County Board - Regular Meeting

All right. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Frankie. I normally don't like doing that, but. All right, good morning everyone. Thank you, Frankie. Uh, I'd like to call the will county board committee the whole meeting to order it. 910 if we can all stand for the pledge and, uh, Mr. O'Hare, would you like to lead us.

To the of the United States of America.

And to the republic for which it stands ancient. With liberty and.

Thank you, sir.

Can we have a roll call please?

Richmond, Williams, Dean Schlattman, Ogalla, Pretzel, Butler, Newquist, Valich, Oxley, Brooks, Winfrey, Bullock, Logan, Freeman, Revis, Mitchell, Ortiz, Berkowitz, Heer, Hickey, Costa, Trenier, and Bendine.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you. Looking for a motion to approve the minutes 26-5021, the Committee of the Whole, way back in December 9th, 2025. Motion by Trenier. Seconded by Hickey. Is there any discussion on the minutes? Probably can't remember that far back. Um, can I have a role please?

Richmond Williams. Dean Slapman. Pretzel Butler. Newquist ballot actually. Brooks Winfrey. Logan, Freeman, Revis, Mitchell, Ortiz, Berkowitz, Hickey, Costa, Trenier, And yes, motion carries.

Thank you. Um, now we'll open it up to public comment and I do know that we do have a variety of experts here this morning that would, uh, would like to present to the county board. So, if you're not a presenter, and you have something to add to the conversation from the public, uh, here's your opportunity. Does anyone want to speak to the board members?

Seeing none.

Okay, thank you. Old business 26 dash 49, 7902. this is merely a discussion establishing a will county land bank. We will not be voting on this today, but merely a discussion. So I think I would like to open it up to Mr O'Hare from the governmental league. Um, if you'd like to come up and. Give your thoughts. And we do have Kayla from the CED as well that will be chiming in as well. Do you want to would you like to start?

Yeah, I would like to start.

So full name please.

Of course. Uh, good morning. My name is Kayla Sorenson. Um, for those of you that don't know me, my, um, I am the vice president of external affairs for the Will county center for economic development. And I am here today on behalf of Doug prior, our president and CEO, who unfortunately could not be here today because he is out on medical leave. And so just before we begin, and I pass it off to you to just lead this discussion today. I just want to quickly recognize Doug's leadership on this while he is out of the office right now and his, his tremendous leadership and the amount of work he has put into this initiative to bring it before all of you today and get it to this point. Many of you have heard from him over several meetings over the past several months. You know, he has answered, you know. Been here many times to advocate for this initiative and answer so many questions and work collaboratively with. Are many municipalities and also organizations, such as the will county governmental league along with. Other stakeholders to help shape this proposal and strengthen it, but also to help mirror it to other communities that have similar proposals as this 1. so, while Doug is unable to be here physically today, I am proud to be here on behalf and advocate from the will county center for economic development. You know, the stance of the CD is unchanged and remains the same. We fully support that. And have the confidence in this initiative going forward, you know, we believe a land bank authority is an important tool for will county and our municipalities and it's proven best practices across the state. We've seen this implemented across Illinois. And I think you all are familiar with what will county center for economic development does, but we were established over 45 years ago and our mission is to support not only economic development, but strengthening our communities and providing resources for municipalities to use tools. And so we believe that economic development requires. Not only collaboration with organizations and with people like yourselves, but it includes innovation and coming up with new tools that can support our communities in a lot of different ways. And so the pros land bank is just 1 of those tools. You've heard that several times. This is a tool for our communities to use. And it's another option to address redevelopment challenges and support local priorities. And so this has been something we've been talking about for several years. So I'm proud to see that it's gotten to this point as well. And so I'm grateful to have you here with me today. He was worked alongside Doug over these many months to bring this proposal to you all. And while I have. Gotten up to speed very quickly in the last week or so. Um, I will allow you to lead the conversation and today's presentation, but I will be here on behalf of the CD to answer any questions. But I just want to say, thank you to all of you for your time. Many, many meetings now, um, and the opportunity to be here today and hope that you all will be supportive of this initiative.

So thank you so much.

So I will turn it over to you now and we'll be here. Yeah.

Thanks Kayla. That was a much nicer way than saying we're really sorry. You're getting the B team today. So, so if any of, you know, me, you know, I don't like PowerPoints or charts and graphs and this is a Doug prior presentation. So. I think we all know where this goes. So, for anyone that hasn't seen this presentation, we're going to go through it real quick. What is a land bank? It's it's an entity that's that's focused on returning to stress properties to to productive use think vacant houses think vacant commercial spaces basically functions as an enabler to redevelopment. It is not a redeveloper. It's not looking to be a long time property holder. The whole point of this is to put vacant and abandoned properties back into productive use. This isn't about taking people's homes. This isn't about trying to do anything with an unwilling seller. This is entirely about properties that have been vacant, abandoned, have property owners that are willing to sell a land bank doesn't have things like eminent domain. We're not trying to to go in and forcefully do anything. This is. All about properties that were able to purchase that simply don't have enough value in them to get a developer interested in fixing them up. Um, were there to be that gap between Tim if you want to go to the next slide. Um, you know, why a vacant abandoned properties are harmful. Uh, we all know that it can cause public health issues. It can cause, you know, issues with property values in the neighborhood, your overall fiscal stability, because you don't have that tax base there. Um, there's a lot obviously that goes into having a stable tax base, but this can be a piece of it. Um, I don't think any of us like the idea of having abandoned properties in our neighborhood. Uh, next slide. Um. What a land bank does is acquire them clears up tax and title issues, tries to stabilize and get the sites ready for resale. You can see the central Illinois land bank. A lot of what they do is tear downs. If you look at their website, which I know some of you have it, it has a lot of information about tear downs in their communities. This is something that there are areas. Where teardowns make sense in Will County, where we're maybe fixing up the house just isn't worth it and getting a torn down at this point is is where the value is. So. That that is something that a land bank can do. Preferably we'd like to see it be property that can be rehabbed and put back out there because anything that can be rehab can be done for a lot less money than than a full rebuild. Next slide. Um, why the current tools aren't enough a large part of it is that, you know, Illinois government is complicated and there's so many levels to it that sometimes getting everyone coordinated can be a challenge says the guy who runs the governmental league. Um, we. Between county townships municipalities, there can be some challenges, but this allows municipalities to have another tool when it comes to these types of ownerships strategically. We can put properties together. 1 of the folks who's with us here today was talking about a property yesterday where the village has something surrounded in 1 of our communities and is looking to just hold it. And now you got this owner sort of in the middle with left a bit in limbo. Putting those sites together is difficult, but, you know, you can see where a land bank may be able to step in and help assemble those sites. The benefits to the county is it's wholly a will county focused entity right now. Joliet, for instance, has a potential seat on the South cook land bank. Joliet and South Cook county long way apart don't have common interest per se doesn't make sense for them to to work with that land bank. That 1, there's also some criticisms of it of how long they hold property. By having it here by having it made up of people in will county by having it made up with the communities of will county, um. Those decision makers, it's very close to the residents. It's very close to the projects is the people who know what's going on. So, having our own makes a lot of sense. You'll hear that sort of around a number of will county related issues. And I think the coming years is, you know, it's time for will county to have its own of things as opposed to glom on to another county or another multiple counties groups. Next slide. Um, so this is just a little bit on the, um. On the tax foreclosure properties, that's the 1 that's gotten a lot of attention in practice. There are not that many tax for closed properties that are left out there in the county. Um, I believe Mr Brophy said at the last meeting, we're somewhere around 116. A lot of those are little strips or triangles left over by development. Um, those kinds of properties are ones you would see probably disposed of if they're going to be disposed at all via a side lot disposal program, which is what some communities have some land banks do it as well. Um, where the land bank steps in and works with the adjacent homeowner to take that property right now. A lot of that work has to be done by the adjacent property owner. And so this would allow the land bank to step in and help with costs and assist in getting those parcels disposed. Um, as I said, most of this will be focused on those vacant or abandoned properties that, um. Actually, you know, are what you would consider sort of your normal property, as opposed to those random strips that are left after the tax sales. Um, how do we structure it by public by public act? Um. They're all set up is intergovernmental partnerships. That means it becomes its own authority. Once this is set up, it's responsible to its board of directors who are then responsible to their communities. Um, so again, trying to be a broad representation of stakeholders, trying to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table. The next slide has just a list of some of the land banks that are around Illinois. If you look around the country, you can see they started on the East coast and have migrated West at a pretty good clip. Um, you can kind of follow the age of homes is, as you, as you see the expansion of land banks, um, because they are in areas where you do have older properties that have been, uh. Let go to sort of a point of uninhabitability. So how do land banks acquire property? The easiest way is donations and gifts, but as you can imagine, those are not the most common ways that we get there. Um, government transfers municipalities on property, the county owns property that you may want to transfer to the land bank direct purchase and then the tax foreclosure delinquency process again, I think direct purchase government transfers. Those are likely to be the, the. Sort of main ways that this land bank goes about getting property, the tax foreclosure delinquency process, because of what's left at the end of that after you, you have a chance for private developers to get in there. There's not. Sort of those normal full lots that are left where we're talking about those small little things. So I don't think that'll end up being a huge part of this. Uh, next slide, uh, so the request of the county is that, uh, it requires the county to enable a land bank. Um, so you would need to start it. Uh, it would then go out. We would start looking for other members to commit being in the municipal space as well as those other members that are listed in the ordinance. Um, who would be on there? Those would be professionals in banking, real estate, finance, et cetera. Uh, the folks that actually do the work in this space, and we have several of them with us here today to help answer questions. We have Bill Caton with us who does. I think all of, you know, a lot of commercial development around the county. We also have with us mayor Joe from University park, who does who's done a lot of work with something similar to land banking and we have Jen from the realtors and then, uh. From municipalities, we've got Jane Bernhard and I know Tom Durkin was here back there as well. I picked on Tom because Tom's a planner by trade and knows a little about land banks. The idea, though, is that in working together, you won't need a county department. We're not looking for extra dollars beyond the funds that the has an ARPA funds. The idea as far as funding is that this thing will become self sustaining in the future. The operating principles is the next slide again, focus on strategic. Pick up of problem properties, this is going to require intense working with our municipal partners to make sure that the properties are the ones that they would like us to target. Obviously, some delinquent or not. Like I said, not the delinquents, but the abandoned vacant properties, we want to go after those ones right away where we think we can have success. We do not want to become a land bank that holds property. The whole point of this is to get these properties back on the tax rolls back into productive use, whether that's commercial or residential. We do not want to be in a situation where a land bank is holding property for more than 2 to 5 years. We want to be able to turn these properties around as fast as possible. There may be 1 off here and there were a strategic hold is what a community is looking for and we can do that. But overall, the idea is to get these properties back out into the market. And then once they're sold back off, those dollars will replenish the fund to allow us to go back out and purchase more properties. Um, it sort of becomes a revolving loan fund for ourselves. The board structure, uh, I know is 1 of the slides. Maybe we missed that 1, Tim, or I have these papers in the wrong order. Either way, I'll just go over the board structure then, since I have that slide and it's not there as of right now and what's in your packet is you, you have the county board chair, their designee. Which is in this case, the speaker not sure why it says board chair, county, treasurer, county executive, or their designees the will county governmental league. And then, uh, every municipality that wants to participate gets a board member and then 5 experts, um, economic development, real estate, finance, banking, someone from the planning engineering world. Uh, someone from workforce organized labor, community development, someone in that space. Um. And some discussions we've had recently, we might recommend that you do to real estate, uh. Folks on there 1 in the commercial space and 1 in the residential space, because those are very different markets. And so having someone that specializes in residential, and then having someone that specializes in commercial, we think makes a lot of sense. As you can see, then, should you choose to do this? The next steps. Pass we pass this and then begin work with the to get this up and going. Um, we would house this at the to at least start and then as we, as we grow, uh, it can be spun off on into its own entity. I want to be very clear about 1 thing we want to crawl before we get to walking with this land bank. There has been, I think a lot of thought that this is something that's going to just jump out there and start buying up loads of property across the county. You know, we're talking it's number 1. we only have a 1Million dollars and I realize saying only a 1Million sounds silly, but it doesn't go that far when it comes to buying properties. We're talking about. Couple properties to begin with, and then preferably, you know, as we grow is, we can show to state and federal policy makers that grant dollars are worthy to come our way. We'll be able to do more, but we see this starting slow. We don't see this being anything. We're trying to rush or anything that we're trying to run before we can walk. Um, so we're really trying to be deliberate. We're trying to be slow about this intentionally so that we don't find ourselves in any position that we don't want to be into left with a bunch of properties that we can't get rid of. And then all of a sudden, our 1Million dollars is tied up very quickly in properties that we can't move. And now we're sort of stuck. So, we don't want to find ourselves in that situation. So we want to go slow. Um, and with that, I will open it up to any questions, comments, et cetera. And like I said, Mr speaker, we do have some, uh, some experts with us. I don't know if you want them to just be available for questions. I told them we wouldn't have them just have to make statements because I know your meetings can run a little long. I figured you didn't need. 5, 6 extra statements, but they are here to answer questions. Sure.

Yeah, I, I think that's the way to, to, to approach this. If you have a question, you were Kayla that maybe you feel better fit to have the, the real estate people come up. That would be that would be fine. So, um, by a show of lights, um. I'm probably going to need a book here to write everyone's name down. Um, I will go with, uh, member and then Richmond and then new quest. Uh. Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you. Mr. Speaker. Um, Hugh, uh, I have. Maybe a question or a statement. I'm not quite sure how to put it, but you were talking about the random strips of land that are left over and I've seen that book and you're right. It's about 100 and some properties, give or take. And I did have a talk with the treasurer, Mr. Brophy, and he explained to me why the adjoining homeowners wouldn't want that property. I'm wondering, and I'll explain to everybody else. They know what he said. Um, it was that if you give them that extra property, they now have to pay property tax on that extra piece of land and they don't they're using it for free right now. And they don't want to pay the property tax. I don't know if this is a question for you, or maybe something for some other department here at the county, but I'm thinking we could do a deal with these people where we give them the land. And we do, we vacate the property line, make it all 1 pin number. Uh, they don't like new pin numbers. I found that out as well. Find a way to keep the same pin number. I don't know if we got to talk to Congress about that, but get them to be able to keep their same pin number, give them that property and make it so that they don't have to pay the increase in the property tax until the property is sold after their death after they move on whatever the circumstance would be that way. It gets it off our books. Gets it on to a pin number, um, and doesn't cause any harm to the existing owner that's willing to take it on. So that's 1 question, I guess, to find out if that's even a possibility and maybe some of these experts know that. 2nd question, um, I'm aware of a property right in Bolingbrook where a developer built 2. Rows of condominiums, town homes. I think they were the 3 story type that you see a lot of in Naperville and then he built the foundation for a 3rd 1 and never ever built the building and across the street. I believe he also owns the court and there are 2 houses in that court, but it's planted for 5. so there's 3 other possibilities. This has been sitting like this for. Probably 20 years. Would this be the kind of project that you would be looking to take on? Because I don't think it's abandoned. I think he's paying whatever taxes. But I'd like to see this get developed. It's an eyesore for one thing, but I'd also like to see it get developed.

