County Board - Regular Meeting

Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Will County board meeting for September 17th, 2026. I'll call this meeting to order member or Gala will lead us in the pledge of allegiance and introduce the clergy.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands 1 nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Good morning everybody. I'm pleased to have Dr. Glenda Wright McCollum here today with us. Dr. Glenda McCollum, sorry, Dr. Wright, Glenda, oh goodness sakes, I can't read, I've practiced this. Dr. Glenda Wright McCollum is a seasoned ministry leader, teacher, community leader, and visionary with more than 35 years of Christian ministry and leadership experience. Throughout her ministry journey, she has devoted her life to serving people, developing leaders, strengthening families, and advancing the purposes of God within the church and the broader community. Dr. McCollum currently serves in leadership at Alicia's Worship Embassy in Joliet and is the founder of the Glenda McCollum Ministries and New Era Worship, a ministry focused on the reformation of worship, spiritual development, leadership formation, and equipping believers to live and serve according to God's purpose. Her ministry has extended beyond the local church and throughout nations. She has ministered and provided leadership training in Australia, St. Kitts, South Africa, Singapore, and Malaysia, as well as throughout the United States. Her ministry emphasis centers on prayer, worship, biblical teaching, spiritual formation, leadership, and the transformation of individuals and communities. Dr McCollum holds a doctor of divinity from St Thomas Christian college, and has received additional education and training and human resources and kingdom studies. She has also served extensively in civic and community leadership, including as founder and CEO of arise community development corporation and chairwoman of the housing authority of Julia board of commissioners. Known for her heart of people, commitment to prayer, and passion for seeing communities restored and transformed, Dr. McCollum believes that effective leadership begins with humility, wisdom, integrity, and dependence upon God. Dr. McCollum.

Well, great morning, everyone.

Good morning.

To Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino and the Executive Committee and this wonderful board of Will County Board. Thank you so much for allowing me to approach the throne of grace and go before God. Let us pray. father your awesomeness and your greatness we thank you for this opportunity to come before you to approach your throne to ask for your wisdom for your guidance for your direction we pray father that the seven spirits of the lord would rest upon this meeting holy spirit that you would rest rule and abide in this meeting and in the decisions and the counsel that is on the agendas for today, as well as the days to come. We ask for the spirit of wisdom, counsel, might, understanding, knowledge, and most of all, the fear of the Lord. Holy Spirit, envelop this place. Let your glory be revealed in everything that's done, everything that's said. Brind our hearts together with the spirit of unity and the spirit of oneness. We thank you that it is your breath in our lungs. And so as we approach and as we come together today, we thank you that you will govern in our midst and that you would give the wisdom especially to this executive council to govern and to, um, bring about everything that's necessary that will benefit the hearts and the minds of the people of will county for this father. We give you praise Thanksgiving adoration and we bless you in Jesus name.

Thank you. Madam clerk, will you please call the role?

Richmond Williams, Dean slot man. Pretzel Butler. New quest. Actually. Brooks yeah. Bullock. Logan, Freeman, Mitchell, Revis, Ortiz, Berkowitz, Hickey, Costa, Trainier, Van Dyne.

With 18 members present, we have a quorum. I need a motion to place on file the certificate of publication. Motion seconded by Mitchell. Any discussion? Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Richmond? Williams? Ogalla? Axley? Brooks? Winfrey? Bullock? Newquist? Logan, Freeman, Revis, Mitchell, Ortiz, Berkowitz, Hickey, Costa, Trainier, Van Dyne.

It's in the firm of the motion carries. Member Revis, I'm going to wait. I'm going to get through the approval minutes and we'll do it right before after the acknowledgement of media. Now, keep your light on. At this time, I need a motion to approve the minutes from the August 2020-26 meeting. Motion by Van Dyne, seconded by Trenere. Previous roll call by Brooks, seconded by Aksley. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. I need a motion to approve the August 20, 2026 executive session meeting Motion by Winfrey, seconded by Costa. Previous roll call by Trenere, seconded by Freeman. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Madam Clerk, can you please acknowledge elected officials and media? Today we have County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant.

And that county clerk and that Parker corner, Lori summers recorder of deeds, Karen stucco. Treasurer Tim brophy and from the media we have Michelle Mullins with the daily South talk.

Thank you. We have no honorary resolutions proclamation. We're going to give Mr Revis appointed personal privilege.

Thank you, Madam Executive. I just wanted to say we have a larger crowd than we usually have here at our county board meetings. And the age has also, the average age of the room has also decreased substantially. So thank you, everybody. We like to see young people getting involved in government. So we have the political science class of Professor Jala Sherbini here with us today from Joliet Junior College. We have students from all over Will County, from Also Grundy County, we have a lot of Julie Juliet students. We have some playing field. We have a little bit of new Lennox. I think I heard a little bit everything from the crowd. We had a Morris in there as well. So they are studying hard, learning how to be the future leaders of tomorrow. And we are going to put on a great example for them today. There's no better place to learn how to be good public officials than the will county board. So thank you guys. Thank you guys for coming. Yes. Yes. So thank you guys for coming. We're so excited. If you guys got a trickle out around 1015 to get back to your studies, go ahead. And if you guys ever need anything, you know, you have friends on the Will County Board. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Moving on to public comment for agenda items only.

At this time, I invite anyone to come up and speak on agenda items only.

Is there anyone here for public comment? This includes land use. Going once. Going twice. All right. We're going to move on to old business. All resolutions and ordinances from the August 20th, 2026 board meeting have been signed and returned. Moving on to new business. We are happy to welcome our friends at Silver Cross Hospital, CEO Michael Mutterer. And Scott, I know you're VP, but I don't know the official title. Scott Paddock as well to give us a presentation.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you, county executive and board members. Thank you so much for having us here. And just a shout out to JJC or to JJC. I am an alumni from there. So thank you for being here and being part of this. But we are here today and I see a lot of familiar faces and we have many friends who are on the county board, many friends of Silver Cross, but just here to give an update of Silver Cross. Hopefully, you know much of what we're going to be presenting today, but I'm very excited to be able to give an update. If you can advance the slide. So we've been in the Joliet area for the last 130 years. We are a non-for-profit hospital, 348 bed. Our replacement hospital was built in 2012. So we're very excited to have the opportunity to be able to have a very nice campus, to be able to provide the care that we provide. But besides being a very nice campus, we are a level two trauma center. We are Will County's only level three perinatal center, which includes our 24 bed, NICU, which is a level three neonatal intensive care unit, which takes care of our smallest little premature babies that are born in the county. We are the resource hospital for EMS, meaning we have a lot of training that we provide for paramedics that are coming into the field of paramedics and work very closely with Region 7 and our Region 7 administrators to make sure that our EMS system is top notch. We are a CMS five-star hospital, very proud of that. In the star ratings, five is the highest you can get and just very focused on quality and patient safety. You can advance. As I said, we are the trainers for first responders. We have our EMS program that puts out a couple of hundred paramedics every single year. And very proud of the fact that we partner with all of the, and I'm not gonna go through them all, but all of the fire departments that are up there on the screen have very good relationships with those fire departments and help to train the paramedics of the future. We are also very proud, for decades, and I wish I could take credit for this, but my predecessors really had the philosophy that if we couldn't create or be the best, we would partner with the best. And you can see up on the screen, we have many partners that are the best. We partner with Ann and Robert Lurie Children's Hospital. They provide our 24-hour neonatal hospitalists as well as our pediatric hospitalists. We partner with UChicago Medicine for our cancer care. Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, which is the number one rehab hospital in the country, runs our inpatient rehab facility as well as our outpatient rehab clinics. We partner with US HealthVest and opened the 112 bed behavioral health hospital on our campus, Silver Oaks. And we partner with Rush University Medical Center for our thoracic program and just very proud to have those partnerships. And I'm gonna say that is a very unique blend of partnerships for a hospital to be able to partner with several different academic medical centers. And I'm gonna say still all like each other. So it's been a great partnership. We are also very proud of the national awards that we have been blessed to win and continue to win. But I'm really going to say from my perspective, it's not about the awards. It's about the quality of care and the outcomes that we have at Silver Cross Hospital that earns us these awards. We were ranked the number one surgical hospital in the state of Illinois. in both 24 and 25. So if you think about that, Silver Cross outperformed every other hospital in the state of Illinois. And it is right here in Will County. So we were up against all of the big names that were just on the last screen, we outperformed them. So I just have to say, very proud of that. We also have been very blessed with those accolades to be a CMS five-star, to be a leapfrog recipient of an A22 consecutive times in a row. And all of that comes from an intense focus on quality and patient safety. At the end of the day, that's what we're here for, is to provide excellent patient care And I'm going to say somebody in this room possibly has had, you know, a not so great experience. We strive very hard and we listen to our patients. So when we struggle in our emergency department, and I'm going to be the first one to say that, every emergency department in the country struggles with overcrowding. We are working constantly to figure that out. You know, unfortunately, I probably need about 40 more beds at Silver Cross Hospital, but I'm about $100 million short. So anybody in the room that could help focus any funds that way we will graciously continue to build on. But in the meantime, not being able to add on to the hospital, we are working to operationalize efficiencies that will hopefully help to continue to improve the throughput of our emergency department and continue to make our communities that we serve proud of the care that we provide there as well. So as you can see on the map here, this is our current market. So we break our market share into really five different sectors. The purple in the center where you see most of the Silver Cross logos is our primary service market, which includes, as you see to your left, I guess, Crest Hill, Elwood, Frankfort, the Joliet area, Lamont, for which I'm a resident of. I've lived there for 26 years. Silver Cross is my 911 hospital. Lockport, Manhattan, Mokena, New Lenox, Orland Park, Homer Glen. So very big primary services area. But what we're really proud of is obviously being the predominant player in the market for our primary services area, but also where we have grown our secondary services market to the east. We opened up a very nice facility in Orland Park on LaGrange Road, sort of in that hospital sector. You'll see every Academic Medical Center has some property on that stretch of LaGrange Road, and we're very proud to be located in the midst of all of them. Next slide. I am happy to say that we continue to grow our market share. I mean, Will County obviously is a very fast growing population, but we also know that there is other service providers in the area. So we're very proud to be able to continue to grow our market share. And as you can see by the top purple line, which is Silver Cross, we have about 46% of the market share within our primary service area. And then you can see the other organizations where they land as well. Next slide. Do you want to take this one? Do you want me to? Okay. So economic impact. I am very proud of this. At the end of the day, we are the third largest organization, employer organization in Will County. And the economic impact that Silvercross has on Will County and the surrounding area is $1.3 billion. So from a payroll perspective, it's about $540 million. Supplies and services, $650 million. And then capital, about $86 million, which if you think about that, that's a lot of money infused into the Will County area. We have about 5,766 jobs that support our working families right here. Thank you, Mark. And just very, very proud of the impact that we have on the county and Joliet and New Lenox particularly. Next slide. All right, I'm gonna turn it over to Scott.

