City Council Meeting - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to the City Of Joliet pre council meeting here Monday, March 2, held at 05:30. Proceeding in the meeting will be our mayor, Terry Darcy.

Okay. We'll begin with roll call. Mayor Darcy? Here. Council McCartinus? Here. Council McClement? Here. Councilman Hogg? Here. Councilwoman Navarro? Here. Councilman Moreno? Here. Councilman Mudran? Here. Councilman Quoman?

Present.

Councilman Riordan? Here. Next, we will have two presentations. First, we have National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, NPDES presentation presented by Dan Bounds with Baxter and Woodman Consulting Engineers.

Good evening. This is an annual presentation we do with the council, you've probably seen this before I remember it. But Joliet is a what's called an area for community. That means municipal separate storm sewer system. That means our storm sewer and our sanitary sewer are separate.

And as a result, we have to comply with NPDES permit requirements that are kind of set at the federal level, but are administered by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. NPDES permits are National Pollutant Discharge and Limitation System permits. They were required by the Clean Water Act that was passed by the federal government. And one of the terms of the permit is that we do public outreach because this meeting is televised and open to the public, this counts as a portion of our public outreach. And I'm gonna have Dan Bounds step in and and do our presentation.

Dan works for Baxter and Whitman who assists us with our permitting requirements. He's gonna touch on probably a number of good housekeeping items and also new permit requirements. A new permit was issued this year, and we are probably gonna have to do a little more than we have in the past, but I don't think anything too extreme. And Dan can kind of jump into that.

Thanks for that introduction. Great. Good evening. Yeah. I'll provide an overview of the local stormwater quality program that the city does a great job implementing.

As Greg mentioned, the LEPPA sets up a set of standards and requirements that comes out through a permit to municipalities in Illinois, like the city. Requirements are to reduce and or eliminate the amount of discharges of pollutants or materials or chemicals that could get into our waterways and cause downstream detrimental effects. That's the chemicals or pollutants that would enter the the municipal separate storm source system, the MS storm. So the city has this program and complies with the requirements for stormwater pollution prevention, developing and documentation requirements of the program, water quality monitoring to assess the effectiveness of the management programs here locally, and then staff training on pollution prevention. So if you think about what stormwater could pick up and drain into your local storm grade inlets, your curve, your gutter, and your stormwater, al falls, that could be just about really anything, any type of material that's left behind at work sites or on roadways or parking lots or other surfaces or spills or releases that can happen and enter into the storm drain system.

And they can have negative impacts on downstream organisms and ecosystems, recreation activities like fishing, swimming, wading, and then of course, we've got drinking water sources downstream as well. So we're blessed with a lot of local waters, a lot of streams and rivers in the city. Here's just a quick summary of them and some of the impairments that put them on IEPA is list of impaired waterways, things like not enough dissolved oxygen at times, or excessive nutrients like phosphorus to create these downstream impacts like we were mentioning before. This is not a complete list, but just a summary or an overview of some of our trade global waters and how some of them are not meeting all water quality standards at some times. So the program has six major areas of requirements.

Regulatorly, they're known as minimum control measures, but I think of them just areas of the program. So, public education and involvement on stormwater impacts so their residents know how to properly handle waste or materials and local businesses as well. And then, education involvement on the program like their presentation tonight. A program to reduce or eliminate illicit discharges or illegal connections to the system. Construction and post construction oversight of development and construction activities.

And then good housekeeping, training and pollution prevention activities for municipal staff. So best management practices within these six different program areas are developed and implemented to achieve their pollution reduction goals. Flagency monitoring is a requirement of the program. The city participants within the lower Des Plaines River Watershed Group and the lower DuPage River Watershed Coalition as a part of regional water quality efforts, regional water quality assessment to determine the impact or the benefits of the program locally. And we do staff training so that public works crews, municipal staff know the right best management practices to use to prevent polluting discharges, reduce bills, for fleet building maintenance, working out in the water systems at at at city facilities as well, like the public works facilities.

So a lot of documentation involved with the program. I help the city with those documents and make sure they're submitted to IEP on time and complete and also put up on the city's stormwater website as well. That would include the city's stormwater management plan, each annual report that goes into IEPA June 1 of every year, or on the website for public review and questions. And then there are a lot of local resources for for people to know what to do with waste or household chemicals or things like that. Your recycling programs, trash waste pickup programs, like a fall beef program in the in the fall.