Yeah. So to your second, I'll start with the second one. Sure. Yes, but. You'd obviously have to see the reason that maybe they're not being developed is you have a property owner that just has an insane price in their head for what it's worth. And and that's why no 1 else wants to come in and pick those up. So, you know, not knowing all the details. Yeah. Yes, but if if they were available for, uh, an amount where it made sense and where the math played out, if you did then get a developer in there and, you know, uh, the land bank was able to work with them to get those developed. Absolutely. If the math doesn't work out, obviously you wouldn't want to. Yeah. Because you'd want to, um.

You want to make money, you want to put money into the system so you can do more projects.

Yes. And in the situations where maybe the land bank's willing to take a loss or at least a little bit of a loss on a property, you'd really want to make sure that you are getting a lot back for it, that it was going to really help out the community in some way. So assuming you sort of measure all those things out. Yes.

Okay.

Um, but with all those caveats attached. The question about the holding off on the property taxes, the county could obviously put a program into to hold back your property taxes. The problem becomes that you've got all the other all the other taxing bodies. So you'd have to go get everyone to agree to waive their property taxes on that. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? No. Um, maybe if if we worked it correctly, but, um, but just for now that those properties are never going to bring us any to be fair. I don't as I said, I think the tax delinquent portion. Has been heavily focused on in discussion, but in reality is not not a big part. It's not going to be a big part of what the land bank would be after.

I'm supportive of the concept. I know that several of my colleagues have some concerns. They have some ideas that they'd want to add to the agreement, the IGA. But I am supportive. And as long as we can get those other issues taken care of, then I'm going to be a yes vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Leader Richmond. Good morning.

Thank you, Jackie. That was a great idea. That was something that I had written down before and had spoken with a couple of folks is having the local jurisdiction get involved the assessor, whoever the right person is, because I always believe in the term. Nothing's impossible. So now we do is we go and we let the, the closest jurisdiction handle the dissolution of this pieces or slivers of property because I'm sure there's some labor costs involved things like that that. You know, can be quickly and easily eliminated, take headaches off of staff's desk and all that kind of stuff. So. I just wanted to comment on that, but so, uh, you and Kayla, thank you for coming out today. I appreciate it. Um, and it's a. Sorry to hear about Doug's health issues, but, uh, hopefully Kayla, you can answer go through some of these questions and that, um, I know you weren't. Doug is the spearhead on this, right? Correct. Because I heard Jennifer say she wasn't involved. Doug was the spearhead, you were the kind of... We're cheerleaders. We're cheerleaders, okay. All right, so... Today, an enthusiastic one. An enthusiastic one, great, great. So under Doug's leadership, then I'd say probably 99% of this was his baby, I'll call it? Yeah, I'd agree with that. Okay, all right. So, I guess the, the question comes down is, is how much money did the receive from ARPA dollars in total back? And I believe it was 2022.

I see the executive behind you raising her hand 5Million.

Okay.

Okay, I wasn't here at the time, so can you help us understand how that other 4Million was used?

Um, I know that there are some funds that are going to a, uh, tourism, economic development, uh, marketing proposal. And beyond that, I honestly don't know. Yep.

Okay, no, no.

I'll take care of it here we go Great.

Um, so, yes, in addition to what hopefully will be a land bank authority, um. The marketing, um, that, um, is currently in the works. We also have a business retention and expansion manager that, um, that is on staff that we, um, that support small businesses throughout the county. Excuse me? We also work with work for services. So I believe it's the skill program. Does that sound familiar? Um, I think that's the name of it. Um, our, we have a software system called size up that we utilize as well. Um, it's a system that helps, um, small businesses with some, um, data and, um, you know, to help support them with different, um. Business expansion initiatives, um, and then beyond that. Um, our housing study, which just was completed last month, um, was something that we use our funding for as well. Um, I don't have the full list of all of the initiatives in front of me, but that are those were the extensive projects that we've utilized the funding for so far.

So, a 1Million dollars is the only amount that you'll be you haven't allocated or spent.

That is what we are allocating for the land bank authority.

So there's no other dollars.

Currently, I will have to go back and take a look. There are some dollars left over, but as of now, the proposal is to allocate a 1Million dollars to the big authority.

So, why are we in the 11th hour and all of a sudden we still have a 1Million dollars that are unallocated. I guess that's a, you know, like you said, you. It's a lot of money. It is, you know, um, it's not nothing. It's it's not nothing. And. You know, uh, I guess if all of a sudden you have a 1Million dollars left in your budget in the 11th hour, it's kind of shocking and surprising. Not the CD, so I understand the comment, but I, you know, I, I guess I have to direct my questions to you. Unfortunately. Yeah. I'm not sure what to tell you there don't not responsible for that. I know what I, what I kind of feel like right now is, is that. I've got the CEO of Pepsi standing in front of me, and I'm asking questions about Coca Cola. I don't disagree with you. Okay. Um. So, I know you're gonna do your best. Yep. Um.

And Jim, just, um, just so, you know, if there's questions that go unanswered, we can, we can follow back and try to get him. I, I, I, it's not the optimal situation.

I'm not trying to interrogate him. These are all the questions because what I did is I took. On my team, I took a phone ton of phone calls on questions about this. So what I tried to do is aggregate the questions, put them into buckets and then try and separate those buckets. So there was no repeating. I'm trying to streamline this actual conversation by having. Specific questions specifically that would been for Doug. But I still feel as though I can't just not let them go because everybody did their job. So I'm not trying to no, I'm not trying to box you in the corner. So I.

Okay.

All right. So, I guess so some of my other questions, and I, you know, I'll just kind of run through these, but I think maybe to your point, Joe is, is we may need to reconvene this meeting. Um, so we can have. You know, because I have, like, 2 pages of questions, and I know I forwarded some, or I shouldn't say, I Judy, I worked with Judy and with Vince and a couple other team players to try and narrow these questions down. I believe they were sent to Erica. Through Chuck or whatever, and they were kind of dispersed that way because I understand open meetings act. I just can't like. Throw them out to everybody, so I tried to make sure we follow the protocol and I can continue to answer as many questions as we can on Doug's behalf.

Okay. All right. All right. So, and on some of the funds, if you want, I know. Jennifer may be able to answer some of those. I don't know if you want, I think we've got, we've got a fair picture, a fair picture.

Okay. So, I guess now this is the drill down is is a little bit is. So, if you had a 1Million dollars sitting in account, was it in an interest bearing account? Yes, yes, it was. Okay. Um, so we have a 1Million plus laying around or.

No.

Is this is this a reimbursement? Jennifer then?

No, the county board.

No, no, no. I actually have the money in their bank. Yeah.

The county board allocated the money directly to them whenever we did it 4 or 5 years ago. So they have that money. It was giving them with clear direction. And I know Julie, you're looking confused, but that was a county board decision. So, um. Uh, we meet our bar as a, as a team with all these dollars we meet probably it was once a month. Now we're meeting every 2 weeks to know where these dollars are going. I have a regular conversation with people, like, with agencies that still have a lot of money and. You asked why 1Million dollars now is because and I believe Doug shared this with last meeting is because what they originally were intending was to help with the side and improvements to building, but it became too difficult because 1 was cost until you deal with with some of these entity procurement. So became too difficult. So he shifted right? Like, we all have with our, but, like, many agencies have shifted with our dollars. If what they did, we worked with municipalities throughout this county, helping a lot of your, your municipalities in what they wanted didn't work. So, instead of just taking the money back, we help them shift. And so this was 1 of those examples where it was shifted. It didn't what he originally intended for wasn't working. So this is what his solution was.

Yeah. So, was it in an interest bearing account?

Yes, I believe. Yes. Yes. Yeah. All right.

Okay.

But, and just like ours that that is separate from what we have to do with our brand reporting.

Just so I understand. Thank you very much for the clarification. Jennifer. So.

Um.

Oh, yeah. Good question. Vince. Is there a deadline when I know it's December? Whatever.

Yeah, we have to.

Yeah, we, it's not like we have to make a decision tonight or tomorrow or Thursday or that I believe I, um, and again, I'd have to look at the contract with because.

The board did it differently with with CD. Like I said, they gave them money. Most of these other entities where we are reimbursed. And so I would have to look at the contract again to see if it was like the other ones, which was about October. 30th, I believe is when every every dollar has to be spent.

Yeah, that's correct. Spent or. Identified and ultimately spent by it has to be spent.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Um. Because I am aware that cook county does have a land bank and their documentation is a lot more detailed than what we have in front of us. And I'd like to see as was that I know Doug mentioned sometime he looked at others and that and I think what we want to do is incorporate some of that language. Because I believe inside that the cook county language. It's very good. Um, and and helps define the role of the land bank under the, um, with a lot greater detail. So that would be something that I think we should consider. Um, so I know you can't answer this either here, but, um. So, what guard rails are going to be put in. From can the county put in to make sure that this thing stays on course aside from just putting on the speaker chair or, um, you know, because it is, it is, I'll say it's taxpayer 1Million dollars, but it's our 1Million dollars.

Yeah.

Um, and you're a not for profit and when I went to try and look for your financials books, income statement, things like that, you can't find that detail.

Yeah, so the, the. Governmentally set up separate from how this is understand all totally different, but, um, for the cook county. Um, as far as, like, the detail, if you're talking about things, like, um, you know, their policies and procedures manual, some of their, um, information that they have about how they'll acquire property. Some of the procurement stuff. Those are all things that we intend to do. Um, most of those are board functions is board of the land bank functions as opposed to the county boards functions. Um. It would be up to those individuals that are a part of and by individuals, I mean, individual communities, et cetera that are part of it. That would be responsible for developing those. Um. As far as guard rails, you, you have the ordinance of what we can do and can't do. Uh, if you want to change that, you're, you're certainly entitled to do that. Um. We have state statute that we have to follow the same as any other entity that's established in these types of areas. The Julia arsenal development authority is 1 of them. Yeah, it's 1 of these government entities that's. Separate from anyone else it's governed by its board. This would be a similar thing. Just you happen to be the ones that are creating it and sending it off.

Yeah. Okay. So, because, uh, going back, Joel, what I said before is, I tried to make this so that wasn't a, a free for all in questions. The questions that were provided were basically broken up into, like, 10 categories. Um, I believe who you have, I do get list. Okay. Uh, and I'm not trying to not let anybody else talk. I just how do you want me to proceed with these my suggestion, Jim?

And I want to say, I do appreciate you gathering all the questions coming from you, but I do see other members and that I want to be courteous. Yeah. If we can let the other members, maybe. Ask their questions and maybe it will cover some of yours and then I will absolutely give you the opportunity to finish up or we'll just play it by ear.

Great. Yeah. And that I just wanted to kind of. Yeah, I didn't want it to free.

Yeah, I appreciate that. So, let me move on and then we'll, we'll definitely come back to you.

Would you like me to just try and answer this list? Just go down it. Or do you want to okay. Yeah, no, I understand. I just didn't know if this was, you know, comprehensive.

If those questions don't get answered, then we'll let you follow up and try to answer them at the end. So I appreciate everybody's patience on that. Thank you, Leader Richmond. Member Newquist.

Thank you. I have two questions. One is. I'm generally in favor of this 1st of all, let me start out by saying, but my concern is will all municipalities that want to have an opportunity to participate in this a little bit confused about being a member and not being a member. There was a section about other governmental entities. So, if I'm saying, you know. Pre Illinois, and I want to participate in this. Do I just raise my hand and say, hey, I want to be a member.

Yes.

Okay, cool. That was my, that was a big question for me.

And then they would have to pass the to become a number, but yes, but there's no limit.

Like, in other words, you're not saying only the 1st, you know, 10 municipalities. Okay.

No.

Um, and then my other question is, I'm a little unclear about what the county's role is from a financial standpoint. I mean, other than, you know, the initial ARPA dollar grant, um, because I know you, uh, the land bank will have the ability to enter into loans and things like that. And eventually I'm assuming this will be self funding. But in the beginning is, is everything going to come straight from. That 1Million dollars, or are you looking to the county for any other type of financial?

No, uh, for certainly for the establishment of it. And then what we see is the foreseeable future. Uh, there would be no ask of the county for additional funds and we have no fiduciary responsibility. Correct. It becomes its own entity and it's basically no longer your problem.

Well, but I guess I was wondering, because since the county board will have board members on the land bank board, and I know that individual land bank members are not responsible. The land bank is as a whole that does not assume any other, like, uh, fiduciary responsibility on the part of the county.

Correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Those are my questions. Thank you. Uh, Mr Logan, did you want to I saw you turn your light off? Did you want to defer.

I can wait. Yes. Thank you. I can wait. Okay. Thank you.

Member Hickey. Good morning.

Good morning. So nice to see you.

Um, good to be seen if you're talking to me.

Thanks so much for being here and thanks for taking my call. I appreciate, uh, appreciated talking to you answered a lot of my questions. Um, I'm a big supporter of. Will county using this tool many of, you know, I come from Southern Illinois. We have the community I'm from has a lot of blighted areas that have. Grown over my lifetime, but they all started with 1 property. And if you can turn that around, you can really change the trajectory of a community. So I'm, I'm really impressed with the thought that's gone into this. Um, so I hope that we're able to address. This in a favorable way. Um. Right now, there's no single blanket law governing land banks right there. There's been a couple of house bills that have been proposed, but they haven't gotten anywhere. Right?