Thank you, Michael. Good morning, everyone. Great to be with you for a few minutes. So this is our North Star. This is our mission to improve the health of those we serve and advance wellness in the community. Michael and I get asked all the time, who owns Silver Cross Hospital? You own us. The community owns us. We're not backed by private equity. We're not part of a large system. We don't have shareholders. You own us. And for now, it's imperative by our medical staff and our board of directors to stay the course as an independent community hospital. Our goal at the end of the year is not to make as much money as we can. This is our goal to make sure we're servicing the community. And candidly, we're in some service lines that aren't overly profitable, but this is our job. We don't pick and choose. We service every area. So next slide. I'd like to spend just a quick minute reaffirming what we mean when we say community benefit. So several years ago, the Illinois General Assembly codified in the state law Senate Bill 2194 that provided a property tax exemption for non-for-profit hospitals. And the litmus test we must meet is we must provide an equivalent amount or greater amount that we would normally pay in property taxes back into our community. On the next slide, you can see that... We have to provide a report every year. It's on our 990s. It's featured on our website. We have to submit this to Attorney General Kwame Raul's office by March 31st, justifying that not-for-profit exemption. On the next slide, these are the things that are counted when we talk about community benefit. The two biggest ones are charity care. where we have no expectation of reimbursement whatsoever. Anyone who walks through our doors at Silver Cross is getting to get treated with the highest quality care. It does not matter what your insurance status is. It doesn't matter of your ability to pay. And then uncompensated cost of Medicaid. Medicaid covers a fraction of the true cost. We lose money on Medicaid patients, but again, we wanna make sure we're serving everyone. So this by definition and by state statute is what we can count when we talk about our community benefit. On the next slide. And you can see, so we estimate, we don't get assessed, but we estimate our property taxes annually would be about $12 million. So we need to meet or exceed that threshold. And you can see we're really proud that in fiscal year 2025, we delivered $62 million or five times what the state requires. And those first two are the big ones, nearly $30 million in charity care and unreimbursed Medicaid, okay? So we are more than meeting the duties test, so to speak. And candidly, I will tell you, if we did not have that property tax exemption, we'd be swimming in red ink and we would be closing services and closing units. So we appreciate the state and candidly, the county recognizing that. And I just want to reaffirm we're more than doing our part in justifying that exemption on the next slide. And the reason we like to share this information with elected officials is this is a sexy topic. It makes headlines in The Wall Street Journal, in The New York Times. And there are a couple of bad actors out there, some large systems that may not be meeting that duties test. But as you can see, again, we're meeting that times five. Next slide. And then I just want to talk briefly about our commitment to the community. So we are part of the Mobilizing for Action through Partnerships and Planning MAP Collaborative. This is a consortium of hospitals in Will County, social service areas, educational institutions. We all come together, pool our resources, and they do a three-year community health needs assessment. This is done through focus groups, surveys, interviews to understand what the county needs Do we skew higher when it comes to diabetes, to chronic heart condition, etc.? And then every three years, we leverage that data and those insights, and we create what we call a community health implementation plan. The last community health needs assessment was completed a few months back. We are now in the process of authoring and writing our three-year community benefit implementation plan. On the next slide, I'll share just a couple of highlights. One more, Tim. Thank you. So this is what the Community Health Needs Assessment identified as Will County's priorities for the next three years. Chronic conditions, lung disease, heart disease, diabetes. We offer very low cost screenings. We provide tremendous education and we provide treatment to try and keep our county safe. Maternal and child health issues, this is big. So we have trained our ED docs now to understand the conditions when a female presents with postpartum symptoms, to connect them back to their OBGYN to make sure they're getting the counseling and support that they need. We also have invested in interpreter services. Every patient that now comes to our hospital has access to a caregiver who's equipped with an iPad who can connect them with a live human being that will translate for them in their natural voice, natural language, to understand nothing gets lost in translation when it comes to their healthcare needs. Healthy food access and intake, we know we've got some food deserts here in the county, so we screen every patient for social determinants of health, including food insecurity. When they do screen insecure for food, we connect them with an intervention. We've got a partnership with the Northern Illinois Food Bank where they can go online, order their groceries, and have them delivered to their home now. And then behavioral health. We don't have enough supply in our county to meet the demand when it comes to behavioral health, but we're really proud of our partnership with Silver Oaks. We increased bed capacity in recent years to 110 beds. Most days that's at 100% occupancy, but really proud of the commitment we're making to solve this big issue that we have in our county. So these are the priorities that were established through the community health needs assessment. We're now working on our plan on what we Silver Cross are going to do to do our part to solve those. And on the next slide, it just speaks a little bit to the timeline of that. And, you know, once that plan is authored, we will post that on our Web site and we will share with the attorney general's office. So with that, I'd like to turn it back to Michael.

Go ahead and advance to the next slide. So when the new hospital was announced, the previous CEO, Ruth Colby, was very connected to remaining very active within the east side of Joliet and making sure that we continue to support the brown and black communities. I've got Reverend Brooks, who is part of my Healthy Community Commission, which was established in 2008 to do just that. So we have issued about $3.7 million worth of scholarships and grants to local individuals that live and work within the the east side of Joliet within specific zip codes. We are also incredibly proud of the former campus in which Silver Cross was formerly on that we have really been able to work with the county and with other organizations to be able to really build a campus that we are certainly proud of. The VA has the outpatient clinic that recently opened. Aunt Martha's is on that campus and our partnerships with the Volunteers of America, a little brain freeze there, who built Hope Manor Joliet and Hope Manor Village, which the newest one is going to be opening soon, which will support women who are suffering or who are in treatment for opioid abuse or opioid addiction that have children. So very, very excited about that and to be able to support that initiative as well. So just, again, a very great way for us to stay connected to the east side of Joliet and to the old campus. Next slide. As I look into the future, we know that legislation plays a big role in healthcare, whether it was Obamacare back in the day or the one big beautiful bill that we're working our way through right now. Silver Cross Hospital and I myself am very connected to the Illinois Health and Hospital Association. Many of you know A.J. Wilhelmi, who was the president and CEO of that, former state senator. I am on the IHA board of directors and I'm just very proud of the work that they do in Springfield to help make sure that legislation that affects how health care is delivered to the communities in which we serve makes sense. As we look into the 2026 and early 2027, sort of the four top legislative priorities are protecting our non-for-profit status, as a hospital tax exemption. And Scott just spoke of our community benefit, which really shows how committed Silver Cross is to that. Workforce challenges. It's sad to see almost every single day somebody at Silver Cross is assaulted by a patient or family member. it's it's really tough to see that and to hear it um but at the end of the day um there are some some laws that are that are being presented in springfield and and nationally that will help uh healthcare workforce um tax task force um take a look at workplace violence within healthcare as well as to really look at how do we continue to work through the workforce shortages as it relates to the aging population and not enough nurses or physicians to really care for those. And that's only going to get worse as days go on. Avoid mandated nurse staffing ratios. I'm a registered nurse I've worked bedside I have been a nurse for 25 years graduated from Joliet junior college. And what I will tell you is it sounds amazing right, I mean if you put ratios in place nurses will only take care of the amount of patients that the ratios drives. But I will tell you as a hospital administrator as a nurse as a former chief nursing officer. ratios do not work if if every hospital would staff their hospital by patient acuity which means that every single day every single minute our teams our leadership our nursing leadership are looking at the assignments that our nurses are given and based on how those patients present that is how the nurses determine how many patients they can take care of what would happen if we were driven by ratios I'll give an example in my emergency department, which is overcrowded every single day. There are days in which we have multiple traumas that come into the hospital and nurses are one-to-one with those patients, sometimes two nurses to one patient to be able to care for those traumas. But I might have six or seven patients that are on their way to be able to discharge. And so all a nurse has to do is... work to give them their discharge instructions, give them their medication prescriptions that they'll go and fill. And I can tell you as a nurse, I can take care of six or seven patients that are discharging. But if ratios were in place and we could only provide care by ratio-driven statutes, I would have to at some point probably close my ed during lots of periods of time through the day because i would not be able to staff to a ratio driven model so again sounds amazing and you'll hear the ads on tv supporting it at the end of the day it does not work so if we continue to support the legislation that is out there and hold hospitals accountable to staff as they should to legislation and to have nursing committees that help drive staffing that are that are comprised of bedside nurses, that is how you successfully run a hospital. So please, as you hear or in friends, family that are nurses, help them understand as well that as these new bills come to play, there is plenty of legislation that's in play currently. Hospitals just have to follow them. And then finally, reduce denials and delays for insurance companies. I'm going to tell you part of what is I'm going to say frustrating about throughput within a hospital is that insurance companies still dictate care. And unfortunately, those insurance companies are not physicians. They're not medically trained many times, but they are driving care based on what is profitable for them. And at the end of the day, we fight with insurance companies every single day to get the patients that we serve the time that they need within the hospital walls to be able to get that care. What's more frustrating though is that when those patients need to go to the next level of care, so whether that be a skilled nursing facility, an inpatient rehab unit, a home health agency, whatever that secondary connection is, many times hospitals will delay those decisions. which ultimately just makes a patient stay in the hospital longer when that patient is ready for the next level of care. So what does that mean? It means that clogs up the emergency department. So that patient that's staying a day or two or three longer waiting for that insurance company to either accept or deny that transition, that we can't get somebody from the emergency department up to that bed because it's being clogged up by that insurance company not making those decisions. So we are working with IHA very strongly to be able to get MCO reform and push insurance companies to be able to make decisions quickly, and also to look at physicians who have a gold star track record, I'm going to say, for making appropriate decisions regarding length of stay for care and regarding appropriate transitions to next level of care. So again, just four legislative priorities that we know are very hot topics for us in Springfield this year. And that is all I have. I'm more than willing to take any questions if anybody has any. But thank you again, County Executive, for letting us be here.