And then Will County Green has a lot of resources available for local residents as well for proper recycling or waste management of of things they might have. So the local contact for this program is Public Works Department. Phone number, (815) 724-4200. Website also has contact information if anybody would have any questions about the local stormwater public program. And Greg promised some a little bit about the new permit requirements.

So effective August 1, Illinois EPA put out a new MS4 permit statewide. It includes numerous new requirements that have to be implemented. A lot of them the city is already doing. Some might just require a little bit more documentation or a little bit more reporting. So just some highlights here.

If if a city or a village had not been part of local large acre in the past, they must join now. Got that one checked. There's some specific new education requirements for residents and local businesses about potion prevention. And then there's some new documentation requirements for training for your staff or city staff on how to handle spills or illicit discharges. And then we have street sweeping programs and catch basin programs and landscape maintenance programs already, but there's going to be a little bit more documentation and reporting required for those.

And then lastly, an inventory of every facility that the city owns or operates and some new inspection requirements quarterly at those facilities for pollution prevention measures. With that, I'll take that's the update. I'll take any questions about the the local program or the new requirements that you're yeah.

I just have some feedback, and this is absolutely no disrespect to you, sir. I respect very much what you do. But I think public engagement and outreach is more than just a meeting that's televised. Sometimes you have to go and meet people where they're at. I'm sure if you scheduled a meeting, you'd get a lot of participation on this subject. So that's just my feedback. Like, this is very easy to do. It's harder to get into the neighborhoods and have a meeting where you educate people. And again, this is just a me thing. I don't speak for this whole council, and I mean, you know a disrespect, but I think that would be a good thing to do. Moving forward, at least one meeting, invite the public. If they come, great. If they don't, you try. But you can't always come here and do like, I would think you would bring it to the neighborhoods at least one.

That's great info. And this is just one part of the public outreach that occurs. There's also the two watershed groups that the city's a member of, and they do an immense of outreach Okay. Publication as well. So there's just one one small part. But getting out to the neighborhoods, that's something we could put in maybe the the program plan.

I can help you.

Great. Okay. Any suggestions? Yeah. So we're we've done a new set of permit requirements. We have to put together a new stormwater management plan for the the five years of this new permit. So so new things can be incorporated with that.

Okay. Thank you.

The mayor? Yeah. I got a question. So we we know remember, we we require to monitor the amount the level of pollutants of different types that go out in our storm water once it's collected. What happens if it gets too high according to the EPA?

We we already have waters that are impaired. So there there are already certain levels of nutrients that are too high, not enough dissolved oxygen at times, and and other water quality impairments. So those waters I showed the summary there, they're they're already on the impaired waters list. So at times, the water quality parameters are too high already. So working with these programs to try to reduce the amount of discharges, working with regional watershed groups to try to work on regional programs on those as well as it's partly because of the impaired waterways.

And a big part of that would be residents, business owners, you know, changing your oil on the side of on the roadside by the storm sewer and letting it fall. That's gonna go in

If that oil goes into the storm drain, that's exactly what we're trying to get education education materials out on the the the separate storm drain system does not go to the wastewater treatment plant. It goes right out to it right into our local streams and rivers. Okay.

Alright. Thank you. Yeah. Anyone

else? Thank you. Alright. Thank you all. K.

Next, we'll have nonrevenue water reduction program update presented by Allison Swisher, director of public utilities.

Good evening, mayor and council. Tonight, we're going to be discussing our annual water nonrenewed water, more commonly, a water loss annual update. I'm just going to give a brief oh, wait. Wait. Sorry. Sorry. It's, like, my first time doing this. Okay. So I'm just discussing the background of why we are working on an autoimmune water reduction program. I'm gonna turn it over to Will Jernigan with Kavanaugh.

He's gonna discuss our work to date, the results from our 2025 water year, and then our next steps, which involve our 2026 program of work. So just some background. We started on this journey when the city council selected Lake Michigan Water as our alternative water source. In order to use Lake Michigan water, we have to have allocation from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. And because Lake Michigan is such a precious resource, it's important that we not waste it.

