Arts Commission - Bylaws Subcommittee - Regular Meeting

County board, I'm telling you. The money they spent on that is this being recorded?

No. No. It is.

It's going right to the Will County board.

What? That's why I've I've voiced my opinion more than once

Something tells me you have.

They do not like my opinions.

What's that? Oh,

no. Hold on.

I'm ready to take another error message now.

I don't care. Nobody's gonna care about what we do.

That was me.

Meeting's over.

Yeah. Maybe I'll take my sheet. City council meeting. That's too big. Replace

that next time. Probably got a

nickel. That's

it. I like granicus. We use granicus.

I don't

like to go over it.

Extra $5 if you can do this meeting in five minutes ten fifteen minutes.

I gotta go back to work tonight.

Yeah. What? Work tonight?

Yeah. And then all of us have chosen the right path in life.

Some of

us have

chosen the entrepreneurs.

Oh, that's You know what? Thank you. I needed the comic relief to the dry rock lesson. Yeah.

Doing for my trip.

We all got agendas. Right?

You and me both, brother.

We just have a Granicus support error.

Well, I think our backup's working. So

Okay. Just read off the agenda.

I'm gonna say we should just get started and hope for the best. It's possible we might not have audio for this meeting. If we if that's the case, I apologize. But I think we can get going here. So

Should we take minutes on paper? Minutes on paper just so we have a record?

Yeah. I'm I'm going to. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of if for some reason there's an issue with the audio, audio, I have to produce very good minutes. So Go analog. Yeah. Whenever

you're ready, Tom. Okay. We're gonna call this May 21 City of Georgia Arts Commission meeting to order. 509. And first first in order is roll call.

Falado, absent. Frank Stapley?

Here.

Gratowski? Here. Logan? Here. Romero? Here. Simpson? Here. Steuber? Here. Summers?

Here.

K. We have quorum.

Okay. Next, we'll need the approval of the meeting minutes from the April 16 meeting that were sent out with the agenda for today.

So move. Approve the meeting minutes from April 16. Second.

So Simpson and Stueber.

Frank Stapley?

Aye. Gratopski? Aye. Logan? Aye. Romero? Abstained. That was near.

Oh, yeah. I should have abstained too. Right?

You can you can vote if you've read them.

Okay. Yeah.

If you read them.

Read them.

Alright. Simpson?

Aye. Steuber? Aye. Summers? Aye.

Motion carries. Okay.

Citizens to be heard on agenda. We don't have anything. Correct?

That's correct.

Could I just take one second to just say this is my first meeting as chairman of the Arts Commission. And I wanna take this to thank Ron Romero here for leading the way and the changes that have happened through the years. I think that we've made some great progress with the the staff or the the commissioners that are here. It's great to know everybody and get to know them and get to see your art and the different things you do in the community. And I think that we have a great thing going, and I'm very proud to be the chairman of the arts commission for the City Of Joliet for the remainder of at least 2025.

So thank you for having confidence in me, everybody. And I'm gonna try to do my best in meeting with Ray to make sure that I am a good leader for everybody, and we keep the direction upward and not stagnant, and we keep on being creative as a group. So thank you, Ron, and thank you everybody else for your confidence. Thank you. Okay. Old business. We have an update on potential items of expenditure and projects for 2025.

Okay. So we talked about this last month. I think the last two months, actually. This is mostly pertaining to our IAC grant that was originally awarded $20,450. The spreadsheet kind of goes over some given expenditures that we have planned for that grant, and then sort of the bulk of this discussion will be what do we do with the remaining balance.

So up top there in that first kind of larger table is relative to the grants. We already expended $2,000 for, I can never remember his name, our Spanish finalist for the city square sculpture that that went out last month. We have a $1,500 payment due to Uxor Torres for his poet laureateship second payment. Last month, we talked about the one state arts and humanities conference down in Champaign. I've priced that out to I think we had five people interested in potentially attending that conference and then three who would stay overnight.

The conference is November, I believe at the Hilton Garden Inn in Champaign. So I had myself, Tom, and I think Donna attending that for three night or two nights. So we can use the grant to pay for registration and hotel up front, and then you know travel and meal expenditures we would probably get retroactively next or in the fall after the conference just from our normal city travel and training budget. So I just wanted to make sure, I think Deb Falado and I think maybe John, you had said maybe you would be interested in going down for a day. So if so, I can register you.

It's a $125, and we have the money to spend, so it's not a huge deal. But just wanted to see if that was it before I go and and make those registration payments.

Question for you on that. Mhmm. I went a couple of years ago, and that was at the State Capitol, and we had an opportunity to meet with our representatives there. Is that what's gonna happen at this one too or what's the conferences here this time coming?

I don't I don't know a whole lot about this conference. So if if you would recommend that we try to set something up like that, we can certainly do that. Yeah. I'd be more than willing to listen to any advice from a past conference attendee. So

It was we just simply met with they subdivided subdivided us, and we met with our state representatives, and we advocated for I don't remember what the magic number was, but it was several million dollars to go towards arts for Illinois Arts Gotcha. Council. And that's the money that's going that we get, and then other things

Right.

Are getting paid through as well too. But I didn't know if this was that type of conferencing that it's not in Springfield. More of a learning these are always good to go to.

I think it's more of a learning conference. Yeah. I think the the I think it is something a little bit new. It's probably got the same title as it had before, but I think they're trying to make it a bit more of a learning oriented conference. That was kind of the gist I got, but I it's a little bit unclear to me. I haven't I haven't gotten too deep in the details yet on the conference. I don't think they have a program yet either. So yeah. And we just brought this up last month to gauge interest, to see if anyone wanted to maybe go or was available on those dates. So

I'll I'll go, Ray. I can you know? And I can pay for my own if I need to. I can I'll take care of rooms or whatever. So but put me down if I don't know if it gets sold out or anything. But

Okay. I'll mark you down. And then, Tom, Donna, I'm assuming you're still interested?