We'll allow just a couple questions. Mr. Revis?

I just want to say I think Silver Cross is one of the best hospitals in the nation. I don't have much body of evidence to compare it against, but I know that I personally had a situation that I had to go to Silver Cross for, and you guys treated me like a king, and I appreciate that. You guys are really the best, and... Just more color for the Joliet Junior College students. You heard it yourself. This is a graduate from Joliet Junior College. You can hear as he's talking. He's one of the most impressive board members, presidents, executives in the business. So a lot of times people want to put down junior college or community college. You guys are at one of the best learning institutions in the country. And if there's no greater proof than that, look at President Mutterer and VP Paddock as well. I don't know if you were a Joliet Junior College student, but either way. And he's a big fan and he's a big fan of Will County. So you guys, again, you got a lot of you got spoiled today. So thank you.

Thank you. All right. All right. Well, thank you very much, as always. Always very impressive. Thank you for joining us today. During the during the presentation, Madam Clerk, please add Dan Butler, Katie and Steve to the role. And with that, we are going to move on to land use and development looks like member new quest. You're going to take the lead.

Yep. You guys are stuck with me for a couple things today. Okay. Land use and development number 1, um, resolution 26, 0, 6, 2, land resource management plan update. We have been looking at this for a while. It got postponed a couple of times. um and it looks like we originally approved at the land use committee um six zero so is anybody here from land use that wants to add anything to this or can we get it on can we we need to make a motion and i some move sorry motion by newquist seconded by freeman is there any discussion does anyone have questions what

Thank you. So they, the consultants we hired to do the new land resource management plan gave a great presentation at our committee. They gave multiple slides. So I suggest that you look at the land use agenda to see what that presentation was. It's interesting because. Kind of what what I think is important actually turned out to be some of the top priorities that everyone who participated in the group thought was important, such as protecting open space, natural lands and preserving our agricultural lands. So that was very interesting. I know 1 of the things that I requested when we had them come out was, hey, you know what? Will county has a huge land mass of agricultural area that is really. threatened and we need to make that a priority as well as when we talk to our rural townships, they felt the questions were not quite appropriate for their their needs. So they've reworked that and they're going back and talking to those townships so they we can get a good feel for what the rural small townships think about and what their needs are and what their plans are. So I think overall was really a fabulous presentation and I encourage everyone to look at it. Thank you.

Member Ballage. I watched that on the iPad, I guess you'd call it, whatever. And I agree with Judy. It was real informative. But that didn't address what I had talked about at executive committee. The fact that it takes forever to get the permits to do things. And that's why people aren't coming. And I've been getting calls all week about problems. You know, so I tell them to call the land use. But, you know, there's a reason why we're losing business here thing and because the land, this is not related to permitting.

This is this is a whole different topic here.

This is just the fair amount.

Yeah.

I thought they were talk going to talk about that issue at land use that that day. That's why I'm bringing it up.

Yeah. No. that you can bring it up during committee, but yeah, this is not related to that. Acknowledging that that is a- I already brought it up. You did. All right. Any other questions regarding... Oh, Member Williams.

Thank you. I just want to say that I'm happy to see the family community getting the attention because so many times this community has felt neglected over the year. I grew up in the family area sun incorporated and there's a lot of issues there. So it's good that the county is starting to address some of those issues and I know that they really, really do appreciate it. So, thanks.

All right, I think so we have a motion and we have a 2nd. Previous roll call by Hickey seconded by. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Yep. Sorry. Madam clerk please call the roll.

Richmond Williams, Dean, Schlattman. Butler new quest. Yes. Actually. Brooks yeah. Winfrey yes. Bullock Logan. Freeman Revis Mitchell. Berkowitz. Yes, Costa.

21 in the firm of the motion carries. Okay, number two, ordinance 26-277, the Kirby Family Trust. This was a map amendment from A1 to E2 in Homer Township, address 13915 West Bruce Road, Homer Glen, Illinois, County Board District 4, and PCC approved 7-0, and land use approved 6-1. And I so move. Motion by Newquist.

Second by Nguyen for any discussion. We have some discussion. Member O'Gala?

Thank you. So I was the one no vote at land use, and that is because I have seen when we have these smaller parcels next to each other. I know that in this area there are smaller parcels, but I've seen the issues that come about when you have smaller like bowling lane parcels at the impact of one resident on another resident is pretty extreme because there's not a lot of frontage. So it's just a deeper lot with not a lot of frontage. I don't prefer this type. I know that they're looking to do that, and I know the person who owns it intends to live on one of the properties that it's being split up into. So I will be a no vote because of that reason.

Thank you. No more discussion. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Richmond? Williams? Yes. Ainslotman? Ogalla? Butler? New quest yes. Actually, yeah. Yeah. Winfrey. Yes. Yeah. Logan Freeman. Mitchell. Berkowitz. Costa. And then.

19 in the affirmative the motion carries okay number three resolution 26-278 this is a special use extension 26-019 dash prairie solar llc um this is actually the fourth extension of zoning case zc dash 22-66 Which is a special use permit for a commercial solar energy facility with 15 conditions in township vacant property on West Kennedy road, Illinois County board district to land use approved 7 to 0. and I so move.

Motion by new quiz seconded by Costa any discussion. Member.

Thank you. So this is the 4th extension for this special use permit. The original company that was applied for the permit is no longer part of this project at all. So a new company is taking over right now. So you should take that into consideration when you are voting. This happens quite a bit with solar company comes in starts the legwork and things I'm not sure what happens. But the original company leaves this thing, the solar project changes hands multiple times. And in this case, because it's they need an extension to to meet everything and get everything done. They've asked for a fourth extension because the prior company didn't meet get to the point to develop anything. So I'm going to be a note. Thank you.

Thank you. Member Berkowitz.

So one of the issues I have is that you cannot go on this agenda and you cannot find any of the documentation following this application. There is no notation. I'm looking for any local comments, any of the documentation that followed this Um, this case, it is not there. In addition to that, if you go into our system and you try to go back prior to 2024, you can't find anything. Where did our records ago? So we need to fix this. We have very little information on this agenda. That is part of the process here. We are supposed to be knowledgeable about this project. This is the fourth extension. I need to be able to go back to the first extension, the second extension. Where is this documentation? So, based on what is in this file, there's no... I am getting looks of confusion, but if you go, and you go back to our meetings historically, that is part of that is part of the application process. This is another example of why I do not, I've always objected to these special use permits being transferable. They should not. If the company goes bust, if the company sells, this application should not be transferable. The new owner should have to come back to the county. We have no idea Um, who this current owner is, do we, um, I'd like to ask land use who is the current owner and do you have their contact information? Have you had converse communication with them? Because none of it is available to us. And that is a question can I. Please have land use come to the podium.

Thank you.

Good morning. Marguerite Kenney with the Will County Land Use Department. I just wanted to point out in the memo on the agenda, it does have the extension application attached to that memo, as well as the staff report from the original zoning case and the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting minutes. So the owner of record is Prairie Solar LLC. And the owner of that application now is standard solar incorporated who owns prairie solar LLC.

Thank you. But what about all the backup materials?

It's attached in the memo that was attached as part of the 33 pages? Yes.

What I'm asking about when it's come to plan, planning and zoning? Where's that in here?

On page. So the staff report starts page 22 of the 33-page memo.

This system is really, it's a little difficult because our system is not user-friendly. Do you have a question? I do. I'm looking for this information, and I'm being told it's here, but I am not seeing it. I am I am in the downloads.

Well, I'm going to continue and we'll circle back to you while you will you get to the, if you don't mind, I will.

Yeah, we'll see her down with staff and I was, I was going to also suggest to, um.

Again, I know you have a new system to. You may want to have like a refresher course. I get it. So while you're looking, we'll call them back. We're going to move on. We have a voter, Member Van Dyne, then Butler.

Thank you madam executive 1 question that I've been meaning to ask and I have failed to do so. So I would like to ask in an open meeting with these extensions and this is probably for the state's attorney and I don't know if you've had time to review this or not, but. You know, according to the state statute, we are required to approve these solar projects. Um, I guess the bottom line is, are we required to your knowledge to approve a, an extension?

So we talked a little bit about this at the Republican caucus, and there's really no case law. Nobody's come across this yet. We can certainly look at how some of the other solar litigation has shooken out. Now, contrary argument is, look, they have a right to do it. They don't have a right to do it forever. If they don't get their act together, eventually it lapses. Erring on the side of caution, I would say a court would generally analyze it the same way as equity and say, look, they have the ability to do this as long as they meet the requirements. Now, whether they make them go back. I don't know. We just don't have any case on it yet to answer that question 1 way or another. But that would be my sense is they probably have an ability to get these extensions in the same way. They have the ability to get the zoning.

All right follow up question and if I may, um, how many is there is there a maximum amount of extensions that are allowed. I defer to the land use department, I think it's 4.

Thank you.

It me, Jennifer, can I add something. Okay, member Butler.

Thank you. I just want to say, sometimes I've noticed on the screens, you press the paperclip, and other times you press literally right on the bar, and that's what gets you to the next screen. So that might have been what was confusing her, because I know sometimes it's not the same. I'll be pressing a paperclip, and I'll be like, it's not working. But then I press the bar, like the words, and it does. So that can create a little confusion. And just to be clear, I just want to reiterate, I would think, as a group, to take any resistance or power or control that we have over special use permits at all. If we have to vote on every single one, then we vote on every single one. Just say it quick and get it over with. But we should always retain that power to be able to make that decision. Otherwise, what are we here for?

Um, member. Did you Mr change your mind sir? Okay. Member.

Yes, I do have a question for land use to kind of follow up on speaker Van Dyne. Um. Can we require a new special use application if the owner changes even if it's only a name change? Because somebody swallowed him up, which it sounds like is what happened here. Prairie got bought out by some other company prairie still involved, but. I'm just wondering what the statute says. Maybe Mr Glasgow, thank you. So, right there, don't you see his name tag?

I'm not important enough to get my own name tag, but.

I mean, he hasn't been here for 10 years, so what the heck, you know.

Government efficiency, so the statute does does not talk about that. I know most of our special use permits. We have them run with the land rather than with the individual owner. Again, we haven't seen any challenges to that.