And so the city has done a lot to commit to water conservation and other measures, and one of those commitments is to reduce our nonrevenue water to less than 10% by 09/30/2030, which is the time that we anticipate that we'll be turning on the taps for Lake Michigan water. So we started in 2022 implementing a water system improvement plan, and then in 2024 selected Cavanaugh to manage our water loss reduction program. So with that, I will turn it over to Will.

Thank you, Allison. Good to be back with you. I think it was a year ago.

And I

think a year ago, I went after the MS four presentation as well. So headlines here, city's actually made some really good progress when it comes to water loss. So what I wanna share with you is I look back the last few years and zoom in to work that was done specifically last year in 2025, what's gonna be the focus for 2026, and what's the overall strategy? That's that's the the big focus for this presentation. Okay.

Okay. For the last six years, six or seven years, the city has been doing a couple of things that are considered just good hygiene. Best practice in the industry of doing leak detection where technicians go out with listening devices and listen to try to find leak noises and find leaks so that they can be fixed. That's annual leak detection. They've been doing it you've been doing it every year as well as meter testing, testing all your large meters, the ones that measure your supply, the water coming in, as well as the largest customers in your neighboring export meters.

So that's something that you've had in place already for a number of years, which is which is good. More recently than that, and Allison mentioned the water system improvements plan, which is sort of triggered by the Lake Michigan allocation and the IDNR piece of it. You put in place in 2022, '23 a couple of potential programs for replacing water mains. And the one for water mains is is intentionally spread out from 2022 to 2030. So it's a multiyear program.

And and to date, you've accomplished about half of what you've been you intended to replace in in terms of those pipes. It's almost 200 miles, 192 miles. On the metering side, this is these are customer meters, meters at the homes and businesses that measure water that gets delivered. You've you set out to target the specific the most problematic of those meters, typically, your oldest meters. And since 2023, have now, as of the end of the most recent water year finished, that works.

So gotten all of those oldest meters out. So that's that's a pretty good milestone in your water loss program. And now you move into more of an upkeep and maintenance on a smaller amount of change out that occurs on the customer meters ongoing. Here's a visual of the 2022 to 2030 master plan. This is developed by another another one of your consultants.

This identifies where are those most problematic water lines. And, typically, they're ones that were installed prior to 1970. The data has proven out that those are the ones that you you lose the most water from. So spreading that out, you'll notice that the the river that kinda goes through the center of the image here, you'll notice that this is pretty heavily concentrated in the center of town. That's not unusual.

That that tracks with it being the the oldest pipe. That's often how how towns and cities are developed. Another interesting data point, if we look back over the last eight years, this is an image of a reducing number of water main breaks. And every year, this is a data point that you track. And the good news is it's going down. That is absolutely what we would expect to see if you have been aggressively replacing water mains, then that's good. That tracks. That's what we wanna see. So that's an encouraging number that is trending in the right direction. And then the last highlight from the last number of years is this concept of zones.

And you may remember us talking about this concept at last year's presentation, and I used the haystack analogy. If we've got a needle and it's in a big haystack, but we're able to divide that big haystack up into smaller haystacks, Let's just say we're using a metal detector. It's easier to find the needle if you got subdivided up into smaller haystacks because it's that one needle. So that same concept applies here that the city established already prior to Kavanaugh engaging with the city. This was established over the last number of years having this total system divided up into six zones.

It allows water loss to be measured in each zone. And that way, you can say, This zone over here is doing fine, this zone over here is not, and that's where we're gonna concentrate our efforts. It turns out that your data points to the purple zone and the blue zone as the ones with the highest levels of loss. So that's very useful information, and the program is focusing on that as a result. So here is the last six to seven years of the the water loss performance, and I'll take a moment just to explain the three colors that we're looking at here.

On the top is the the water that is supplied into the system from primarily from your wells. And then the second line in green is all the water that's used. This is mostly your customers and also the city facilities. It's it's authorized use. We'll call it sales for short.

And the red line is just simply the difference between the two. So whatever doesn't make it to an end user, it's some form of loss. And so a couple of things that I wanna point out here with this interesting six to seven year trend. You've had a steady reduction in your water loss volume over this time period. And if you think back to the first visual we showed where you started doing leak detection in 2018, you started doing those those good hygiene practices.