Yes. Okay.

And I'll I'll just register Deb too because she said Deb Fulato, she said she was interested.

Okay.

I have that scoped out right now with hotel costs at around $2,400.

So Where where'd you say it was again?

I believe it's at the Hilton Garden Inn in Champaign. Okay. It's right on Neal Street across from Memorial Stadium. Yeah. Okay.

So that's you know, with those items, you're at close to $6,000 in sort of given expenditures. And then, you know, there's several ways we can kind of eat away at the remaining balance. You know, we we do have an annual art maintenance obligation with Dante DiBartolo, who is sort of the contracted artist for Friends of Community Public Art to restore and maintain that art that's all throughout town. We have a separate art maintenance budget for that. That's up to $15,000.

Typically, we've spent $5,000 of that year to year. And so we could take that 5,000 and use this grant to pay for it. And, you know, that would that would be a source of expenditure. Probably the bigger thing would be if we were to do that or not do that, we'd have somewhere in the realm of 9 to $15,000 that need to be spent. Tom, as he mentioned, and I have been meeting a couple times the last couple weeks to talk about some potential projects, and we have a few things to go over that from our discussions there.

So the first is this Ottawa Chicago intersection. We talked about this last month that there was a request from senior staff here at the city to have the Arts Commission try to redesign this triangular piece of land. And we have some some additional feedback on on that request, I guess, now. Tom went out and had Duffy Signs Downtown produce this concept for a Route 66 themed sign. One thing or a few things with this.

One, I still need to connect with our public work staff to see if it's feasible to put a sign like this on the edge of that grass in that triangular area. So that's that could potentially be an impediment if if there's something that they come up with in terms of utilities in the area or something that would not allow that sign to go up. And then the other thing is after our meeting last month, it kinda came to my attention that the state has sort of a desire to make the Route 66 signage in a similar aesthetic through all the towns through the route. And they're essentially the signs that you see that we have here downtown already in front of the history museum and the Union Station. They they kind of wanna keep that aesthetic throughout all of the Route 66 Illinois towns.

So, we could still proceed with this mock up. One thing that I was just talking to Tom about a little bit before this meeting was if there would be an openness to changing Route 66 to just say something like Joliet or something else that would be emblematic of, you know, kind of entering downtown. And the reason why this site was kind of highlighted from our senior staff was it's it's really kind of the first gateway point into downtown coming from the North if you're driving on the traditional old Route 66. So that was sort of the the spark to try to put a Route 66 themed piece of art here. But, you know, in in potentially not wanting to go rogue with the state's branding efforts for the Centennial campaign.

You know, I I wanted to see if there'd be an openness to altering that sign to, you know, like I said, something that says Joliet or Downtown Joliet or or something to that effect.

I I have a question.

Sure.

Is is the one on the left done? Is that done?

No. That's a

No. That's it's it's a concept.

Gonna go in the route and the shield?

It stays open.

Hundredth anniversary.

Oh.

Hundredth anniversary, 1926 and 2026.

I'm envisioning what you thought instead of RT66, it says J 0 L I E T and right above that Route 66 is their emblem. Is that what you're thinking?

We discussed that. Yeah. We we discussed maybe having, like, a hybrid, like

That'd be cool.

Keep the Route 66 shield and then That's iconic. Have Joliet be the, you you know Big letter. The block letters. Yeah. I like

that. One the one concern that we had at that intersection because you have two roads and if you put in a if you put in a horizontal sign, you have you have Chicago Street and Ottawa Street there where Ottawa Street cuts off. If you put horizontal sign there, vision for both pedestrian and vehicular vision would would really be obstructed.

Is it that thick?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you got whatever that is, 10 or 11 foot in length if you if you put it horizontal. Oh. How We're we're trying to use something in a in a two foot.

Do a cutout. How

big is the how wide is the sign at the museum?

It's it's roughly 18 inches the same as this.

No. No. No. No. Wide.

Wide. Wide. Wide.

I forget what that is. Six foot or something like that, but it there's not room

So you didn't say

that foot would fit.

It won't fit within that grass

area there.

More than that.

Are they sticking with the grass or are they taking the whole thing out?

Well, yeah. So fitting the sidewalk there. You'd be hanging over the sidewalk.

Where is that?

Because you only have five foot in that area right there.

I thought it was further back closer to, like, the this mock up. That's in a rectangular space. That's not triangular. Right?

Is crazy?

It's it's sort of triangular, basically.

Eventually comes to a point. Yeah.

There's three planners out in the front there. You can see parts of two of them. Okay. So It is triangular.

There's a hair salon sign behind it?

Correct.

Mhmm. So where it is in this photograph would be in this, where it is in the like, for real?

So it would photograph. It would have to be pushed back to basically the edge of the grass, pretty close to that hair salon sign, honestly, because we have Tom's alluded to this a little bit, but we have what's called visibility triangles that we have to maintain when we have two roads meet. There can't be any visual impediments within I think in this instance, it's 46 feet, which is a weird number. But so if it's at the edge of this grass, as far as I can tell, it'll be outside that visibility triangle. But, you know, there there could be other issues that our public works staff point out that I I haven't scoped out yet to this point.

And with that sign for the hair salon behind it, that's why we went with this nine foot elevation because the bottom of their sign starts at 10 foot, so we didn't wanna impede on their business sign either. So we thought that that would stay out in front of it to

an extent. It's gonna cost?