You do have the state statute that enables land banks that governs them. Yes.

Okay. Okay. Um, so. Um, 1 of the things that we talked about a little bit that I just want to make sure that that is made public is, um, the measurement of success of this tool. What what is the plan there? Is it tax based growth? Is it housing outcomes? Is it reduction in vacancies?

Yeah, I, I think that the reduction in blighted properties is going to be your measure of success because whether that means a tear down, whether that means a rehab, um, getting it back onto the tax rolls is is really the measure of success. Um, obviously, with a tear down, you're talking about a different level of impact on a rehab.

Sure.

But, um, getting those properties dealt with is the measure of success and. We're in a fortunate position in will county there's there's like, 1500 properties county wide that are currently listed as vacant or abandoned. So we're in a position where it's a very small amount relative to the number of properties in will county. So, you know, if you, if you tagged it to a dollar amount, it's, you're probably gonna look like you're not getting a lot done. But if you look at, we got. 6 properties off the. You know, out of out of a state of disrepair where they were abandoned or vacant or tore them down and. Put in a community garden or whatever, whatever you want to do. Sure. Um. those would be your successes and that's that's how you would measure it i think trying to tag a direct dollar value to it and say okay it's successful the minute it makes the million dollars back sure but um you know i think the value is in getting those properties back to be functioning and in some way whether it's torn down and cleaned up or or back on the market

So, qualitative rather than quantitative and much like all of us choose where we want to live. It's usually not with. A spreadsheet like my husband makes, but anyway, um, okay. Um, when I look at the, I did have a couple of areas that, um. Our concern just that I'd like to see tightened up and I know that when Mr and I talked a lot of these things, this is like, just. The start of this once the board is in place, those policies and procedures will be nailed down. But they're just a couple that, you know, the conflict of interest enforcement piece. It really doesn't say how it's going to be enforced. Um, it there are a lot there is a lot of information about, um, you know. That is going to be self at a station by the members. Um, and and. I wouldn't be as concerned about it, except that right now, the way that it's set up there, the board is only obliged to meet annually and the chair has interim policy authority. And so that's putting a lot of power in 1 person's hands. And I know we're talking. About small transactions at the beginning, but I just wanted to know, do you have any thoughts about. Tightening that language up or yeah, I, I think.

When it comes to, like, the frequency of the land bank meetings. Yes, it's required. You have to meet once a year per ordinance. That's in practice. That's probably unlikely.

Okay.

Um, maybe 1012 years from now, if you have a land bank, that's function great and we're wrapping up and hopefully getting the last properties out the door or whatever and they only need to meet once a year. So be it in the beginning. They're probably going to need to meet much more frequently. You're certainly going to have to have a lengthy discussion about bylaws and procurement policy for how you're going to purchase these properties and all these other things that are going to have to be. Be decided, so I, yes, it says you have to meet once a year. I envision this is meeting much more regularly for a significant. Period of time, you know, certainly the 1st, couple of years, they're going to have to meet more regularly just to come up with the basics of it. You know, that's going to take multiple meetings. So. You know, whether you put it that they have to meet once a year, twice a year, 4 times a year. I don't know. I'm not huge on prescriptive meetings, but, um, I think that, you know, it will meet regularly. The meetings have to be open, um, you know, as far as the conflict of interest. Ultimately, all you can do really is have the people attest that they're that they don't have a conflict. Um, you know, the board meetings, you have to do it at the beginning of every meeting. Does anyone have a conflict today? Um, and is with many boards, you sign a conflict of interest policy every single year. Uh, so I, I think that as long as you're doing that, and as long as there's a paper trail for, if there were ever a problem, or an acquisition accusation of some type of thing that we had all the documentation that that says that we were told that they weren't, um, you know, ultimately you can't stop someone that's gonna. do something untoward. Sure. But looking at who the makeup of this is going to be, I'm not particularly worried about that happening.

Right. Much like most, well, all of this body has to sign the statements of economic interest annually. Those are all done. And then, you know, nobody is actually going through and going through our bank accounts necessarily. But it is Something that is enforceable. So that's okay. And then the only other issue is, is audits and public facing information. And I know this gets tricky, especially when we're talking about properties that may be in the selection process. Because obviously, we don't want people going out and purchasing adjacent properties because, you know. Uh, at a discount when this, this improvement is coming to town. So, do you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, I think when you put if you put the audits out and you put what properties you have, people are going to know already. So, I mean. It's not like they're not going to know that these have been purchased. You have open meetings. So I don't think that would be a huge issue. I think that if you look at the other ones, and the amount of public facing information that they have that is out there, there obviously are things, you know, everybody can have everybody like this can have an executive closed session where, you know, maybe some of those things get discussed. Um, but even that ultimately, at some point or another ends up as public information. So, um. You know, I, I don't think there will be a problem getting all that information out to the public and doing it in a way that's responsible so that we're not shooting ourselves in the foot.

Absolutely. Absolutely. But is there a plan for auditing.

Yeah, there will have to be audits conducted. Yes.

Okay. And did I just is that in the, or did I just miss I believe it is in.

Uh, Kayla is telling me 10.08.

Does that conclude your question?

It does. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Great. Yeah. Um, moving on to Mr. good morning.

Good morning. Uh, I know Eric is going to talk later about the equity problem. You know, with the Supreme court ruling with Hennessy and, uh, Tyler, but, um, I have a question earlier when you started this, you and just probably goes to Kayla. Um, you're going to be self sustaining eventually. Um, how will you be self sustained? When a policy for me to vote on it, I want to see that the county has no responsibility for liability at all. And the county has no tax dollars that will ever have to go into it. And I want to see the word never go into it because otherwise it becomes a burden on our taxpayers. And, you know, like, when you're talking about, you know, you're gonna get rid of these blighted properties. Well, there's a lot of money in land. So the equity in that plus the cost to repair things, you only got a 1Million dollars. You can probably only do 5 houses or the very most 10 houses.

So. The equity issue applies to the tax sale properties. If the land bank comes in and purchases a property from a willing. Seller, which is there's no eminent domain here. There's no for sales. If you're going in and purchasing it from a willing seller, you don't owe them anything beyond that.

But we're saying that we're not take it. If the county takes the property and you're getting it from, we're not, we're not for the.

Minus the 116 properties that Tim has, we're not touching any of the properties and probably those we wouldn't touch either. Um, the tax delinquent properties. All right are the least likely scenario for the land bank to get property. Um, because you don't want to jump in where the market's already working for it's working. So you don't want to be in a situation where you're bidding against private investors. You don't want to find yourself using public dollars bidding on price. You just don't want to do that. Right? You want the market to work is the market should work. So. There really aren't properties that have value in them that are left after that happens is Mr Brophy said at the last meeting, these are properties that no 1 will pay 800 dollars for which is 801 dollars or something. 810 dollars for, um, so. And those properties are the ones we're talking about the 2 foot by 10 foot strips or or things like that, where it most you're just going to be trying to to move them as we talked about with miss trainer to to your neighbor or something like that. The vast majority of these properties would be things that the land use would, or that the land bank would purchase at. You know, just that are available out there today. So you don't have that that problem that comes up with the equity in it. Like, the, the Hennepin versus Tyler case.

I get that. So, in other words, you're just buying property at a low price because owner glad to get rid of it. Correct. Okay. So that works. Yes, but the county, I don't ever want to see the county liable for anything. And I don't want to see any tax dollars go if we're going to do a land bank, it's got to be the land bank that's responsible for all the liability and all the money and any lawsuits.

Yeah. So it becomes its own entity separate from the county. It's no longer connected to the county in any way when it's created. It's its own. Entity, it's not a division of will county. It's it's it's its own.

section of government for lack of a better term so when you buy a piece of property what you're talking about that's basically how you become self-sustaining you buy a piece of property for ten thousand dollars sure the land's probably worth twenty thousand say and then you turn around and you put a house on it or rental or something and then you sell it to a you sell it to a broker That's going to sell it and make some money. That's how you're going to be. You make a profit off of. Yeah, so basically, it's the same thing as a real estate company that goes in and buys blighted properties.

It is, but what you can do with a land bank is. 1, only try to get your money back. So if you eliminate some of the profit. Desires of of the private market, you eliminate that you can, you can get them for a little less right? Um. The land bank is there to help fill in that gap where. If the land banks able to purchase it. Able to work with a developer on it and get it back. Yeah, it's similar to that, but it's, it's, it's. when you take out the need to make money, you can get them back on the market quicker. You can get them back for less cost. And ideally you're only going to get back what you put into it. So that effectively it's, it's just rotating the million dollars over and over.

You're not going to buy something for $10,000, put $20,000 into it. That's 30,000. Yeah. And then not sell it for less than market value. Yeah. which would be maybe 100,000 dollars. So you're going to be selling things. You're going to sell it for close to market a little, maybe 10% less than market value. You're not going to give it away for what you've gotten into it. No. So you're going to make your money like a real order would do when they buy property. So, I get it.

Yeah.

And there's, I just want to make sure the county has 0 liability for anything and 0 tax dollars.

I'm being told if you review in the. In the section 10.06 that may explain what what you're looking for. Do you have a does everyone have a copy of the in front of them? It's on the agenda, so you might want to review 10.06 and see if that satisfies your question.

Member Winfrey good morning.

Good morning. Thank you. Excuse me. You just a couple of quick questions 1 is. The county is going to create the ordinance that sets up the land bank and how it operates. Is that correct? Yes. And then within that ordinance, we have the opportunity to just designate separate sections for residential land banks and for commercial land banks and what those guide rails would be. For example, in our residential land bank, we can say, if the property is in a single family home area, That no other property can be built on there other than single family, or at the most 2 unit, or it can become a park or whatever something like that. Is that correct?

Uh, it no, um, as far as what you could build on it, it would be whatever is allowed within the zoning. And we would work with the municipality on what they would like to see in that space. We don't want this to be build act will county. This is meant to be working with municipalities as partners.

Okay.

So, so. You know, if we were to build 1 in a neighborhood where, you know, yes, you have single family homes, but they've been turned into apartments or subdivided, you know, um. Maybe you do put up a 2 flat or a 3 flat, but again, you would do that in conjunction with the governing body of that community. So, depending on what the municipality wanted for that area, that's that's what we would attempt to accomplish.

So we wouldn't exceed existing regulations.

No.

Okay. And then the last piece would be that if I, if we're using the land bank, it would be a way of steering. To improve stress communities, for instance, if a neighborhood is starting to turn down at the heels, so to speak, we could target some of those places and lift them back up. So that neighborhood does not go to slum or the same thing with commercial property. If we have a strip mall, and so many pieces of it have become vacant have. Abandoned we can pick those back up and improve the overall look at the street of the neighborhood, whatever correct and so and again, We are not a part of the money this because I don't want to manage your budget or the budget. This is just about us being able to put together an ordinance that says how we want to operate in conjunction with. All the other municipalities in will county in order to provide a way for us to put. Property back on the tax rolls.

Yeah, and just to be clear, when I said the commercial side and the residential side, that was my suggestion is that you, you change the language to include 2 realtor professionals on there 1 from the commercial side and 1 from the residential because those are all very different.

Right, but we could do a subset in the ordinance that devise them as well. More or less that we can require, maybe that's a better way to say it so that we are separating residential commercial. So that people understand that the same rules do not apply for commercial and residential. Well, they, I mean, in terms of what the guardrails are. Yeah, so it's commercial and by that, I mean, if it's a commercial area, obviously, we want to go back and commercial unless that municipality is changing the look of that neighborhood. Or if it's residential, we want to continue with residential unless that municipality has designated that to be something else.

Yeah, we'd have to follow all. All local zoning we would, you know. Whether it's their zoning rules, or their comp plan again, we have to work with the, we would work with the municipality. So, if the property is commercial, and they're like, they want it to be more residential in that area. We'll do what they tell us to do basically is it's where we're at.

Good. Thank you.

Thank you member Berkowitz. Good morning.

Good morning. Um, I've got a few. Questions for you, but also for treasure brophy. Um. There's a couple of things I'm not clear about so. You. Indicated that the properties would be, uh, you would have a representative from the municipalities. So, let's say the properties located in new Linux, you would confer with new Linux. What about the properties though? That lie in unincorporated and would come before. The jurisdiction of the county board, the land use development committee, are we giving that up? Because I don't see how the county has no. No relationship to this land bank.

No, you the county, you'd still have to go through all the normal processes procedures for any type of. Redevelopment, or even to get a tear down permit, we'd still have to come back.

It's going to come before the land use.

Yes, it would go through your normal process.

Okay.

Same as any other. Private citizen developer, whatever your normal rules are, the land bank has to follow them.

And if the bill deck does come back and they do pass it. All of this is irrelevant anyways.

No, no, that that that's not true that the bill act is very different from land banking. The build act is prescriptive zoning the.

Land will still have to comply with the build act if they do bring it back and get it past the municipalities would have to comply with the build act.

The land bank would then have to comply with whatever the zoning regulations are for each individual community, which would go to state statute.

Um. Okay, so. Some of the questions I have, you mentioned that other communities have similar proposals. I'd like to know who the. Which communities who they are. And are they communities that would join this land bank if it was created?

Are you talking about when I said that Joliet has the opportunity to go to a different- You mentioned other communities.

Yeah. You didn't say week one.

Yeah. Mayor Rudez is here. He can- He's behind a pole back there, but University Park, he can maybe talk about they've had. Success, so University Park is 1 that has said that they might be interested communities are going to have to look at their what they have, what the land bank can do and see if it's if they even have properties in their community that they want to use for a landing. There are a lot of our communities are in the great position. They don't have a need for the land bank. The land bank is only going to help those communities that didn't that want slash need this help.

All right. Thank you. And then, um, you mentioned Joliet is in the South cook land bank.

It could be there, but they do have a potential for a seat there. Yes.

Okay. They're not in it yet, but there's potential, but, uh, you mentioned that there's a criticism on how long they tend to keep their properties. Um, so that. Indicates to me that that's an issue. Um, if there's an issue with a land bank, keeping properties too long, how do we prevent that from happening here? So that's a concern. Um, I. I think we need more information about that because if that's an existing problem, we certainly want to be proactive and make sure that we don't get in that same situation. Um.