This tracks with that, and this is what I would expect to see. So that's that's checkpoint number one. Checkpoint number two is that the reduction is not always linear. And we've worked with a number of water utilities around North America and have seen this occur time and time again where you're working towards a goal over many years. It's not gonna be nice and clean where it's a a stair step where you get linearly down every year. Some years, you're gonna have a colder winter, a lot more breaks. Some years, you're gonna have more get more headway and gain on it. So what we're really interested in is the multi year trend. And so we see this dynamic playing out. Last year, it was a reduction, but it was a modest reduction from 2024 to 2025.

So far this year, you're about halfway into the water here right now. It starts October 1. So far this year, you're seeing a stronger reduction. And, again, that's just sort of the nature of year to year. It's it's you're gonna see variability based on weather and how fast the infrastructure decides it's gonna break that year.

That's kind of the the thing to follow. The last thing I wanna point out with this particular graphic is the green line is also showing an upward trend. And you may remember, some of you may remember us mentioning this last year. This is a success story of your customers conserving your water, and you have a campaign. You are messaging to your customers to, use low flow fixtures, to be mindful of how much water you use, irrigation systems, those types of things.

And your customers are responding to that. So that's a positive. So this really is a, kind of a textbook case of water conservation conservation in the city of Joliet because your your customers are saving water, and you're also reducing your own water loss. And that's why you see the blue line going down. That's that's what you wanna see.

From a water conservation standpoint, that is what Lake Michigan wants to see is we're we're taking care of the precious resource. So I wanna quickly mention a couple highlights from the last year and, and then a couple highlights that we're focusing on this year. We mentioned we've replaced about 30 miles of water main. You can see they're spread out in different projects this is in the past year in the downtown area. A couple things I'll just mention, finishing up the targeted customer meter replacements that happened in the past year.

A couple things that are that are very relevant regarding our six zones. Prior to this past year, it wasn't up and fully operational where the data was available on a routine basis. You kinda had to wait till the end of the year, get all the data together, analyze it, and then then draw conclusions from that. So one of the things that was a success in this past year was moving it from an annual basis to a monthly basis and getting that to where those data points are available monthly. It's it's the long term goal is to get to real time on a daily basis.

I'll talk about that in a moment. But that was a success in 2025. Other, data improvements and, just continuing to maintain those good hygiene practices, testing meters, leak detection, and auditing. I wanna quickly highlight what what is the main area what is the main thing we're focusing on this year for the water loss program. And the strategy that we shared a year ago in general is the same strategy, which is you divide the system up into zones.

You let that data tell you where are the where the problems are the greatest, and then you focus your efforts there. Right now, the purple zone and the blue zone remain the highest levels of water loss, and they will remain the focus for the program. It doesn't mean we're not doing anything in the other zones. We're still monitoring and keeping an eye, because you could still have things pop up. You can things things can break and go wrong anywhere, but the focus of the energy is to look at the blue and purple zone.

Strategically, we're also looking to take that same haystack idea and say, well, if six haystacks is better than one, what if we went to something that was more than six? And the magic number is actually 13. In the commission, we discussed 12. The difference is the thirteenth one is the system that you just acquired, which is the Southeast Juliet Sanitary District. So that actually is sort of a ready made DMA or ready made zone.

It comes with its own individual measurement. Here's what that'll look like when that comes to play. And those efforts are underway. So during this calendar year is when the subdivision is being implemented for these things. Continued work on water main replacements. Again, you'll see those focused, kind of see the river in the going through the center of our image there. That's right between the blue and the and the purple zone. So the water main replacements aren't hitting the bull's eye where where they need to be. And then finally, just to mention a couple of other strategic focuses for 2026. Continuing those hygiene practices.

And now those hygiene practices include customer meter replacements, but not at a big scale. You're not trying to get through and get half of them done in two or three years like you like you have been. You've completed that effort, and now it's

more of what we would

call a maintenance level. Every year, the meters get older and the oldest ones need to be changed out, and that's much more manageable. And then strategically moving those zones from monthly data to real time data, which is more of a daily basis. The operators, they come in, they look at what last night's information shows, and they can use that to make decisions about what to do today. So the final portion of our presentation is the regulatory update.

