the other suppliers. Because we were looking at $230 was one of the quotes I got. And then I got another one at 190, 180. I did have someone come in at about 130. So that was also reasonable. But this is the best price by far. They can guarantee our quantities that we're looking for. And I would recommend that we move forward with this agreement.

One more question. For the 20% that we weren't getting delivered, did we have to pay for that? No, no. Thank you.

So Midwest is going to supply us with salt. That's not part of the state program.

Midwest is going to supply this additional salt. We do have a part of the state program that we still have. We have Harbiter, and then we have 80% of our tonnage at Cass Street that the state purchase program is still supplying.

So, were we originally hoping to have the state supply for sea wood and Cass too, and because of what's going on, they said, no, we're not delivering those lots?

Correct.

Okay.

Now, what is the 3,000 tons?

The $3,000, we wanted to, you know, we're going to sign an agreement, and we would like to sign an agreement with Midwest to supply the salt. For some reason, if they can't supply it, you know, we have no recourse. We have a contract, but we will have no recourse on it. So we would do an advance of $3,000 and store it. And just in case, for some reason, things get really bad this winter, we cannot get salt, we will have it in place.

So we'll get the 1,800, because you're talking about two delivery windows, September and January 1st. That's kind of the windows. The 3,000 tons will be delivered prior to September 30th.

Correct. Yeah, all the whole initial.

So we'll be getting 1,800 tons of seeded wood, 600 tons of cast rate. And then 3,000 tons kind of to hold.

Before September 30th.

In case they come January or after September 30th, they can't give us 3,600 tons of receded wood and 800 for cask.

Then we'll be, yeah, we'll at least be able to battle the snow. Right. We'll be in okay shape. You know, we're still going to be short, but we'll be in okay shape.

If they can't provide 3,600 and 800, are we obligated to buy that if we've already bought the 3,000 or if we only need 800 more and buy 800 casks?

Well, we typically use about 10,000 tons a year is typically what we do. So we will definitely use that moving forward. It's not like it's an extra extra. There's a little bit built into that, a little bit of extra, I think. But we will go ahead and purchase that amount. And the contract will be pretty sure it's going to be worded that we will guarantee that we're going to buy that, the rest of the remaining salt, in January in 2017.

Correct. I'm sorry?

Yeah, it's interesting how they're putting the contract together. If they refuse to give to us, or can't, there's no repercussion, but there's a contractual repercussion where we refuse to take it.

They have us where they want us. Right.

And so does everybody else. But a lot of the other suppliers are demanding payment up front before they even deliver it. They want a full payment up front, and that's something that just is not appealing at all in any way. These guys are, we can do the payment for the preseason delivery, and then we can do it as it comes in in January.

So I'm imagining we're not going to be in that position apparently, but for a community in the position of not getting the salt, then they have to go to alternatives like potassium chloride or calcium chloride?

Yeah, there's not a lot of good alternatives, and they're more expensive than road salt. It's going to be a lot more money.

Any other questions, guys? All right, let's move to the next argument. services agreement from the Southeast Sanitary District Phase 2 Water System Improvement Project to Baxter and Woodman Incorporated for the not-to-exceed amount of $65,400.

Okay, so we have been discussing a lot with the Southeastern Life Sanitary District. So we have accelerated engineering for the phase two water system improvements. We received a proposal from Baxter and Woodman to complete the work here that's the scope of this phase two project. They provided a proposal in the amount of $65,400. And again, this would be reimbursed to the city by the county using the county's CDBG funding. So they'll do the design of this project. We anticipate this project would then be completed next year.

Would it be 100% reimbursement? Yes. And how quickly will they reimburse us? Allison, you used the word accelerate. So I'm assuming that our original schedule is kind of like what we worked out with the county, and when their funds will be available for accelerating, are we eating this for a long period of time? No, the money becomes available October 1st. I'm sorry? October 1st. Is when the grant money comes available? Yeah. It's not too far off. All right. And then, Becky, any questions from you guys? No. And then 416, approval of Amendment Number 5 of the Professional Services Agreement for the Alternative Water Resource Program to STANTEC Consultant Services Incorporated in the amount of $34,792,038. All right.

So when we had the presentation at the pre-council meeting at the last meeting, I presented the more information about this, but this is the Fifth Amendment with Stantec for the Alternative Water Source Program. Joliet is the program manager for the Grand Prairie Water Commission, so we have a contract with the Grand Prairie Water Commission to perform program management, which includes contracting for the engineering services. We are then credited for the amount of money that we have paid for engineering and our overall payments due to the Grand Prix Water Commission for the project. So we've worked with Stantec since the beginning of the program in 2018, and we have always had a plan for these phased amendments. And so this is the next planned amendment, amendment number five, and it includes additional engineering for two more years. and construction engineering for projects that are anticipated to go into construction during that time frame. So, you know, this is also, it also includes work for not only the commission, but also for Joliet only, or for the Joliet portion of the program, and so that's included in this amendment as well. So the overall amendment amount is $34,792,038. Questions? Pete?