I would, I would recommend look at the central Illinois land banks, policies and procedures that they've established.

My point is that if it is an issue that is occurring, then there's.

And they have taken care of in there. They have a in their, their rules. They have a 5 year limit that that they are supposed to be holding property for.

Okay. So perhaps staff can provide that with us with the board members. And then you mentioned a. What is a strategic hold? Um.

I'll give you an example of this was years ago. Uh, the village of bowling brook was. Uh, made sure that they held on to property that they had at. 355 and mountain road that became the Ikea, the promenade all of that. Um. For years, they held off on developments at that property because as it any. Interchange you're going to what's going to show up gas station McDonald's. Some other fast food thing, et cetera, they strategically held on to some of that property so that they would have. Uh, that to turn into retail development, because they wanted that to come there. They knew that at some point, 355 would expand. You'd have all this traffic, et cetera. So that would be an example of strategically holding on to property. Other communities have properties where they. You know, for just as an example, they may think that they need a public works facility down the road or something like that, where they're holding property. You can do that same thing in an area where, you know, it's going to turn into commercial retail or residential. And if you want is a community to really. Do something specific at that site that the municipality may want to purchase that property themselves, particularly if it's a vacant property, they may want to purchase that hold it so that they can control what goes it that specific, um. Corner that set of parcels so that you don't just get whatever the 1st guy to come along and purchase the property and. Want to put something up there, so that would that would be an example of a strategic hold in those cases. You may hold them longer than 5 years. But again, I don't think that would be a big. A portion of what the land bank would do, because municipalities can do that largely on who is responsible for the tax that the taxes for that land. If a municipality owns it, it's it's their property. If the land bank owns it, it'd be whatever rules govern the land banks tax responsibility.

Who who would that be if the land bank owns it?

So, if the land bank owns it, it's the land bank, um, the way I understand it isn't going to pay the property tax on it because it's the government owning it. Um, so that period of time, you wouldn't be getting it.

We would not be. Okay. Yeah, we wouldn't be collecting any property tax on those parcels the way I understand it. Yes. I, I think we need to have more clarification and and. Thoroughly think that through, because that that puts additional burden on the surrounding area and the taxpayers there. Um, you mentioned with the 1Million dollars, you can only start out with a few properties. How many would that be?

How much would the 1Million dollars be able to you mentioned it would only be a few. It depends. What the, the properties that the members wanted us to to go after initially would be. You know, I can't tell you that it's we're going to buy 5 properties for 100,000 dollars each. We don't know what properties we're going to buy. We don't know which community is going to sign up 1st to be a member or sign up last. You know, it, it depends on on. What communities join and what what properties they prefer us to go after.

Thank you so, um, I've got other questions, which I would like to, uh, provide so we can get answers in the future regarding this. But just to finish up, I have a few concerns that I want to run past, um, the state's attorney and also treasure brophy. Um, given that this is something that the will county board. Is. By our vote, creating another intergovernmental body, which is going to be handling properties that may not even be paying property taxes. I have a lot of concerns and I'd like, I think the county board needs to be able to have the opportunity to talk with our state's attorney. I would like to see copies of the state statute so we can review them. There was also a state statute that. Uh, you, you referred to, I'd like to have that state statute be able to read it and understand it and then also. You know, be able to discuss this with our state's attorney and make sure we are all on the same page and we have our questions answered. Does that sound fair? Kevin? You're shaking your head. Yeah. Okay. Okay, well, thank you because this we are, we are creating another intergovernmental body, which does not ever really come back to the board for any, um, any approval or section. The 1 section. Section 6.03, I'd like to discuss with you. I really think that. Under that section that those. Those directors should come back. Before the county board, um, not elected between the pool of. Uh, within the, uh, the land bank now, if there's no concern with that, that's great. But we. I think we need to be able to have a discussion about that and have. Completely understand, um. All of the elements of this land bank, and then the last question I had was for. Treasure broke trophy if he could come up to the podium.

I don't see here. Sure. And and I, I think it's been stated many times that this, this board of the land bank is made up of. All the municipalities that want to partake in this program, um, and for the county board, tell the municipalities. You know, to have it to have them to come back to the county board for any such approval. I mean, we do have a separate committee that's made up for the land bank and those, those mayors and those participants. They know better on what properties they would like to see.

I understand. But but when we're allowing. A land bank to take properties. Off of the tax rolls and hold them for an undefined amount of time. That's putting a burden on the taxpayers, the existing, the surrounding taxpayers. We have to take that very seriously. So, thank you. I look forward to that. Opportunity to to. You know, talk to the state's attorney and answer all our questions. Um, so, uh, again, uh. Treasure profi, thank you for being here. Okay, so now we have had, it's been mentioned again that we have 116 parcels. Um, basically, most of them, I guess our side lap parcels and we have 1500 listed vacant or abandoned. I've asked that the board members. Be provided that information, but I still haven't seen it. So I'm asking again, I'd like to just have that information given to us as a board where I'd like to see. Sure. Is there what's in North Naperville?

I, I want to understand the surplus property book comes out once a year. Um, you're. No, you can provide it to us, I think, and we can get the addresses from the trustee trustee holds and then for the rest of the year, those that don't get sold are held and those are the 160 we were talking about. They're still held by the will county trustee. We can get you those addresses. Certainly.

Absolutely.

Some don't have addresses there.

Okay.

They're described as, you know, by measurement.

Can you add the county board district?

It's in is that I will ask the trustee if you can do that. Yeah.

And and also the 1500. That are called vacant or abandoned. Um, why would you differentiate this 116 from the 1500?

So, the 116 have been through the cycle. They didn't pay taxes. They went to tax sale. Nobody bought them. We held them for 3 years. We put them in a surplus book and they're still not purchased. Um, those other that estimate of 1500 vacant and abandoned. Are private, we, we have no information about those. That's an estimate. I believe from C maps community data is estimated there that many in will county. What do you mean?

We have no information about them.

Well, we have 284,000 parcels in will county. This 1500 is is what is calling abandoned or. Otherwise vacant, but I don't know what their data is where they get their data. We know. But so apparently municipalities and we'll, we'll provide this information to them. And I, I don't know if see map is something we have access to is anybody know we've so okay.

So the county, however, still. Um, have the possession of those 1500 properties.

No, those aren't those are still in private hands.

They're in private hands, so you don't ever issue a property tax bill. There's no document. We send bill. Well, that's what I mean. We still have. There's there's still they still answer to the county, the county and. Should be paying property to everybody else. They are paying taxes.

The taxes are being paid, but they're vacant. Or abandoned, and so I think in this country, I can own a piece of part piece of property and leave it vacant as long as I. Cover my obligations of maintenance and paying property taxes. So you can't force me to do anything with it, but it's vacant. It just happens to be vacant. So, there's nothing on it yet as far as the building improvement. So, nothing wrong with a vacant piece of property. Um, the abandoned ones.

Uh, I imagine are those the property taxes that abandoned?

Yeah, if they, if they weren't paying taxes, they would be sold at the tax sale.

Okay.

They would be part of the 116 that they go through the process. Yeah. So, we know a lot about them once they failed to pay taxes, then we know a lot about them, but as long as they're paying taxes, we don't know. I don't know if your neighbors are paying there. It, you know, there are a lot of parcels and a lot of different municipalities that may be included.

Well, I have a great suggestion for the 116 properties. Um, we did this in Chicago. They'd make nice community gardens work with for age for age is a great organization. They're out there. They work in the urban environment. Um, it's a great opportunity. People want more open space. They're tired of development and it may be a great accent in those areas. Um, I think it's something we could look at and, um, my, you know, my biggest concern is we're taking. Taxpayer dollars 1Million to start this. To start this, and, uh, I, I really have a lot of concerns about that.

I think you need to look at the alternative because these are parcels that aren't in use now. Some of them are not paying taxes now. Um. The alternative is what mayor Joe from university park had 200 and somebody took office. They're down to the teens now, because of this effort that they've made through a land bank. So he can tell the success story. And so there's. There's some success there that we may want to follow. Thank you.

All right, I had member Ortiz next. Are you ready?

Thank you chairman Van Dyne, but I just start off with saying that that suit really just makes the blue in your eyes just pop.

So what do you want? Yeah, that's. Last week, I was a 50 year old man sitting up here.

Joe, Joe, we're moving forward. That's strategic plan. We had a good day yesterday. Me and you. Um. You know, you have you have children, you know, what's coming next? I was going to ask if we could please take a 5 minute break just to use the restroom. Also, though, if it is possible, if not totally fine, if at all possible, could we please maybe put my green line addition just so I can run through it fairly quickly. I don't believe I have many questions. Although actually, I do remember Hickey just brought up a point and I just wanted to clarify. Is this at all any different from the 1 that was posted in July?

The July meeting yes, I'm not sure why to be Frank. I don't know, but it is different than the 1 from the last meeting. Some of the sections were moved again.

But the language is all the same, right?

There are a couple changes. Based on recommendations at the last executive committee meeting.

Okay, okay, because my suggestions are going to be based off of the last, so I'm not sure what was added.

I, if we could, I would like to get those red line just so we can be clear the, the agenda that's or the, uh, uh, resolution that's posted online in this. In this item here is the red line version based upon. The amendments that were suggested at the last, uh, at the last executive committee meeting. That's correct. Jackie. I don't think they are red line. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at a red line 1. yeah. Yeah, well, it was, it was the speaker was the 1 thing and then there was 1 other issue.

Oh, so there was only 2 red lines.

Yeah, there are only 2, 2 red line issues from the last executive committee. And the governmentally correct, right?

So, I don't think there was changes that I don't think. And I'm sorry, member Ortiz, what did you ask for your, um, so I, so I had sent out a, um, a few documents, but 1 of the documents was actually, like, uh, language written into the actual. Uh, just some suggestions that I think we could consider and I think that most of us would agree upon as I'm hearing the discussion moving forward. I don't want to take up too much of the time, but I did just kind of want to brush over them just so that everybody knows what's in it if possible. If not totally. Okay.

Let's see if we have access to that.

Okay. But could we take a 5 minute break possibly?

Are you folks okay with taking a 5 minute recess so we can brush up and and whatnot and maybe. you and kayla can get some more water or that all right um let's let's recess uh until 10 40. give us 12 minutes thank you mr chairman all right okay

Please.

All right, um, back from recess at 1044, uh. We may continue, uh, before we, uh, before member, uh, continues, we do have some folks in the audience. Um, and there are kind of a time crunch. So I want to just give them an opportunity to to say a few words before they go. So, uh, Mr.

Yeah, 1st up, I'll ask Mary Joe from the village university park to come up. Joe's got a lot of experience in the community working to take over blighted properties and the successes that they've had. So, Joe, if you want to come up and he's just going to say a few words about the success that they've had in university park.

Well, good morning and thank you for the opportunity to share my success stories. When I took office in 2019, it was listed that we had over 200 boarded up and abandoned properties in the village of University Park today. I can probably say that those properties are back on the tax roll. We have less than 20 board up and abandoned properties now, and development is soaring to new heights in the village of University Park. We have attracted new families. They're paying taxes now. And it's a great operate as a great tool to use for everyone. And I do have a couple of bullet points that I would like every board member to just take into consideration. If you just give me a few minutes. The land bank would return properties to productive use. A land bank is not a traditional financial institution. It is a public redevelopment organization created to acquire, hold, manage and transfer properties that the private real estate market has been unable and unwilling to address. A well county land bank could help acquire vacant, abandoned and tax delinquent properties. resolve title defects, unpaid taxes, lanes, and other obstacles, secure and maintain properties until redevelopment occurs, demolish dangerous properties, structures that cannot be rehabilitated, rehabilitate salvageable homes and commercial buildings, assemble multiple partials for larger development projects, transfer properties to responsible homeowners, business, nonprofit organizations, and qualified developers, return previously unproductive properties to the tax rolls. The purpose would not be for the county to accumulate properties indefinitely. The purpose would be to move property from abandonment and uncertainty until responsible ownership and productive use. I'm living proof and I would be the 1st, when that's the county in wheel county to participate in the land bank. So I would ask you guys to take that into serious consideration. And I think that every resident. In the township or municipality would greatly appreciate it because no 1, no matter what community you live in, or what township wants to have boarded up and abandoned properties and that thing. So, I appreciate you guys just give me a few minutes on my experience. What's going on? Because university park is home to governor state university. And we've taken those and boarded up and abandoned properties. And now we've got students in the properties. We've got professors in the property. So it's a win-win for every opportunity. And it's just a way to transform communities into what people actually move into communities for. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Mayor.

And if you'll indulge us 1 more time for we have Bill and Jen, whose last name I'm blanking on at the moment. I've been standing here a while right now. I knew it was a V to discuss a little bit from the realtor perspective. Some of the projects that they've seen be successful with this, both on the residential and commercial side. So. Much like the prices, right? Come on down.

I am the president of 3 reverse association of realtors and I own town center realty, which is right down the street here in downtown Juliet. And, like they said, I'm more residential bill is obviously a commercial legend. So, Bill, do you want to come up and.

