County Board - Regular Meeting

Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Will County Board meeting for March 19th, 2026. I'll call this meeting to order. Member uh member Revvice will lead us in the pledge of allegiance and introduce the clergy. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please join me in the prayer. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Thank you.

Madame clerk, will you please call the role? Richmond, Williams, Dean, Schlottman, Ogala, Pretzel, Butler, Newquist, Bich, Axley, Brooks, Winfrey, Bulock, Logan,

Freeman, Revis, Mitchell, Ortiz, Burkowitz, Hickey, Costa, Traineer, Bandine. We have 19 bill. Okay, 19 members present. We have a quorum. I need a motion to place on file the certificate of publication. Motion by Winfrey, seconded by Trir. Madame clerk, please call the role and please add member ballage. Ballage to the roles. Richmond, sorry, uh Ogala pretzel butler newquistley Brooks. Yes.

Winfrey. Bulock. Logan Freeman. Revis Ortiz Burkowitz Picky Costa Trainer Vanden 20 in the affirmative. The motion carries. Uh moving on to the Will County Board minutes from February 19th, 2026. I need a motion to approve. Motion by Traneer, second by Freeman. Is there previous? Prieous by Bullock, second by Hickeyi. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh I need a motion to approve the minutes from the February 19th executive February 19th, 2026 executive session. Motion by Brooks, seconded by Freeman, previous by Traneer, seconded by Winfrey. All in favor? Any opposed? The motion carries. Madam clerk, will you please acknowledge the elected officials and media present today? Today we have County Executive Jennifer Bertino Tarant, County Clerk Annette Parker, coroner Lorie Summers, auditor Duffy Blackburn, treasurer Tim Broofphy, and we have Mayor Terry Curts from the village of Diamond.

No, I think we're muted. Um, we have no resol uh honorary resolutions or proclamations today. We are going to move on to public comment for agenda items only. At this time, I invite anyone to come up for public comment for today's agenda item. So, if you have something to say today for our agenda, please come up this way. And a reminder, this is for any of our issues including land use. And you have if you come up uh please make sure you just state your name for us and you have three minutes. So

hello. Can you hear me? Okay, great. Thank you so much. My name is Chad Chabazi. I'm here for land use item number two with respect to the community solar project. Uh uh uh Mr. Quain's site uh BA we call it BAF Quain. I wanted to point out that um I'm here on behalf of the applicant uh BAP power. Wanted to point out that Mr. Quain is here. His family's own the site for over close to 80 to 100 years. Um uh he was here for the zoning meeting as well as the land use development committee meeting in support of the project. Just a big bit of background on our company. We've been in business for over 17 years and developed 500 clean energy projects across 14 states. 20 of those projects are right here in the state of Illinois. We've uh at this point we're close to 10 employees here in the state. Um and I'm proud of that. Um just a quick background on the project. Um it's near 54 5949 West Eagle Lake Road near Pier Potone. The system size is approximately 5 megawws. Um and it's actually a second phase of a project that's owned by Mr. Quain. Um the first phase was approved by Will County back last April, almost a year ago, 2025. Um the site is less suitable for other types of development. There are actually two existing oil pipelines that run across the site uh underground. Um they're owned by Enbridge and that's crude oil that runs underground. So um essentially it's less suitable for other types of development. Um the February 2026 Will County planning staff recommended approval. They said that we met all the county ordinance requirements including max height panels, setback requirements, glare, underground utilities, and security fencing. Um, and they recommend that the project for approval. Um, we have received no objections from either Will Township or the village of Poton, and that leads me to my last point, which is the community benefits from this project. So, we've committed to

$200,000 to be set aside for local community organizations. Um that includes the Will Township, the Manhattan Fire District who we've been working closely with on the first project as well as well as a few other nonprofits um that are prominent here in Will County. There's also property tax revenue from the project that's codified in Illinois statute. We estimate it'll be anywhere from 20 to $25,000 per year and that'll be a flow down from the um county down to the school districts, the fire district and the like. And finally, uh this is a community solar project. So, anyone who wants to sign up for the project here in Will County will have the ability to do so. Uh, they'll receive 10 to 20% build credit savings on their KMED bill. No obligations. They can they can cancel anytime they want. That's all I wanted to mention. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

No, you'll be able to ask during uh land use to the staff. Yep. Any other public comments for today? going once, twice. All right. Thank you. We're going to move on to old business. All resolutions and ordinances from the February 19th, 2026 board meeting have been signed and re uh returned. We do have uh one resolution from uh last month. Would you like to take that, Mr. Van, or would you would you like me Uh, number two on our agenda.

Correct. I know. Yep. Resolution 20 uh resolution 26-60, resolution authorizing the county executive to negotiate and execute an agreement of intent to abate taxes for project Northwinds. And I so move We have a motion and a second. Um, previous new quiz, seconded by Hold on. Can you just We have a motion, a second. I just want to hold on.

Yeah. So, Joe, if you can just read. Um, okay. We have a motion in a second. I need you to amend your resolution. So, it says Hyundai Translead All right. So, can you if you could can he just Is that what he can do?

We're going to have you remove your motion and then make a new motion. Withdraw. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah. My apologies. I I'd like to withdraw my motion. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Do I need to make an amendment? No, just you can new resolution just with the the correct name. All right. Resolution 26-60, resolution authorizing the county executive to negotiate and execute an agreement of intent to abate taxes for Hyundai Transit. Motion by Van Dine,

seconded by Triner. Any discussion? Previous roll call by Revvis. seconded by I asked if you went into right away. Do you have a Yep. Sorry. Yeah. I just had a question. So when when you go into enter into negotiations before any decisions or final offers are made, it comes before us again before that any decision is this was something that was um if I recall brought to the executive committee last month. We were voting on it here. So nothing has changed. Um and they would just asked to table it till this month. That's it. So nothing has changed from last month. So it was brought to executive committee.

So be when you negotiate the contract, it'll come back before the board before approval, right? It's in your packet. The final agreement. This is the final agreement. Yeah. Okay. That's what I'm asking. Am I saying?

Yep. Hold on. So under your ordinances, the the executive will negotiate the terms of the abatement. The final agreement to the abatement is subject to a completion of all those terms. So it does have to come back before the board to make sure that those terms were uh were put in place and fulfilled. Thank you. Um so that you will see this a second time. I I'll send you the the the ordinance just for your own uh so a roll call. Uh we're going to add U member Mitchell to the roles, please. Madame clerk, so this is on old business item number two. Madam clerk, please call the role. Richmond,

yes. Williams, yes. Ogala, yes. Pretzel, yes. Butler, no. Newquist Bich. Axley. Yes. Brooks. Yes. Winfrey. Yes. Bulock. Logan. Yes. Freeman. Revis. Yes. Mitchell. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Burkowitz. Question. We're in the roll call. Yeah. I'm sorry. Hickeyi Costa. Trineer. Vanine.

Yes. with 20 in the affirmative. The motion carries. Moving on to uh presentation from the Will County Strategic Plan, we have uh Mr. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm going to turn this over to uh Leader Williams to present.

Thank you. Um, as most of our my fellow board members know, we've been trying to get this strategic plan off the ground. Now, we finally are going to get started. So, I would like to introduce the team that is going to um be leading us in this endeavor and it's going to be led by a team of three people and I'm going to introduce Miss Swilly and she'll introduce everybody else. Um, Lorie Swilly is the CEO and founder of Leap HR Consulting LLC. Launched in May 2022, the company is a premier destination for leadership development and consulting, specializing in strategic planning, talent management, workforce engagement, and HR training. Lori spent more than 20 years in corporate America working with Fortune 500 companies to lead their people and HR functions. Her experience includes director roles at McDonald's Corporation, the Home Depot, and Allied Universal Security, plus a solid track record of management and people development. She is an advocate for community engagement and building trusted partnerships. Lori serves as a board member on the Bowling Brook Park District Foundation and the Will County CED. She will uh also be working with Mr. Jim Rink and Mr. Vince Clark. And I am now introduce Miss Willie if you would please.

So before you begin, I'm just going to I'm going to ask for address. So we have about 15 minutes allotted for this presentation. Do you want I mean within that time frame. If it lasts 15 minutes, great. If not, we'll open up to questions. Is that the intent? Okay. Just making sure. All right. You're up ma'am. Thank you.