Okay. And they can renew up to 4 times.

Correct.

Okay. Um. I guess that was it.

And while we were sitting here, we did do a little research. Erica did find there's actually a provision within the statute that says that we should not reasonably deny extension requests. So unreasonably deny.

Was that in the solar or was that in something?

In the solar statute.

Okay. Well, there you have it. Thank you.

Member Newquist. I just also want to point out to you guys that I believe this was originally approved prior to the current law and land use can correct me on this. So you'll notice we have 15 conditions on this. If we were to not approve this extension, and they had to reapply, they would, we would not be able to put. many of those 15 conditions back on this. And that was one of the reasons why in Land Use Committee, it was unanimously approved because we wanted to maintain the existing conditions. Member Berkwit.

Thank you. I'd like to know what the LISA score was for this parcel. Because I've looked, maybe I'm overlooking it, but I don't see it here. Normally that report is attached.

I'm in my third time looking. Just give me one moment as I pull up.

Yep.

Do you mind Julie?

Well, okay. Member.

Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on member new quiz statement about the 15 conditions. Do you guys know which ones would not be allowed now? Does any can anybody tell me that.

And maybe you don't know, maybe that's another land use question and if she gets done with the least sure, but as I recall, they had greater setbacks. There was additional vegetation. I don't remember.

No, no, no, that's that's enough. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, so the Lisa score was 216 points. I do want to point out this site is also at the end of Kennedy Road along I-57. So in terms of location, it is from staff's perspective, a very good location for solar just based on it's kind of out of the way. The village of Petone with the zoning case did not object to this either. And this would fall within their mile and a half review.

And was there any objection from the neighbors? I don't see any reference to it.

Without looking into the minutes. I do not believe there.

I just want to make sure I don't see anything, but again, I didn't see the Lisa scores either.

And is there, there's no battery here, correct?

Correct, this was prior to battery storage entering into the discussion. It did not look like there were any citizens objecting to the request based on the minutes.

Okay, thank you.

Member O'Galla, then Butler.

Thank you under the plan. I'm sorry, but I don't have it on my mind. Did they have to have a conservation plan for this project?

I'm reading through the condition, so give me 1 moment.

Yes. Condition number 14, the applicant shall submit a conservation plan at the time of the building and or site development permit application, whichever is first.

Okay. And then also, do they have to, I don't remember because we did things differently than we do now. Do they have to make sure that all the poles are buried except for the ComEd poles for connectivity?

They had the condition where they would allow to connect to overhead utility lines if ComEd required it. So they had the old condition before we had the knowledge that we could require a burial.

Right. Do we know what they're going to do, though?

If memory serves, I believe they are proposing a couple overhead utility connections to connect to ComEd. Okay.

Thank you.

Member Butler?

I'm sorry, you know, I've heard Lisa scores, and I know 214 is a high one. What exactly determines the scoring? Like, how do they evaluate soil? I mean, since she's, I don't know, are you an expert? I think, could you tell me that?

I am not an expert, but just having the NRI actually pulled up, they do take a look at different uses occurring on the property. So they look at agricultural land uses within a mile radius. They look at the site utilized for agricultural land. land, woodlands, floodplains, wetlands, and give it a score based on that. In terms of zoning, what the zoning district is within a mile radius of the property. In terms of zoning, they have different use and points associated with that. Transportation accessibility of the site, again, this one was scored lower due to somewhat limited in transportation. Uh, availability of sewer availability of fire protection, response, distance distance from a city village. So there's a lot of different.

Okay, so it doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the soil.

From what I'm looking at right now, it.

I don't want to put you on the spot.

No, I mean, I. It's farm investment. I'm just looking at the different scoring specifications. Yeah, it does not seem like that's a big part of it. It's more the uses in the area is based on what the points were added to that lease score.

That's interesting. Okay, thank you.

All right, Member Oxley.

Yes, on page 24, it answers that question, Dan, and it says essential farmland. Essential.

Hmm.

Okay member Berkowitz.

Marguerite, God bless you. Um, and so. 14 says that the applicant shall submit a conservation plan. This is the 4th extension has that conservation plan been submitted at this time.

I believe they are, if they have not, they are in process of getting recorded. In terms of the building permit, I have reviewed this, but I also have reviewed several other ones. So I am not 100% sure if it's one that was recently approved by the Conservation District, or if it's one that will be before the Conservation District to actually sign and get approved that way.

But they are working with... You don't know if... Not off the top of my head. They submitted the conservation plan, yet we're on our fourth extension. That's incredible. I also, is this, does the company own this land or are they leasing it?

They are leasing the property.

Okay. During this process, how are the property taxes determined? Are they still, does the... Does these, I know we can't change the zoning. We have to put an industrial use on vacant agricultural land. We are forced to do that. But what are the property taxes then for this company?

That I cannot address.

I'd like to know or get some feedback about it. Is there, I saw...

Oh, Treasurer Brophy is here. If you have to get a pin, they'd have to, yeah, that's probably not a question that's appropriate right now.

I think it's appropriate for the application.

Well, again, we have a committee. You have a committee, too. I'm going to strongly suggest, so that way they can have that answer for you. Go to committee, you can ask in advance, but I doubt they're going to have that answer. but answer for you. Again, committee format is for this. I encourage you to attend or go to the committee or watch because again, we want clarification questions. I get it. They're fine. But detailed questions they need time to look at it.

I beg to differ. Okay, that we have a question. Any more questions? I do have a question. I'm asking about the the taxes, property.

We do not have that answer.

And I don't know if that's in that be is that relative? Does can they I'm sorry that relevant to making a decision.

I know there's certain things that well, we can and cannot make.

Is this 1 of them or you cannot condition a solar siting permit on whether they could generate more property taxes asking a question. I'm just I was asked the question of whether it's relevant. It would not be a relevant consideration for the granting or extension of the permit. It's not in the solar siting statute.

Oh, and you're referencing the legislation coming from Springfield, the CEJA. It's not relevant to their legislation, so we should not talk about that.

You can talk about it. You can't condition a permit or an extension. I'm just asking a question. And I'm answering the question, is that it's not a relevant consideration. That's what Springfield gave you.

Well, I'm going to ask our county board. chair then to please put this on the finance committee that we can have a discussion about how the property taxes are allocated to this particular scenario. And again, we have a company, I suspect, with a lot of money, industrial use. We're forced to to give a permit for an industrial use on agriculture, I think our taxpayers would like to know if they're shouldering an unreasonable burden of property taxes. So I'm making a request that we put this on finance. Thank you.

Thank you.

Member Van Dyne?

Thank you, madam. Um, the position is called speaker of the board for everybody.

Sorry speaker.

Sorry. To answer, listen, this document, there's a 33 page document on on the agenda. All the information is there. We're talking about a 4th extension here. This is not the time or place to be asking my new questions just to prolong the procedure. Can we just please move on and get your get your answers prior to the meeting? And let's take a vote. That's my suggestion. Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to have member. We're going to go to people who haven't asked questions. We're going to go member Bullock Ortiz and then Revis.

Oh.

No, I'm going to put in information. It is my understanding from conversations that I've had, if the land is being leased, the owner of the land still continues to pay their taxes.

Member Ortiz.

I'd like to call the question.

Is there a second? Is there any more? Before we take this vote, is there any more? I think we are good, but thank you. Yeah, you do.

Call the roll, please. Yeah.

Member Ortiz has called. The question is 2nd, by Revis. Madam clerk please call the role. This is to call the question. Although I think we're done with.

Richmond Williams. Yeah. Okay, hello.

Yes, let me know. Call request yes.

Butler new quest. Yes, actually Brooks. Yeah. Winfrey. Yes. Yes. Logan Freeman. Yeah. Mitchell. Yes. Berkowitz. Costa. And that.

In the affirmative, we are going to call the question. We have a motion. We are on item number three. We have a motion by Newquist, seconded by Kosa. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Richmond? Williams? Yes. Dean Schlattman?

No.

Ogalla? Butler? Newquist? Balich?

No.

Oxley?

No.

Brooks?

Yes.

Winfrey? Bullock? Logan yes, Freeman. Revis Mitchell.

No parties. No.

Costa. Yes, and then yes.

14 in the firm of the motion carries.

Sorry, there you go.

Okay, thank you. Number four, Resolution 26-279, Special Use Extension 26-020 for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. This is the third extension for the three special use permits, each with five conditions for zoning case ZC-23-023, a special use permit for manufacturing and industrial services, a general special use permit for manufacturing and industrial services general, and a special use permit for manufacturing and industrial services general, and for the three pins, which I won't read. And these are in Lockport Township, 18500 9th Street, Romeoville, Illinois, County Board Districts 5 and 9, land use approved 6 to 1, and I so move. Second, Hickey.

Motion by Newquist, second by Hickey. Discussion? Madam clerk, please call the roll Richmond.

Williams. Okay. Butler. Yes, actually. Brooks. Yeah. Winfrey. Yeah. Logan Freeman. Mitchell. Yeah. Costa, Trainier, Van Dyne.

Really?

18 in the affirmative, the motion carries. I missed some there.

Okay, the next Land Use and Development Committee meeting is scheduled for October 1st, 2026. All right, moving on to Finance, Chair. Finance Committee, Chair Newquist. Moving on to Finance. We have a consent agenda, but it's my understanding that item number E, fiscal year 26 budget transfers, has been requested to be removed from the consent agenda. Did I get that right? Okay, so then moving on with the remaining consent agenda items, that would be a resolution 26 to 80 authorizing the county executive to execute the necessary documents for the delinquent tax program. B, resolution 26 dash 81 transferring appropriations within the will county health department budget. Number C, letter C, resolution 26-282, appropriating funds within the Will County Health Department budget. Resolution 26-283, appropriating funds in the coroner's budget. Resolution 26-283, oh, that's the one we want removed. I'm sorry, skip E. Skipping over to F, resolution 26-285, transferring emergency rental assistance funds to the corporate fund and appropriating in the land use budget. Item G, ordinance 26-286, abating the taxes heretofore levied in tax levy year 26 for the year 27 to pay debt service of $7,415,944,000 of General Obligation Transportation Improvement Bonds, series 2010. Item H, Ordinance 26-287, abating the taxes here to afford levied for 2,337,675,000, and that would be on the principal amount of General Obligation Building Will Bonds, series 2019. Item I, Ordinance 26-288, abating the taxes heretofore levied for the debt service of $2,654,474, and that would be on the principal amount of general obligation refunding bonds series 2020. Okay. J ordinance 26 dash 289 abating the taxes here to for levied and this is in tax level year 2025 for the year 26 to pay debt service of 4,617,400 on the outstanding principal amount of general obligation, renewable natural gas facility bonds series 2021. Item K, Ordinance 26-290, abating the taxes heretofore levied, and this is in the tax levy year 26 for the year 27, to pay debt service of $9,379,700 on the $92,455,000 outstanding principal amount of the General Obligation Refunding Bonds Series 2025 AB and ISO move. motion by newquist seconded by dean schlattman all in favor aye opposed motion carries okay going back to letter e resolution 26-284 fiscal year 26 budget transfers and iso move motion by newquist seconded by winfrey discussion uh-oh um member richmond sorry i couldn't find the button real quick so

So this was a question that was brought up by a number of colleagues in that. And if we could just get an understanding of what it is, that would be greatly appreciated. I tried to explain that I want to make sure that I explained it properly. So I talked to Marcy on it, so I don't know who you'd want to have.