No bet. So Joliet taxpayers will be paying the $4.1 million.

That is 100% of that will be paid by Joliet.

$3.7 million will be paid by the commission.

commission yeah and then also too don't we have a balance with commission over the years yes so they're so of the overall commission expenses joliet makes up about 60 percent of that so of that amounts joliet will ultimately pay 60 percent um of the overall program of which this engineering is a portion of that so how much money do we have out of councils because you know we

Is that quite a bit of money upfront before we formed the commission? Yes. And our number right, you know, the agreement with the commission was that that would be used in lieu of our contributions.

Yes, that's correct. So that amount we have, you know, to date, the total amount for the engineering, we have the number here. There's been, you know, a number of amendments. I think it's about getting close to $200 million that Joliet has paid.

So will that come off the $30 million, our 60% of the $30 million?

Yes.

So we won't be paying any real dollars. We'll be using old dollars for that $60,000 to $30,000.

I mean, we overall, you know, the commission's budget is, you know, whatever, $1.5 billion. And so of that overall amount, Joliet pays, you know, 60%. And we're making up that 60% payment by paying the engineering plus an additional payment.

Any other questions? The overall budget for the program has been held at $1.446 billion since it was originally presented, I think, back in 2023. Thank you.

Your country, so they can make a motion. Oh, you didn't have a question? No. That $1.44 billion.

Even with the immense, since we started the project back in 2020, we had a lot of inflation. We used to have a contingency. Has inflation eaten much of that contingency up?

No. So we have, within that budget, we have a management reserve. And the management reserve actually has been increased since we started because there has been construction costs have estimates have gone down since the original $1.446 billion. So we currently have I think it's about $74 million that is in a reserve fund that would be utilized if needed. That's included in the $1.446 billion. And hopefully it's not needed.

So that would be great. So where does that $74 million go once it's all up and running?

So there is a final reconciliation. So at the completion of the project, you know, the shares that each community pays will be finalized based on the actual program costs.

Yeah.

Yep.

All right. That's the last item we have on the contracts.

I have a motion and a second on the before and under contracts 407, 408, 409, and 416 to the full council with committee recommendation to approve. All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Showing none. We have nothing under change over past and final payments. That's unique, huh? So we move right into Ordinance and Resolution. The single item is 426, Resolution Declaring Surfacity of Joliet Property as Surfaced.

Yeah, so as you know, in the past, we've done this from time to time where certain vehicles within the city, in this case, become either damaged to the point where there's surplus and we move them out or do something different with them. In this case, we have one Ford Interceptor that we're looking to declare as surplus and work with the Special Olympics organization for their use in Sherry, I don't know. So... At this point, I'd like to see that moved to council for approval.

I imagine it's going to get golf balls shot at it again? Probably. Okay. Well, it's a great fund risk.

Yeah. For some, everybody keeps asking, I should have been there, so.

Let's go. No, that's it. That's the only item on the resolution? Yep. Okay, so under ordinances and resolutions, I'd like to recommend item 426 to be moved to the full council with this committee's recommendation to approve.

I HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND FOR THE SINGLE ITEM ON ORDERS AND RESOLUTIONS OR 26 TO BE SENT TO THE FULL COUNCIL WITH COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION TO APPROVE. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. OPPOSED? SHOWING UNDER. WE MOVE TO LICENSES AND PERMITS. One item there, 418, application for a drive-thru permit for a Hawaiian Brothers restaurant at 1351 Shale Road.

Yes, so as you guys are probably aware, Rock Run Continuity Building, this is one of the new items in Rock Run. This will actually sit right down from the existing Chipotle that's currently sitting out there. This will be two lots toward I-55, roughly, as to where this is. We went through this with them. Don't see any, don't have any reservations with the drive-thru permit for the Hawaiian Brothers, so we'd like to see that moved to council for final approval.

Question and comments? Okay. I'd like to move one item to the full council with our recommendation. Item number 418.

A motion and a second for the single item on our license and permits, 418.

That it be sent forward to the full council with committee recommendation to approve. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Showing none. We have new or old business, not final action or recommendation. Is there anything from the committee members? I have two questions. I just want to clarify one thing. The city of Joliet Public Service Committee reviews and recommends approval on the council that approves, this is for you, Allison, that approves the big payment for the commission. That's because we agreed to be the managing general contractor, right?