You uh Sher appreciate the introduction and thank you all for the opportunity to present to you. And I have to thank Jim uh Ring and Vince because those two are going to partner with me on leading this planning initiative. So, first let me just say that this proposal addresses a unique need uh that your board has, which is to build alignment and to make sure we've got a foundation of having a strategic platform to go forward to align on the priorities that the board wants to address for the residents and the members of uh our our county. And I am excited to be here with you. This is an area that's already in my wheelhouse. I've done a lot of strategic planning in my background not just for uh corporate America uh but even for the private sector and the work that I've done in the nonprofit space. Uh also on the personal side uh I continue to be I think a board member uh with my husband's family. He is one of 17 children. So um they already have a built-in board uh right there. So, I I I say that tongue and cheek because we've got to understand uh we're dealing with people all the time and your goal is to make sure you're doing the best that you can for the constituents and the residents of the county. I also want to let you know as I was doing research and and looking at some of the demographics here, um the number 22 came to my mind as we've got 22 members. And if you are into numerology, 22 is a unique number. And I'm just going to read to you what 22 stands for. It's considered a master builder. And 22 symbolizes the ability to turn ambitious dreams into reality through balance, discipline, and practical action. It's also associated with manifesting largecale goals. That's something that we need to do right as a board. Also, it from a

biblical sense, it certainly has biblical connotation. However, I want to hone in on the fact that it encourages harmony, balance, and keeping on one's path. Here's another piece of master builder, and I think you guys will find this enlightening. Those influenced by the number 22 which is called life path 22 often display these traits. Practical idealism largecale impact leadership and responsibility and there's a shadow side as well which comes with the territory. But I think you all would agree that these are characteristics and traits that are not unique just to Will County Board but for any board. Your goal here is to be the master builder for your county. So with that, I will go ahead and go through the presentation and the initiative that we have developed for you. So who is LEAP HR consulting? Uh LEAP HR really is my firm and we specialize in organizational development. We specialize in leadership training, HR consulting and really all aspects of people planning. deep experience facilitating complex um engagement, being able to bring stakeholders together such as yourself and build bridges across communities. Also, we bring strength-based knowledge, a people first approach, a strength and governance, and being able to understand unique challenges to bring frameworks together. I am based in Bowling Brook and I have a familiarity with the county. I have been a resident of Bowling Brook for the past nine years, but I've been living in Illinois probably most of my life. Uh, so I have a I think a a good lens at as to what's going on uh within the county and I am

committed to this county. Next. Okay. So, why now? Why the strategic planning? Well, I'll tell you. When we talked with Sherry and just taking a look at uh your materials, your websites, your information and talking to you, there is an opportunity for us to come up with a plan. A plan that will address the gaps that you all currently face. A plan that will provide a sense of direction and an area of focus. It will align your priorities and it will help you achieve your common goals. So the whole intent of the plan is to formalize it and give us a path forward. also onboarding as you look at the folks around the room how many of you actually had an onboarding experience you know where you're told uh what's exactly your responsibilities are as we have people coming on to the board we also have people that may exit the board so there is a need for onboarding material and that will consider uh offboarding as well so these members uh would get the opportunity to get vast institutional knowledge to make sure that they understand what their roles and responsibilities are and that we can continue to thrive not only during electoral cycles but that we'll be set up for success. And finally, addressing the diverse community um that really spans this entire county. So, um and this plan must reflect the unique needs of the urban side, the large communities such as in cities in Joliet to the rural areas of places like Pieton. So got to make sure it is a comprehensive approach. How are we going to do this? So the approach really is a fourstage integrated um process where within four phases really four months you will see what the plan is. Tactically we've got some things that we would like to do

starting in April. There will be an online survey that will be sent to all of you because we need your feedback. you are vital to helping establish this plan. We will get some qualitative and quantitative data during that first phase. The second phase really would be stakeholder engagement. So, making sure that we're doing one-on-one interviews with people whose feedback really matters and stakeholders such as yourself, but also who are those community members? Who are those people that we really need to hear from that we know have a voice in the community but will also have a vital input in helping us build a sustainable uh future and then a workshop. What would things be without a leadership workshop? Right? We are prepared to have an off-site workshop and right now it says a full day but you know we just need to get together and we need to culminate minds and talk about what the unique challenges are. That would include doing a SWAT analysis where we would address the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats uh that the community and the counties face. Uh it would also help address uh the strategic direction and making sure that you all have certainty in where you're headed. And then finally, the plan development. This is where everything comes together, right? and we are going to draft the p the plan provide all of the data that we have collected along with the leadership feedback and then finally a a product. So you will get a finished product uh based on what we do within those four months culminating at the end of July. Key deliverables what are you going to get? Okay, because there is a commitment right and you want a return on your investment. So you are going to get a survey, right? We have to have a survey because we all know we are data data driven and the survey will be

comprehensive. Uh that will include all of the geographic data that we collected, one-on-one interviews with all of the board members. We also want to encourage open and honest feedback. There will be a level of anonymity to this because we don't need to say who said what, but um we will certainly make sure that the feedback is included within the report. The off-site workshop uh that workshop will consist of team building uh allowing us to do some assessments as well as to really dig deep into understanding analytically what's going on across the county and then strategic plan session. That's really going to be the goal setting, feedback from the leadership team to help draft the plan, the onboarding and offboarding framework, which will be a first for the county, and then the strategic plan report up to 30 pages, but it's not going to be that that that uh that long. And then the presentation to the executive committee that would be our committee chairs. Let's look at the timeline and the investment because again you want to make sure you're getting an ROI for what you're committing to. April timeline the project is really in partnership with the phased approach. So you'll see project timeline and then you'll see the project investment. We broken it down into each phase of the uh of the timeline. Hence there's going to be a initial assessment payment. So in April that board survey April through May would be uh phase two. June and July is going to be our phase four. So you'll see from initial assessment phase one to final plan development phase four and then the breakdown from a financial perspective. There's a total investment that was earmarked for $12,000 and anything else that we do outside of that

uh would have to be additional. So the off-site right that we are um proposing that would be just a little bit more in terms of if we want to um do that off-site uh that would have to be an additional assessment. So that is our timeline aggressive. Yeah. But we we feel it's it's it's doable and considering the time that we've already been waiting to get this executed. We really want to make sure we are hitting the ground running and that we're moving at a rapid pace. Finally, the strategic plan report. This just gives you an overview of what you're going to get. Everything from the cover sheet to the organizational summary, uh our strategic themes that were identified from our analytical work, stakeholder engagement feedback, as well as insights, the data insights that we collect over the 12 month, threeyear, and fiveyear um trajectory, an executive summary of course, and then followed by some of the other um framework materials that we included. So pretty much you're going to get a comprehensive overview of everything that we cover. uh throughout the four months. Now, I think this is where we're toward the end, Sherry. So, together, we are hoping that we can build something together on behalf of Will County. So, thank you for allowing me to present the strategic initiative to you all.

Questions? Thank you. So, we have about five more minutes. If you have some questions, we'll we'll take a few questions. Yes. Member Ogala. I don't have any questions. I just want to say that I love your personality. I love your enthusiasm and your excitement and I wish you the best of luck. You thank you so much member works.

Good morning. Uh Lori, thank you for your presentation. My question about the first page you put up there. Um, you mentioned there was you will be addressing some gaps and how to fill those gaps. And I'm just curious to know what are gaps. Uh, I put a clock around my window for gaps, but what do you I don't I didn't quite understand, Lori, what the gaps were that you looking.

No, that that that's a great question and thank you for that. So, when you look at other counties and we we we want to benchmark, right? We always want to make sure we're benchmark and we're not just looking at ourselves, but what are we not addressing? What are the unknown challenges? H what are other counties doing? How are we being competitive? A gap would be something like the orientation that we realized early on as we were going through the website talking to Sherry and stakeholders understanding what are we doing to build strong board members what are we doing to retain them and what are we doing to keep that institutional knowledge. So that's an area right that we identified as a gap in how do we make sure we are accurately and adequately addressing the onboarding and offboarding of board members. So there's one opportunity and and then something as simple as looking at the website for the county and uh if you look at the website for Will County and you look at a couple others uh you may un you may see that there could be some gaps and some areas that we're not addressing. And if we're looking at continuing to build um residents, right, and get people to want to come and move to Will County, that may be a place that people go to to say, "Well, what does the county offer me?"

So, those are the gaps. Yes, you're welcome. All right. I don't see any other questions. Uh leader Williams, would you close or anything? Oh, I'm talking. We do have one more question. Member Burke, she just put her light on. Thank you. Um, thank you so much for coming today. It's a pleasure to meet you. You're welcome. And it it was a a very nice presentation and I I do love your enthusiasm and your cheerfulness. Thank you for being here.

Um, I have a couple questions. Um, maybe not so much for you though, so I'm not sure. Um in the presentation um you indicated that you'll take your final uh summary and you will be going forward to our executive committee. Um I just want to say um and this is to the board. I don't understand why that would not be done to the entire uh board. Um whether it's a committee of the whole or during a um full county board meeting, but I feel that that is more appropriate and more effective to be shared with the entire all members of the county board and not the executive committee because the executive committee does not include vice chairs. So it only includes chairs and vice chairs have been told that they really are nothing but just another board member on the board. So I think we need to really open it up to the whole board. That's my recommendation. Um, I also want to just clarify that I don't know that we're going forward in this process to near necessarily look at benefits or services that the board provides. I think it's more we need to focus on team building and our personal um uh skills and um networking with each other. Um, so I I'd like to make sure that it's focused where it needs to be because as elected officials, we have very clearly defined responsibilities.

Um, we're not we're not employees. Um, but we are um elected to fill um our our positions. And it it it they're they're clearly defined and they are unique. And I think that's where um what happens is is when new people come on board uh things are so busy that maybe there wasn't that little bit of time to get that person um oriented and and and trained or just just maybe advocating with somebody that's kind of fallen through the cracks sometimes. So, um, if we could maybe have a little more, you know, discussion about making sure we're looking at specific goals. I I I just felt that it was a little bit too broad, especially for the um role as a will county board member, and our county board does function differently than other counties. So, thank you very much.

And I'm I'm sure while you speak to individual, you'll be able to point these out. So, because we're over the time, I'm going to let me Butler, uh, Speaker Van Dy, I'm going let uh Sherry um Leader Williams close and then we'll go on to the next item. U member Butler. So, I just want to say that uh listening to everything, I you know, sometimes we get bogged down in our daily, you know, grind here, and I love the the the potential of the 22. So, if that can outline what your goals are as well, uh I'm very supportive of this. Thank you, Speaker Van Dy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I do I do think it would be a good idea to maybe present to the the entire board. Maybe not during a a full board meeting because we do have other business to attend to, but a committee the whole would be would be uh a good idea. Um also that that way we could include the vice chairs and I and I want to say that I believe the vice chairs of all the standing committees are very important because as we know um they have they have chaired meetings in the past because we definitely here at the county board have attendance problems. So the vice chairs are very active and and I would like them to to be able to participate as well. Thank you.