Good morning. Everybody Bill, Kate and with Kate and commercial been in this industry for 42 years. Some of the rocks were still warm along the river, but I've seen a lot of these institutions right here in will county. I've dealt with them over the 40 years. Some of the names. That you might remember is the old holiday in on the Northeast frontage road drop 52 and I 55 that sat there as a defunct hotel went to a day and week and monthly rentals. Shorewood had police department there every day or multiple times. Same thing with another 1 of my properties right down the street from that more recently developed, which was the old Howard Johnson. I remember in the 70s going there and having a smorgasbord and on Friday nights and so forth. Same thing investor there bought it from the tax sales on the North side of Chicago. It he overpaid for it. He went to weekly and monthly rentals. Same issue. Buildings with a lot of maintenance and so forth that property sat there with under full value and actually discouraged other developments in the area. We finally brought in a user, which was you haul. They cleaned up the site. It looks pretty. I can remember being at 1 of the Juliet meetings and 1 of the council members said, well, gee, that's the interest to our city. We really like to have had, you know, white table cloth restaurant right there and. You know, again, without the right incentives that would never have happened because you have the airport behind you. You have a little vacancy. You have the, the, uh. Funeral, um, the burial grounds. Okay. What's the word cemetery? Thank you. All right. Uh, so those are just several old examples. All right, but we can go to things today. I'm working with, uh, a, a group of private individual that has village property surrounding it. The village wants to get rid of it. Private industry individual is retired to close their business. Uh, and it in that the property is great position and location, but until a master developer, somebody comes in and takes out that private owner, it is not going to go in the market. Okay. Uh, so those are just examples. Okay. Privately myself, um, I just recently bought a property in Homewood. Because I've known that mayor for 30 years, he called me up and said, we have a village property. We bought from taxes. It's in a jewel anchor center. It's causing property or properties next to it to go down. People have left. He said, give us an RFP and so we went there and presented to that and I put together a partnership. We put a 1Million dollars into that property, new roof, new sidewalks, new parking lot, new signs, new pylons, new landscaping. Um, so now that property is being leased out and, uh, the properties adjacent to us are also getting interest. So these are some of the success stories that can happen in will county. All right, uh, the tax dollars and Julie mentioned, you know, taking things off the roles. It's just pausing them because once they come back on the roles, they're going to come back, you know. Fit sometimes 15 fold, you know, you take 1 property and put a hotel on it. Okay. And you're looking at 300,000 dollars a year in tax revenue and a property that's generating maybe a 1500 a year right now. So do that math locally. I know of a situation where a local municipality wants a hotel right now. The market for hotels is very soft in the in the. Will county area the is down the average daily rents and so forth. But this village has a site. They've attracted a 4 star hotel because they gave the property to them for a dollar. All right, and they're giving them a check for 5Million dollars in and tax incentives. That hotel once there will generate that money back in 3 to 5 years. All right so you're not losing taxes. You're pausing taxes. Thank you.

Thank you both. Okay, made a special exception. We did take a copy of your suggestions and put it on a thumb drive.

So, if we could pull that up. Does that satisfy what you want to explain?

Thank you Mr. chairman. I really appreciate this putting this up here so we can follow along together. Um, I know we've already been. A very long meeting, so I'm going to kind of just roll past these. Um, and then if you have any questions, feel free to find me afterwards. Um, but. The idea behind these here, I'm sorry, let me pull this up. so i started with well i just really went in order so Uh, board of directors, 1 of the suggestions that I made is to, and this is all up for discussion. Obviously, if people feel that we should keep the board chair speaker and the executive, I, I would absolutely have no problem with that. I do just wanted to make sure that we did have the Democratic and Republican leaders on there as well. Just so that the county board did feel a little bit more engaged since, you know, we are the creators of things. So this thing, so that's why. I added that into there. That was the idea behind that moving down to the experts. I did cross out some though going back. I do want to, like, uncross the real estate 1, but I do think it's really important that we add affordable housing or housing advocate on to the board as well as environmental remediation or sustainability or. Or environmental planning and urban regional load planners again, all up for discussion. These are just suggestions that I thought. Should be added, um, moving down. Uh, to 6.04 meetings. Um, I do believe that we should put it into the. The that we should meet more than just annually. I know that you said that you guys are obviously going to meet more, but I do want to have that in writing. Um, so my suggestion was at least quarterly though. I'm sure when we 1st start up, it's probably going to be. I don't know closer to monthly. Um, so that was another suggestion I put moving down to 6.12 conflict of interest. I'm just going to read it off director shall disclose any financial business development campaign contribution or immediate family interest related to any transaction. Before the board, but more importantly, I think it's really important that we put in here that the directors officers, employees and immediate family members shall be prohibited from purchasing land bank property during their service. And for 1 year, following the separation from the land bank, I think that is just best practice. I also believe that county has that in their land bank. A lot of these are just. Things that I took out from the Will county land bank, um, or that are best practices. Um, and then I added 1 under that 6.13 ethics training, um, that the land point, the land bank board shall create. I'm sorry. So shall require annual ethics and open meetings act trainings for board member. That's just, you know. You guys get new board members, or just refreshers. We have to do ethics trainings. It's mandated. So I think that's best practice moving down to 8.01. Acquisition of property I did put in there because I was now now that I'm hearing and this is the 1st full disclosure. The 1st land bank. Um, presentation that I did sit through, I was able to find all the documentation online, but this was the 1st time that I actually was able to hear the presentation. So thank you for that. Um, I know that you touched on, um. Are kind of alluded to that the board of directors would be the ones who were implementing or adopting, creating all of the acquisition and disposition policies. Um, I think it's really important that we. As a board have a say in. Kind of and we don't have to get into the nitty gritty details, but I think a broad overview would be good just so that there's more direction on. How exactly where exactly why exactly we want you to prioritize which neighborhoods, which houses, which. Which properties and so that's kind of the idea behind that. Um, same thing goes with the disposition policies, um, moving down to 8.02. Um, that's just land bank shall require public engagement before adopting major policies. That's just, you know, public hearing before we do a big change. We want to hear from the public just in case they have. Anything to add, um, moving down 8.03, the land bank and I know we touched on this today. The land bank shall implement competitive bidding for major property transfers and require annual justification reports for properties held longer than 3 years. I know you were very adamant about we're not trying to be, you know, holding on to properties, but you did allude to why, you know, sometimes it might be justified as in the case of Bolingbrook in the promenade. So we would just want to make sure that we are being proactive and putting that in writing to make sure that we don't run into problems that they do have this South suburban land bank where they're holding on to properties. We want to we want to be a little bit proactive in that aspect. So, moving down, um. 8.04 public notice shall be provided prior to disposition. I already, um. Touched on that, let me see if there's anything else. This agreement shall contain performance benchmarks, construction timelines, clawback provisions, revisionary rights, yada, yada, yada, you know, all the good stuff, um, moving down this. Um, I just spoke to our member bullet just, uh, brought this up to me as a. Um, an issue of not concerned, but she did raise the issue that this probably might be a little costly. I just thought, you know, your environmental girl would throw this in here for discussion. If you wanted to adopt something like this, um, it's better to put it in and to leave it out and then always wonder. What would been if we didn't do that? So that was the idea behind that. Um, 9.01 bonding and borrowing. I think this 1 is kind of important though. Um, any borrowing shall be required approval by 2 thirds votes of the board of directors. There should be notice given to all government members. Um, and then any debt obligation exceeding a quarter 1Million dollars should be required approval by member governments. So, I think, um, those are all just again more guard rails, um, going down 10.1. This 1 for me was a big 1. um. I know that, you know, all of this stuff could be requested, but I feel that it should just be readily available. I think that is gonna. Go a long way, especially with the public. Um, and I know with some of our colleagues here, um, I think that the land bank should be, uh, publicizing online. Agendas minutes, audits, annual reports, policies, redevelopment agreements. Um, and then they should keep and maintain online publication of the public property. And again, this is something I believe that cook county land bank does. Okay. Yes. So. So, nothing new, nothing new here, just things that we want to be adopting into ours since we're looking at them as the role models. We want to make sure that we're adopting their policies as well. Moving on. Um, 10.02 quarterly reports self explanatory. Uh, 10.08 more reports self explanatory. Um. Sorry, I know I've been talking for a long time. I think that might be it. So thank you so much.

All right, thank you. Some suggestions to consider. Uh.

Can I just make 1 comment on on the suggested changes? Because there's there's 1 in particular or 2, I think that concern me. Um, 1 is the adding a Republican and the Democrat as opposed to office holders concerns me. Um, it is this entity is designed to be nonpartisan. Well, the county board is a partisan body. None of the municipalities in will county are partisan bodies. They may have their own views, but they're nonpartisan bodies and keeping the land bank nonpartisan, I think is important. So. I believe that tying it to the, and this is just my opinion and, you know, for what it's worth, but I think tying that to partisan positions is a mistake bringing that into it. I guess why I understand, you know, you want to have a voice. I think that may be able to be accomplished a different way, but I just. I'm very leery of dragging partisan politics into a nonpartisan. Quasi governmental entity. Right, however, you guys want to structure that is fine with me.

Yeah, I just don't like the R and no, and I think that's great feedback. I actually really do appreciate that feedback. Um, and I would agree with you. I think that we could then change it to the idea behind it was to just get more board representation. It wasn't to have, uh, like, partisan. I, I think I just did that just so it seemed fair. You know what I mean? But I think if we just put. To board members, and then, you know. I guess the chair could determine who those people were that would that would make the board feel like we had a little bit more representation. What was your other concern?

Um, the changing of the, uh, who the, I think they're just generically list is like experts up there, right?

Yeah.

Um, the taking off real estate, you already mentioned that that you were okay with, because I do think changing that to 2 reps makes sense.

Okay.

Um, and then I think that the environmental concern can be handled by the, you want to have someone. On there, it's listed as having someone planning engineering, et cetera. I think that what the concern is, is the environmental review. It's from looking at it as a whole body. That seems to be your concern. Um, I, I think that if we have a professional in that space, they're. Going to already have some of that expertise, so I think that that's covered. Um, the only other 1 is the. Yeah, sorry, I'm just trying to remember all of them on that. Yeah, thank you for that suggestion. Yes, sorry, I took some notes, but not quite fast enough. Um, yeah, I, I think that, uh, having, um. Yep, there we go. Uh, I just wouldn't take out like banking and financing. We're going to need experts in that space. We're going to need an expert in economic development on there. We're like, there's a reason that those experts are there and they're there standardly. Um. putting advocates on Is generally concerning, because they tend to be narrow focused on a specific they're there for their policy issue only and this is a more broad approach. Yeah. Um, certainly have no problem working with affordable housing advocates or talking about those issues. But I think putting someone on there when it's their sole focus is that can tend to derail discussions down to issues that are, you know. Different than what the land bank is there for so that's why I think the, the version that was there covered that. But I also, you know, if that's the board's feeling, so be it to put to put someone on. But that's my only concern is if you start putting advocates on. Advocates do a great job of advocating for their issue. We're trying to look at this holistically and. They're just a portion of that not necessarily someone you want on the board. Controlling discussion, but again, just same as you just an opinion.

Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Okay, uh, Mr.

Uh, thank you. Um, so I've got a ton of questions and once again, unfortunately, these were designed for Doug. So hopefully we can get somewhere. So broken windows is a, uh, it's a philosophy that's been in law enforcement for decades. I am 100% for getting rid of those broken windows. Um, and what I mean, broken windows is the abandoned and vacant buildings lead to more crime and et cetera, et cetera. So, I'm for this, but I have a lot of questions and I'm not going to, I mean, there's like 50 questions. I'm not going to ask them all. So just a couple of them. Um, when I 1st heard about this, I actually contact 3 mayor friends of mine, because Doug said that the mayors were on board. Uh, those 3 mayors had no clue what I was talking about. Um, I don't know if they're up to date now or up to speed now, but, uh, so they get on which ones you talked to. And yes, and then I'll give them a call when I'm done here to see if they have been talked about. Um, I love the fact that it pays for itself. I like that. Um, what is the difference between vacant and abandoned?

I mean, 1 is is a property that's. That's just sitting there vacant that could be, uh, you know, it's vacant because there's just currently no 1 living in it. Abandoned is they've completely walked away and are just letting it rot. And not, and, you know, just completely walking away from the property, letting it collapse. If you saw, if you look at some of those, like, photos that were in the, in the slides, um, granted they were from, uh, uh, uh, the central Illinois 1. um, but you might have, uh. Like, a former farm property where you've got buildings on it that are completely abandoned. Um. Earlier that.

Tim explained it earlier and correct me if I'm wrong. Um, vacant is they're still paying their property taxes. Just nothing is currently on the property, but abandoned is completely abandoned, not contributing. Um, so that was the difference he explained between the 116 properties and then what could be 1500 or so plus, but.

The difference seems like it's the image there too. I think shows you that that would be abandoned.

Perfect. I just wanted to get that out there. Someone was asking me, um, can we get a list of all the 116 or are they online already? Those, I believe are as Tim said is already online.

Um, the, the ones that are listed is vacant abandoned. That's from, uh, community snapshot of will county. So that data came out of. They collect that from the municipalities.

Okay. And I, and I did see that the county is not going to have any type of, um. Indemnification type of thing can the land bank itself be sued. Yes, okay, so there's liability there. Um, what is underutilized and strategic. Properties, so the strategic is what I know you're talking about buying like a, like a city can buy some property so they can hold on to it.

Yeah. Um, similar to what Mr. was describing if you had a land bank. If you're familiar with that property and Julia right there at 55 and 52, that was the holiday in. If the land bank existed in the city set, and the city said, you know, we're concerned about that property, the land bank could have purchased it and say, held it until a developer came in. So that might be a strategic hold where you're waiting for a specific type of developer, because that's what the community is trying to get there. So that would be where you might hold property for a little bit longer. Does that answer your question?

Yeah. Yeah. So the South suburban 1, they go after, like, bad properties properties that. And this land bank that we're looking at doesn't specifically say that do we have a priority of are we going to go after ones that are eyesores and that we need to focus on? Or are we going to go after strategic ones? Or is there a hierarchy of how we're going to do that?

I think that the, the. It's envisioned is is largely going after the, the ones that are already blighted eye source, et cetera. The strategic hold is just something that a land bank can do. I don't view it as that. That would be the. Primary or or even secondary focus.

Okay.

And then because I think municipalities already have that ability to do it and hold it on their own.

So they don't. Property taxes are so are we going to forgive the property taxes?

So, when the, the, it depends, so if you're talking about the tax sales, that's 1 issue if we're buying it from someone that's already paying taxes, and that's just a bill described at a pause on the property taxes.

And so will the land bank work with, uh. Township assessors.

For which purpose? Oh, for tax purposes. I mean, they'll let them know that they've obviously acquired the property, but it doesn't. We wouldn't be getting into anything until. Probably not those 116 properties where that would be impacted. So, if you're talking about just purchasing any of the blighted properties, they're already currently paying taxes on it. So, once it's owned by a government entity, then then they wouldn't be. But, um.

Yeah, because I'm just thinking of, like, schools, libraries, fire districts, are they on board with not getting their money or getting their money? Or how does this work into this whole process with the other tax advice? Because there's a lot of texting bodies in will county.

There are, um, I will be honest. I have not had conversations with the school districts or fire districts regarding it.

Um, should they be involved in this? I mean, they could be sure the school districts are like, 60% of our property. Yeah.