We got an

estimate between Yeah. It's I don't have it in the slide here, do I? But it's the estimate for this was between 5,000 and $7,000.

Installed or just to make it?

I think I believe it's installed, but we didn't really get any further until we had discussion about what the state said. So we don't have any verification on that.

Well, it gives us an idea of

what it is. Okay. Yeah.

It gives you a general general feeling. And I do think that keeping with the shield on top and doing the hundredth anniversary that's there forever. And then my thought is because you'd only see the Route 66 or Joliet while you're heading south on the backside of it, we could wrap it in some type of a vinyl with art similar to how we wrap the utility boxes. And then someone could design art for the back of that that could be placed on that so that it wouldn't just be a blank white area. And that we were including some artists within the local artists in in this project also.

Is this something that would have to be cleared with the state of Illinois because it's not exactly like their plans for the Route 66?

I don't think so. You know, I I if if we were to, say, just make it a Joliet sign with, a Route 66 accessory in a way. I don't I don't see us needing to get state clearance on that. It's a good question, though. It you know, maybe maybe that's something I'll I'll check with one of my colleagues on just to make sure, but I I I don't think it would have to.

And in regards to that question, you know, because Otto was a state route, you know, that might be something to really bring up just in case.

I like the idea of Joliet. I think that's, you know, the goal. Think that as long as it's a real clear font. You know, the the way Joliet's written on the city of Joliet is a little too fanciful, I think for readability. Sure. You know, I mean, it's pretty, but I think this is something that needs

to be

clear. That's important. But I like that joke.

I said just a that's a just a rendition of an idea to put down there in such a small area, but still have an impact where

Ray, can you can you go back to the budget department? So would this come out of the $95.50?

Yes.

Okay. Well, I I think I said it last time, you know, we we need to act on this to make it happen in by three months. Right? I mean, it just seems like if we think about it or go back to the powers that be and then, you know, can it happen and be spent by August 31, I guess.

Yeah. And that's so a couple things on that. One, I don't know how long it would take to fabricate a sign like this. Probably I I don't know. I I have no idea.

A month.

Maybe. Yeah. It wouldn't take very long to have it.

The other thing, you know, if we got into a bind, we could do a prepayment in advance of getting the deliverable. But, you know, we typically try to avoid that, but it's an option. But, yeah, you know, I I think if there's general support for proceeding with,

like,

a redesign the way Tom and Peg have kind of talked through with the Joliet lettering and Route 66 Shield, we can I'll follow-up with our public work staff and see, you know, just how feasible this would be. And then, you know, the the other thing would be I might have to, or Tom might have to seek alternative quotes on this. It's not required for our purchasing policy, but given that it's such a potentially public facing piece of artwork, it might not be a bad idea too is the direction I've gotten.

But Alright. Then the other thing go back to the picture. Sorry.

Yeah. Sure.

Sure. Oh, sorry. Do we need to make a motion to get, like, an RFQ then or no?

I don't think so. Okay.

Yeah. Go ahead. No. I just the other thing is we're not gonna encase it in concrete. My my concern is there's a lot of rock in the area, just me being a contractor Mhmm. Ex contractor. So you might get 36 inches down.

Might not

You might not. Might might require, you know, throwing a little concrete in it to keep it sturdy. That's probably not gonna add a whole lot of cost, but just something to keep in mind.

Yeah. It you know,

easy enough to

Yeah. I mean stick a pole

down there and see where it refuses to see, you know, but

Yeah. Those concrete bases add up somewhat quickly. You know, for my my really only frame of reference on that, I guess, is the the couple statues we dealt with last year. You know, those aren't as big as this, but they came out to, like, $34. It just kind

Well, of I I mean yeah. You know? Yeah. Open open a couple bags of cement and throw some water in

it. It may be a thing we to You don't have

to make the whole

We might use City

12 inch of

the dams to do

some of

this work. But

But whatever.

Because the city does own this property, this triangular piece. For some reason, the city owns it. So that was that was also why why this particular piece of land drew Yeah. And some attention.

If it didn't need to have concrete, you know, you could always pull it out and put it somewhere else. If somebody wanted to do that, I'm not suggesting to do it, but, you know, it's a bit easy to pull out and put it somewhere else if you needed to. I mean

The other good thing about this location is, as you can see, there's parking on both sides, so you could use it as a photo op if you were coming through town. You want to stop and take a picture next to Joliet with the Route 66 shield on top saying a hundred years.

Twenty moment.

That'd be a great great place to take a picture at. There's also opportunity if you wanted. You can, you know, have somebody purchase benches to put there and put that out as somebody wanted to sponsor this thing here and they could put a couple of benches on each That's

a great point. This could eventually be a list of type of landmark.

Well, that's what that's what I'm saying. We're welcoming the downtown Juliet.

So I'm sorry. Some Some of

this conversation is information that we talked about last month. We talked about it possibly being a bench. I think Ray reached out to me in an email about some possible sketches. I did a little sketch, but this is the same space we talked about possibly doing this a bench and and pavement art or painting last month?

It is. Yeah.

Okay. I'm just checking.

Yeah. And so I have some additional staff feedback on that too. They would like to keep the grass in this area. We would obviously mow it better than what you see in the picture there. You know, we we we would maintain that pretty well if this becomes kind of a featured attraction.

But they the indication I got was we we would like to keep that grass. But I think there's openness to purchasing a bench and maybe even having a local artist paint on that to add some artistic color and flare to the area. We could possibly even paint those three plan you can't really see them in this photo, but the three planters that are there that can also be painted just just to add a little bit of color and vitality to the area, a little bit of visual interest, I guess.