All right. Leader Williams, would you like to close? Yes. And I'd like to thank uh Miss Willie and her team. And I just like to say that nothing is written in stone. This is our plan. So we do what we do and if we need to amend things, we can amend them as such. So and hopefully we will take this all to heart and do what we need to do to make this the best board that we can be. That is the that's my goal. Hopefully that's everybody's goal. And I also just would like to finally remind everybody that we actually did vote on doing this unanimously. So, I'm hoping that we're going to work towards it unanimously as well. And thank you again, Miss Williams.

Thank you all for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. We are going to move on to new business. Now, we have another presentation. Uh we welcome Bob Navaro for with the heritage quarter 100th year anniversary of Route 66. He says he only has an hour presentation. Yeah. 45 minutes. 45 minutes. Sorry.

Uh thank you for that. Appreciate it. appreciate the opportunity to give you an update about our Will County partnership as well as uh Route 66 and the exciting things that are happening here in 2026. We made it 2026. We're here. So, just a couple quick facts about our office. Again, my name is Bob Navaro. I'm with Heritage Quarter Destinations. We represent six counties of which Will County is one. Uh we employ seven staff that work here in Joliet. Um that's full and part-time staff on behalf of what we're doing for our member communities. Uh we're one of 38 CVBs in the state that receive a state grant to do some of the marketing, promotion, and product development that we uh do for our communities. And we're also DEMAP accredited. We've been DEMAP accredited since 2014. And DEMAP just simply is a is a process that shows that we have met standards in a variety of areas like governance, HR, marketing, promotion, sales, things like that. Also, full disclosure, you have a representative on our board and that is uh Micah Freeman. So, thank you for Micah for all she does for for representing Will County on our board. Um, some of the benefits of working with with us are three main websites where you'll see most of Will County represented is hcdestinations.com, visitwill.com, the first 100 miles, as well as lincolnhighway uhillinois uh.com. So, there's other sites that we work with and we populate, but those are the main four sites that we are promoting uh Will County. We also include Will County in a variety of our publications, both print, uh videos, uh social media, uh different different types of advertising. When we go to trade shows for leisure, sports, and meetings, it's all about trying to bring that business from outside the community into our community to spend money for uh shopping, dining, and overnight stays. We also have access to a variety of reports and research from both uh Zardico and Smith Travel, but we also work with Illinois Office of Tourism with uh US Travel and uh DK Shaflet and

some of their their numbers. That's where we get the county numbers on how the counties are stacking up and performing. On our main page, you'll see that well counties represented and in addition to the the this presence, we have partner communities and partners that are on those pages. So I just want to give you a snapshot of what that looked like. Uh we also work with variety of cities, villages and townships on promoting their destination destination um management marketing for them. Next slide. So we all we publish uh two travel guides. B county is prominent in both of those guides. One is definitely geared towards Route 66 from Chicago to Pontiac. The other guide is more canal towns and and Star Rock. Um, I can tell you that of our advertising and marketing that we've placed, we had over 30,000 requests for individual fulfillment. Uh, and we use this guide as our fulfillment. And that means we mailed out over 30,000 guides to individuals that saw our marketing and advertising and requested an individual guide. We also distribute guides a variety of other ways through hotels, events, things like that. I know we've given them to all of you before. Um, our guides, our next guide will be coming out in May, June. There's 50,000 of each of those publications. And um next slide. So last fall we launched visitwill.com. And um in just a few short months between when we launched that in fall to December. We had over 3,000 website hits to that and over 6,000 page views. And we also uh followed that up with some social media for Visit Will. and then some ad placements for visit will both print and some statewide travel guides scenic byway guides Route 66 guides and then we had some billboards and Springfield at the state fairgrounds uh promoting promoting visit will so that just launched in late fall and those are just some quick numbers from uh the fall last year we also launched Lincoln Highway Illinois and I'm proud to say

that we are receiving a grant from IDA to populate the site it's really the marketing arm of the Lincoln Highway um and it goes goes from border to border and um we have um over 40 communities listed on the site, nine or nine of which are Will County communities. So, we're real proud of what we built on that site, the inventory of properties and attractions that we listed on that site. Again, we just launched it last year, so we're still adding to that and and um populating that site. Lincoln Highway was the first um byway that went from coast to coast, so it went through 13 of the of the US states. Next slide. So as a destination marketing organization um it's really uh we we through our brand de uh management our investment and our promotion marketing sales we try to create a place where people want to visit because if we're creating a place where people want to visit they also want to live there and if people are are wanting to live in a certain location they also want to work in that location and then once they've they've created a place where you want to visit live and work then they're investing in their community and that's what all of our destination marketing organizations follow in our economic development model. All right, Route 66. Let's jump to the next slide. Um, in fiscal year 22, there was $4 million available to the CVBS that were along Route 66 from Chicago down to the down to Granite City by the Chuner Rocks Bridge. Um each year there's been different uh requirements on how much a bureau could apply for, but um over the since fiscal year 22, our bureau has received, including this year, 5.8 million for projects along Route 66. So those projects include new attractions, museums, new signs, uh new photo opportunities. Um of that 5.8 million, 3.4 4 of it's coming back to projects here in Will County and those

are going to communities Joliet uh Wilmington Lockport. Um so there there's a variety of communities that have benefited from our Route 66 uh grant opportunities this year. Excited to we just received the grant agreement last week from DCO. So some of the projects that we're working on this year with the grant is a a tire tower that will be over 20 feet tall at uh the Chicago Land Speedway. We're also working on um a new EV charger station as well as uh new signage in Wilmington. And then there's a series where we're working with um uh Steve Stride over in Lockport where he's going to put these hundred-year benches into different communities. So the benches are all the same, but they're going to be uh decorated and and uh completed by different artists. So different artists are going to do different benches, and the benches will be in different communities. And I believe there's about 12 benches that are coming out of this uh Route 66 grant that will be in a variety of our our communities. So again, we want to thank our legislators that that that set aside th those dollars um because we really wanted to make sure that Illinois was ready for these visitors that are coming both domestically and internationally for Route 66. And this money went all into product development. So murals, you probably have seen Gigantar here in town. that sign was paid for out of the grant. Um the murals along the Rialyto, they're also celebrating uh an anniversary this year that came out of the grant. So there's a variety of of projects that uh were funded out of that Route 66 grant. So where can you find out about what's happening with Route 66 this year? These are the three main websites that we are referring people to. The first site, Route 66entennial.org, will tell you what's happening in all eight states. So, if you're interested in what's happening in California or Missouri or one of the other states, including Illinois, Route 66entennial.org is a site for that. Here in Illinois, we're promoting Illinois Route 666entennial.org. And that's real really, like I said,

from Chicago down to uh Granite City, the Chain of Rocks Bridge, and then our site is the first hundredmile.com site. So, these are the three main sites that we're encouraging people to go to. Now to get into some of the specifics regarding the centennial c celebrations the the celebrations will happen between April and November basically. So in April uh April 30th was a significant date signing legislation um acknowledging the route. So all eight states are planning something on that April 30th date. the main so the US Centennial Organization they picked a site a main site location that's Springfield Missouri and then the way they set up their celebration is they um asked different states to bid on being satellite cities and the satellite city for Illinois is city of Juliet so we're going to be doing a big house ball game at the old Juliet prison and that's going to happen on April 30th so that will be the in the morning show um there will be some national recognition for that um for Juliet being selected as a satellite city, but also for the activities that are happening throughout the day there. I think the ball game's happening in the afternoon. There's going to be food trucks and entertainment and things, but um that we'll get some national press in the morning show on um uh nationally with what all the other states are doing in uh for Route 66. That's going to lead right into our red carpet corridor weekend, which really our our communities along Route 66 have um rolled out the red carpet, so to speak, for our domestic and international visitors. We're celebrating all things Route 66 from Joliet to Bloomington. That festival is been around for over 25 years. And uh this year we did receive a state grant from the Route 66 Centennial Commission to do some new um uh

promotional items around that event around that weekend. And then also to um a large chunk of dollars were given to each of the communities for entertainment. So a lot of I think nine of the 15 communities are receiving grants to do um uh bands, entertainment, face painting, um just a variety of different things. will be happening in those communities. Um, of the of the communities, Joliet's receiving um the largest of the community grants at $10,000 for programming that weekend. And I believe most of it's going through downtown Joliet um bands and entertainment that will be at se several of the different locations here in city center. Also that weekend, like I said, there's a lot going on. I'm talking pretty fast here. A lot going on. On Sunday, May 3rd is the first of a three 6.6K run. Now, before you freak out, 6.6K is only four miles. We can all walk four miles. And um that'll be the first of the three runs. So, there's going to be one in Juliet, one in Dwight, and one in Wilmington. And if you finish all three, the medals will slide in together and create another um image on the back. Um also on Sunday, May 3rd, the Rialyto um will be doing some centennial programming and show also showing the movie Cars. This is the 20th anniversary of the movie Cars, by the way. So, um There's all kinds of celebrations happening. So, we're thrilled that Ryaltto was able to to show that movie. If you're familiar with the movie, the character Filillmore is actually based on off of a real person, Bob Waldmire. We have that Filillmore um Volkswagen and his land yacht in the Pontiac um museum, the the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame Museum in Pontiac. So, when you see that movie and you see that Volkswagen, you can actually see the inspiration for that in Pontiac. So, we're excited to to bring that to our visitors. Travels with Darly. Over the last three years, we've had um several uh national uh TV shows film. We did