And I. Again, I think we're talking about individual properties, not like some mass purchase where you're going to really be changing in areas or where you're really going to be taking a large amount of dollars out of school districts or anything else. I mean, if you're talking about a property that's paying 5,000 dollars in taxes and. 3000 of it's going to the schools. You're only going to miss that for a couple of years and then you should do a 1Million dollars in properties.

That's all that's spread across the whole county.

Yeah, but so 1Million in property taxes, that's 600,000 in schools to roughly again, spread over years over. The whole county. It's it's a very small percentage of. Of any 1 district's budget now, if you did all of them in 1 school districts, yes, you could potentially have an impact on it. But if you're talking about doing this county wide. You're not going to have that many properties per school district.

Okay. And just to be clear, I'm, I'm for this, but no, it's a, it's a, it's a very good question.

And 1 that, um, like I said, I, I haven't personally talked to school districts for fire protection districts or the list goes on and on. It's never ending.

Um, so I, I don't think I have any more questions. Um, but I. I would love to get I love to submit my questions to Doug or whoever and get them answered. Because I've got, like, 40 more questions and happy to work. I really don't want to put anybody in the spot.

And I do know to your point that you made at the beginning about some mayors not being aware of it. Part of the reason for that is that the land bank, a good number of well, kind of communities don't have. A lot of blanket property that they're worried about, and that's a fortunate position that will county finds itself in. So there are, I can tell you just in my conversations with mayor is a number of them that. Don't even want to know about the land bank, you know, it's just not going to be an issue for their for their community. But for those that it is going to help, it's, it's an important tool in the toolbox for them.

Yeah, I'm also curious how many are in actual will county so opposed to being a municipal. Yeah, that's that's also, uh, because if there's none that are in will county, then this is kind of a moot point.

You mean in the unincorporated area? Yeah, you still have to start it either way.

But so, so considering that, do you have an address in mind for the 1st.

Property absolutely not.

Okay. Just just just starting to program with. Okay. Um, I was hoping you had an interest.

So, all right, we have to know which communities want to join to start. Right? So you have to get the community to sign up.

Depending on who comes in, I guess that was my question because if we have 1 in will county unincorporated, we don't have to talk to the municipality. We can go after that 1 immediately.

You could yes.

Um, so maybe we can take a look and see if we have any target properties, like, right now. not now obviously but in in the future yeah i understand what you know we can do maybe even like a uh like a demo this is how it looks this is what it's gonna cost this is what the market's gonna be kind of a mock-up type of to see if it's gonna be profitable if it's gonna be an eyesore because i would hate to go to a property rip something up and then all of a sudden we've got asbestos everywhere and you know we struck oil or whatever you know what i mean so

I think I'm done and 1 thing, um. That we've talked about, and I know I talked about with several mayors was, um. I was waiting to bring this up, but the. The way that this is structured currently in, um, it's 8.06 community representative approval and veto authority. Where it allows anything within the municipality, you know, you've got to get that community sign off 1 issue that may solve that because I know that it's a touchy subject of the mile and a half. Planning area around municipalities, so that you don't have a situation where you have the county decides to do something, you know. Put up, I know there was some concerns that the county would suddenly become like a. A developer of high density, uh, apartments right up against municipalities difficult for practical reasons. Water sewer being the big ones. Um, but. You could put in here that not only do they have to approve it within their corporate limits, you could amend it to saying that anything within their municipal planning area. I know that comes up a lot with solar when that was more of a discussion topic. Not what it is today, but the communities do spend time dollars money into what their planning area will look like, even though it's extra territorial. Um. So that could also provide some level of protection against some of those concerns that I have heard from mayors who did have concerns was that the county could become a landlord that way again. Practically speaking, you wouldn't build. A high rise without water and sewer, you would, you'd probably want to be on the municipal system and therefore you'd incorporate, but. It could provide another level of protection.

Thank you. All right. Let's, uh, a couple of new members that would like to speak, um.

Member Freeman, thank you speaker van dying. Um, I just think there's a little bit of confusion still. And I just want to be sure we get it clarified the property that we're looking at those 116. they're not paying taxes now. Correct?

Correct.

Yeah. So there's no taxing. So to take a break on it for a little bit longer and make it taxable at the final end product, because that is the goal, right? To make it worth something.

The 116. Are are unlikely to ever be purchased by the land bank. Because the 116 are those strip properties that we've talked about. They currently aren't paying any taxes at all. The land bank would work certainly to try and offload those where it can help. But there's a reason that they're sitting there today. Um, and aren't being taken up by anyone. Uh, so I think, you know, the focus on those. Yes, you're right. There's you're not, we're not collecting taxes currently on them. So if they ever get moved over, it would. It would suddenly add to the tax base and thank you for putting that down.

Thank you. It's a poke you in the eye. Yeah, Mike's. Did you want to say something Mr. or did he clear it up for you? You had it that way? I just wanted to give you the opportunity.

I just wanted to offer, I think you hit it. Those 116 are worth so little, they weren't purchased at a tax sale. They weren't purchased at a surplus sale. They're undesirable and unusable unmarketable. Not part of this most likely not part of line bank.

So, to get them back to being, they won't part of society.

These are things that have probably been around for decades. Um, strips of land when, when construction and development was a little sloppier in the past, uh, their pieces that just weren't. You know, accounted for properly. Now, we don't do that every inch is planned for now, but these old things are foreigners this size right here. A strip land this size along here and neighbors are caring for them. Nothing is happening to the legal and procedural. Uh, work necessary to take them from to add it to the neighbor's property, take those 2 pin numbers, make them 1, give it to that neighbor. Is expensive, I mean, we could assign a state's attorney to do something like that assistant states attorney, but I think their time is more valuable. And so I think these 116 are going to stay around just over and over again. They just stay in the book. Okay, and I think we should stop spending a lot of effort on them and resources. There's there. It's too expensive to fix the problem. Jim and I would love to fix the problem. I know I'd like to have all 16 organized and fixed. But it just isn't feasible. Okay, thank you.

My next question is, um. More directed to the state's attorney or Chuck. I don't know guys can battle it out up there. Um. I'm sitting here and I'm assuming that you have looked at these with a fine tooth comb and, um. You're good to go. Am I correct on that? Have you looked at these?

We've looked at them, and then we've also been getting comments, including today, the things that members would like to see. So, you know, there's the general overall legal review of, like, can we even do this? What are the parameters? But there's a lot of things, and there's been a lot of good comments that have come from the board members about, hey, I'd like to see this. I think this needs to be tightened up. So I would say whatever the final – Final is probably not this because there's a number of things that you've all expressed interest in. And the corollary to that is because we'd be using this as there's other municipalities that are going to be wanting their own input in this. So they may push back and then, you know, it's the back and forth of contract negotiation that so. We've looked at this, but I don't think this is what the final.

Documents going to look like, so since this is just informational meeting here. So, we know this isn't the, so come Thursday. What's the odds of us being able to vote on.

An idea I, it doesn't sound to me, um, like, I know I'll even just say I'm seeing nodding heads here in the, the audience. Um, but I think maybe Thursday, the idea is getting a commitment of whether the county is even interested in being part of a land bank.

And then the would come late, right?

Because again, we don't have any other partners right now. Normally, when you see an, it's an between the city of crest Hill and will county or whatever. Um, I think this is more preliminary step of do we even want to be a part of this? Um, and, you know, are we going to be the one of the sponsoring agencies? So.

And I just for just for since that we are giving information, I did discuss with the state's attorney earlier. My biggest 1 of my concerns with is the board as it is stated in the document at the, it's not real clear and it bounces around. Sometimes it says land bank board. Sometimes it doesn't. And it's like, I think that means cleaned up a little bit. So, I look forward to seeing what you have come up with and when you do provide it to us, please give it to us. Right?

Sure, and again, that there's, you know. There's a lot of ways to deal with this and Eric, and I have been perusing all the different land banks out there and how they've done it and they've all done it very differently.

Okay.

You know, Cook county is very different than the central element of the man bank versus DuPage, you know, so. There's a lot of ways this could look and we'll be happy to accommodate whatever you guys want to have done. Thank you.

And I have 1 more. There was a question that came up about. Property owners who had vacant and abandoned property, and we can't force anybody who's been paying their taxes to sell their property. My correct correct. So, if they have a dilapidated home. Neglected home, they can get fined from the municipalities or our. Land use for whatever violation, but we can't force them to sell my correct on that.

Absolutely.

Thank you. That was all I have. Thank you very much.

And I would say 1 of the reasons for the, the broadness of the proposal before you is because you don't want to be too prescriptive because to the point that you now have to go take this to. Other partners to get them to join, you kind of want to leave some of this with. Wiggle room for everyone's interpretation is you bring partners on. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Okay, um, we do have member Bullock and I think, uh, my suggestion at this time, I know Mr Richmond, you have a bunch of questions. Mr Logan had said he does. Maybe I could ask the, uh, caucus leaders to combine, uh, compile a list of questioning. Uh, we can send it to Chuck. Chuck can send it along and and maybe we can present some kind of document with all the answers. Um. That way, for the sake of time, because we can answer it, we could ask a 1000 questions and continue on for quite some time. I think we got a pretty good grasp of what what the idea is here. But for the specific questions, let's, let's get them documented. Let me go to member bullet.

I feel like you said that for my. Information specifically no, you haven't spoke yet. Thank you. Um, okay, I'm going to piggyback off of Mike a little bit just to get some clarification. Okay, so I understand that without an, okay, we need to vote. On whether or not we want to do a land bank period.

Correct is that correct? Uh.

Get back to chair and stay there. Well, he wants me to finish and we all want to go home before noon. I'm trying to right.

So I think that's what Chuck and I were just talking about. That's why little. So, I think the idea is, we're trying to get input here. There is an on the agenda, but.

But that's not going to be the, because that's not yeah, this does not include all the partners who are going to join and all that. Right? So this is an idea of an. We have given our feedback in a sense on the things we would like as a board to see in the correct right? And you have the ability to take or not take that. And include it in the final document, which will then also be. Part, which will also include ideas from members who join the land bank.

Potentially. Yes. Okay. Those could be ideas. The county's not comfortable with and then right.

What is. Our. Responsibility or. Reach or whatever word I can't think of a good one. In regards to this, are we the be all end all of this document or is this document an idea and we've given our feedback and once we say, yes, we want to do a land bank, we give approval for the land bank to start. Then there's the whole outreach to all the different municipalities and all the municipalities join. And then this document gets finalized and makes its way back to us in 3 months, 4 months, whatever, maybe January who knows. Then we vote on it. Or do we have the reach to say, oh, still don't like this. We want this. Like, where does our reach begin and end.

So, I guess the final point there, we still don't like this. Hopefully that would be worked out amongst the, the lawyers and other officials to get a workable document that works for everybody before it comes to a full board vote. Um, you know, if if you're telling me, look, we can't have X, Y and Z in this agreement. And it's a non starter for the city of Joliet or something. That's something that we'd work out just like a normal contract negotiation and not get if we can't get there. We can't get there. Um, as to whether it would go back and forth again, that just depends on whether the county thinks this is a worthwhile idea to go forward with. I don't know whether some other entities may want to do their own. Then, if the county wasn't going to be part of it again, we, we, I think everyone's on board here, but there's been no official action taken. And I think the key word there is. It's intergovernmental and right now it's just the county establishing what they think should be seen. So, um, I think we're a little early in the, in the process to know exactly how this is going to go.

Okay, so is this. Our land bank, no, it would not.

Okay.

It is a land bank located in will county run by CD. The, the, the, well, yes, true created by. Created I don't know it would be created.

It would be created by the county. So the county. I think the county would pass this. This would be the basis for how the land bank would operate. It would be the base, it would be the, the municipalities can either join the land bank or not join the land bank. That's that's the process that we, we, as municipalities are under the impression that. If assuming you approve this, that creates the land bank, if communities choose to join, this is the basis of which they're joining, not a protracted negotiation about what is or isn't in the where there will be protracted discussions. Is outside of the county at the actual land bank. About what their policies and procedures will be what their purchasing process will be what their reviews will be, et cetera. Those will be determined by the land bank board of directors using this document as. This is the founding document for the, the, the land bank should the municipal's choose to join. They're joining with. This understanding that this, it's a basically take it or leave it structure and then they can work out the details if they become members. Is to bylaws policies, et cetera, but they're stuck with this as the foundation for it either way.

So, I'm sorry, I just really need to. So, stuck with this copy, I'm going to call it the red line for now, because this is the 1 that you that this is the 1 that was printed. Correct? Right. Okay. So the 1 that had the red line in it is. You are asking us to vote whether we want to land bank or not. Governed this way. Correct until changes could happen, depending on municipalities that don't know municipalities have to go along with everything that's in this period.

Correct? That's why that's why my suggestions are to keep it vague. The policies, procedures, purchase rules, all the stuff where you really would get into a negotiation about who's buying what, when, where, etc. That all will happen at the land bank amongst its members. This group is just setting up the basic rules for how the land bank will establish itself and the overall rules for how it operates. The details... Come from the individual from the land bank itself. What what's being asked is, do you think a land bank should be created using these roles? If you say, yes, the land bank is created. The county's role in it is done. The funds will be from the. Land bank doesn't envision coming back to the county. I would I would never say never because I don't know what crazy situation might come up a decade from now, but, you know. For the foreseeable future, they will never come back to this body to talk about about the land bank other than maybe if the county asked for a report about it, or something like that, but it will become its own entity. It will worry about all those problems. It basically moves away from the county and becomes its own its own thing. So you're just setting up the rules under which you can operate the details policies. That's for the board.

So, based on the green line that we saw today. Is yours yes, I understand that I've got to go red green. Is your copy going to change it all before Thursday? Because we're being asked to vote on this on Thursday. Is this accurate?

That that I, or it could be postponed. I'm not sure about that. I don't know if this board is ready.

But it's on the agenda it is. Okay. So, would your copy be changing it all before Thursday based on what you saw today?

My understanding is that it's, it's, I mean, it's ultimately, you're all copy to do whatever you want with. And set set the rules, you can make it say whatever you want. The only concerns I have are the ones I expressed about Member Ortiz's couple of comments, and then the change about the real estate that we should have too. And I think that the mile and a half thing is probably worth some discussion to just protect the county from getting into arguments with the municipalities and vice versa. So other than those couple changes, whatever else you want to do is your own decisions to make.

