Madam Secretary, we'll reconvene the Kakani asset management meeting.

Thank you, ma'am.

At your recess meeting, you did have a quorum.

All members were present with the exception of Commissioner Moore.

Has Ms.

Commissioner Moore returned?

Thank you, sir.

Commissioner Moore is present.

All members are present.

There is a quorum.

Quorum is present.

You know what?

I'm sorry, one more thing.

Commissioner McCaskell, are you still connected?

If so, we need a remote participation roll call.

Commissioner McCasco.

Yes, I am here.

Ma'am, we do need remote participation.

Mover and seconder.

Second.

Move by move by Commissioner Moore, second by Commissioner Aguilar for remote roll call.

Can you take a roll?

Commissioner Aguilar, your vote.

Aye.

Commissioner Naya.

Commissioner Britton.

Is absent.

Commissioner Dugnan.

Is this an aye?

Yeah, thank you.

Commissioner McCaskill.

Aye.

Commissioner Moore.

Previous votes were all aye.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison.

Aye.

Commissioner Sean Morrison.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Aye.

Madam Chair, you have eight eyes, one absent vote for Commissioner Brittany.

Can we address Commissioner Britton?

Your vote is aye for remote participation.

Nine ayes, zero nays, ma'am.

Thank you.

Any registered public speakers?

You do have three in the room.

Thank you.

Uh in this order.

George George Blakemore, Jessica Jackson, and Zoe Lee.

Taiwan Sims is not here.

Asset management.

Thank you.

What is the purpose of remote?

If I'm sick, uh it's snow bad and clinic weather, and I don't want to come down.

But I'm already here.

Something's wrong here.

I'm already here.

And what's keeping me from getting up and sitting in my seat?

What's the purpose of that remote?

Or whatever they call this.

That's when people can't, it's some emergency.

I think all of you are abusing this.

It's an emergency, and you can't come to your job.

But if you continue to be remote, remote, well, it's it's show that you are abusing the system.

These employees can't call in remote.

That chef can't do that.

You got to be physically here.

And if you continue to be absent, they will find you.

Common sense is not coming anymore.

Make it happen.

Am I crazy?

I know I'm looking terrible.

You keep on talking about your look.

I never looked this ugly in my life.

Things happen when you get old.

It happens.

Keep living.

Keep living.

I I just can't stand to see myself looking at little frail hand.

Anyway, well, what's the purpose of that remote?

What is the purpose of this?

Make it make sense.

I'm already here.

I'm already here.

We're not gonna beat up on the commission.

All of y'all.

Oh, you speak so seldom.

All of y'all calls in and use that remote.

If you continue to do that, they show that you have no respect for your job.

You have no respect.

If I keep calling in and calling in.

One minute.

And calling in remote.

Why would you even create that?

That's for emergency.

My daddy works at 70 feet for something years, and he called in and said, I can't come.

I can't come.

I'll come tomorrow.

I can't come.

It's snowing outside.

Something is wrong with my car.

Keep on being late.

30 seconds.

Something is wrong here.

No leadership.

Out of control.

Out of control.

And they look at him right over there.

Look at me.

Oh, you think I'm a fool.

Oh.

You look so ugly and frail.

Mr.

Babylon.

Oh.

Oh.

Well, I'm still somebody.

And time is expired.

Next speaker, Jessica Jackson.

Okay.

Who?

All righty type.

I mean, it's comical at this point.

Wouldn't you say?

I mean, we really, you good with uh uh this social media stuff.

I want you to start pulling this down.

We're gonna start sending this stuff to Cat Williams and now because this is straight comedy.

It's straight comedy, and everybody's paying attention to Chicago right now.

Everybody for the political machine that it is, everybody's paying attention to Chicago right now.

So we're gonna get some of this stuff to some of these comedians because this is a joke.

This is a joke.

I mean, Blackmore said it best.

It's no respect for your job, it's poor leadership, as the head is there goes to body.

Tony Preckwickle is God awful, and been God awful for very, very, very, very, tell me 30 seconds, because I'm a very barrier to 30 seconds, very, very long time.

She's horrible.

That's how come you, Scott Britain.

That's why.

That's why you can sit there being commissioner over litigation and straight up don't settle no cases.

That's why.

Because you got a horrible leader, and she's telling you to act that way, and you saying, all right.

Yes, sir.

Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, that's why you like that.

And you just just messing up people.

You know, Bridget, uh, what's in a commission of Bridget?

That's supposed to be the auditor.

That's why you won't audit anything.

Because your leader telling you not to don't look puzzled and perpetual.

I've been told you to audit my mother's probator state.

2016P 005729.

There it is.

But you don't have to do it.

You know why?

Because your leader telling you that you don't have to.

That's why.

That's why you're now you're you turn into a sorry auditor.

Because you're not doing your job.

Ain't no need to tuck in your bottom lip, that's what time it is.

I'm an accountant.

And I know in order to be respected as an accountant, you got to do your job.

People can come to you as an accountant for an answer when they can't get it from nobody.

And for you to sit there looking perplexed, it's a disgrace to our profession.

30 seconds.

Assets are things that people own, right?

So you start looking at the things that people own, which is our real estate, and how y'all been taking it.

That's the only management y'all been doing is stealing real estate.

That's the asset that y'all been managing to steal.

All right, Lynn, you do uh uh uh yawning.

It's my 30 seconds up.

Zoe Lee is our next speaker.

What you say?

Zoe Lee is our next speaker.

Um, so for a government like Cook County, asset uh asset management means tracking, maintaining, protecting, and using public assets responsibly so taxpayer resources are not wasted, stolen, neglected, or mismanaged, but y'all do all of that.