Samantha Brown's Travel Show. We did a Travels with Darly. Um this summer, we've got um um the Peter Greenberg coming. Um, but Darly's got an presented a unique unique opportunity that she's going to have her hundth episode and her hundth episode is going to be featured Route 66 and all things Illinois. So, we're we're excited to bring her back. She's going to actually be filming in our communities the 6th through the 10th and um then that show will be uh available later in at the end of the summer, early fall. Um there's a car caravan coming from California to Illinois. Um they will do overnight here in uh Will County and Joliet. It's being co-sponsored by Best Western. So all the nights are being picked up by Best Western and there'll be entertainment and things happening um each night that that car caravan is traveling. Next slide. Okay. We also have an individual that's trying to break a world record or he will break a world record in June. He will be here in Joliet. So, we'll um we're asking the public to come out and support him and just do a meet and greet with him and encourage him on. Uh he's he'll he will really be in his last stretch of of doing the route. He's going to do it on a bicycle in a certain amount of time. Um there's another uh caravan coming through. I mixed these up. This is the Best Western one. The other caravan is um the car enthusiast caravan, but there's two caravans happening. Also, as part of the centennial uh celebration, there'll be four drone shows throughout Illinois, and Joliet will have one of those shows on Friday, June 26th. All four shows are the same in different communities, but the um but they will highlight the local community that's hosting the show, as well as Route 66 Icons along the way. As I already mentioned, Peter Greenberg will be filming at the end of July. We don't anticipate his program to be available until closer to the end of the year. And then John Pageant, which um he did a

show about 20 years ago on Route 66 where he filmed uh all eight states uh 20 years ago. Well, he came back last year and refilmed in many of our communities. He filmed here in Joliet. And what he's going to do is before his show is released to PBS, he's going to actually take it to different communities and and let the public come to see those shows. So, the first one will be in Chicago. Second one will be here in Joliet. After Joliet will go to um Pontiac and then Springfield and uh we're showing his his um new documentary. It's about a um it's an hour performance. There'll be or an hour um video. There'll be a meet and greet with the panel and some folks that uh put the show together. And that's Friday, September 4th. And I believe that's at the old Goliet Prison um on their grounds are going to do it outdoors there. And then the what's going to there's many more activities. So, please go to those websites that I mentioned earlier, but it's all going to culminate with the centennial celebrations uh at Motorhead. So, there'll be a statewide celebration with uh uh entertainment um recognizing communities, what they've done for Route 66 and um celebrating the the route on November 10th and 11th, and that'll be in Springfield. So, that's kind of like the final closing of how Illinois is celebrating Route 66. And if I had time, I wanted to show you this slide if I have a minute. Okay. So, I just want to highlight a couple things regarding who's coming to Lil County. And your top visitor markets into the county obviously are Chicago um but then second and third would be New York and then um c uh Champagne, Springfield, and Decar are all kind of lumped in together um with our data. And when I talk about visiting the county, we're talking about people that are coming from 50 miles or greater. they've spayed two hours or longer in destination and we have a minimum of a thousand data points to to to track that. We track this over the course of the year from January to December. And then also your your largest spends are with food and

beverage. So anytime we could support our restaurants and our and our different uh food and dining establishments, it's really important to do that. But um that's where people are spending the most dollars is your your food and beverage and then retail. And last slide there. That's it. Unless we have questions. Do you think we have a few questions here that we're going to entertain? We're going to start off with member Revis. I just I heard you mention benches. There's like 12 benches being installed as part of a grant. That sounds awesome. I love it. But uh I guess I've been hyperfocused on the cost of benches lately through some other work that we have on the board. Do you know what the price per benches or could you get that to me?

I I could get that I could get that to you. Part of the ven benches, all the benches are the same model and they look like a a car. They look like a an old car that somebody could actually um sit in, but the benches are going to be uh decorated by different artists. So, um they sound like extra, you know, expenses for a bench. I still think they might be cheaper than the benches we buy at the Forest Preserve, but we'll have to see.

Yeah, I can I can pull that and get that to you. I think that there I think that there are 12 that are part of this grant, but I think he's doing another six in different communities. Uh and some communities have more than one bench kind of thing. Some of the benches are being designed by local artists and then we've got artists throughout throughout the area, you know, Lockport, Dwight, Wilmington that are decorating benches. So, um the benches are actually being delivered today and tomorrow. So, if you know Steve, he's going to be busy with benches today and tomorrow and then they're being delivered to the artist to work on and then um they'll be unveiled by the uh sometime in May. I'll get that to you, Mark. Member Hickey then Burkowit.

Thank you, Madam Executive. Thank you for all the work you do. That was very energetic and uh thank you to member Freeman for everything that she does. Um I'm kind of new to Heritage Corridor and so I looked into it a little bit. Are we the largest county that participates of the six counties that we have? Will county is the largest county? Okay. So it's Will, Grandy, Lasel, Livingston Bureau, and Putnham. Putnham. Okay. All right. Great. Are there any counties that you know of that are as large as Will that are involved in a conglomerate for their tourism like this? Uh um what what do you mean?

I I'm just thinking in in uh you know context of there's some legislation that's moving through. Oh yes certainly. So in southern Illinois there are certainly counties that are large as the same size as county or larger that are part of regional bureaus. Um there are only about six bureaus that represent most of the southern part of Illinois and uh those are some of those larger counties. Okay. There I don't think there are counties as large as uh geographic wise. Oh, I'm sorry. By population. Oh, population. No, no, geographic wise, yes. Oh, okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Member Burkowitz and then Ortiz. Thank you, County Executive. Um, so thank you for the presentation. Uh, you mentioned that you're installing a special uh, was it a sign at the speedway? Uh, it's going to be a tire tower. A tire tower. So, the tire towers in a partnership with the speedway as well as Goodyear tires and it'll be over 20 ft tall. be going to be made up of of tires and then there will be a Route 66 uh speedway sign next to it.

So, I think that's incredible. I'm very excited to hear that because I I think that's actually a treasure that we have here. Um there's been some development in that area and um I personally would love to see uh racing come back to this county. I don't know if you have any insight on to whether we can preserve that before it's lost forever or uh what is the the likelihood of that happening?

So, we know we know that the current race that's happening this summer is is a one-year contract and we are hopeful that they do renew it. Um but uh NASCAR has been a great partner of ours. We worked with them for for many years. Um and we're thrilled that they're back. Um, some of the the the original track folks are are involved with with this race. Um, beyond this one year, I I I I don't have the information on that. Okay. So, we're hopeful. We're hopeful. But I know Chicago's heavily trying to bring them back, too. Well, I think we have some unique FE features here and um I I really hope that the the powers behind it can can pull this together.

Yeah. So, when the races were happening here in in uh the Will County Joliet area, we actually had higher attendance at the races than they did when they were the street races in Goliet. Um we there were more people that were attending the races in person. Um so, we're we're hopeful that that they continue to look at at our area to to bring those races back. And are are you involved with the races that will be coming in the the future? involved in any of the

So, we're working with the the marketing crew and the director over there on trying to advance some of their trying to reach different markets for them. We're uh partnering with them on some trade shows that we're going to doing some uh digital um ticket sale type advertising for them. Well, um as a county board um member, I have seen very little come through information about it. Wasn't really aware of those things happening. So if you could mention to them uh keep us in the loop and whatever we can you know do to participate and support I I think all of us would love to do that.

I will send send you some more information and then they're going to be doing um kind of like a 100 day kickoff 100 days before their event. They'll they're going to unveil the Tire Tower, talk about the events that are happening and how they're co-brand not branding but co-elebrating America 250 during that weekend race because it's it's around July 4th obviously. So, um yeah, I will send more information uh either through Micah or directly to to county staff to distribute. Absolutely. Thank you. We'd love to support them.

We're going to wrap up with two more comments or questions. Member Ortiz and member Freeman. We'll let you close. Member Ortiz. Thank you, Madam Executive. Just a quick question since the benches were mentioned. Are your benches ADA compliant? I um we'll have to look into that. I'm assuming that they are, but I don't know. I didn't I didn't look at that contract. That's all done being done through Steve over. When you come back with the price tag, make sure you come back with that answer, please. Thank you so much. Member Freeman.

Thank you, Bob, for coming. I've I've been trying to get this to happen for a while. I get questions, but you're so much um better at answering them. Regarding the uh baseball game that's going to be happening in Juliet, I do think that tickets have opened up for sale. Am I correct? So, tickets are are for sale. VIP tickets have been sold out. There's just general te general admission tickets available at this point. And there are benches and and yard space. Mhm. And it is between the Slammers and

So the Joliet Slammers are playing the Gateway Grizzlies. Gateway Grizzlies are down in St. Louis and what's between Chicago or what's between Joliet and the Gateway Grizzlies but Route 66. So we're excited that this is the exhibition uh game that's been put together. And are they what kind of uniforms are they wearing? Because I found this interesting. So the talk is that they're going to recreate a vintage uniform and I I've not seen that but that's all being done by the Golad Area Historical Museum. So, uh, the talk was that they would do some sort of, uh, vintage uniform, at least for our Juliet Slammers. I'm not sure what the the Gateway Grizzlies are wearing. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And to be clear, they're playing at the old prison.