Okay, so then I'm going to go back to us as a procedural situation. So now this was green copy was handed out a suggestion. And I'm not saying anything mean to you, you're not taking the green to change it to this. This would be something that we, as a group would decide if we're going to add some of this to what is being proposed from. So.

Again, I just following along what member Bullock is saying here, because I've got the same questions. What we have right now is red line version of a document that was amended. And it is presented today that was amended at the last executive committee meeting and that's what's advanced to the to the county board. Right? But now there are suggested amendments that are not formal again. We're in a discussion situation, but there's suggested amendments from member Ortiz. There are questions that are coming from leader Richmond. There are additional questions that are coming from member Logan. And possibly other members as well that would have to be incorporated, but we can't just. Go make those amendments or make changes based upon this conversation here and then present that present those as amended on the next county board agenda. Am I correct on that?

Correct? Generally, we would have direction from the overall board. Um, so the safest way to handle that would be amendments on the floor. Um. You know, on the county board day to change whatever paragraph 10 to read such a way. Staff generally doesn't just make decisions as to what should be and shouldn't be in there.

Correct. So everything is a suggestion right now at this meeting, a suggestion or a question. But all we have right now that we can vote on is a red line, a very minimally red line version from the last executive committee meeting. And every other thing that would change on that would have to be amended on the floor of the county board meeting then, correct?

That would be the safest way of doing it and the way we've done it in the past.

And it's safe to say that based upon all of the questions that are out there and based upon the extensive number of suggested. Amendments that potentially are out there. This would be a long process with regard to this. I would think so.

That's that's all I usually want to clarify a point there. So there was a point of, well, it could be a take it or leave it scenario. Sure. That is true that everyone could sign on to our preferred version, but if they don't. Then there's no, and I, we are not home rule, so we can't just create a land bank on our own. Um, and there's also provisions within the statute that are in the agreement to talk about this being amended by the board at a later time. The, and I know board members have raised concerns about the board of the land bank amending the. Um, so. It's yeah, it's not set in stone. I think is is.

That's that set in stone so with the procedure for Thursday be. The introduction or discuss not discussion because we'd have to make some voting happen. The amendments would be the presentation of the amendments, which we all have access to. They were emailed to us. And given that questions are still out, I'm not asking to make a decision. I'm just. You know, then we could do amendments on Thursday, but possibly postpone voting on the land bank in the until August August. Yeah. Well, are we well, unless we get all of this hammered out in the meeting and everybody's happy and we've, you know what I mean? Like. And all the questions have gotten back to the people who had the question, you know. This is this is Tuesday, you know, we're talking. 2 days from now, everybody's got everything answered and back and good to go.

Yes, you could amend it and postpone with those amendments. You could push it forward and then see what happens with the other municipalities.

I'm not saying I want to post. I am not always postpone something. Yeah.

Now, whether that matches the timelines that we need to do again, that's a operational concern, but it is a legally or legally available option to you.

Okay, and I don't know if I got an answer that I remember or. Understood what is our reach. As a board with with this land bank.

In terms of territorial limits, or how much you control it. There you go control it. Yeah. Well, again, that depends on some of the suggestions that we've had suggestions that have 2 board members on there. And again, the gentleman's correct. Once this gets going. The board has now created this governmental entity to run the day to day. So we could ask for reports. We could do those sort of things, but the day to day would be run by the board of the land bank.

I understand that should we. Agree to some of the changes and who's on the board. Is is this board. Let me ask it this way is this board as a whole body. Done with the land bank once we say, yes. Do it good to go correct?

Yes, it's true. Yes. Assuming everybody else signs up on it, then you're, you're done, I guess.

Here, let me just jump in. Here's the idea. I don't understand. We're in a time crunch, um, for for whatever reason, um, we've had multiple discussions on the land bank as a body as a whole. We had a separate committee, the whole, which is today that we've had. Fair amount of participation, not complete. Um, it's up to this board, whether we want to move forward with the land bank or not if we don't, that's fine. Um. Maybe we can help and say, you know, on Thursday that yes, we are interested in having 1, let's establish 1 and then we can hammer out the or make the amendments on the floor. But. Um, you know, I. Come August I, I, I'm afraid that this money is going to have to be focused somewhere else and maybe you or Kayla might have a better idea about that. But, um. I mean, do you guys think it's a good idea to have a land bank or not? I mean, I think we're, we're trying to. Trying to micromanage this when we do have a list of board members that will be on the land bank and for the most part. 95% of this, these properties, I would assume would be the municipalities and who better would you want to be on this board than the mayors or or represent representation from the municipalities that are dealing with these blighted properties. Um, so it's kind of like, uh, we talk about overreach. From Springfield, I kind of feel like this board is maybe making an attempt to do the same, but I don't know. Can you make a comment on the spending of the money and what kind of time crunch that we would be in? Um, I would you be happy with August to give the board members more time or is this something that you say? Hey, yes, we need a land bank or we want 1 as a board.

Yeah, I would have to defer to the on in the county frankly on on what the deadlines for getting that money out the door is. Um, I think sooner is probably better because assuming you, let's say you passed it Thursday. it's still gonna take time to get it enacted, have a board meeting, get the money transferred because then it has to, you know, it'll become a legal entity. Like there's some time that goes into that. It's not like you create a land bank that million dollars is suddenly off the ARPA books and spent. It's gonna take some time to do all that. So the sooner that we can get this done, the better because every day that there's delay pushes us real, we're already very close to that deadline is my understanding of it. Governmentally didn't get ARPA money, so I don't have experience handling the ARPA money and what days it's all due. I know that there's a deadline coming. I know that time is is. Important, and I also know that it's July and August and getting people to. Together and have longer discussions and everything is going to be a challenge too. So. The sooner it gets past the better to your point about, you know, is it micromanaging to some extent you have to trust that the local officials. That are elected by these communities and you as elected officials are doing things in the best interest of their communities and that you've set up. A, uh, enough guard rails. To feel like you're protected as a county that you did the right thing that you that you spent taxpayer dollars wisely. But then you have to hand it off and once it's handed off. Then it becomes someone else's problem to to deal with. Kayla, would you like to?

Yeah, I would definitely share your sentiments about the timeline of things. Um, you know, when this funding was appropriated to us, um, you know, we had a list of things that we wanted to use this funding for and land bank has definitely been 1 of them. So. We still feel that this is an appropriate use of this is the project that we want to continue to see come to fruition. Timing is of this and so we would absolutely want to see this approved as soon as possible so that we can continue on with ensuring that this money gets out the door and use for the purposes that we see you all entrusted the CD with this. And that's why we've come before this body with this proposal, because we feel it is a great addition of that. Some of our communities would be absolutely utilizing. So, yes, um, timing of the of the essence, but we definitely still feel this is an initiative that we want to 1st. Proceed with, and we would have to go back to the drawing board. Um, we have a list of things that we could utilize this money for. I'd have to take a look at what all those things are, but. This there has been a lot of time and energy and research and things put into this that. You know, Doug does not bring things before this body if it's not of, um, you know, good use and, you know, goodwill to the communities that we serve. So, um, and again, you trusted us with this fund. So we would love to see this continue to move forward.

Okay, uh, last comments, uh, I'm going to go to Mr Richmond 1st, leader Richmond, and then we'll make our closing comments. I got you.

All right, thank you, Joe. So, you, as Mr. Pepsi, you've carried 99% of the soda for the CED and you've done a good job. I appreciate that. Thank you for coming out. You're in a tough position. You know, I've been in positions like that myself and you try and do the best you possibly can. I believe you've done that. You've shown that to this group. Thank you. Couple things, government programs never die. They just seem to expand and grow and seem to require more funding, things like that. With that in the back of my mind, the CED is going to be nothing more than the upper management team and we get to be bystanders that get to look at the progress of a land bank, correct?

Yes, okay, unless you're the member who absolutely establishes, you know, sets up the board of directors and then it's passed off and it is something it is a totally separate entity that is not under the control.

The county board has really nothing very little to do with it.

Correct?

Very little to do with it. I guess my question is, is. If this has been something that the CD has been thinking about for a while, why didn't we see this last September or last November or in January or something like that? I just feel that when things are pushed through on a very tight timeline, there's things fall through the cracks. Things don't get implemented properly. And I don't like to pass it and then read it after the fact. That that is very troubling. Um, we did submit a bunch of questions and you did say, Hugh, that you'd be happy to go through these. Yeah. And I know that there's a lot of people that want to, you know, they've got other plans and things like that. And I can appreciate that. Um. I mean, I'm prepared to sit here till 530 if that's the case if you if you and I just want to sit here and go through answer all these questions. I do have a number of things that I think I would like to read. You don't have to respond to them, but these are questions that I think need to be addressed before we actually move forward. So, to your point, Joe, I don't think we're ready for this as a number of people on the board. I know there's some people that may say, you know, let's move forward with it. I'm not against this. I do need to understand every aspect of it, or at least enough so that I can feel confident in the decision that I'm going to make. Yeah. So I'm just going to blow through these real fast because I can read it like 100 words. But, and I'm not trying to gloss over this, but I think these are some of the things that have been not only on my mind, but on other people's minds, because what I tried to do Joe is aggregate these things. So that we, this wouldn't be a very long meeting. It has turned into be a 3 hour meeting, but. It's a 1Million dollars. It's important and it's it's new territory for this board. Can't disagree. So, thank you. So, and I'm going to try and follow along with the questions that you had, because I tried to take take build your sheet off of what we had here. So, from the, and you don't have to answer. Um, from the financial impact was the estimated startup costs. What's the projected annual budget? What's the anticipated funding sources? And I know some of these things we did touch on a little bit. But who will be paying staff legal services, insurance audits and administrative expenses? What's the contingency plan? If the grand funding or outside funding is reduced and or eliminated. Can the county be asked to provide further funding in the future? You kind of alluded to that. It's possible. Does that become another line on the tax on the, on our tax bill for this? Will we ever have to use property tax dollars coming off of the off of our property tax bill or our general fund to go to the land bank? Uh, will there ever be a new net taxing body? What financial liabilities are we exposed to in this case as taxpayers? Um. Now, from what I'm hearing, based on what you've told me, Kayla, right? Kayla Kayla, I apologize. Um, is that we have nothing to do with this after the fact so who bears the burden of, uh, any kind of liabilities that come from this lawsuit so that you don't have to answer the question. I understand. Um, because we're trying to be, uh, cognizant of time. Can anybody in occupied properties ever be acquired? Well, they said provide the current list of project properties. I know you don't have that as of yet. How will properties be sold or transferred? Will they just be going out in the open market, MLS-type system, things like that? Can properties be sold below market? Hugh, you did allude to the fact that there could be losses. In business, you know, there's sometimes you lose a little bit of money. Most of the time, hopefully, you can break and even make a little bit of margin, and then there's other times you hope to hit some grand slams, and at the end of the day, when you do your annual report, you feel like, all right, I've made the proper margin that I need to make so that I can survive another year in business. Um, what standards will be used to select developers and or purchasers? Um, how will we redevelopment agreements be enforced? I assume that'll all be through the land bank and your appropriate advisors that are sitting on their bankers lawyers things like that. Uh. Now, this 1, I think I know the answer to, but, uh, municipalities can veto the proposed process. And this leads me to 1 of my prior questions is. Hugh, I believe that you received some language from municipalities. Couple weeks ago or that that's what I was told by a beer or 2. yeah, we've we've had discussed.

I'm thinking of which Mary you talk to, but yeah, we, we had multiple discussions around that particular issue.

And is that language acceptable to Doug and the land bank and all look parties involved?

Yes. That's why I also mentioned the, the mile and a half thing was what I figured out what came out of those discussions and and that. If you allow the municipalities to have that veto. Authority, if it's within a mile and a half, I think that that puts a lot of the concerns that were out there, particularly a couple of weeks ago that, like I said, that folks thought that this was, uh, you know. Will county's version of build which.

And I'm glad to hear that you're willing to accept that because that was that mayor was. Oh, yeah, it was doesn't have an issue with it, but it's very in. Needs that language in there to protect their local municipalities interest and I'm sure that speaks for a lot of other because the number of mayors they call that are like, I know you said land banks are good.

I'm hearing some things we talked about it. They understood that they had the veto authority and then that, uh, you know, we would be asking about the mile and a half. Um, they all felt the ones that I spoke to felt comfortable. I won't say I won't tell you that. I talked to every mayor. I did not. Um, but like I said, there's. It's also not going to impact every community. So there are some, you know, I'm not particularly worried about Frankfurt right now.

No. Okay. All right. All right. Um, uh. As a, as a, as a unit of development, the land bank will have to be concerned about contamination. And I believe that somebody over on the other side of the island. I'm not trying to I can't remember who it was talked about abatement and contaminated asbestos things like that. Those are all things that we could run into. And again, we don't want to assume any liability as the county, because they always go after the person with the deepest pockets in any kind of lawsuit. And last thing I want to do is have the county have exposure to that. Um, uh, insurance and all that you're going to have to obviously take on some kind of insurance for these properties and that that'll be a responsible and expensive to land bank. We'll have to pay for it. Um. Again, maximum potential financial exposure to the county you're telling me that basically seems is not us. That's representing it. We have absolutely no exposure on that on that front. Um. We talked a little bit about tax projections, but once some of these properties that you may take off of the tax offer that you may acquire will be taken off the tax rolls and that burden of whatever that property only was paying is going to be off the tax rolls for some period of time. So that will be spread across through the assessor's office. Every other taxpayer, so the property owners to the north, south, east and west of that property will have to bear some burden on their tax bill. Of that property, as long as it's not on the tax rolls.

Everyone in that taxing district will have to.