Can that whole area be more bold? We talked about pavement painting before, like, everything that's red there or even the I mean

That's a good question. I

Like?

Can certainly ask. I'll I'll certainly ask. I don't I don't know, you know, if there'll be what level of openness there'll be to kind of changing that, but we can certainly ask because yeah. I mean, the idea is to make it kind of visually stimulating. So Ray Ray,

we're pretty confident we'll get money for next year. And when when will we know that?

Yeah. We won't know until August for sure. So But I I mean, I would think we would get some money. I don't I don't know.

Well, so I would I would suggest that, you know, we proceed with this and then, you know, with maybe the cap of the $9,500 or whatever, and then we could use next year's money if we if we it it got to the 9,500 and use that for the benches, meaning

And that's as

you find out the information, we go ahead and and move forward with that and use some of next year's money to enhance the whole thing.

That's the direction I was given to was, you know, try to focus on the sign for this summer, and then let's phase in maybe some other improvements in the fall. Yeah. Ideally, we would want all this to kind of come together from, say, like a year from now, which, you know, the the Route 66 Centennial tourism will trickle in throughout the year, but I think the bulk of tourism, you know, will probably be like April through August or September,

something like that, probably. I don't know.

So that's kind of the sweet spot that we want to make sure, you know, a lot of these beautification projects get completed or close to completed by. So to remake the whole Triangle area, you know, we've we've got some time, but if the sign is, you know, an expense we can get

in

the books, you know, this summer, then that's kind of the direction I was given.

If the If there's a decision to put the sign and then possibly add a bench or something like that, I would think that the bench itself would be a perfect spot for a sponsorship sign. This bench brought to you So right now

we're Yeah.

We're strictly still talking about just Illinois Arts Council funding.

Right.

And I think we're missing a lot of other possible funding sources for this. So I think with a couple of phone calls, we could probably find somebody to get the that kind of funds to make that happen.

And my understanding too is that the city, not me, but other staff are working on kind of a way to obtain sponsorships for a variety of city projects, and arts would be folded into that. So I 'm sorry to say I don't have an update on that today, but, you know, I'll try to find something out and see where we're where we're at. And if I get an update, I'll email the group.

Okay. So how do we proceed? I mean, we need a motion to make it a Joliet sign and then somebody finds out what it's gonna cost to make the sign, how quick we can get it, how do we install it, how do we put the graphics on the back so we can probably get it.

Yeah. It's pretty quite

a bunch of Enough stuff done by so we can spend the money.

You know, if you want to

I don't wanna not spend the money. That's my concern.

Yeah. Of course. We we still have a few other things to talk about for ways they could spend the money. Because it it's possible I could talk to our public works staff and they might say, you there's utility conflicts here. SOL, you know, are not gonna work. So Saying

that right is you can get Julie come out in forty eight hours, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tell him there's an urgency here.

Yeah. That's hard to deal with. I I I understand.

Yeah.

I think from from your perspective, you know, if you wanna provide a motion that staff and the Arts Commission continue to proceed with the Joliet lettering and Route 66 Shield subject to further staff review and

pricing. The staff reviews, that's something I does that have to come to at a meeting, or can be just done in house?

That'll be done in house.

Yeah. You feel confident that somebody will make can make a decision in a relatively

I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think we can make a decision on that within

a week or two. Yeah.

So as a recommending board, would we would the motion be to recommend the Joliet sign with this Route 66 sign to administration or whoever it is that we have to

recommend I think so. To simplify the motion. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah.

And, Tom, did you get this did you do the pricing or the

I got it. Just the preliminary pricing. Yeah.

And maybe I don't know. Maybe we get one more price just to try

Who is this who is this pricing from? Duffy.

Oh, okay.

Because it was a downtown project. I tried to use downtown artist to to do it. But, you know, we can do whatever we need to do to try to get this

Is it fiberglass? What is the what would it be?

Probably would be metal. Just like the Route 66 sign over by the museum.

Who did those?

I'm not sure who did those, to be honest.

That's what you're looking into.

I'm I'm put out a couple of oh, here we go. I just got it. They're from Minnesota. Didn't tell me who the company was though, but they're from Minnesota that makes all the ones that you see like in the city of Morris or front of Joliet area historical museum. I also know US Sign who is here in Joliet just outside of downtown, I guess, right on the corner where you turn under Route 6 to go back by well, it's the the taco truck Mhmm. Building there. I can't remember what it's called. But you assign they do the same kind of metal fabrication signs as well too. So that might be a a good second quote.

And this might come them too through Dan. I don't know.

Yeah. Can he install? Dan?

I'm sure that you whoever he would get to fab that would install. Probably would. Yeah.

Well, so I guess, you know, how quick can we get it? You know?

I think that's the thing. How how fast we wanna get this this done. I know you're talking about this is grass here, but those are actually lilies that are all growing in that place. So you do have a landscape of full of lilies rather than just grass. You know, if you wanted to mow it, you would have to plant grass in there to keep it looking like it was mowed.

Well, especially if you're gonna put a bench in there, you'd be trampling all over the I like the you know, we did talk about the bench last time, and I like the bench idea, but Mhmm. I I mean, if you can get some feedback on that, we can spend that money in September or October and get it put in before.

I think it'd be nice to have a sign right there before 2026 comes around so that we have the hundredth anniversary right from the start. We don't wait until a year from now. We're putting it up. Yeah. And that way we have it for when people are coming into town because it's gonna be traveled by motorcyclists and and different, you know, vehicular traffic.