They're playing at the old Juliet prison. And so, they're going to they're going to recreate the ball field that was there on site at the prison location. That the ball field is being paid for out of the Route 66 grant as well. Um, but that will be done um that will be done by the end of April because that's coming up right around the corner. All right. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Anytime. Let me know.

Just FYI, Bob did provide us with um information. He did not touch on the tourist tourism ambassador certificate program, but the information in the barcode is there. and you have a wonderful map and it's very detailed. You should check it out. That's all. Thanks. Thank you. Going to move on to land use and development committee. Chair Pretzel.

Thank you, Madame Executive. Just making sure there's no uh opening of a public hearing. First up on today's land use agenda, resolution 26-062, land resource management plan update. I actually have a request from staff to remove this from today's agenda and postpone until the May meeting when we will be ready. Uh I'd like to make that motion. Motion by Pretzel, seconded by Rabbit. Any discussion? I think we need a clean roll call. I don't remember the last one, but madam clerk, please call the role. Richmond Williams Dean Slottman I'm sorry uh Ogala yes pretzel

yes butler yes newquist yes yes Brooks yes winfrey yes bullock yes revvisell yes burkowitz hickey Costa trineer yes vend Done. 20 in the affirmative. The motion carries. 19. Oh, I'm sorry. 19 in the affirmative. The motion carries. Right. No. Okay. Yeah. 20 in the affirmative. Motion carries.

Number two, OD26-063 ZC25112. Special use permit for a commercial solar energy facility in Will Township at 5949 West Eagle Lake Road, PTO, Illinois County, Board District number two. PCC recommended denial by a vote of 2 to2 and land use and development approved 5 to1 with two conditions and I so move. Motion by Pretzel, seconded by Nquis. Any discussion? Yes. Member Oxley. Yes. Thank you. Uh is the developer here? I have a question of what percentage of local union labor will be used on these projects.

We will let the the we can have staff come up and answer and I don't know if they'll be able to answer that if that'll matter appropriate but we have to have we don't let the um uh the applicant but the staff is here.

Okay. I'd like to make a motion to amend the rules to allow the developer to speak on this. There's a motion by Hold on. Hold on a second. Miss, Kevin, so you you certainly can do that, but I will say that it's outside the public hearing of evidence. It's not a factor you should consider in your decision. We don't have a public hearing. They had a public hearing already. We're not having it here, though. No, just a question. I'm I have a motion on the floor. Sure. Yep.

Just giving you advice. So, we have a motion by Oxley to ask to allow the applicant to come forward. We have a I heard a second by Ogala. Um, Madame Clerk or Nope. Madam Clerk, please call the RO. Rich Richmond, this is on the motion. We are we are voting on the motion to allow the applicant to come forward. Williams, yes. Pretzel, yes. Butler, yes. Newquist, yes. yes. Axley, yes. Brooks, yes. Winfrey. Bullock. Logan,

yes. Freeman, Brevvis, Ortiz, Burkowitz, Hickey, Costa, Traineer, Vandine, 19. In the for affirmative, the motion carries. Come up, sir. Thank you. Mr. Roxy, you're going to re ask your question to him. Certainly. Thank you. And please state your name for the record. Can you hear me? Chad Jabazi here for the applicant. Happy to answer any questions you have, sir.

Yes. The question is, what percentage of local labor will be used on this project? Uh, I don't have that answer, but I do know that we try to use as much local labor as we can on these projects, and most of our subcontractors are based here in Northern Illinois. So, um, that's that's the information I have right now. Okay. Because it's it says this thing says you have a trirade project labor agreement. I'm just trying to figure out that's not this case. Just so you know, that's for that's fine. I'm sorry. I just wanted to ask that question. Sure. Thank Thank you, member Richmond. Thank you very much. Um,

so I happen to be on the phone and I This is in regards to these solar projects just in general, but it's so it's not specific to this. So he can we does anyone else have any questions for this gentleman? All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. And I see you answer any other questions for So thank you. So we can just go back to discussion.

I'm sorry. Go ahead, leader. So, unfortunately, I had a conversation with a friend of mine whose friend's house got blown up in the uh uh tornado, one of 37 people. I also heard some folks have died out there. But, I mean, this is something with these solar facil solar facilities is the devastation that a tornado can do to these things. And I've heard that there's some pictures out there of uh and I think it was in Ki County, but it still could be impactful into our lands. I'd like to know more from land uses, you know, what's the impact going to be if one of these, you know, gets destroyed here in in a, you know, E4, E5 or something like that. So, um, I think it's something that we need to really start looking at. Um, so that's all I got. Thank you,

Member Ogala. Thank you. I just was wondering, do we have any decision from um our at our judge regarding the solar lawsuits? Have we received a decision yet? There has been no decision from judge Brunar. There was a third district case which we will discuss. Thank you. These aren't even on the agenda yet. No.

So we have a a motion and a member or chair pretzel. Do you have another comment or that just go ahead. Well, so I mean I the reason I think member Oxley brings this up is we had a letter in our mailbox today from local 174 carpenters union on a different case talking about local unions getting involved in these projects. So I I'll just say for for me I don't love these solar projects when we have people from the community coming and saying I don't want this. So, what I do love about these is that it can create local jobs. And I've gotten calls from other unions saying, "We really want these projects. It's good work for our company." So, I just wish that we could condition these requests somehow to say that they have to use local unions to do the work. So, I don't know if with the state statute if we can even request that. I mean, we we can always request it, right? But can we condition it? Are we allowed to say you won't get my support if you don't use local union workers?

So given given that we have pending litigation, I don't want to discuss the outcome of what the Grundy County case was in open session. We will discuss that. But um you know, if you look at the state law, it has given very specific conditions about what you can consider. Um and I've not seen that condition as one of them. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, member Burkowitz and then Freeman, then I'll circle back. My My question is um best answered by the developer, but he sat down.

Well, because I asked if anyone had any questions for the developer. Good. Come on out. He's fine. He's coming back home. Thank you. I appreciate it. Just just want to make one. Sure. Just want to answer uh a question that uh Mr. Pretzel had. There actually in the new bill that just passed there is a requirement to have a labor agreement with unions and pretty much all the work that we do on these sites are late uh union labor. Just want to mention that on our projects. So um including this project will county Will County locals uh yes. Yeah. So when possible

quite yes exactly and and there's a new requirement that any project I believe it's over three megawatt which this one is um that's getting a a renewable energy contract from the state will have to have a triparty agreement. So that's part of the new climate and reliable affordability act before you answer I send it back to member Burkitz. Uh Mr. Meyer would like to add something. Yeah, I just want to say that new bill does not go in effect till January or June 1st and it's not retroactive. So, um that piece was not previously in the current solar bill uh the the labor agreement.

Yeah, just this project will be subject to that because it won't be starting until after June 1st and with with the renewable energy contract that comes after June 1st. Just so Sure. We can talk about I just want to let everyone know that it's not currently part of the the existing law. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that to our attention because it sure it's a selling point, right? Absolutely.

Um thank you. So before I ask my question, um Kevin, in respect respect to your point that it doesn't necessarily apply to this project, since you are willing to um proceed according to the new legislation, could we then just add it as a condition that it's understood that they will be hiring local union according to the legislation? We we can add that as a condition. it it would be hard to enforce because you're going to approve it before the uh the goes into effect

as a condition though it is part of the approval and then I believe at at the end of the day it's a good faith relationship between them and us and having that um having that condition added would also um document it. It would be a very specific question and I take the gentleman at his word and it is a good faith effort. My my point is that currently you do not have that legal authority to condition that. So if they do it or they don't um now it would start after January 1st. That's a good argument for us to make. But right now the law says you can condition these things setbacks vegetation screening. A project labor agreement is not one of those things.

I'm surprised. So it's it's part of what the Illinois Shines program for the community solar. So that's may maybe it starts after June 1st. So if you receive a contract, a renewable energy uh credit contract, w contract, then you have to abide by the um trip party agreement. So we we'd be we'd be willing to Sure. And I think that again, we take we're not accusing him. I'm just saying you have limits in your authority. That creates another uh can of worms, but I'm sure they're going to abide by what they're telling you here.

Okay, great. Well, we'll we'll move forward then. Um my question was regarding the um the labor and the construction of the project. So your um agreement with the uh labor unions of for you said was it 3,000 three

the the new rule is uh any project that's over 3 megawws which this project is if you want to receive a renewable energy contract through the state's program which is called Illinois shines for the community solar program then you have to enter into a triparty agreement for labor and we all we already use almost all of our labor for these projects is union labor. Yes. And so um so the the main um requirement for union hours will be the actual construction and installation of the the panels. Correct.

Correct. And then at at some point in time when that phase is finished and the solar facility is operational, doesn't that workload cease to exist and and decrease significantly? The the work does decrease. There's still some operations and maintenance work that we have to do. And for that we we still use prevailing wage labor. But but um at that point in time, is it just a minimal amount of the original labor? Correct.

Correct. Okay. So, knowing that we've got that that large influx of, you know, jobs and opportunity, what is the window of time that that actually exists for a five megawatt project? It's a these are smaller projects in the big we're talking 40 acres usually six to nine months. Six to nine months. Correct.

So that that gives us 6 to nine months of of a you know great employment opportunity and then it kind of phases out with that exception of that little minimal amount of um maintenance that's required. That is that's something I I I think everyone needs to understand about the do you have specific questions from regarding this project you're doing philosophical you know

I did have a question and you were very very uh clear with your answer and I appreciate that because um at some point in time we want to be able to understand the cycles of um you know work that's available. So, um I appreciate your cooperiveness and your your um sincerity. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Member Freeman.