Marcy, would you? Marcy, I didn't see Rashaun. You were hiding back there.

Sorry.

Thank you.

He asked about that one, right?

Yeah. Good morning. Good morning.

So the budget transfers, there's a budget transfer in the corporate fund for the sheriff, which is routine. They're just moving money between their funds.

I'm sorry, Rashawn. It was just specific to the $800,000. I apologize. Oh.

No, no worries. So the 800,000 is basically moving the interest that's in the American Rescue Plan, the ARPA fund into the capital improvement fund. So there is interest that is earned, which is the county's dollars. That program is closing out at the end of this year. So we're just moving those dollars now into the capital improvement fund, which is also a special fund.

And there's nothing earmarked for that right now. It's just parked in that fund.

Correct.

Thank you.

Member Berkowitz and then Ortiz.

Yes, Rashawn, I wouldn't. Yeah, there's a couple. Can you tell us why it's being transferred to the capital fund?

Yeah, there are some projects that we have in the capital fund that we could use those dollars to finish out the end of this fiscal year to pay for that that fund. The dollars are being depleted in that fund currently.

What so was this discussed it in finance? Yes. that it should go to the capital fund? Yeah, this was you were I understand. I understand. What what specifically? What specific capital needs? Well, this

Will this support? It will continue to support some of the capital items that we currently have budgeted in the capital fund, capital improvement fund.

Can we have some detail on that, please?

Yeah, so we have some capital items for the sheriff's facility, for our radio department. And we also had our needs assessment.

Needs, what would that be?

Our facilities needs assessment.

So is that paying for the assessment? Is this the, I think that was what, one million?

Yes. So this would help support the fund?

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Member Ortiz.

Oops. Sorry. Did you thank you?

Um, I'm just a little bit frustrated because I feel like they're I'm tired of seeing upwards to a 1Million dollars of budget transfers with absolutely no details. I want to see this on paper to this has to be documented. Um, because when you guys ask us to approve budgets, we need to know exactly where those line items are going. Now, when you come to me in September asking for $800,000 transfer, and I'm hearing that it's not earmarked, but then I'm also hearing that it's going to be used to pay off remaining projects. What is it? Which project specifically? I need to see that in writing as well. So I'm going to, I really want to vote no to this just to just to let you guys know that coming before us with these amounts and transfers with no details is not acceptable.

So this is routine. Just answer your question. This is this is routine. This is nothing different.

This is the same format that I understand, but the routine lacks transparency and details. Your routine lacks transparency and details.

The details is listed here in the notes.

The details doesn't tell me what this is going to pay for. It tells me where it's coming from and it tells me that it's interest, but it doesn't tell me exactly what this 800 is going to be used to pay for it. Did I miss that detail? I did not.

So, the next time you come to me with a transfer of this, excuse me, member Ortiz and again, no, I comment you can make your kind, but you're going to be respectful next time. You come to me.

Yes. Okay. No, it's not. So, please watch your mouth. I'm not your child either. So watch your mouth. Watch your mouth. You'll be respect. Be respect. You'll be respectful.

Please be respectful.

Thank you.

I agree. I agree. I, I, I'm not saying anything different, but the next, I mean, come on folks. This has been the attitude of this board is to be disrespectful to our staff members. And again, there's a way to ask for it. I understand. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. Well, I have to be more specific than this. I have asked nicely. Well, I'm not disagreeing that if we need to list things out more specifically, I have no issue with that at all. But again, I, again, I mean, come on. I mean, we just got to get to this point for you to do it. We have to watch our tone to people.

And I have, we have a rule decorum here. I have no problem with providing detail, but I also don't appreciate the disrespect that, I know I'm staff, but I'm respectful to everyone here and I also expect the same level of respect in return.

Thank you. I wasn't done making my comment. Go ahead. I'm not going to be told that I'm being disrespectful because I'm calling out lack of transparency. Okay. I refuse. All right. Okay. Please hold your comments.

I'm just saying.

Okay. Don't say anything. Please destiny. Just say your have some decorum talking to me and I'm agreeing with you. I'm saying, okay, I'm making your comment here. I'm making my comment and I'm agreeing. It's not a discussion. I'm in discussion. I'm not having a discussion with you. I'm making my comment.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. No, thank you not no decorum, but you're yelling at me about decorum. That's craziness. Then she should have decorum as the chair. That doesn't make any sense to me. So, again. Respectfully, if you come to this board with no details, I'm going to be voting. No, and I'm going to encourage everybody else to vote. No, because this is craziness that we got almost 1Billion dollar transfers. This is not the 1st time that this has happened. So, for you all to be, oh, destiny is doing the most. No, you all are not doing enough. Point blank period so please make sure you write down the details because if we have no problems, why should I have to ask more than once? Why should I be coming here to you with the same problems that I've been coming to you every meeting if we don't have these problems.

So, thank you so much member Brooks and then.

Madam Chair, I don't know if you can answer this question on Rashawn Howard, but as is the norm, $800,000 that are transferred to capital improvement, who, I'm hearing earmarks, but who makes the decision, capital committee or finance, or where that money is allocated? I heard what you said, the use of projects, but where did the decision come from, is what I'm asking, when it's moved to the capital improvement?

So once these funds are moved into the capital improvement fund, those funds sit in the fund until they are budgeted for. By whom? By the county. By us.

Yes. Thank you. That's my question. Thank you.

Yep, thank you. Madam executive. I was present as well as the chair and the vice chair of the finance committee of which I am a member. Not 1 question was asked in committee about this transfer. Not 1, they breeze through like, there was no. No issue, so either the members of the committee didn't open their agenda and didn't look at the items or they didn't have any questions. And now I'm just kind of perplexed as to why we have a question. Now, all money spent by the county board has to be approved. Well, spent by the county has to go through the county board and be approved. This is money left over at the end of the year, interest funds. We could not have known at the beginning of the year how much it was going to be. And the prudent thing, since we don't have it budgeted, is to move it into the capital. We have to move it somewhere at some point. I know we have projects going on. I'm sure we'll have a bunch of them next year. I just don't understand why the question now on county board day when members of the committee. Who are asking the questions today were present during committee and didn't ask a single 1. I'm just a little perplexed. So I'm going to be a yes on this. Thank you very much. But I did have 1 question about the fund. I know that we have a few dollars out there and about there. Are we going to get a motion next month to take those dollars and move them somewhere? If the companies that or individuals that had been assigned those dollars haven't spent them. I mean, we have to have this money spent, I believe, by October at close of the end of the month. So I'm just kind of wondering. And I'll just interject here.

With most of these agencies, we are working very hard for them to spend down their money. We are winding down, and we will be having a follow-up report on that.

Good. I was particularly concerned. And it is all online.

Everything is online with them.

I will go back, and I haven't looked at that site in a long time.

We work very hard with the agencies, again, within the pillars. We are staying within the pillars. This has already been voted on. This is an administrative function. But we are working very hard with the agencies to ensure that they are able to appropriately spend those dollars. Sure. And it's all online.

Yeah. I was just particularly concerned about the CED because they had a rather large chunk. They are working. Okay. Thank you.

Member new quest are you yeah, I was just going to point out and member trainer said it very well that we had to remove these funds from the account because it is being closed out and they had to be put somewhere. So, capital made the most sense, I believe, and that's typically what we've done with other funds that we've closed out. So that was it. Yes.

Member Berkowitz and then Butler.

Thank you. Rashawn, you indicated that part of this capital, the 800,000 that's going to capital part of that was going to the sheriff for what?

And these so let's just be clear. These funds will sit in the capital improvement fund. We already have capital projects that are budgeted for this fiscal year that have already been earmarked.

And was there a reason why they didn't go to public works or perhaps?

No, this is we have so we have moved previous interest interest dollars that we have earned in the fund to the capital improvement fund and it made more sense for it to go to the capital improvement fund. Rather than any other fund.

And the question that was asked previously was who made that decision? I think it's a great question because we did not have a discussion at committee.

This was presented at committee.

No, we did not have a discussion about the opportunity to transfer these funds. What were the needs? Who could use it? Because I'll tell you, I think our... I know the Tb clinic, they probably could use a little more money because TV is rising. Um, I hear public works look at the, uh, look at the dollars they're looking for. So, who particularly what? Because I didn't have that conversation. I would remember if I had that conversation.

Okay, this was brought to the finance committee meeting at the beginning of this month. Um, so if they're. was to be any discussion on where those dollars, instead of what was being proposed, if those dollars could be transferred somewhere else, that discussion was not had at the Finance Committee.

It wasn't, but have you ever reviewed a document, especially legal documents, you review it, you go back a second or third time, you have additional questions, you discover... I've been on this board a long time. We have a committee. It's a process. It moves through, but it grows. People have the opportunity to review the information again. And if questions arise, it's only logical to allow people to ask those questions. But to hear from... The county executive and staff that you didn't ask a question in county and fellow board members. You didn't ask a question in committee. That was your chance. You know, hold your comments that. That's unreasonable and that's completely irresponsible. Like, I've said in my committee when I was being challenged by people who. Spoke and didn't speak very kindly. I believe that every question matters. There is no stupid question. So, I think that's the attitude we need to we need to have. We are. We are the, the keeper of the purse. We take tax dollars. We ought to know what's going on and we ought to be able to ask questions without being. Attacked or being criticized. So we have a committee format, but how many committees have 22 board members present? How many committees actually might have more than two or three board members present that aren't there? So let's be kinder to each other. And if somebody is asking questions and wants more information, let's not criticize.