Well, that's why I said North South. Yep. Everybody. Um. Uh, you talked about reports in that, uh, uh, presented to the public in that, uh, quarterly, I believe that was a recommendation and you did mention the fact that you will have to have a more frequent meetings, which would be interesting to hear more about it. Um. Has have we measured the outcomes? I know the gentleman from. University park was here and he, I, you know, the mayor, I believe it was. Yeah. Um, he, he, he had great praises on what they've done in that. And I'm glad to see it. Actually, I drove through that area probably about a month or 2 ago and I was surprised to see the development that's going on. It's good. I mean, I. I think they're doing a great job over there. So I believe that local governments are the ones that are best to manage just about every aspect of their citizenry. And the higher up you go in government, the less they really know and understand what's going on at that local level. So kudos to him for the job that he's doing out there. Again, this goes back to additional land bank funding and all that kind of stuff. And how are you going to... How are you gonna disclose the financials of the land bank? I mean, are there going to be quarterly reports that show profit and loss and, you know, that type of stuff? I mean, is this going to be something that can be is going to be FOIA? Are you going to follow up fall on the open meetings act things like that? Because those are all things about something like this. We're talking about money and especially redevelopment dollars could become very big dollars in the future. We need to have full transparency and shed the light of day on every single dollar that's being moved around. And when it's being moved around. And lastly, just the, uh, you know, lessons learned, I mean, uh, do you, is there any type of. Consortium where all the other land banks get together and bounce ideas off of each other and try and come up with new ways to make life better in these communities.

Yeah, there is, um, so just on the, the last part there. Yes, there is a group out there the center for. Community progress, I think that does it's all for land banks and it's all about land banks. It's sort of they're like national association more or less to do work on these ideas and do look for for best practices across the country. So there is that that resource available. Um. And so there, there are ways to go about that. The land bank would have to follow open meetings and FOIA. So any of that information will be available as far as the financial stuff. It would have to have an audit every year. So you would definitely see everything there. I looked more at the central Illinois 1, because that was, um, when I spoke to people that are in this space, they kind of highlighted that as 1 of the better ones. Um. You can see right on their website a picture of the before after. Etc for every property they've they've taken on, um, in their case, like I said, it was a lot of demos versus rehabs, but they put all that information on their website. And I think that is a best practice that anyone in this space should do. Um, so I, you know. that information will be out there. I can't tell you the quarterly reports are the best way or every six months or your annual audits, I'll be honest, I just don't know at this point. And it really depends on how much activity the land bank has as to how often that we use it.

I appreciate your honesty in that. And Joe, I think what it is is there's still a lot of open questions in that, because Hugh, you were not able to go through our whole list of questions that we gave to you or that. I know you did touch upon some of them in that. And what I can do is I can kind of, Re, uh, juggle the list of the things that I just kind of rattled off and put them into that document.

Um, yeah, there were a few in here. Um, what is the expected annual cost? I mean, I think it's. Well, some of that is, which I know is not a great answer, but some of that is to be determined. Um. Annual operating budget again, we'll have to figure that out. Um, the long term funding, yes, grants revolving loan fund. That's basically what the 1Million dollars becomes and then funds from the sold properties as well as. You know, if someone wanted to donate to it, they could take a donation, but. I don't know who would do that, but grants using the 1Million dollars as a fund is largely what the focus of the funding will be. The administrator, that type of stuff that as far as how many employees again, that'll be for the board of the land bank to determine how many they actually need as far as whether or not they're full time employees or you just hire somebody on a part time consulting basis. My guess is it would be part time consulting basis, especially in the beginning. Um, you know, the properties that we're targeting would be those, those blighted ones, uh, the timeline to purchase them. I think, you know, as I said at the beginning, we want to crawl before anything else here. So we would probably start with a small number, um, property disposition when it comes to the residential property, you would probably just put them on the market. Uh, with a realtor, you wouldn't try to try to go picking and choosing who owns those commercial properties, depending on what type of property the communities may have something in mind that they want us to RFP for a specific property. There were questions about how the municipalities will be notified. Once it happens, we'll just literally call and talk to every municipality. Um, some of them, you know, obviously are in partially in other counties and might be in another 1. so let's see who wants to be a part of this. Um, is there a negative to not being a part of it? No. No, you just, you're just not a part of it. Um, what safeguards I think we talked about that and as well as the mile and a half, if that got added, I think that provides sort of the ultimate protection for the municipalities. Who's at risk the, the land bank ultimately is the ones who would be. Responsible for those dollars past the, you know, once they go out.

Yeah. And 11 quick question. I'm sorry for interrupting you. Thank you. Did you provide that language to our state's attorney's office to have it incorporated into the documentation?

I have not. I know I spoke with, uh, the speaker about it, uh, 2 weeks ago, but no, it has not been, um. It wasn't sent to the state's attorney's office.

No, can you do that? Yeah, the appropriate body so that this way it's documented because, you know, and I wanted to stay out of it. And I think because they're the, they're the ones that have the concerns and the questions, and they should speak right directly to the folks that are making that, you know. creating this land bank or that. So I think if you could forward that over to them, if you guys are good with that, then make them aware of it. So thank you. I didn't mean to derail you either.

No, no. Where were we risk management? Uh, yeah, the land bank would be who's at risk. Um, who'd be who could be sued would be the land bank. Um, the metrics we talked about those and then the, the last 1 I saw, and there was the impact of existing laws. Um. Yeah, the build act, I mean. Uh, we're going to continue fighting that as municipalities, and hopefully we can kill it again. But, um, yeah, if those things change, it will have an impact, but it wouldn't be directly on the land bank as far as, like, build as I said before. The land bank would have to follow whatever zoning and rules are in place for each community. And so the communities would have to if the, if the build act passed, the municipalities would have to amend their, their zoning codes, um, within a certain period of time. And then terminating the land bank that's all included in the ordinance is how that would be. Would be dismantled and where those funds and how they would be distributed back.

Yeah, I just don't want to see another taxing body on property taxpayers tax bills.

Yeah, I don't see a way where this becomes a taxing body. Because it has no authority to tax. That's what I wanted to hear. Yeah, there's no, no, no authority to tax. Uh, that's why the concerns about debt. Um, it doesn't have a revenue source to borrow against. Uh, so I don't think it would be issuing debt, um, because of that. It doesn't have a guaranteed way to pay it back. So that would be a challenge. Um, and again, no taxing authority. So they can only run off the money that. The 1Million that the would put in and then. Any funds that the, that the sales generate.

And then, of course, grants and, you know, whatnot that was probably 1 of your top 10 statements you just made. So, thank you.

Okay. Um, thank you. Mr. Richmond. Um. When you're sitting up here, you always tend to find yourself trying to pivot, um, listening to concerns of the board members. I'd like, um, Mr Myers to make a statement and, uh, let's see if we can. Kind of agree.

So, another potential way of getting to where we're looking to get here based on all the comments, and I'll give credit to all the group here that's been discussing. This is we could move this as post on the agenda forward with. Establishing the will county land, make the 1st portion of it just saying we're interested in doing this. We would make it we're allocating funds doing this and we would make it contingent upon the creation of an entity through an. That would at least get us through Thursday. Um, I think that might give the, the, um. Folks over there a little more firm direction on how to get the money going forward. And then we'd have either a special meeting or and in. August, um, you know, the details of the, but it would at least. Put the county direction the county's going and give them an idea. That's a potential again. It doesn't hammer out all these things that we're talking about, but it at least. Steers the ship a certain direction if it comes up and we say, we're just not interested, then they know that they need to pivot quickly. So that's another option is the way it's presented is it's really a 2 piece thing. It's. I won't say establishing land use bank, because we don't. We don't have anyone else to establish it with, but putting it forward the county desires to go forward with this and then we'll create craft a that will. Be able to use the legal authority to create this, uh, this entity.

I think that's the direction I'd like to go as well. Um. Just for the sake of funding. All right, I know miss leader Williams has not had a chance to speak and then I would ask anybody else. Maybe. If you absolutely have to have a question answered, go ahead, but we, uh, probably a good time to start wrapping this up leader Williams.

Yes, thank you. Um, I, I think this is a good idea that the state's attorney just put forward. The sticking point seems to be the. So, I think we all want to do a land bank is just that if we get the, the way that we want it to be and that is not. I agree should be kind of broad because I have a whole bunch of people in there, but if we can get the things in there that we need in there, that should satisfy just about everybody. So, I think that that's a good thing. And being that we have our caucus meetings coming up, maybe we can discuss some of these amendments to the at that point too. So, thank you.

Thank you. Member balance.

What state's attorney said is what 1 of the things I was going to say, and then for me, I need to see in the, just so everybody knows I'll vote. No, unless it says the county is never ever responsible for any liability at all. And that we are never ever use tax dollars to support this. That's all I care about. The rest of it will all come good and I used to do something. I didn't call it that, but I used to be in real estate. I was a broker and I understand what this is and they will be able to fund this by themselves and make a lot of money. To do it the right way, and I don't see why they wouldn't.

All right your comment is noted. Um. Let's go to member new quest.

Actually, that was going to be 1 of my questions is there an identification clause in there for the county and do we need 1? That was that was 1 question and you don't have to answer that right now if you don't want to Kevin. But then my only other comment was that we've had a lot of suggestions for the some of them. I agree with some of them. I don't, but some of them more properly belong. In the, you know, the, the, the operating agreement, or the, the board rules and so maybe we need to take all these suggestions and if someone could let us know, you know, this is potential for the, this is really, you know, comes under the board rules that might speed us up in this process. Thank you.

Thank you remember Berkowitz.

Thank you. Um, so, um, I'm, I'm a little. I'm not sure how do you have an organization like this that has to have staff? Um, but there's no revenue source to I. It's that's too unknown to me. We're starting this with a 1Million dollars of funds, which were taxpayer dollars. And then you move forward, you do have. Staff, you have to have facilities, you have to have tangible items, but yet you don't have a set revenue source. It's all. Geared by that initial investment of 1Million dollar funds. I'm not comfortable with this. I do know that my, um, my constituents there. You know, they want tax refunds. They don't want it. They don't want their tax money distributed out to other entities that. Are for profit because this has to create a profit or you can't exist. So there's just too many unknowns, um, about about that. And, um, yeah, I don't agree that every board member is, um, voting for this. So I think it's premature to force a board member to vote. For the creation of a land bank without any. Any, um, clear. Process or clear organizational structure that's premature. I cannot. We need to have the ability to talk to the state's attorney and to get all of this ironed out. Um, I think that, you know, whenever there's a potential liability, um. Lawyers will often tell you people will sue anybody whether or not. It makes any sense and that person who's being sued has to react and I think we have to be concerned about that. I was wondering what would motivate a homeowner. To gift donate or sell a property to the land bank versus just selling it.

So, generally, the, the, the. If it were to if you were to gift it, let's say. It's likely that it's for tax purposes that they're just looking to unload a property that they've tax benefit. So they would be making a donation to the land bank in that amount. So there was, there's probably a, uh. They're going to have a tax implication on that. That's that's why someone would do it. Um, as far as why you would sell to the land bank or sell to anyone else, um. In in general, the, the, the properties we're talking about are so run down or dilapidated that there's just not that that interest from a developer to, uh, to buy it and flip it. Um. And the reason that a land bank works in that scenario versus a private developer is that when you take. Yes, the land bank, let's say the land bank could make 5% on a dilapidated house just for simple math examples. Right? Um. But a developer, by the time they put all their costs in, they want to make 20% on the sale and they're never going to make 20% on the sale of these particular properties. The land bank can be there to be able to then get it fixed up and turn around and sell it. And if they only make 5% on it, so be it. It's. They still came out a little bit ahead of where they were. So it takes that gap where there's that lack of incentive for a private developer to take it and makes it a little easier to fix up and offload.

So there's tax incentives for someone to do this. Um, again, that's that's does raises some concerns on on. On my part, um, will this or could this land bank hold property that sits in other counties?

Uh, yes, yeah, it could.

So we're, but, but it's all county ARPA dollars.

Again, it, it could and I could and will are very different. It would be, it would be again up up to the board to decide where to spend those dollars. Could it yes, will it. You know, I, I don't want to say that it couldn't happen. There's, you know, we have a lot of communities that are in multiple counties that if they joined ours that they might want us to purchase. So, and vice versa, you know, other land banks can hold property. My understanding in will county today. So it's. You know, it's possible, I would say it's, it's not particularly likely, but is it possible? Yes.

So, how does the homeowner though, who's in the community around a particular parcel that goes into a land bank? How do they what assurances do they have that that redevelopment is not going to negatively impact them? We have redevelopment all over in, um. In Naperville, and it's forcing people out of their properties because they're how, because it's impacting. The assessed values of the property.

Yeah, their properties are increasing their property value.

Yes. And then they can't afford to pay their property taxes. So. Again, we have to look at the big picture. We have to look at how some, there are some communities that are changing, but it isn't the change that the people who have been there for. 3040 50 years 1, so I'm just being proactive here to look at all of the dynamics here and. What could occur this is really important.

Okay. I would say, you know, redevelopment Naperville is very different than redevelopment and. Almost all the rest of the county Naperville redevelopment. It is, but the, the, the land bank. Couldn't afford property in Naperville, even with a 1Million dollars. It's it's not like Naperville is not the target audience for a land bank. You know, Juliet's a target for the land bank university parks to target for the land bank. I understand that, but blighted and not wealthy are different and I don't know that there's a lot of Naperville that's blighted not to say that there aren't. 1 or 2 properties that maybe qualifies blighted, but I. Do not envision Naperville being a heavy activity zone for for the land bank.

Well, okay, this isn't about Naperville and people in Naperville that are, you know, not wealthy and not, um, there's a lot of people who have. Been there their whole lives and they're, they're living very modest homes and, um, I, you know, again, I'm going back to how. The unknowns with this, if if the land bank acquires a vacant property, that doesn't mean that that property is dilapidated.

Correct. Okay, yes, and and no municipality is forced into this. So, if if the residents of Naperville don't want their property beans bought by the land bank, it's up to the council.

But again, the, the residents of Naperville, their voice. Is there city council or whatever go and look around? There's a lot of controversy going around. There are a lot of communities that are fighting. Things data centers, all kinds of things in their municipality.

We have an election process for that. We're getting we're getting way off topic. All right. We've been here quite a while. The state's attorney gave us some advice. Maybe we can decide whether we want to pass or pass. A land bank or not on Thursday with the contingency of a, of a new, uh, that we took some in consideration, um, from today's discussion. So. I'm moving on. There is no other new old business. I am not going to present any new business. There is no announcements and reports by chair. No need for executive session. So the last item is a motion to adjourn. All those in favor please say aye. Anyone opposed? Motion carries.