Thank you. So, um I actually drove through Cana Key and I went past some of their very large solar farms after the tornado and I can tell you that the houses across the street were in much worse damage than the solar panels that were on the ground. Um but um also I would like to ask for our county staff to please send out the PowerPoint presentation that was provided at UCCCI regarding the new state laws um around solar because it was very informative and I know that I've shared it with making sure my my caucus but I think the other side of the aisle should have it as well. Thank you

member Gale.

Thank you. So, a lot of the solar that's been built already has been in my area and um I've gone to these sites and I've spoken with a lot of the guys who are working it. They they are union contractors that we are hiring to build these. So, I've seen that. I've not been to one that didn't have that. I think you need that skill set to do this type of job. I mean, you might have other people putting up a fence possibly, whatever, but that's different than the actual hard work to put these to install these, rolling all the wiring and everything. They they've been union that I've seen. I haven't found one situation that hasn't. And I will um send to our chief of staff pictures that I have of a solar facility that was completely destroyed by the tornado. So, while maybe you've driven around, maybe that particular area wasn't hit as bad as others, but this this one was completely destroyed. my friends out there working and he had said he wasn't expecting when he went through the very first day when they were out there that the people who were out there looking at the site they were wearing hazmat suits. So don't think that just cuz you didn't see something happened doesn't mean it hasn't happened and I will send the pictures to our chief of staff to share.

Thank you. All right. I don't see any more comments. I'm going to take it give it to Kevin real quick. Just just as always we admonish before votes. you're limited to the uh record within the uh public hearing. So, anything that you've gained outside of that is not considered evidence. All right. So, we have a motion and we have a uh a second. Right. Madame clerk, please call the role. Richmond Richmond. Oh, sorry. Williams. No pretzel. Yes. Butler Newquist. Yes. No.

Oxley. I have to say I have a conflict. Brooks. Yes. Winfrey. Bullock. Logan. Yes. Freeman. Revis. Ortiz. Burkowitz. Hickey. Costa. Trineer. Yes. Van. Yes.

Yeah. 14 in the affirmative. The motion carries. Number three on today's agenda, resolution 26- 064, second extension 260001, I'm sorry, third extension for zoning case ZC22066, special use permit for a solar farm facility with 15 conditions on vacant property on West Kennedy Road, PTON, Illinois County, Board District number two, land use and development approved this six to zero and I so move. Motion by Pretzel, seconded by Rabus. Any discussion? Madame clerk, please call the role. Richmond, Williams, Ogala, yes. Pretzel,

yes. Butler, no. No. Newquist, yes. yes. Axley, have to abstain. Have a conflict. Brooks, yes. Winfrey. Yes. Bulock. Logan. Raymond. Revis. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Burkowitz. Hickeyi. Costa. Trineer. Yes. Vanden. You're my lawyer. You're my lawyer. 18. The affirmative. The motion carries.

Number four. Resolution 26-065. A second extension for zoning KZ ZC23027, special use permit for construction sales and services with four conditions. 111233 West Kennedy Road, Pona, Illinois County Board District number two. Land use was 5 to one approving and I so moved. Motion by Pretzel. Second Oxley. Second by Oxley. Is there discussion? Previous roll call by Ogala, seconded by Winfrey. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Number five, resolution. Hold on. What's I'm sorry. Sorry. You

I I assume I assumed that when if you voted no that you are fine, you would. Okay. Resolution 26-066, a first extension for zoning KZC23125, special use permit for commercial solar energy facility with three conditions in Florence Township at the vacant property at southeast corner of State Route 53 and South 216th Avenue, Wilmington, Illinois County Board District number one, land use and development approved 6 to zero and Io move. Motion by Pretzel, seconded by Costa. Any discussion? Previous previous roll call by Ogala, seconded by Brooks. All in favor? Any oppos? Motion carries.

Number six, resolution 26-067, a second extension for zoning KZ ZC23038, special use permit for a commercial solar energy facility with four conditions in Joliet Township, vacant property at southwest corner of Cherry Hill Road, and US 52 in Joliet County Board District number six, land use and development approved 6 to zero. And I so moved. Motion by Pretzel, second by Costa. Discussion. Previous role by Ogala, seconded by Burkowitz. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries.

Number seven, resolution 26-068, a second extension for zoning case ZC23037, special use permit for a commercial solar energy facility with three conditions. vacant property located northwest corner of Cherry Hill Road in West Schweitzer Road, Joliet County Board District number six. Land use was six to zero and I so move. Motion by Pretzel, seconded by Freeman. Is there any discussion? Previous roll call by Winfrey, seconded by Brooks. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries. Number eight, resolution 26-069, first extension for zoning KZ ZC23110, special use permit for a commercial solar energy facility with four conditions in Mooney Township, vacant property located on the north side of Daleley Road, west of I-57, County Board District number three, land use and development committee approved 6 to zero and I so move. Motion by Pretzel, seconded by Costa. Any discussion? Previous roll call by Freeman, seconded by Traneer. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries.

Number nine, resolution 26-070, first extension for zoning case ZC23111, special use permit for a commercial solar energy facility with three conditions in Mooney Township at the vacant property located southeast of the intersection of South Ridgeland Avenue and West Raleigh Road. Only Illinois County Board District number three land use Use and Development Committee approved six to zero and I so move. Motion by Pretzel, seconded by Freeman. Any discussion? Previous by Ogala, seconded by Trir. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Next land use development committee meeting is scheduled for April 2nd, 2026. Thank you. Thank you.

Moving on to finance committee chair Nquist.

Good morning everybody. The first order of business is the consent agenda which consists of four items. Um A resolution 26-071 fiscal year 25 year end budget transfers. B resolution 26-072 appropriating funds in the circuit court's budget. C resolution 26-073 trustee resolutions uh which are basically the uh sales um uh tax sales D resolution 26-074 appropriation of unexpended funds for the Illinois Department of Human Services and I so move

mo motion by uh Nquis seconded by uh Winfrey sorry all in favor I opposed motion carries Number two, uh we just have a number of monthly finance reports to be placed on file and I so move. Motion by Nquist, seconded by Winfrey. Any discussion? Previous roll call by

Okay. Well, it's a So I'm sorry. Motion by Nquist, seconded by Winfrey. There's no discussion. Is there a previous pre by Brooks? Thank you. Seconded by Williams. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. That's all I have. Our next finance committee meeting is scheduled for April 7th. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to public works and transportation. Chair Traneer. Good morning, Madame Executive. Uh, unless someone wants something removed, and they certainly haven't asked me up until this point, we're going to move forward with a consent agenda. Item A, granting ex access for ingress and egress on Manhattan Monet Road in County Board District 3. Item B, confirming award of contract to Northern Contracting Led on February 18th to countywide guardrail maintenance, all county board districts. Item C, improvement by county under the Illinois Highway Code for countywide guardrail maintenance using motor fuel tax funds. All county board districts. Letter D, confirming award of contract to deconstruction. Uh led on February 18th, Sheer Road over Fork Creek in Green Garden Township County Board's Districts 2 and three. Letter E, authorizing approval of professional services agreement for right-of-way acquisition services with Hampton, Lanzini, and Renwick, Inc. for several parcels of property for Weber Road from Airport Road to 135th Street. County Board District 9, letter F, authorizing approval of professional services agreement for rightway acquisition services with triple D valuation services, Inc. for several parcels of property for Gala Road from Spencer to Pharaoh Drive. County Board District 2 and five. Letter G authorizing approval of professional services agreement for right-of-way acquisition services with Hampton, Lindsini, and Renwick for several parcels of property for Gala Road from Spencer Road to Pharaoh Drive County Board District 2 and five. Letter Hich, that's a new one. H authorizing approval of professional services agreement for rightways acquisition services with

Santa Cruz land acquisitions for several parcels of property for Gala Road from Spencer Road to Pharaoh Drive County Board Districts 2 and five. Letter I, authorizing agreement between the County of Will and BP Midwest Product Pipelines Holdings LLC for reimbursement for relocating facilities for the improvements of Francis Road from Galer Road to Interstate 80 County Board District 5. And lastly, letter J authorizing an agreement with Northern Builders for improvements on Lairway Road from Cherry Hill Road to Nelson Road, County Board District 2. And I so move motion by Trineer, seconded by Freeman. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Just two other issues that were on our committee. One item that was removed and that had to do with the um state of Illinois talking to us about some cameras they wanted to put on some of our c county roads, state police. That was removed from the agenda. And then we did um discuss with the under sheriff the possibility of having decimal monitors. I believe that's what they were called. uh ready for next year's budget, but certainly some sample ones being purchased this year so that we could tackle some of the noise issues in certain parts of the county. And he was very agreeable, so that will be moving forward. Our next meeting will be April 7th. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to public health and Mr. Brooks, do you have something? Okay, Madame Executive, um, Chairman Traneer said the cameras issue removed from her agenda. Does that mean it goes back to the committee? What What exactly? No, they've withdrawn. I'm sorry. They've withdrawn their request. Thank you very much. I should have been more clear. Thank you for asking. I like to clarify. Thank you for clarifying. Thank you, madam. Do you have a question as well, member? Okay. No, sorry. You just prepared for Okay, we're moving on to public health and safety. Uh, Chair Butler.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, we have nothing to move forward. Our next meeting is scheduled for April 2nd. All right. Very good. Legislative committee. Chair Winfrey. Thank you, Madam Executive. The legislative committee has one resolution this morning. It is 26085 local health protection grant increase. And I so move. Motion by Winfrey, seconded by Ogal. Any discussion? Member Ortiz.