And I wanna share a couple of things that are gonna be very important for Joliet specifically and also important for the state of Illinois. So the metric that that is utilized and required by Illinois DNR is percent water loss. We're using water loss here in is non revenue water is the official term, but we're we're referring to it as water loss. So for the city's metric from the last 2016 to now, that percentage has gone from 35 to 28, which at first glance feels rather underwhelming. And so the challenge is that the industry at large, the water industry at large, has moved away from looking at things on this percentage basis.

And the reason is because it it creates a moving target. Every year, you improve your loss and maybe your customers can serve, which is great. But then that means you have less supply in your system, so you divide it by a smaller number every year. And it ends up creating a moving target, and it penalizes conservation. So the authority in the industry is the American Water Works Association, and they came out officially in 2020 with what we call the 2020 position and said, basically, stop using percentages.

It's it's not the right metric. It doesn't tell the story. And Joliet ends up being a pretty interesting and and poignant case study of that. This is a map of what other states are doing. And, the punch line of this map is this is where the industry is headed. They're headed away from a percentage towards, using volume based measures. And so that sort of sets up the frame for the discussion with IDNR. Excuse me. And here's the discussion. If we look at the city's water loss improvements in percent, again, our underwhelming change from 35 to 28.

But if you look at it in terms of volume, that's the red line laid over. The volume and the the recommended measures in gallons per connection per day, it's just sort of a normalized unit. But it's the city if you look at that number over the the same time period, the city's improved it from a 125 to 80, which is over a one third reduction in your total water loss by volume. And it it tells two different stories. And so this is a really textbook example of why the industry has moved away.

So what does what does all that get to? The conversations with Illinois DNR, we've already been in discussions within 2025 about at least adding this measure into the picture so that the percentage is not the only component that's looked at, really to better tell the story of system wide improvement. And so what what we expect and we're we have a meeting or a series of meetings and events that are gonna be happening in the spring where we present this case to them. And it's it's obviously for the city of Joliet, something that's gonna be important, but it really is gonna help the state of Illinois also move forward and kinda kinda get with the times, if you will, the the metrics that they're asking all of the water utilities to use. So it's kind of a leadership opportunity, I for the city to help the state.

Key takeaways for this presentation. Progress from on a volumetric basic basis has been good. You've reduced over a third of your water loss since 2018. You've been focusing on the right things, water pipelines, meters, established doing leak detection, establishing these haystack zones. So far this year, the current year that we're in, we're seeing even even further and stronger reductions and good momentum.

The zones are gonna be key. They're gonna be a key component of getting your hands around it. The final thing I'll offer is when you get the zones and they're fully operational and everything's going, it not only helps you get down to where you wanna be, but it becomes extremely important to stay there. The operational information and seeing it every day is how you quickly react when things start to go wrong, and then you get it back down. So it's it's not just a onetime solution. It's it's a thing that you're gonna see an ongoing benefit from. Alright. I know that was a lot of a lot of technical information. Definitely happy to dive in anywhere that would be helpful.

Any questions? Just a clarification. We talked in the committee so that people might understand if they don't already. So, the reason that percentage doesn't work is because, using round numbers, these aren't accurate numbers for Joel yet. But, if you have 4,000,000 in losses, and 6,000,000, or 20,000,000 in draw, if you will, water into the system.

And, you correct 25% of that formula into one, eliminating 1,000,000 in loss. You'll also lose 1,000,000 in what comes system in the future, because it's no longer being brought into the system and wasted. And, that's why the percentage the only way to keep the to make the percentage model work would be to set a bar benchmark of the original amount that you're drawing.

Yep.

You know, so we were drawing 60,000,000, and now we're only drawing 48,000,000 because we corrected $12,000,000 in in volume loss. Yep. We should measure that number against the original 60,000,000.

That's K.

I just wanted to clarify. Go

ahead. Well, you're to your point, I I put this graphic up. Because if you if you get a time machine, you hear about 2018, your supply, were around 11,000 gallons per minute is the unit that's here, but 11,000 GPM gallons per minute. That was what you were supplying into the system. So what is 10% of that number?

1,100. Right? So in theory, your your target your regulatory target in 2018 was you needed to be at or below 1,100 GPM. Well, fast forward to today, your supply for the system is about 900 excuse me, 9,000 because you've been making all these improvements. And so now your regulatory target is every year it moves. Your your regulatory target is all you have to be 10% of that new number. This is illustrating your point, which is every year, as you make improvements, your target gets calculated on a new number on that blue line up top.