This is a, this is a very agreed to ask everybody. Let's not criticize anyone. I agree.

Do you have a question? My question was. The sheriff, so so this will be and I, and I am asking for this in writing. like a county board member Ortiz requested, because we need that. We need that documentation. Where is this going? And I'm assuming it'll be a capital expense for them versus equipment, because that's what I'm hearing. A roof, it'll be a roof. It won't be a, Body camera, it'll be some type of a capital expense.

Correct if it's going in the capital improvement fund. Yes.

All right, thank you member Butler. And then we have, okay, I just wanted to be clear.

I mean, we did ask to come up and explain something that came up at the last meeting. So there was questions and she got the answers today. So that's, you know, the next thing I'd like to say is. I have been scouring that budget, and I'm going to tell you, it's not easy, and there's a lot of stuff. Government budget isn't easy. One thing I can tell you is it's all there. It's all there. So I understand that nothing illegal or whatever is happening. Everything is on the budget. But I think moving forward, there might be some things that we could implement to kind of keep people up to date and more aware. Because anyone who tries to go through a 470-page document, even three months before you vote on it, it's a lot. So I hope in the near future, people will think about that. Maybe there could be some steps, I think. I'm not saying transparency in a bad way, okay? I just mean what's transparent to Rashawn, who scours it every single day, and somebody who just picks it up And it's trying to catch up. Like, how do we get them to understand? How is it transparent to the other people? And I think there's a I have a few ideas, but I think there's ways that we could catch people up and make it not such an argument or battle, you know, because a lot of decisions may get passed and they may be board approved. And people don't really fully grasp the gravity of it at the time. But then there's other things where there are funds that don't require a vote, where the executive is perfectly within the law to make certain transfers that we don't know what it's for. We just know the dollar amount at the end of the month or something. So that becomes a little shaky where people get nervous. But honestly, there's nothing... wrong there's no wrongdoing here there's just a matter of getting everybody on the same page

And again, as boards change, obviously requests change, right? And some people want to focus on one thing. Some people want to focus on another. So again, if we want to list out, sometimes, you know, again, capital needs are usually our highest needs. So it's always safe for us to put dollars into that because that is usually something we all agree on is making sure that we're not crumbling here. So with that, but I understand. Member Revis.

Thank you madam executive. I just want to say, you know, I understand that this is customary and we do this every year and it's like routine. So appreciate everybody willing to give detail. And I also appreciate other board members who are looking to be so thorough. I would just want to remind everybody, you know, it's our duty to be thorough. So, whether that's in the committee, or whether that's in the full board meeting, you just don't want to be so thorough that you end up in another board members email. Thank you.

That means, but member Richmond,

Thank you. Thank you, Rashaun, for coming up. And I thought it was just going to be a five-minute thing or a two-minute thing. So I'm going to try and net it out here. We have $800,000 in an interest-bearing account that needs to be closed out, so we move the money over to capital. The only thing, the money that can be spent on it, maybe the word got hung up is when I said earmarked. What I should have said is it's going to be dropped into capital and it can only be used for the dedicated things that are in the 2026 approved budget and or things that may come up in the 2027 budget. There won't be any spend outside of those detailed items there. You got it. Okay. Now, the only question that I do have then is, is the capital budget, that rolls over year after year, right? Correct. So those monies won't be dropped into a general fund or be moved to someplace else. They'll stick in the capital fund.

It can only stay in the capital fund.

It can only stay in the capital fund. So those monies can only be spent on the things that we have either, A, already approved and are projects that we're already engaged in and or projects that we approve in the 2027 budget.

Yes.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Member Newquist.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry. Okay.

Member O'Galla.

Thank you. Thank you, Rashawn. So I understand why we're doing this. And I'm just guessing that you had said that these funds could be used for the Sheriff's Facility Radio Department needs assessment. That is, those were budgeted in last year's budget.

And this year's budget.

And this year's budget. Yeah, they're in this year's budget. So you're putting them there to keep them there, and they're probably going to be spent in next year's budget is the anticipation of it?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Thank you.

And lastly, Member Logan.

All right. Thank you. So I've heard routine Used a couple of times in in my former job, law enforcement routine was a horrible word. We hated it just for perspective though routine. Um. Unfortunately, in 20, 2016, the budget was 482Million routine spending has made that budget jump to 836 in 10 short years. So routine spending has increased the budget by 73%. I don't know if anybody really looks at those numbers. And then clarification in that same time. Our population grew by 4%. So I would probably want to stick to not saying routine because routine spending is hurting us.

I'd be happy to, if you can, Shiri, you got those numbers again. If you're looking at operating and capital and LCC. And again, I don't know what you're exactly. I know you like to throw out numbers. And so I just, I like to, yeah. Yeah. Got to do a little more than AI. All right. All right. Very good. But again, you have to look at, you do have to look at, again, what we put in operating versus what we put in regards to other entities that, such as our VAC, such as our health, yeah. Okay. Well, I just want to make sure they're accurate comments. All right. All righty. Anything else? Thank you. Thank you. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

richmond williams dean schlattman o'galla butler yes newquist balich oxley brooks winfrey bullock logan freeman revis revis Mitchell, Ortiz, Berkowitz, Hickey, Costa, Trainier, Van Dyne.

21 in the affirmative, the motion carries.

Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Okay. So, uh, the next number 2 is just the monthly finance reports to be placed on file. I have nothing else. Our next finance committee meeting is scheduled for October 6, 2026. Thank you. Thank you.

Member turn our chair for near public works and transportation.

Thank you, Madam Executive. We have a consent agenda and one additional item, but two items from the consent agenda need to be removed from the agenda entirely. So I'm going to make a motion to remove letter E and F from the consent agenda, just letting people know that the CMS did get their act together, came up with some salt, and we will be getting our salt through the Co op contract, or whatever you want to call it through the state.

So, before we did, can we should we take a motion to just remove them from the agenda completely?

Hold on.

So, we'll remove them from the consent agenda and then we'll take a motion to motion to remove letters from the consent agenda from the agenda. No, from the consent agenda.

Yeah, that's just a removal. It's I said motion. It's just removed now because there's been a request for it. Now we take a motion to remove it from the agenda.

Okay, motion to remove it from the agenda motion by gala. I'm sorry. Motion by trainer seconded by Brooks. Is any discussion on the removal member oxley on the removal? No, I have another question.

Thank you.

So we're removing item E and F. I don't remember. Do we have a clean right? Is there a previous. We don't need to remove them from the entire agenda.

We need a 2nd. Yeah.

So we have a motion a 2nd. Is there a previous. Previous by O'Gala, second by Oxley. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. So back to the consent.

Now we'll go forward with the consent agenda, letter A through D. Letter A, granting aid in construction of a bridge over Fitament Creek on McGregor Road is petitioned by Lockport Township, County Board District 5. Letter B, resolution granting ingress and egress for a new home on Lairway Road. County board district to letter C, a resolution authorizing an agreement between the county of will and north systems. 1, 1, I don't know for continued maintenance operation and location of the 10 inch pipeline county board district 8, 9 and 11 letter D, and a resolution authorizing approval of professional services agreement for design engineering services with burns and McDonald for Wilmington road. from Warner Bridge to Wilton Center Road in County Board District 2 and ISO MOV.

Motion by Trenare, seconded by Winfrey. All in favor? Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Number two, Resolution 26297, Appropriated Transportation Funds for the Acquisition of Necessary Right-of-Way by Agreement or Condemnation and Other Right-of-Way Costs Associated with the Improvements for the Gallagher Road over the Canadian National Railroad Section. County Board District number two. And I so move.

Motion by Ocala. Seconded by Brooks. Any discussion? Member Oxley.

Yes. I have a conflict with D. I did not vote on that. I do have a conflict on that, so I have to be removed from the agenda on that item.

Sorry, okay.

On item D. The consent agenda? On the consent. I did not vote, and I will not vote on that.

Don't know. We've got to ask for reconsideration, isn't it? Yeah, go ahead. Because we've already approved it.

I did not vote, but I had my light on.

Hold on, hold on. Let's get some guidance. We made a mistake. since it was a consent agenda item and there wasn't individual votes i think we just know for the record that membroxley is asking that he not be counted thank you vote on that thank you all right so we have a motion and a second in discussion and madam is your previous previous by winfrey seconded by dean slotman all in favor aye any opposed motion carries

Our next public works and transportation committee is scheduled for October 6th. Have a great afternoon.

Thank you. Member Butler, chair, chair, Butler, public works and transportation.

It's okay, you could say Butler or Dan or anything you want. I'm okay with that. We have nothing to move forward. However, we are looking forward to looking at some of our departments from the corrections and from some of the social support groups for mental behavior coming in next month. So should be an interesting meeting. Let's see. Sorry, our next meeting is October 1st. Thank you. Thank you. Chair Winfrey, legislative.

Thank you, Madam Executive. The Legislative Committee has no resolutions to bring forward today. We are finalizing the state and federal agenda, and we ask that anyone who has any concerns or contributions to that, get those to Chief of Staff Chuck Pelkey right away so that we can finalize. We will sit again on October 6th. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair Freeman, Capital Improvements and IT.

Thank you, County Executive. We have nothing to bring forward. Hopefully next month we will have our AI policy. Thank you. Thank you.

Chair Oxley, Landfill.

Madam Executive, thank you. The only thing I have to report is we are going out for requests for qualifications for the installation of the new compressor, and our next meeting, our September meeting is canceled, and our next meeting is October 13th. Thank you.

Thank you. Member Freeman.

For capital improvement, I did forget to say that our next meeting is scheduled for October 6th. Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

Speaker Van Dyne.

Thank you, Madam Executive. The Executive Committee will present four items on the consent agenda. Does any member of this board wish to remove any item before I continue? Hearing none, thank you. Resolution 26-298, a resolution approving a strategic plan for the Will County Board. Resolution 26-299, authorizing extension of joint agreement between the Village of Bolingbrook and the County of Will for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnership Grant Programs. Resolution 26300, authorizing joint agreement between the Village of Plainfield and the County of Will for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnership Grant Programs. And lastly, Resolution 26301, appropriating funds on hand in the Indemnity Fund. And I would make that motion.