Thank you, Madam Executive. I just wanted to say that I really appreciated seeing this resolution come forward out of the legislative committee. Uh last year, I introduced a similar piece of legislation because investing in our local public health is essential for our community's well-being. So, happy to see this continue. Happy to see us advocating as a board together for this critical funding. And I will be a yes vote. Thank you. Right. So, we have a motion and a second. Is there a previous roll call? Previous by Triner, seconded by Oxley. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. The legislative committee will meet again on April 7th. Thank you.

Moving on to capital improvements and IT committee. Chair Freeman. Thank you, Madam Executive. Um, we are hopefully going to be having our um AI Oh goodness, I just present policy. Thank you. I was thinking procedures. I think all all the P's in the world. Um, procedures um in policies in place hopefully within the next two or three months and we are still working on our five-year plan and we have nothing to bring forward. Thank you. Thank you. Landfill Committee. Chair Oxley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, we're moving forward with increasing the capacity of the gas plant and other than that, we're good. Thank you. Your next meeting is Oh, sorry. I got to help you out there. Sorry. Uh, the next meeting has been cancelled for April. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Moving on to executive committee. Speaker Van Dy. Thank you, Madame Executive. Um, we do have a number of items on our consent agenda. Before we get started, does any board member want to remove any item from the consent agenda? Seeing none, thank you. Letter A, resolution 2686, authorizing the county executive to execute an IG agreement with the city of Joliet to provide access to the countywide radio system. B. Ordinance authorizing a joint application for boundary boundary agreements to the diamond enterprise zone and add a new unity uh of government to the diamond enterprise zone. C. authorizing the will county to ex execute an um intergovernmental cooperation agreement between the village of diamond and the county of will for the expansion of the diamond enterprise zone and to add a new unit of government to the diamond enterprise zone inter uh intergovernmental agreement with the city of Aurora to utilize portions of the county's capacity aotment for electronics recycle and then we have a number of ordinances chapter 111 business Taxation 112 stunt events 113 peddlers solicitors and in interant merchants whatever that is. Uh chapter 114 food establishments sanitation 115 cable television 116 raffle and poker run regulations 117 bid contractors and 118 bathous and massage parlors. And I would like to make a motion for approval.

Motion by Van Dyene, seconded by Winfrey. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Our next executive committee meeting is scheduled for 8 uh April 9th, 2026. Thank you. Thank you. We do have a resolution uh 26-098 appointments by the county executive approving the county executive appointments to the Workforce Investment Board of Will County. And I will make that motion. Motion by Van Dyne, second by Winfrey. Previous roll call by

Nquis Williams. Second by Freeman. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We're moving on to public comment relevant to the matters under the jurisdiction of the county. If there any comments relevant to matters under the jurisdiction of the county on the agenda or not, you're more than welcome to come up. Yeah. Good morning. I'm Terry Karns, mayor for the village of Diamond, and I just like to thank everyone here today for your continued support for our enterprise zone. We really appreciate it. So, thank you so much. We're moving on to comments by the county board members. Remind you of three minutes. If you can, you'll press your button and I will uh I will uh get you in order. We're going to start off with Steve Ballot who's going to wish us all a happy St. Joseph Day. But I beat you to it.

You're giving me a hard time. All right. Now, I just got a a complaint and a problem uh about two and a half years ago. Um my email was hacked by Jackie Taneer by hacking into Judy Ogala's iPad and she wrote in judiorala.com, you know, at willcount.com. So that means she did it on purpose. And if I did that, they would have locked me up in jail for sure. And then I would had to get bonded out and the whole bit.

So nothing happened for two and a half years. She finally got convicted. And to me, I feel violated because my email went to god knows who. And I don't think that was right. And then not as she's convicted, I think that she should resign from the county board. And I don't think we have rules that say it because it's not a felony. It's just a misdemeanor. But that misdemeanor, she probably won't get a lot of she'll probably get a tiny little fine or a slap on the hand and say don't do it again. But that's okay. But that misdemeanor is a serious misdemeanor. She could get six months in jail,

but that ain't going to happen, I don't think. Yeah. But I just want to bring it out that I'm still very upset about it. I did two press conferences about it and I am frustrated because I was violated and it seems like no one cares that I was violated. Right. So I and so that's the I'm I'm being I'm struggling here. Bless everybody in the room.

Well, we do have rules of decorum and and regarding you know to to to how you speak and and and talking about other members and this. So again, I get it. It's a fine line. But I if this is the tone you want to send here, that's fine. That's up to you. All right. That's fine. That's fine. I just I'm like you said, if this is the tone you want to have here, that's absolutely fine. U member Burkowitz or I'm sorry, member Brooks, sorry. Madame Chair, uh my colleague Winfrey and I represent District 6, which is the old Silver Cross Hospital facility. And sitting on capital improvement committee, I have watched the Copperfield property be redeveloped and I'm just so very happy and proud and I hope everybody got the emails about the VA center that's moving in ribbon cutting April 1st. I hope you can be there as our poor stated is in my district. Uh I have a tollway when you come in my district, but I'll lift it on April 1st if everybody will come in and help us celebrate the VAC. We're very proud of that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Member Gala.

Thank you. Um, I just want to say that I I really like the presentation from Lori from LEAP HR. I think your enthusiasm is fabulous. I hope that she can help uh help bring some good ideas to the board. So, I I'm I was very positive with that. I appreciated the presentation by Robert Navaro for the Route 66 celebration. And I think that while we are able to go ahead and celebrate the Ruth 66 celebration, we should as a board celebrate the 250th anniversary of America. I don't know why we didn't have a resolution on that. Doesn't make sense to me, but I think it's something that we should do. Earlier this month, uh myself and Frankie Pretzel brought forward um for a resolution for a moratorium on data centers that was not taken up. We do not have any kind of ordinance in place for data centers. So, I think we should have a moratorum on them until we have an ordinance. I spoke with land use staff. They don't have a lot of information about it. We don't know a lot of details about it. I know there's a proposed one possibly for out my way in uh county board district 2. And um we don't have any information. So, we need information before we could go ahead and do that. And then finally, I just I'm looking for a clarification here. And when we do the consent agenda, because it's a consent agenda, everyone in the committee voted yes. If nobody calls it to say had like four items pulled off or whatever, then it's just assumed that the consent agenda is a yes vote and we move on. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll Yes. Okay. So then my question becomes when we went into the consent agenda first consent agenda we did not have a clean roll call. There was a no vote and an abstain. So then when we go to the next item that's not a consent agenda. Does that bring the yes votes from all the consent agendas as a clean role or do we have to have a clean role? The the way I took it is that everyone intended to be a yes on those things for the consent agendas and then as we went forward because the consent agendas had gone forward. If somebody certainly wants their vote changed on that, I'm happy to deal with that as they come. I took that as you all intended to vote yes for the non-consent agenda.

I just I just wanted to clarify that because I I wasn't sure how that and we'll work with the clerk's office to make sure that we now break that out just so we don't have the issue again. I understand the confusion. Yeah. Thank you so much. Member Triner.

Thank you, Madame Executive. I am going to address the comments that were directed about me today. First off, the email that was shared, that charge was dismissed. It was shared by accident and it was dismissed. So, Mr. Ballage can consider continue to be angry and consider continue to malign me at every meeting if that floats his boat. But the voters in my district are returning me to the county board at least as a candidate for the November election. And as far as the um conviction of being of actually accessing Mrs. Ogala's email, I was testing that because I had heard a rumor that we all had the same email password. Miss Ogala was very aware of that. She knew it and did nothing to change it. And once I learned of this issue, I immediately contacted the county executive's office and the IT department. I consider what I did being a whistleblower. The fact that I might get punished for that, well, I won't be the first whistleblower in this country to be punished. Probably not the last, but um the fact that Miss Ogala, our speaker at the time, was aware of this.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And okay, guys, I just said it. I mean I I was just told that he has a right to speak in public comment but when another pitch I I don't speak but let's limit it to just board members. Let's not be

they aren't board. I asked the same thing and I was told by the same person who's now objecting it that let he has a right to speak in public comment. Make up your mind folks. I always said this is a if this is a decor this is how you want to run and conduct your last three minutes. This is up to you. But I try I I didn't like that. I don't like this. And again, these are board members. These are board members. This was your decision to allow it. And the same person who's getting talked about now was spoke up and say he can talk. So this is make up your mind here. Please finish. May I continue? Thank you. This was clearly a political attack by the Republicans and the Democrats jumped on board. That's okay. That's fine. But I was a whistleblower. I contacted the appropriate officials and once I did that, they immediately started giving everybody a unique password. Would that have happened had I not called and said something? No, it didn't happen until I called. So, thank you very much.

I am I am going to ask the leadership here to at least have a conversation when this is done about the direction of public of county board comment when moving forward. So, I mean, if we have to narrow it down and say we can only do ABCD, I am okay with that. I hate to do that, but I'm going to let leadership deal with that um moving forward because I can't have one person say something and say, "Let him speak and the other person reply to it and say, "No, now you can't say it." It doesn't work that way, folks. It doesn't work that way. So, uh member Burkowitz, we're going to hope you're going to circle this back. I thought, uh um another member was in front of me. I just saw the button.

I just looked at you. Sorry. You're right. I'm going to make sure I go in the right order. Don't worry. You're fine. They're all going to get three minutes. This one's equal. Everyone gets three minutes here. Order, though. You're up. Oh, but I I was You're fine. Um All right. Everyone get the same three minutes.