The goalpost moves?

Yeah. The goalpost moves every year.

You reset that target every year.

That's right. Okay. They move the goalpost every year. That's a good sports analogy.

There you go. Thank you. Thank you, man.

Thank you. No other questions? Thank you. You.

Alright. Thank you

very much.

Next is citizens to be heard on agenda items. Is there anyone who would like to speak on an agenda item this evening?

Good evening. My name is Shelly Clark.

I'm Joyce Clark. And my name is Essence Clark. And so we are coming regarding the agenda item regarding the Honorary street for Michael Austin Clark, 15926. I am Mike's wife, Essence Clark, and I was gonna give you a little bit of information about him. Michael Clark is a 1999 graduate of Joliet West High School.

After that, he was also educated at Troy grade school and junior high. Following that, he actually went to Illinois Wesleyan University where he got a Bachelor's in Business Administration and a Master's Degree at Keller Graduate School. While at Joliet West, he was a football player and in the Marching Tigers among other things. And when he graduated and came back to Joliet, he got involved in the community almost immediately. With Joliet West or Joliet Township High School and Joliet West, he was a member of the strategic planning committee.

He was also a member of the JREC committee. He worked with the MLK Day of Service, and he was also an athletic mentor. In the community as a whole, he was a member of the Illinois State Police Merit Board, the president of the NAACP. He was a past past president, I'm sorry, of the African American Business Association, as well as a member of the diversity, equity, inclusion committee of the Joliet Chamber of Commerce, as well as being a loving husband, a son, and a brother. One of Mike's huge things was making an impact on the community around him, which is why MacMentoring was started.

That was the seed, his seed. MacMentoring is a program that is aimed towards mentoring African American men between the ages of, well, from sixth grade to eleventh grade. And it is just a way of honoring his legacy and making an impact among beyond himself. As well as Joliet Township High School has also put into place the Michael Austin Clark scholarship fund, which is going to be able to benefit students from this point out. And I'm going to welcome my sister-in-law, Shelly Clark, if she has anything to say.

And so our request for the street designation in this honor is just a way to continue to honor his legacy as he gave of himself to the Joliet community continuously. He showed up for people. He showed up for his community. And so that is our request today. We just wanted to know if any of there were any questions.

Thank you. You.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak under citizens to be heard on an agenda item this evening? Okay. Seeing none, we will move on to have the city manager review tomorrow's actionable items. Thanks.

Tomorrow, we'll have appointments, a reappointment to the Historic Preservation Commission and reappointments in the Tree Advisory Board. We'll also hear from land use and economic development, public assets, and public service. Consent agenda, as always, approval of minutes and voices to be paid. Council memo 140Dash26, order contract number 29620226 for the Well 20 3 d rehabilitation to Great Lakes Water Resources Group in the amount of $218,300. Council memo one forty one twenty six awarded professional services agreement for district metered area management to McKim and Creed in the amount of a $168,000.

Council memo one forty two twenty six, awarded professional services agreement for the 2026 water loss control technical assistance program to Kavanaugh and Associates in the amount of $668,355. Council member one forty three twenty six awarded professional services agreement for the 2026 sanitary sewer investigation and rehabilitation to RJN Group in the amount of $409,595. Council memo one forty four twenty six, award of 2026 public utilities department leak detection and meter testing services agreement to m e Simpson company in the amount of $595,440. Council memo one forty five twenty six approval of amendment number one to the professional services agreement for the geotechnical services for the West Side treatment plant expansion project to Sico Consultants in the amount of $6,110. Council memo one forty six twenty six, approval of change order number one for the Marquette Park water main improvement project to construction by Camco Inc.

For a deduction in the amount of $359,193.74 and payment estimate number six and final in the amount of $515,575.25. Council memo one forty seven twenty six, approval payment to Julie Illinois OneCall System Services to Julie Inc in the amount of $30,591.25. Council memo one forty eight twenty six, award of payment for the Joliet Slammer Stadium structural steel painting to Cosgrove Construction in the amount of $409,660. So this is year three of a four year painting project, and this round of painting will cover all the main concourse and steel on the face of the suites. Council memo one forty nine twenty six, approve a contract amendment with Borderless Studios for work associated with the Choice Neighborhood Initiative grant.