Yeah, that's correct.

Do they have to approve it too, though?

So this amendment was presented to the board of commissioners for the commission, and they voted to approve recommending that Joliet approve it. Okay.

So at some point, we won't long be doing this once it's built, right?

That's correct. Strelitz will no longer have a... Right, we'll just be a member of the commission.

We'll be the big one in a lot, but just a member.

Yeah, that's right.

Just out of curiosity, did they know oftentimes, like when we went through that after the COVID stuff, I think it was overused, different industries, whether it be building fire trucks, supplying pickup trucks that they are going to blame the supply chain issues, did they give any explanation why suddenly we have a what at least appears to be a massive shortage of salt. Did they explain this at all?

Well, one of the biggest issues is Cargill is a main supplier, and they've pretty much gone out of business this year. I do believe their Cincinnati mine is underwater and cannot be mined right now. And something with another mine they have, there's some EPA issues. So they're kind of out. They are not supplying salt at all.

You know, roughly...

Probably, it was over 50. They always were a main supplier to the state salt purges program. It was usually Cargill, Morton, or sometimes Compass. It was usually Cargill. Almost every year we've had Cargill. for the past five years has been one of our suppliers. We had Morton one year in there, but Cargill mainly supplies to the Midwest. That's where a lot of their facilities are. A lot of their barge facilities are in the Midwest. And that's where, with them being out of business, I think is what is the main issue that's going on right here. And then I think that there were some issues last year with some of the supplies and there was an overage two years ago. And then I think they used all that overage last year and didn't refill some of the yards that they have. So it's like, I've been trying to figure that out myself. Honestly, I'm like, why did this happen? But I know there was an overage two years ago, and then they used that overage last year and didn't resupply, is what I think happened. And that's one of the problems. And then Cargill is off the map this year.

And in my right and understanding of it was solved. I don't know why Morton and Cargill are not part of the state program.

I don't believe they have bid on the state program before. They may have. I don't know. I see the final numbers. I see what we get. I haven't really dug into it. I have heard them. They are a supplier. I have heard people get installed from Midwest before. So they're definitely a player. But some companies don't like to deal with state programs for whatever reason, too much paperwork, too much whatever. But But yeah, Midwest is a major supplier, and they have been, but we have not received any salt from them before.

Is Cargill out of business permanently or just for this year?

Salt. Just the salt. Just the salt issues. Permanently? I don't know. I haven't got word. I did request, reach out to Cargill to request some additional pricing to have them supply outside of the state contract, and the email I got back is like, yeah, we are not going to supply any salt this year. That was the email directly from Cargill. Talking to a couple different people, it sounds like they're out of the salt business altogether, but I can't say for sure. I don't know exactly what the deal is.

So essentially, there's enough salt to meet the demand, but it could be pricing out, right?

Well, it's it's getting the salt up here and the ports is the problem it's not on site right now and it's coming so people can like I said a lot of these companies can only hold 50,000 or 100,000 tons at a time and They're trying to fill it trying to guarantee it and trying to do everything they can do so I don't know if all the salt's going to be available this year. I honestly don't. And because of this, now everybody's charging more money for it, of course, and we're in a bad position. But by moving forward with this, I think we'll be in a good position for the city that we can go ahead and face winter comfortably, at least, that we're in good shape. We don't, you know, if we don't obtain it now, I'm very concerned.

Well, we have our control. You know, I'm... I'm known to be fairly blunt. It's a grief factor. Their cost for many companies hasn't gone up, but they're like, aha, but you don't have as many options anymore, so we can more than meet, but you're going to pay through the nose, and we're going to deliver. There's nothing you can do about that. You search this out, you know, when you tell me you've got some places doing 140, 180, 190 a ton, you know, You said that Ohio, well, you said Cincinnati, but Ohio salt mine is flooded?

That's what one of the suppliers told me, but this is a competing supplier, too, that's telling me this. I was looking into it, and that was one of the things that I'd heard when I was trying to find out what was going on.

It's not like you're trying to get an explanation, and you got the best you could, but their explanation is still very squishy and suspect. It really is. Something weird is going on.

Well, there were some EPA issues. I did hear that one, too, at different places. So there's a lot going on. I don't know exactly what's the real truth on it, but, you know, it puts us in a position that we are where we are, and we're trying to make the best of it we can.

All right. Any other from staff? Any other, what do you want to call it, new world business? All right. And public comment. Is there anybody in the public that would like to comment? Seeing none, we have one last item left. That's adjournment.

Motion to adjourn.

Second. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Showing none. We're done.

Thank you, everyone.