How about the graphics on the back? Obviously, we don't know what it's gonna be, but who who prints that? Graphics

Duffy could do that as well.

Duffy could vinyl cut it out of sign. I would I would think that that would be vinyl. We just have somebody

That that could be done afterwards. It could be. Meaning, just like the boxes and the other stuff we've done, you know, once the sign is up. But

I think you'd wanna put it on before the back panel went on it, though, to hold it in place with that back, whatever that is.

My main concern is just I wanna give the money back to the city.

Right. That's why this would be a great project to do.

What do you think, Donna? Is there a

Let's go. Let's go.

Let's I

think it would

be a nice then would it be appropriate

idea you had down there?

Appropriate to do a motion to make the recommendation to put a Joliet sign there with the Route 66 shield on the very top.

Are you making that motion?

Yes. I am making that motion.

Do have a motion? Second? Second. Then second. I'll call the roll.

Gratofsky? Aye. Logan? Aye. Simpson? Aye. Steuber? Aye. Summers? Aye. Frank Stapley?

Aye.

Romero? Aye. Oh, Romero. Sorry. Yeah.

Sorry about that, Ron.

I am pretty stealthy. Six two two hundred and some pounds. I'm

pretty stealthy.

Love to see.

It's been a day. Thank you. Motion carries.

Can you go back to the numbers again? Sure. So do we need to establish an something for the art maintenance part of that?

I don't you you can if you'd like to, if you have recommendations on things around town that you would like Dante to address. But otherwise, you know, the way this is typically worked is he's usually provides a a fairly lengthy list of things that he wants to address, and he usually gets to, you know, like, 10 of those items or so during the fall, typically. So So but, you know, if there's things around town that you see that you'd you'd want me to have him work on, we can do that.

Do you feel like we have I say we, but the city has $15,000 in their budget for art maintenance? Is that what you're saying? Yeah.

I don't really remember why that was increased from 10 to 15, but it was. So I mean,

can we give this 5,000 and make it 20 and then do it in the fall? Would they be receptive to that or do we need to identify $5,000 worth of stuff and and do it and spend it by August?

There's two ways we could go about that. We could either, you know, put Dante to work over the summer and get those receipts for the that work, or we could pay him in advance the $5 and then have him do the work in the fall. So

Well, we have we have stuff picked out. I mean

We don't yet. He's gonna be getting back to me sure shortly on that, but I can probably get that from him fairly soon. Well yep.

Yeah. Where that where that sign was that got hit not long ago?

Well,

I would think we could take a look at it, but I don't know.

Is it isn't there something going on within the city to look at all the exits once 80 is completed?

Yeah. That's the other thing.

In the works. It's in

the Yeah.

All all those interchanges on I 80 are gonna be reconfigured here in a in a bit. So adding any, like, permanent improvements right there right now might not be the best idea, but, you know, it's still worth maybe exploring ways to make that nicer looking in the interim. I don't know if that's something that we would do through public order per se, but we can certainly kinda take note of it.

Well and we should be getting money next year, so, you know, prioritize or make the list, and then we decide how to

Yeah.

Definitely. Do it. But that's I like it. I mean

Yeah.

Well, I guess my you know, if you feel confident that we could spend that money with Dante and get it out of you know, by the August and identify stuff, $5,000 worth of stuff. I think that's not a bad way to do it. I just wanna I

Yeah. Yeah. I know he's working on his list for this year. I'll see where he's at. If if you can give me an update list, I'll email it out to the group.

Yeah. Great. Thanks. Anything else on our expenditure and projects for 2025?

Oh, yeah. We're just getting started. Okay. Speaking of Dante, he looked at our murals that we have throughout downtown. And I asked him if any of these could potentially be restored, and the one area that he thought could maybe be restored are these Joliet Central High School murals that are on the railroad embankment right as Jefferson Street curves up.

So those are his quotes for restoration. It would total all that work about $54,000. I don't know why I didn't add a total line there. So, you know, if there's interest from this group in supporting that, we can. We can also, of course, seek alternative quotes for for something so large.

One one reason why he's kind of the go to on that is he's kind of entrusted as the caretaker for that art with Friends of Community Public Art. So and their projects. So that's why he was kind of the the first point of contact there. But thank you. If there's interest in in restoring those murals, you know, we can we can explore that further with the railroad company, with staff, you know, the feasibility of that.

We can also section it off and do, say, just like one of those murals and not all of them at once. So just wanted to bring this up and see, you know, if there was any appetite to support this restoration or or just kind of somewhere where

does that funds come from from for the 54,000? Is the city willing to put that up for that or

The city would probably not be willing to pay the balance of that. I mean, this would be something where we would probably take our $15 that we have in our maintenance and probably 10 to $15 that we have in grant funds to pay for half of it if we did the whole thing

right Right.

Right. Yeah.

If we did the whole thing right now. And then we would probably need a supplemental grant of some kind to pay for the balance. It's possible this could be budgeted in for the 2026 budget if there's interest and support. But, yeah, for for for this year right now, you know, realistically, if we wanted to use IAC grant dollars and art maintenance dollars to to achieve one or two of these under these prices, that's something we could maybe do.

So as I understood with the Friends of the Arts, there were there was funding for them in the past, considerable amount of funding. Yeah. I mean, we're talking nickel dime compared with what they used to get. And I also understand they were kind of the predecessor to the Arts Council because they did Yep. All these The thing about these murals is they're in books already and people know about them.