Motion by Van Dyne. 2nd, and by Freeman all in favor 2nd, by Winfrey all in favor and I pose motion carries next is the appointments by the county executive.

I make a motion for resolution 26, 302, approving county executive appointments to the workforce investment board of will county motion.

Motion by Van Dyne, 2nd, by trainer. We do have have a previous previous roll call by nucleus seconded by Freeman all in favor.

Any opposed motion carries to put on the floor. I make a motion for resolution 26 dash 303 approving county executive appointments to the merit commission of will county motion by Vandyne seconded by Freeman.

Hold on remember Logan.

Uh, I moved to postpone consideration of the appointment to the sheriff's merit commission until the 1st, regular county board meeting following the incoming sheriff taking office.

Motion by. Give your light on. Okay.

I just, I thought there'd be questions. Yeah. Okay.

All right. So there is a motion. Is it a.

Motion to postpone.

Motion by Logan, second by Ortiz. Any discussion on the postponement, Member O'Gall?

Thank you. Just because of the timing of this particular appointment, and we're going to have a brand new sheriff. I mean, we're not going to have Sheriff Kelly. He's not returning, so we don't know who it would be. I think it would be the right decision to make, to be respectful to the new sheriff, to allow that individual, whoever wins in November, To have the ability to have the appointment made. Thank you.

Thank you. Member and the nucleus.

Yes. Thank you. Madam executive. Um, is this going to slow down any necessary business? Then? Maybe this is more for the state's journey. Mr. Glasgow.

So the question was asked at Republican caucus, what happens? Based on my preliminary research, I believe the candidate is now off the board. He will be off the board if this goes forward because the statute does not say That they continue to serve until their successor is appointed. So now they will have a 4 member board. There was case law coming out of the cook county merit system where the person was a holdover and they said that was a grounds for challenging the merit commission. So the cook county statute was amended to include this holdover language.

But that's just for Cook County. That's just for Cook County. And not for us.

That's an evidence that, you know, they intended to leave that out of the statute then.

Yeah, and even number, you know, gives me a little concern. Again, you know, a couple months, but still, I don't know if they have any pending business that would be an issue.

Yeah, that would be a question for the sheriff's office.

Is anybody here?

I see under Sheriff Jungles. I don't know what's coming up on their agenda. It could be that they're just paying bills. It could be that they're doing appointments. I'm not sure.

And even on even number boards, a bad idea all the way around every day, including Sunday. Yes, sir. Even on Sunday.

So, we do have a couple of monthly meetings coming up.

Okay.

Um.

There may be some bills coming up for approval for background checks and polygraphs. I know one of our members is currently ill right now, so I don't know if we'll have enough for a quorum, so we'll have to wait and see.

If you have three members, would you have a quorum? You would. So, as long as you have, I mean, I'd be much happier if that sick person just stays home because that makes things a lot easier. But, you know, they have a voice too, and they are appointed to that board and have a right to vote. So, my concern is just the even number and what that could be. Not to mention if it's going to slow down any hiring or anything, because you mentioned polygraphs and backgrounds.

Yeah, they do. Um, we are, we are currently hiring for both correctional officer and for, uh, depth, you know, sheriff's police.

Yeah.

And they do conduct the interviews for those as well. So, and we have, it may slow down that process down as well.

And we have a really hard time getting candidates. I'd hate to lose candidates for 2 and a half months. Um.

Member or Speaker Van Dyne?

I turned you on. Sorry, I turned you on.

Thank you. Um, I, I do understand the sentiment of allowing the new, uh, share of to choose somebody from the merit commission. But, um, I also feel that we've had a sheriff and we've had a share for quite some time. And I think it's, um, it's something that he has filled this position and and fill this role before. And, um, I, I have no issue with him appointing somebody at this time. So, thank you.

Member Newquist? Yeah, that was Butler.

That was actually my question was, was this going to slow down their, you know, operations in any way, but this particular guy's been on the board since 2012. So he's been a long time merit board. Correct. Did I get that right? Okay, thanks. You answered my bulk of my question when you responded to member Chenier. Thank you. Right.

Member Butler, and then Freeman.

So, I'm sorry, did we were we talking about appointing somebody? Like, can we point this guy until there's a, you know, we decide after the new year we'll make it up. We have a new election and then we'll vote on it. Is that what was being said?

Yeah, no, I meant legally, you could not point him for a shorter term. There are cases where discipline was overturned because the Cook County American did shorter terms.

I thought it was conflicting. All right. And for the, the board of review. And that we have a different statute, right? Where, where you, if you don't. Put someone new in there, they just carry over. Yeah. So do we have a lot of stuff that goes back and forth like that?

Or correct? There's a lot of there's a lot of these appointed positions that say they will continue to serve until such time as their successor is appointed or elected. This is not in that statute and in evidence that it was not intended to be cook county merit commission had to have theirs amended. So, again, you're looking at what's not included in the statute and tells me that there are no holdovers in these cases.

So, this is something that if we postpone this, we could actually add that. No, you can't the state the state is the 1 that sets those regulations state does. That's why. Okay.

Could I bring something up as well? Because Kevin just kind of alluded to discipline. We are currently going through the discipline process for several of our employees right now and that could also slow down the process of that.

Member Freeman.

Thank you so I, I just have 1 question to start me off here. This person was chosen. Through an application process, how did that happen? By the sheriff, so the sheriff has has gone through an application process and has chosen this point.

Correct.

So, I'm okay moving this forward. I don't want to slow anything down. I also don't want to make the same mistakes that our federal government made several years ago with the appointment of waiting for the new administration to come in on the Supreme Court. So, thank you.

Member trainer, I do have 1 more question. There are 5 positions total. This is only 1, the other 4 positions. Are they going to be up during the term of the new sheriff? Any of them?

I believe so. Yes.

So the new sheriff would have a chance to put forward some recommendations during their correct.

And there's a, there is a process for that. It has to be. equal amount of Republican, Democrat, registered Democrats and Republicans.

No different. Yeah. Okay. I don't think I have any other questions. I don't want to slow down. I don't want to mess up any disciplinary processes. I really don't want to see us not hire people. Because when people apply for a job with the government, and this is any level of government, pretty much, Between all of the checks and the waiting and the tests and everything, it takes 6 months to get hired. And in that time, that person could get picked up by some other entities, some other board, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm going to be a yes on approving this and a no on a postponement. Thank you.

Motion by Hickey. Oh, I'm sorry.

That's okay. I can do whatever you like here. Yeah, obviously, I mean, if we could give you a couple of extra people to speed up any of those proceedings, I would like to do that. But my understanding is that most of the members of the Merit Board are former law enforcement and are pretty well versed on, is that true or not true?

There are two that are former law enforcement currently.

Okay. Okay.

And is this applicant also?

Which applicant was it? I didn't see the name. Oh, yeah. He is former law enforcement. Okay.

All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Member Logan.

Is it back to me now? It's back to you. So clarification, it can still run with three members, right? So nothing's stopping.

I would defer to the state's attorney for that.

Uh, theoretically, I am actually litigating this issue on a different board at the appellate court right now on a board that had less than the full membership. What constitutes majority vote also things we are at the appellate court right now. I filed those briefs last week.

Okay. So I would think five, three would be a quorum. So you've got four.

All right. The question would be what is majority vote when people are there, things like that. So I am currently litigating that the third district.

Well, they still have four people out of five.

Sure.

So, all right. So just for clarification, there's four out of five. That's 80%. All right, which is more than 50 no more discussion.

Madam clerk. Thank you. Madam clerk. So, this is wait, this is to postpone postpone. Everyone postpone.

Richmond Williams. Yes. Butler yes. New request. Yes, actually Brooks Winfrey. Logan Freeman Revis Mitchell Ortiz Berkowitz Hickey Costa Trainier Van Dyne 11 11 in the affirmative the motion carries this will be postponed move

You're back on, Speaker. Thank you. No other further business for the Executive Committee, but we plan on meeting on October 8th, 2026, and that concludes our report. Thank you.

Thank you. We're moving on to public comments relevant to matters under the jurisdiction of the county. Is there anyone here? Any general comments? Any general comments? Going once. Going twice. All right. Moving on to comments by county board members. We have one, two, three, four, five, six. All right. Mr. Member Balich. First up.

I just want to let everybody know that I met with Kevin and Ken Gray about the tax deeds. And we came up with a solution. And it's just got to go through legal. They got to make sure that when the state of Illinois changes the law around that it corresponds. But it was a good meeting. And I think everybody will be happy with it if we do it. And then I also wanted to point out that in Burr Ridge, which is not Will County, the mayor there eliminated property tax for the residential by increasing the sales tax between a quarter and a half percent. So kudos to him. So the people that live there are no longer going to have property tax.

Member Ortiz and then actually thank you.

I have a 3 part comment. So, 1st part on the undisbursed immigration funding back on September 4th, Michelle Mullins from the daily South town reported that 200,000 dollars. This board approved for immigration services 10 months ago still has not been handed out. She pointed out that Illinois Workers in Action or IWA has already helped nearly 31,000 people since January offering free legal advice along the way. Yet almost a full year after we voted for this funding, IWA has only gotten a single sit down meeting. They're still waiting on access to the county's grant software and have zero timeline for when they'll actually see the money. The Latino community shouldn't be forced to wait a whole year for the executive's office to get moving. We're not going to forget this delay and we will remember everyone who stayed silent while our community was told to wait once again. 2 on flat cameras, the public works committee meeting at the public works committee meeting member Hickey mentioned that. The committee should consider all the good ideas that residents brought up at the August 20th meeting, but residents weren't trying to tweak the ordinance. They were saying loud and clear that they don't want these cameras period. The takeaway was pretty simple. No rule or safeguard is going to make this kind of surveillance. Okay. People want the county to end its flock contract and pull these cameras off of our streets. That's why it share trainees idea of kicking the can down the road until January 5 months later. And until after the election is even more insulting. And three on the tax levy proposal last year, when a majority of us back to zero percent tax levy increase, the executive office warned that the county would shut down and critical services like nine on one or sunny hill. Care would be in danger. Well, it turns out the sky didn't fall. Now, a year later, the executive is pitching that same exact 0% levy they claimed would trigger a disaster. I'm glad to see the change of heart, but let's be real, it proves that the county had options all along. Meanwhile, the Capital Improvements Committee spent all year weighing space needs, looking at options that could cost over $250 million. You told taxpayers there was no money to offer them relief while simultaneously eyeing a massive new building project. That's the equivalent of your landlord raising your rent in this economy while using your hard-earned cash to buy themselves another property. Thank you.