The cost for this work will be a lump sum payment of $30,000 This is a 100% reimbursable expense by HUD and can be accommodated within the context of the entire grant budget. Moving on to agenda items, council memo one fifty one twenty six, award of contract for the jol dash o eight dash o four distribution system upgrades project to PT Farrell Construction in the amount of $15,196,257.72. Moving on to license and permit applications. We do have someone from our liquor commissioner's office. If you wanna tell the council about the two liquor licenses.

Mayor, city council. Item number 153Dash26 is an application for the issuance of a class k liquor license for the Joliet Baseball Concessions at 1 Mayor Ultra Art Schultz Drive. A class k license authorized the sale of alcoholic liquor at the outdoor air stadium having a permanent seating capacity of not less than 4,000 people for consumption on premise only. This class shall promote entertainment on the licensed premises. The Slammers created a new LLC to separate the concessions from the baseball operations. The concessions, including the sale of alcohol, will remain at the same last season. The liquor commissioner is recommending approval of

this license.

Item number 154Dash26 is an application for the instance of a class b liquor license for the Matisse at 113 North Otto Street. A class b authorizes the sale of alcohol for consumption on premise only. The owners are renovating the old Saint Mary's Church and plan to open a banquet hall for private events. They are also planning on occasional public events with live entertainment. The liquor commissioner is recommending approval for this license. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you.

Moving on to resolutions. Council memo one fifty six twenty six, resolution appropriating supplemental motor fuel tax funds for the Bridge Street, Nicholson Street to Center Street Roadway Improvement Project. This is final project review and closeout submittal to IDOT, so it's housekeeping for that item to appropriate the supplemental MFT funds. Council memo one fifty seven twenty six, resolution accepting a grant of public way utility easement from Larkin Village apartment for the Larkin Avenue water main improvement project. So in order to construct a portion of the project, a permanent and temporary utility easement is required from the Larkin Village apartment on Lois Place, north of Vernon Avenue.

Council member one fifty eight twenty six, resolution approving easement agreement for water transmission main with Plainfield Community Consolidated School District number 202 at Plainfield South High School seven 7,800. And, oh, one more page. Council memo one fifty nine twenty six, resolution approving an honorary street name designation for Michael Austin Clark Way. Council memo one sixty dash 26, resolution accepting a grant of permanent easement for 652 Collins Street parking lot on the 652 Collins Street Alley Improvements Project. This permanent easement agreement provides for access to the public improvements installed within the parking lot of the business.

That concludes the agenda.

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

Good evening, council. My name is Trista Brown. I am the cofounder. Well, the founder. My daughter's the cofounder. I'll speak up. First of all, I always wanna start with what you are doing, and we appreciate the comprehensive panel. We appreciate all the things that you're doing to improve to go forward into our community. I just first wanted just to be reminded of each one that just because we will have an Afro American on the on the on the meeting doesn't mean that you don't represent us. And I wanna say that clearly because each one district represents everyone.

There's black, white, Spanish in each one of your district, so there is no separation. We have enough of that going down to the White House. So I just wanna clarify, just because a person is in a certain covenant doesn't mean that they don't represent who we are, and I wanna clarify that. Second part is is that I know I've been here many times just asking for a town meeting. Years ago, I used to do a town meeting with the the mayor at that time, city the state's attorney's office.

And when I asked probably about three years ago about the attorney general report, I wanna be clear. We are not there to badge anyone. We're there to let them know what you got, what you're doing, what you're doing different, what you're doing better. I know people are still not aware that when those bodies was found in the river, that you guys would forward the safety department to make sure that there's things that would take place. People don't know that. Everybody do not come to the council meeting. And my voice is for those people who just need to be assured. Right? We talk about accountability. We talk about responsibility.

We also talk about that we care about diversity. And so when I asked about having a town meeting, I want to be clear. It's to hear the things that you are doing to make people feel secure in what you are doing. And so on excuse me. If I talk too much, my voice gonna go. So on 03/12/2026, we've called it education for the voices of the community. And I want the community to know it's not a black thing, it's not a white thing. It's not a Mexican thing. It's our thing for the people, by the people, of the people. So sometimes people seem to think it's just about one thing, but it's not.