It's a shame to go through and see any of these murals in bad shape like that. Yeah. For the some a few quotes that we got on murals, that's not bad to restore that stuff. And Yeah. Having somebody who was part of this in the first place, because I know Dante was part of that organization when they did this, I think that would be good and around the school would be really nice as well too. Is there any hope to get any of the funding from from the the railroad grant that's going through with the What is it? The I Todd or whatever the grant that

Oh, the e t o are you talking about the e t o d?

The e t

t s one.

Probably not specifically for this. You know, that funding is probably going to be well, you know, I don't know. It's it's worth asking. It's for implementation of what is in the plan And technically, you know, advancement of public art within the study area is in the plan. So it's possible. Probably not enough to cover, like, $24 of of balance, say, but maybe

maybe could be presented to the

city presented.

And to for that one. Yeah.

I'll I'll follow-up on that.

I think that this of all the murals in town and and, man, everybody's got a sentimental attachment to something. By the school, with the way the road goes and the amount of kids and parents, I think these are the ones that are really important. I would prefer that they're all done at once because if you do one, the rest looks terrible.

Yeah. Makes the other ones look worse.

I do it

all and so I would really hope we could do that next year.

Really think that should be

a focus for us.

The the flip side of that is if you do one and there's a, you know, a a two or something and there's one missing, it might

It might ask someone to pay for it.

Well, you know, they might figure out a way to get we can get involved. You know, because it it's gonna take time.

Well, you'll yeah. You'll see

it being done. To to be done anyway. So I mean but what I like about it too is it's something that's concrete enough. So if we're applying for grants, this This is what we're working on. This is the thing.

Yeah. That's it.

It's a

it might might be a good

Just have it on our budget. Yeah.

Yeah. I agree, John.

Mean So are these murals there they're they're actually the rights are owned by the Friends of Community Arts. Well Somebody owns the rights.

They they did originally, and I talked to the city about this. I talked to the city administrator about this, that they were owned by them, and the the agreement was that they lasted for so many years, and we are well past that point. We have we have the choice now to go ahead and and scrub them or redo them or do whatever we choose. I would say if the Friends of the Arts are willing to do this again, I mean, they created them in the first place. I I wouldn't be opposed to that.

I think that would be good to to bring these back to life. But right now, there's no my understanding is there's no rights like, we can't just I don't believe we can just if I understood correctly, we could like I said, we could scrub them or do whatever we want at this point. The agreement ended years ago. So and that was from the administer city administration when I talked to him about that.

Yep. So

would that then include the $5,000 that we were just talking about for maintenance and the balance of what's

on It would have to be like, if if we were to do this in total, we would have to take all of that $15 in art maintenance, which includes that $5 that could be transposed over to grand expenditure.

It's 15 plus five. Right?

It's fifth It would be 15 plus really 15 because this gets a little complicated. But So we have in in the bottom blue there, we have $15 in our maintenance budgeted that has not been spent at all this calendar year

yet. Plus the balance of IAC?

Plus the balance of IAC, which after those top three lines would really be about grand. So

We but we gotta do the sign. Right?

Well, that's where the conversation continues then. Right? You know, if if we wanna go all in on the mural, then the sign we'd probably have to find another way to pay for that. If we want to prioritize the sign, then we'd need to figure out a way to backfill 7 ish grand or whatever for the mural.

But can't the murals be delayed a year? I mean, is that something we have to do?

They Is it We It's not something we have to do.

It's not

an either or. Yeah. It's it's not an either or necessarily. It's just if the prioritization was do the mural now, then it bounces the sign.

Bounces the sign.

Yeah. Yeah. Right.

So where the sign sign is located, the city at one time had talked about putting an a welcome arch, or something in there. I don't know that that even exists anymore. Do you know, Ray? Remember early on, they requested about putting one

on the north side

and the South side?

I haven't heard. I'll I'll ask. Yeah.

Well, we could do one of these now and then when we get some more funds in in August, keep keep going. Right?

I would I mean, in addition to Just table talk here, just talking out loud. It it makes sense to do the murals now and put the signs on on the side because I think we can find other financing besides oh, again, we're only talking about the LNA Arts Council grant, and there's other grants, and there's other sponsorships and things that we haven't even tapped. So, I mean, if we were aggressive about this, I would say use all that money on the murals and find a sponsor or find other funding for the sign. The sign doesn't seem to be that much, it's only what? 10 under $10? Right. I would think we would be able to find some sponsors for that.

And you're confident in a timely manner for Rouse's

I would hope so. Yeah. That's I would hope so. I I would also reach out to somebody like Bob Navarro at the Heritage Heritage Corridor because he gets a lot of grants through the DCEO and other places like that. At least reach out to him and see what kind of if there's any funding that's available that's coming up. Also, our state representatives have a lot of grants that they post for and we can ask them other than we're to base the 10 pounds of art projects into a five pound bag. Yeah. And and I think we're trying to do that with just that one bag. We need we need more funding. I don't see why there's any reason we couldn't accomplish both.

How about the Well

how about the CED? Will they give us any money?

I don't know that CED is really on so now so CCP, possibly. Because I believe Ray, do you know for sure if that falls in the SSA area?

Oh, good question.

There's a definitive map out there, but SSA money is basically they take from the businesses that are downtown to help with That's right. Facades and stuff like that. Yeah. So if that's available, I mean, that could possibly be asked for through the CCP.

I'd say because we could reach out to Doug with the CED, maybe they got some money because Yeah. Anything that develops Joliet, he's all over that. Well, he's Will with Joliet.

I wouldn't yeah. I wouldn't say no to anything. I mean, I think we should leave no no stone unturned. Let's ask.

Yeah. It's in that area.

That's right.

It's a no if we don't ask.

Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. I think the other thing we gotta talk about is is that it's $54,000 and do we have to go to get put this out for bid

What's the

because it's a $10,000. Probably.