Um with the um with the item on the agenda regarding the strategic plan. I I thought that this was very a very appropriate time uh for me to to share my comments. Um the the issue we have here does very much involve the um integrity and the fiber of the county board and um this issue of behavior when it comes to each of us as an elected official. Um what we spend a lot of time doing instead of um you know focusing on lowering taxes, providing better public safety, better roads and infrastructure. Um, we we h have all these incidents that are distracting from our goal of serving our constituents and our own families and each other because I sit on this county board to represent every one of you in this room and I take it very seriously. We are all responsible to each other. Um, you know, trust in our elected officials is critical and trust extends to all members of our team. This includes the staff at the county. It includes all elected officials and it includes fellow county board members. The ability for our constituents to trust in their elected officials is also critical. This trust has been broken.

This has created a fracture in our rep reputation as servants to the community and I feel a personal personal strain in respect to that because I work really hard to do what I promised my constituents and the residents in this county what I promised them I would do. But this has been fractured. The public now views government officials as above the law. And this has to be resolved. We have to work hard to overcome this. There are many good people in government. And what's playing out today can't be ignored. We can't continue to sit in this room and attack each other. I've sat in this room and I've been called a racist. I've been called a a a white person and I'm not a white person. What is a white person?

You're you're at three minutes. to wrap up. Um, I'd like to ask for more time. I I have a three minute limit. It's our one opportunity to talk. Just can you please wrap up? If you have three minutes, we're trying again to follow the the rules that you set in place.

Fine, I'll wrap up. But again, I w I didn't uh support this during county board rules, and I'm going to just pursue that we uh change these these policies. So, we have a job to do here and we have to be on our best behavior. And I'm challenging everyone in this room to take that to heart. Make it your top priority. And if you've made a mistake, accept the consequences because our only goal here is to serve our constituents with integrity and honesty. Thank you. Member Revisit.

Thank you, Madam Executive. In the spirit of election day earlier this week, I want to reiterate that the people of Will County demand honesty, accountability, and confidence in the officials who serve them. In recent weeks, a member of this board was convicted on two counts of computer tampering for signing into a fellow board member's email account without permission. This is a class B misdemeanor. This has caused significant damage to our credibility of this board. I'm seriously concerned it will negatively impact our ability to work together and if this type of behavior goes unressed, uh, we have major problems. So, I am calling for Miss Jackie Trineer to resign immediately. Thank you.

Okay. So I'm before we go on, I'm going to read this to you and I'm going to again this is your rules that you have voted on. I mean again this is you guys aren't like some some congressional person to to who everyone's watching and fight. We are I get it. I get it. We all think that this is our our time to shine. But here are your rules that you have voted on. Members should observe the following rules of decorum. One address themsel address themselves solely and directly to the county executive or chair. They may not address other members, individuals in the gallery, or persons who might be observing through the media. Two, speak when recognized by the county executive, the chair during the county board meetings or by the committee chair at the regular meetings. Three, avoid characterizing another member's personal intent or motives and avoid discussing personalities. Four, refrain from speaking disrespectfully to the speaker, other members, or the county executive. Five, refrain from using profane or vulgar language. I didn't make these up. You folks did. You voted on them. So if you can't comply, then maybe you need to think about why you are sitting in this seat. Member Nquis,

thank you. I just want to give a shout out to one of my residents and a friend of mine, Marie Eolo. Marie turns a hundred today. She is still very active in the community. Um she has led a fascinating life. She um actually worked for the state department and taught school in occupied Japan immediately following the second world war to service members children. She then did the same in Italy. She is still very active. She's on Friends of the Library. She still votes. And I just wanted to say happy birthday Marie for the record. Thank you. There you go.

102 or 100? Sure enough to take my photo. Yeah. Right. Any of the leadership would like to speak? All right. Leader Williams, then leader Richmond.

Um, thank you. One of the reasons that I wanted us to have a strategic plan is so that we could possibly come together as a board and as we can see today um it is still very much needed. So I'm glad we're moving forward with that. I do think that um you as you said as the um executive said we did develop those rules and we should follow our own rules. Right now, the behavior that I'm seeing is behavior that we would not accept from children. So, we are responsible for our own behavior. If we don't like the things that are going on on the board, then we are the board. Then it is up to us to change that circumstance. We are the adults here supposedly. Um, I also to end up I just want to say it is women's history month. Being a woman, I'm very happy about that. And I think we have a lot of very very nice and smart and really really forward moving women on this board. And I'd like to see us come together to do better as women. Be an example for people because right now I don't think we've been an example for too many people. People are looking at this board and wondering just exactly what's going on. I'm on the board and I'm wondering the same thing. So, happy Women's History Month for all us ladies and thank you guys for at least agreeing to the um strategic plan. Now, let's make it a success. Thank you,

Leader Richmond. Great. Thank you, uh Herb. Uh I know the side streets over in your town, so I won't need that toll pass, but I will uh make sure I attend that VAC thing. So,

Oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much. you know, uh, we've just gone through election season and, uh, I I the the trust in government is at all levels has been dwindling for many years and I think, you know, this is the time that, you know, we need to all up our game, not only as as citizens of this country, as representatives of our districts as well as our county. I think it's it's time that we hold everybody accountable. hold them accountable for not only their actions but their behaviors. And in in situations like what we have right now is there there has to be some form of um discussion andor uh I know it's gone through the court systems and that and uh you know the the judicial system has spoken but I think the citizens also deserve a voice and this board deserves a voice and how we treat each other and how we actually um uh uh I don't say punish punish somebody But we we we've got to bring ourselves to a higher level or a higher standard. I've been in the IT world my whole career and passwords were always something that was unique to every individual and were never ever given out just as a blanket one um right right up front. Um there's a way to be a whistleblower. It's what you do is you go down to your IT department and you ask them for specific information. You don't go in as a rogue agent and just start, you know, um, pounding away on a keyboard. Um, I mean, I've worked in Fortune 400 companies and you would never consider even doing anything like that. I I I think what we need to do is up our game here, not only as a county board. I don't care if you're a D or an R. You need to bring your best behavior into this room. Represent our citizens, but also too is let's hold each other accountable for what we're doing and our

actions that we take. And if you think that there's something that you uh need to have be a whistleblower on, bring it to the right entity and make sure that that discussion is had. I mean, the I I've got a whole statement here. Um you know, we need to operate in good faith. I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, but if you're found guilty of doing something that's, you know, um been been handled by a judicial system, there needs to be repercussions and there needs to be uh some kind of um people hold people accountable. The community thinks that government there's two two levels of uh discipline for for them and for for others. And we we need to actually address this as a county board. And one of the things that we can do as a county board is actually censor somebody. And you know, maybe that is something that we need to consider. Uh because I I want to see us all elevate our game, make ourselves better as representatives of our district in that. And I I I hope that everybody can agree with me on the statements that I'm making. I'm not trying to lecture anybody. All I'm trying to do is tell you what I've heard when I'm out there talking to residents and citizens and that they're looking for a good place to live, a good place to raise their family. Illinois, we we've got I talk to people all over the country. We've become the laughingstock of of things and and I I'd like to see us figure out a way to resolve this. Jennifer, thank you for giving me the three minutes. and I'm more than happy to talk to anybody on how we can make this a better place to not only work but represent our citizens. So, thank you.

Thank you, Speaker Van Dyke.

Thank you again, Madame Executive. Um, this topic was not going to be part of my comments, but I feel there is a need. Um the the leadership has had many conversations on trying to get our caucus members to use the proper decorum and of course as we've noticed that you cannot control everybody on this board and their opinions and what they do say during comments. Um, I think the personal attacks in a public forum is absolutely uncalled for and to be sitting here and witnessing what just happened once again is very embarrassing to the to the Will County board and to the Will County residents and I just want to apologize to them. I hope um I hope the residents can pay closer attention to what is going on here at the county and let's start removing people that um want to act in a childish behavior. And and I'm sorry to say it, but that's exactly what is happening here. Calling somebody out in a public forum is once again uncalled for. We are here to legislate and if you want to use your three minutes and your opportunity to drag somebody through the mud in a public comment, I have zero respect for you. Hopefully, we can move forward and use better judgment and you'll never hear it coming from me. So, I hope you all follow my lead. Thank you. I'm going to I'm going to you guys put me in a very difficult position up here and I'm going to I'm going to echo that as well. Um we tried to behave to try to act in the behavior that we want everyone here to do it. Again, classroom teacher classroom management 101. And I agree, I am not here to censor people, shut them down. But again, this is a this is not a political forum here. We're not a political forum when we're in here. We're here to legislate and do

policy. So again, I I'm going to be I I am sure both sides are going to be disappointed in me. One, because I cut them off, two because I didn't cut them off uh soon enough. But I am expecting people to be adults. And this is not a political forum in here. So with that, we do have executive uh session to talk about pending legislation. I need a motion to go into uh litigation. Pending litigation. I need a motion to go in executive session. Motion by Winfrey, seconded by Costa. Madame clerk, please call the role. Richmond, Williams, Ogala, Pretzel, Butler, Newquist, Balich, Oxley, Brooks,

Winfrey, Bulock, Logan, Freeman, Revis, Ortiz, Burkowitz, Hickey, Costa, Traineer, Vanen, We're going to clear the boardroom and then we'll All right, we're now out of executive session. And with that, do you have a comment? Um, Speaker Vanine, there's no uh there there I just want to mention that there will be no action taken after executive session. Thank you.

Thank you. And here we are. With that, I need a motion to recess until April 16th. Motion by Axley, second by KOSA. All in favor? Any oppose? We'll see you next month.