Ashley, I again, I have to commend the information desk. I'm a stay in again over and over again. I tell you I love them because they come here and they can stay in me, I guess. That's because we wanna agree with it. But they are very informative. Ashley, when you guys are busy, they can make sure that that information get to the proper people. And I said, in respect to them, they are the ones that people do see when they first come in here. And so they are gonna be there to share that information. We also asked the fire department to be there. This information is not about badgering. It's about being informed. And some of those people, all people and remember, Southside is not black side. It's a side that everybody we've we've grown. Do you know your neighborhoods are different? So when I speak of that, my daughter lives on Cave Farm.

We got people in your district, in your district, in your district. We're not reaching those people. And I know that because most of my people, people that I know of any color lives out there. They don't know who's running and what's going on. We gotta continue to be more assertive and showing to them that they are a part of this community. It's not just on the East Side, the West Side, the South Side. So in this meeting, it's to bring in people who don't ask me always to come here. Right? And they wanna feel comfortable to know what is going on in the community. So again, March 12, Joliet Library, Thursday at six told you I talked too much. Right? At six to eight. And we ask that if anyone would please come there. We're gonna have Mark Clemons. Mark Clemons is from Chicago.

Actually, he's gonna facilitate. I don't know if anybody know Mark Clemons, but he was one of those tortured victims from Chicago who's out there helping people in an innocent project. A lot of people who just came out of these prisons or people who are just struggling, period. They need to know that there's hope. There's a bill that we also I went down to Springfield called the HB the four four four three. So we need to be informed so they know that you are doing something, you are trying to make a difference. So let's just show them your accountability. Thank you for listening. I got through it. Yes.

Is there anyone else who would like to address the council this evening? Okay. Seeing none. There is no request for closed session this evening. Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved. Mister mayor. Okay.

Just real quick. If you guys don't mind. We don't mind. Okay. Just real quick since

we're not in

a closed session.

There's a motion second on the table.

For real.

But yeah. I just just wanna bring it up real quick. You know, based on the news, you know, inter Interstate 80 is gonna go down to two lanes. We really have to have a plan downtown. I mean, it is a complete nightmare. I know I I sent an email and, you know, trying to get a portable a portable stoplight up there on Bridge and and Broadway. But, you at some point, when these bridges are gonna go down and we really need to have a plan, I mean, it it's it's really gonna get bad. I mean, it was just bad last week. It's gonna get real bad. So I think we really have to start working on that before it's it's too late and we have our hands full. So I just wanna just keep working on that and and sending that message across because it is bad. When you're downtown, I mean, I can't I can't say it, you know, any more than that. So we just keep working on that.

Yeah. And I would agree with that because I was thinking, you know, why couldn't they just wait until after the big anniversary of the 100 you know, Route 66? Yeah. And, of course, I don't have any connections with IDOT, but I thought maybe one of our reps or, you know, anybody that's had contact with the IDOT may have said, could you just postpone it for a month or so? But Okay. Apparently, that's not

gonna happen.

I mean, just like the the the portable stoplights. Maybe we can take a a a hard a hard look hard look at at the sequence of lights so they're all flowing. They're not flowing at all. So that that's part of the problem. I mean and and we probably need IDOT for some of this too to help us, but I'm just saying it. You said we're working on it. That's that's great. I I just

We are actively working on it. Have Thank you. I've had personal conversations with the secretary of IDOT and the assistant secretary, and Greg can fill you in on the work that the staff's doing

as well.

Thank you. No. I know you guys are working. I just thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. Just real quick. We have reached out to IDOT when we had the two bridges down when Ruby Street was down to look at alternative routes. You know, IDOT has made a commitment to the city that we won't have two bridges down at one time if possible. Yeah.

Ruby Street was obviously an emergency situation. But when those two bridges did go down we came across a situation where we didn't have a canned detour route so we have a meeting coming up I think it's in two weeks at the staff level with city staff and IDOT staff to look at getting a detour route set up. Should that occur again with any, you know, series of bridges or different bridges going down at the same time, we'll have detour routes that we can implement immediately. So we we are working towards that. Thank you. Okay.

Thank

you. Is Second.

That's it.

Okay. Would you have a motion to second? All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Opposed?