Yeah. So We we we probably would.

If you're you're talking about that and you wanna put off the sign and do this, we might have to offer public bid and how long is that gonna take to get that approved? Just a just a question, a thought, you know, like Yeah. Table conversation here.

Well, I mean, he's he's putting together well, it's something to ask legal. Does Yeah.

Their

trademarks are are their trademarks renewed if this is redone? Do we have to get licensing to do that artist's

rights stuff? To that.

If if we don't and we scrub it and we put something new, then I don't think there would be a problem. I'm no legal expert, but I would think no, there wouldn't be a problem with that. But if we were gonna try to redo, have somebody come in and redo those, there's probably gonna be a a copyright trade or trademark infringement. And

that that's what I was getting at that, you know, who who actually owns the rights to that to that art.

Didn't you say

earlier it expired with the public art group?

It it expired, I wanna say, in, like, in the nineties or eighties or long time ago.

I'm I'm just down for starting fresh. Yeah. And Dante's I wouldn't

be opposed to scrubbing and starting all over It's again

2025. Like, you know, we're holding on to the past. We know it's it's just

Well, and I had talked about some time ago a muralist from Joliet who actually teaches mural artwork in Chicago. He did a quote for us. It was more than this, of course, but but he did exactly what you're saying. He's trying to bring it into today's standards. Yeah. You're looking at some things that are kind of dated here.

Well well, this is a restoration. If you got brand new, that's

Something different.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do we know if

But it would alleviate the issues with the the trademark though if we did that.

Yeah. And then do we have to restore it for how many years?

And then if we're talking about the budget that we have, if this is the if if we we have what we have, then you put it there to the artist that this is what we have, what can you do for this price?

Yeah.

I mean, I paint murals on a smaller scale, I'm not an outdoor girl, but my clients typically let me know, you know, what their budget is and I let them know what I can do with their budget. You know, and so I think there's other ways around it and you know, I'm all for trying to get more grant funding from other organizations but if we have something and we're choosing this over the sign then we work with what we have and maybe scrub and say, these are the funds, we'd like for this area to be beautiful, what can you create?

Somebody will do it. Yeah. Of course.

Well, and then gentleman that I talked to about getting us the quotes for the other things, as I said, he was teaching in Chicago. What he does in Chicago is he he gets a lot of the students to work with him.

You talking about Rojo?

The other Rojo. Yeah. So Rojo Garcia. And the thing I like about that is then it brings local students into the project to give them pride and ownership. So every time they go to school or they drive past their after school, they can always say that's their artwork, that they were part of that. And and as he stated, he he subdivides the class into, here's the people who are gonna paint the prime coat, you know, gray or white, and then here's the students that are actually gonna do the artwork. So everybody has ownership in it. So maybe that's something we can consider whether it's him or somebody else. Just a thought.

But if I still have to go out to Bid. To bid. Yeah. So and that's why I'm saying if we wanna do something now, we gotta Move. I mean, this here to by the time the city puts it out to bid and we get approval on everything and we have have secured grant money for this, this could take months to get this started.

The other thing too with the difference between a new painting and a restoration is if we do a new painting, we have to deaccession what's there. Yeah. And I'm finding out that's pretty expensive in and of itself. Like just power washing and then painting over a new coat. You know, we're doing that for a few viaducts near the Slammers' Ballpark right now and it's like, you know, like $65 to do that for six viaduct walls. So

We're in the wrong business.

It's Some paint and some water. It's yeah. It's it's hefty

and There must be some hazmat issues then. There's gotta be.

That was taken care of by a city worker though. Right? The the

The initial one, but we're contracting out, you know, the the the further deaccessioning to

yeah. I know the ones by the ballpark were Big workers? City worker.

Yeah. That went out and did the help.

These substrates or canvas, so to speak, are they in good enough shape that we can restore, or or does, I mean, has that been

looked at? So I guess Dante's opinion is yes, but I I don't know a whole lot about it.

No. But if he's looked at it and and Yeah. Because, like, the Vidoc ones aren't. Right? You gotta

Right. You gotta blast Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

We we we So bad. We ruled those out Right. Yeah, a while ago.

That's good. That's so That's what I'm saying. This is new enough where we can restore.

I mean Yeah. That's that's what he thinks. Yeah. You know, I don't know. So there's a couple conversations potentially happening here.

One, have Dante restore. Two, you know, scrap restoration, have something new go here. Yeah. I'd if if we were to do something new here, I don't think that's that's something that would financially materialize by the grant expenditure deadline, but that doesn't mean we can't explore it. And frankly, if if we're looking at this area for that, we could also look at several other mural areas around town as well. But I understand kind of the the importance of this one talking to your point, Peg, about, you know, the visibility here and

so I

don't know.

Out of curiosity, what is gonna go in the viaducts? They're of all they're doing is

It's just gonna be painted with a beige kind of base Just hanging it up? Yeah. It should it's just gonna be cleaned up. Okay.

And that's not part of our art maintenance, is

it? No. No. Okay. It's just Thank you. Public works dollars.

Alright. Just curious.

So, you know, the only reason I bring that up is, like, we're talking about having to get different bids for doing one sign or getting different bids for doing this here. We're talking about a lot more money and how we're gonna end up trying to get this accomplished by by August, or do we just I mean, I don't know I don't know where all the funds come from for $54,000. But Apart from the maintenance and apart from the IAC? Yeah. We have to still search for for more on it.

If it were to be redone, that would probably be the easiest thing to do quickly. But to Donna's point too, that's kind of they're old photos too. I mean, old murals. So do we

Well, we could we could do one or two, whatever we got money for, and then

after that To rehab them or to replace them?