Thank you. Member Oxley.

thank you i would just like to clarify that this board voted to allow flock cameras on the right-of-ways of county roads we did not vote on cameras as reported thank you thank you member berkowitz thank you madam executive um i'd like to wish you all a happy constitution day

On September 17th, 1787, 39 delegates in Pennsylvania signed the United States Constitution. The Constitution serves the ideals articulated in the Declaration of Independence. As we celebrate 250 years of our constitutional Republic, please take a moment to recognize it, share this with others. And overall, every day I get up and I appreciate what we have here in the United States of America. And this is one day to acknowledge. and to remember all of the sacrifices that went before us to give us what we have here today. One country, there is no other country in the world like the United States of America. Thank you.

Thank you. Member O'Gallon, then Trenere.

Thank you. I would like to reiterate a bit of what Member Ortiz did say. This board voted to use cannabis dollars to provide funding to certain groups. One of those was the IWA group to help legal residents, people who have come from other countries legally to be able to have assistance to get their citizenship. I have a friend who I referred to this group, and they successfully helped him achieve that goal of his. So that was very great. Another thing is we also voted as a group to give cannabis dollars to the clerk for her ballot inserter. The executive committee voted back in July to do the same, to put it on an agenda. That was done the executive committee per the county board rules is the agenda setting committee. Yes, the speaker does a lot of the agenda setting, but the executive committee can do as well. That committee voted to put on the agenda for finance committee, the ability to use to give those cannabis dollars to the clerk's office. That did not happen in August. It did not happen in September. It's pretty unfortunate that when this board votes, it really doesn't mean anything. There's no enforcement. Our voice, our vote should matter. It's ridiculous that when somebody votes, it doesn't. I also want to say that I understand we are all trying our best to respect and have decorum here at the board, but we must also understand that there will be times that a board member has a strong position on an issue and we'll use their time at this county board to express that. We shouldn't try and restrain them and sometimes they're going to have very strong opinions and they will say things. While this is happening, I also think the board decorum should also happen with our county executive. There shouldn't be jabs to board members who make a comment about something that, you know, you're using AI. That's inappropriate. I did also want to let everyone know that I attended to 2 very interesting meetings this week and you are welcome to to join some of this on Monday. I had joined it. I joined a working group with soil and water conservation district. We had representatives from the forest, preserve the village of. village of new Lennox and also members of the public this group is working to develop to develop better relationships and to serve the residents for foil, soil, protection, water, drainage and development. On Wednesday, I took a tour, a woodlands tour with so on water conservation district at the family farm. In Wilmington, that was very interesting. And I, you know, I look at I look at a forest is so much different and made me understand a lot of things that we do at the forest preserve. They walk this man had this family has 110 acres of wooded lands and we went through there and we talked about invasive species. like garlic mustard, Steve, and why we need to get rid of them and what those invasive species do in the ground. Because in a forest, all the roots are joined together somewhere. And they spoke about how if a tree is in distress, then it sends out a signal and it warns the other trees about it so they can maybe start protecting themselves against insects and that. This was a very informative tour. They're going to do it again next year at the ESERT family again. So board members, you have the opportunity to attend. They also do provide lunch and I hope that you guys will take that opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you. Member Trenere.

Thank you, Madam Executive. I think we took some really responsible action in regards to the flock cameras. I don't have children at home that might be kidnapped. Both of my parents who were senior citizens at one time, in fact, my father did get lost one time and was brought home by a police officer. Should I have needed a flock camera to help find him? I would have wanted the police to have those cameras at their disposal to help with the silver alert. This is a tool that law enforcement has expressed a need and a desire to have. We have heard from residents. We have been working with law enforcement. We will be bringing forward an ordinance sooner rather than later to help make sure that no stalking of any resident takes place. And if you're concerned that, you know, hey, she's only saying that because she's supported by the FOP. or some other police group. I have never received an endorsement from any police organization. In fact, just the opposite. I don't think one has anything to do with the other. And as for the IWA, I have sat down and met with them twice, and my understanding of what they intended to do with that money was not to help any resident that was here legally to obtain citizenship, but to, in fact, buy a vehicle. So there you have it. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a great week.

Member Rivas.

Thank you, Madam Executive. Good job with this meeting today. I thought you did a great job keeping everybody in line. We're moving pretty quick. I would just want to comment a little bit on two items, both surrounding our awesome Will County Clerk, Annette Parker. She's going to be in the news quite a bit over the next coming weeks with the election kicking off and all the work her office is doing. to make sure our elections are running smoothly here in Will County. So I think she's doing a great job on the elections front. So thank you, Clerk Parker. But next I would want to get into specifically, when I first joined the board, then County Board Member Parker brought up a very important policy issue to me, and it's a big problem impacting our residents, and that's the bridge situation with the 9th Street Bridge. She was very generous in spending her time explaining the backstory and the history on the issue, and I'm just here again reaffirming my belief that I think us as a county board need to take a little bit of leadership on this matter so we could get a solution that works for all residents in Will County. So in the next few weeks, I will be asking everybody to sign on to a letter for a special meeting to where we could talk about the bridge situation in Joliet, excuse me, in Will County. not only in Joliet, but the other areas across really the center part of the county with the Des Plaines River running through it. So I hope you guys could support that. I know we have a lot of work to do with the budget season coming up, but I feel like a quick, you know, one hour meeting to talk about the bridge situation in Joliet would be very helpful for our board and the municipalities, villages, and cities that are in Will County. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Member Newquist, then Axley.

Yep, I just want to say that a lot of you guys might not know this, but the clerk's office was invited to the special finance meeting this past Wednesday to discuss the ballot sorter, but they were unfortunately unable to attend. So, and that just want to make sure that you guys realize you're welcome to come back to a future meeting and we can have that conversation. Thank you.

Member actually.

Thank you. Mr. Revis brought up a very important thing, this bridge. And at executive, we talked about it and we need to look forward to that. And I like Mr. Renier's thoughts of we maybe make this a regional thing because it affects Romeoville, Lockport, Cresthill, Joliet, the whole thing. Yes, it's a $700 million project, but it's something that's been talked around, kicked down the street for a lot of years. It was something we need to move at because in two years, they're gonna take out the 159th Street Bridge or 9th Street Bridge and Lockport. Emergency vehicles have no way to go.

Thank you. Thank you.

Moving on to leadership. Leader Richmond, anything? And then...

Thank you. So Mike Mahoney and I had a good conversation comparing pizzas last week. And I think we agree on that, right? So just to let you know, in this little conference room over here, there's some pizzas there that I had brought in. So this way you can all compare and see if Mike and I are both on the same page. It's probably the best pizza around. So that's all I got. Thanks.

Later, Williams. Thank you. 1st, I'd like to say that when we're talking about the immigrant community is not just the Latinos that are part of the immigrant community. So I just wanted to say that too. Also. My favorite topic and everybody else's we have a strategic plan. I am so happy for that, guys. Thank you so much. I do have some ideas about how we get started. So we start with the easy stuff and stuff that I think that the onboarding is one of the things that we probably need to look at, especially since the election is so close here, too. But I do appreciate everybody voting for it. And I am looking forward to any help that anybody wants to give. Any ideas are welcome. And just thanks again.

Thank you Speaker Van Dyne.

Thank you again Madam Executive. I just like to let the board members know that Mr. Oxley and myself had an opportunity to go out to Washington DC over the last few days. The United County's Council of Illinois, which is hard to say, UCCI, we went out there on a fly-in. It was 100% reimbursable to Will County, so no taxpayer dollars was spent. We had the opportunity to sit with US Senator Duckworth and US Senator Durbin, and also the White House's internal affairs staff. And surprisingly, their staff was very. Adamant about the need for the AI data centers in the United States. They want to lead the charge. To to win that type of war, um, both senators. Are also in that agreement, but they are more interested in having certain guard rails put in place such as, um, the data centers need to provide their own water source. Uh, they cannot take any water from the residents in increasing their bills. Uh, they talked about the modular nuclear. Uh, piece where they would like to see them required to provide their own power. So, it seems like, uh, out at the federal level that they're there. Some of them are all on the same side of this issue. So, um, we had a very intimate conversation with both senators. It was really nice. We got to explain some of the concerns. Uh, we asked the federal government. to push down on springfield a little bit to allow the more local control on the solar farms they said they would be interested in that whether they follow through or not i don't know but at least they we put it on the radar so it was very enjoyable and just giving an update thank you

Thank you. Before we close out, just a reminder that the County Board Budget Director did put out an email regarding talking about the budget for County Board members. I'm going to, I think we have two people respond, again, to go into more detail why we put things. I fully understand that, again, you aren't, here at a daily basis and there is questions that come up and why are we doing things why are the departments doing things we are engaged with our departments we get a little more information from our elected officials and again we want to be be able to explain that uh second in regards to this and anything you know i i always welcome feedback i am not saying that there are not places where we need to be improved And Member Ogalla, I will tell you directly that there is no one more disappointed than me when I react and engage because I try to do a better job. I really do. But I don't like false narratives, and I want to make sure that we are up front as we try to be. So I recognize when I have... Over overstepped and again, no, 1 gets disappointed with that more than more than myself. But again, I hope we can keep this civil discourse and again, making sure I will always protect the staff. And I know we all get excited. I agree. We are all passionate about certain things. Some things we don't care about some things we are over a passion and I can appreciate passion. I don't like it when it becomes accusatory because that's all I'm asking. Ask your questions. I sat in the legislative branch for eight years and I asked a lot of questions. So I don't just dismiss the need to ask questions. So with that, I encourage you to reach out to Marcy. She's very, she's full of knowledge. She's wonderful. And again, just to hear kind of some of the background. We sit in these meetings a long time. I know Mr. Richmond sat in some of them as well. And I think it's important for you to hear. uh with that i do do not need an executive session i do need a motion to recess to october 15 2026. motion by trenear seconded by mitchell previous roll call are all in favor yeah any opposed motion carries