Well, whatever we decide, but if

we talk

sounds like replacing them is I don't say out of the question, but we gotta find money for them. But if we're gonna redo them,

you know

If this got we got enough money to do two, and then when August comes, we'll vote for the to do the third one. I mean, it's gonna then it's not gonna happen till I mean, it's gonna take time to do. Right?

Yeah. If this is a multi year project, could the first year be prepping those?

Can Yeah. Definitely.

Take the time if Definitely.

If we've decided that Yeah. We wanna refresh all that stuff, go out there, scrub them, paint them, put their base coat on them, next year we get more money when we finish the projects next year.

I like that.

But what is the cost to do that?

I got safety glasses. I could help. Yeah.

I mean

I know.

Ray is saying that $65

sprayer. Go out there and spray it.

You know, how how much is that gonna cost for us? We'd have to get I got a pricing on that to approve anything Yeah. Before before we can even make a motion on that.

Yeah. The other the other wildcard here that we haven't even touched on yet is, you know, it's technically railroad property. And, you know, we we would have to get their permission to do anything here, really. So I don't think that'll be an issue, but just something else to note.

And we also need

to consider Dante's work schedule, like what is Yeah.

His availability. It's not like he can, you know,

we have to still work around his schedule. Sure.

Is he working with a team of

people or is it just him?

It sounds like Yeah. Between the

cost, the timing, you know, his schedule, it might it might be something that happens after August. He he indicated to me he could probably make this restoration work in June and July if we got him an answer soon. And he did say he would probably need to hire a team of artists to work on something like this. I I don't know how many artists that is, but

Is it possible to involve some of the students in the restoration?

I mean, we could certainly make that a condition of the contract if you want.

Well, I don't know about condition. I'm I'm more just suggest.

Suggestion. Yeah.

But he's the lead artist. I think that's a decision he needs to make.

I work

with teenagers in making art and I've often painted over their work. Yeah. I think that's an artist, you know, that's

his That's definitely

choice or whoever's lead on it to make.

Definitely And can we get any clarification on the graphics grant from the ETOD grant to see what that's covering, what that's gonna bring in, if it's

available. I'll follow-up.

Because that could be a lot of money too.

It could. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it'll I don't think it'll be $24 or so, but it could contribute.

I know some of the stuff they were talking about doing is gonna cost a lot more than 24,000.

There's, yeah, there's 73, like, deliverables on that. So, you know, that's why I don't know if any one of those will get much more than, like, 10 or $15, but I who knows? I don't know. Yep.

Well, where are we? Which one do we wanna do?

Or is there more?

Is there more? There's more topics we can discuss as well.

You are gonna repeat

it. Sure.

So this is this is the next one. This is

a much lower cost item. This is something Tom and I discussed. Tom, do you wanna maybe give a high level overview of this Saint Charles banner program?

Well, I do know that because I spent half of my life in Saint Charles, I do get a roundup there quite a bit. And they have this banner program, which I think that the Saint Charles Arts Council would be willing to work with us on. They seem pretty open minded about getting us the information and how they how they do these things. But these banners, I think they're I forget the exact measurement, but they're something like two or like 30 inches by five feet or six feet or something like that. But people would purchase these banners and you could see some of them hanging on the fences up there.

And this is around in the Sculpture Park in Saint Charles. And people paint these. The Arts Council supplies them, sells them to either members or non members and it includes a banner and like seven different colors of paint and then they're hung up like you can see from July through September. So because it is a sculpture park and a lot of people walk around through there, there's a lot of visibility to these and it is local people whether they're children or adults. They they paint the town.

So you drop off your painted banners during July and they hang for three months somewhere around around town. So what we discussed was over in Joliet Street, talking about cleaning up. This is city owned parking lot area right along the river and we were looking at using that as a place to possibly display these because it is it's just not it's not appealing to anybody that drives there. So Joliet Street, you know, there's a pawn shop on the corner and then there's another old building that was some manufacturing building but this is all city owned parking lot. The weeds could be taken off of that wall and these banners could be hung on that wall there with plenty of parking for people to come and look at it and take pictures with their children or the grandchildren or whatever to go and brighten up that area right across there.

Now you see there is some playground across the way that has some color to it And if we did something on this side of the river right here on city owned property, it could add to the arts and then we could actually have a banner such as the first one that we showed had a banner from the Saint Charles Arts Council there that they this is their project and we could have something made up by the Arts Commission in the City Of Joliet to show that we are active in the community with all types of artists of all ages. And I think it's a minimal cost to two artists to do something like this. And these numbers here actually come from the city of Saint Charles and they did say that this was a great moneymaker or or a great community event for them. They get they get I think there's a 150 banners.

Yeah. They did a 150. Yeah. I just scoped out a 100 here.

Right. You might have believed that each banner cost like $18.

$198.

Yes.

The cost to the members is 25 and non members is 30.

Yeah. 18. 18. Yeah.

A 180 is only 10. Yeah. Yeah. So a 100 yeah.

18. Yeah. I mean

That's cheap.

It's a great project and I'm sure that the city of Joliet or the city of Saint Charles will be more than willing from the emails that Ray received from them that, you know, they're they'd like that. We think that's a

great idea.

Would be painted away from where they're

being hung. It's not like an event where

they're No. You they would paint them and bring them in and then they they'd pick them up get

the schools involved or something.

That would be great.

Summer vacation. They're on summer vacation.

Reminds me

of what we do from home. I

think that's why they do it because it gives the kids something to do at home.

There's a lot of school programs all over

the place.