Okay, examples of Cook County government assets.

This is for my people who are listening.

Government buildings, physical assets, government buildings, roads and bridges, vacant lots, and county owned land, police vehicles and equipment, public housing properties, water and sewer infrastructures, financial assets, tax revenue, pension funds, grant and federal funding, TIFF, public funds that y'all steal, because that's y'all um piggy bank, records and digital assets, property records, court records, GIS maps, public databases, contracts, and permits.

What government asset management is supposed to do.

Well, you guys are supposed to keep accurate records of what it's on, track property conditions and maintenance, prevent fraud, waste, and corruption, ensure assets benefit the public, dispose of surplus property legally and transparently, make sure public land sales and demolitions follow due process.

But y'all have made it a major issue.

Corruption, illegal.

Public land is transferred unfairly, property owners are displaced improperly, demolitions happen without proper notice, vacant properties are neglected intentionally, political insiders benefit from redevelopment deals, taxpayers funded assets are misused, and you think you deserve to go to Congress, and you are the chairman for assets management, and I've been coming in here for three years, telling you about the city of Chicago unlawfully demolishing my property without due process.

My mother has all the records, my godfather has all the records.

This is Cook County.

That's why I do not think that you should go to Congress.

One minute.

We have a problem here.

Donna, they're stealing black people's property, and they're doing it with our elders because they know that they do not understand technology.

They do not understand social media.

They do not understand AI.

But I do.

And I love my mother.

And I love my godfather.

And I love my black people.

Just like everybody else should love theirs.

But I can't get no help from y'all and y'all are the public servants.

It's one Republican here.

He does nothing.

But I I but he never does anything.

So it's expected.

They they say that about you.

They say they say Liz Gorman say she she talked.

Yeah.

That's why she's going.

That's why she's coming back.

They say that's why she's coming back.

Yeah.

Because they say you got some stuff.

That's why you gotta actually get off this.

So it's it's gonna come out.

But as I'm saying though, like, come on, man.

Look at least look at it.

At least look at it.

At least look at my stuff.

At least look at Miss Jessica's stuff and see the pattern, because it's a pattern.

Stop written, no.

Okay, well, you can look at my stuff.

Because honestly, this is a they what they did was wrong.

And time is expired.

No, we're glad you don't know.

Thank you.

The chair will now entertain a motion from Vice Chair Aguilar to move approval of item 26-1357, the minutes from the meeting of March 11, 2026.

Seconded by Commissioner Naya.

All in favor of approving 261357.

Say aye.

All opposed say nay.

The ayes have it, and the motion carries.

Vice Chair Aguilar, will you please move the next items on the agenda?

He has.

Renovation and Division 5.

That's correct, right?

Five.

Yes.

Five and division four and five.

Four and five, Jim.

Thank you, Vice Chair Aguilar.

Is it okay?

Demolition of the division four and demolition division five.

Okay, seconded by Commissioner Britton.

Can we just go ahead and take up item 26-1057 for a vote?

So then we can hear from uh asset management on the build-up cook.

Are you doing a bundle or are you gonna separate them?

Um can we separate them?

You can.

Yes, okay.

Yeah, let's separate them.

Okay.

So let's amend the motion on the floor because he did move both of them.

Okay, amend the motion will take up 261057 to approve um item for the authorization of the chief procurement officer to enter an egg into a contract.

And still that will be moved by Commissioner Aguilar, seconded by Commissioner Pritten.

And then motion is to approve, correct?

Motion to approve.

Thank you.

Can we take a vote?

Question?

Yeah, oh, you have a question on this.

Yeah, just for the record, there's no relation to I just I don't the Epstein name on here.

Just wanted to make sure that for the record that there's no um that there's no relation with uh some of the current investigations at the federal level.

It doesn't seem like there is, but I just wanted to make sure that Earl, if you could for the record, um, or someone can just note that.

I think it's pronounced Epstein, not Epstein.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I just thought about that.

Good afternoon, Commissioner Rafi Saraffian Chief Procurement Officer.

We run our contracts before we bring them to you with the board.

We run them through background checks, and nothing has come up.

We're not familiar with anything.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Any further questions?

Can we vote on this now?

Item item on the floor is to approve.

Uh and the item numbers 261057, moved by Commissioner Aguilar, second by Commissioner Brady.

Roll call.

So Commissioner Aguilar, your vote, sir.

Aye.

Commissioner Naya.

Commissioner Britton.

Previous votes were aye.

Commissioner Degnan.

Is absent.

Commissioner McCasco.

Present.

This is a roll call vote.

Is it aye or present, ma'am?

Aye.

Thank you.

I apologize.

Aye.

Thank you, ma'am.

Commissioner McCasco's aye and previous votes were aye.

Commissioner Moore.

Aye.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison.

Commissioner Sean Morrison.

And Madam Chair.

Aye.

Ma'am, your votes are uh uh eight ayes and one absent.

I just had a question on the Commissioner Dagnan.

Yes.

Are you gonna vote on this item?

We have you as absent.

What's your vote?

Um I'm if this is 261057, right?

The renovation and demolition of the jail campus.

No.

261057.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

I had a question about this one.

Yes.

Okay.

So um we had a briefing on this with you, right?

Um, and there were a couple questions that I had, and I wanted to just follow up.

Um we had uh the discussion about the RFP and RFQ process for how this contract was acquired.

And I just kind of wanted to draw down a little bit.

So instead of doing an RFP, which I think we when I looked at my notes, we normally would do if we are looking for a dollar amount and there's some specificity to the contract about exactly what we need to do, it maybe is a little bit more comp comp complicated or complex.

An RFQ is usually for something that we already know what's going to be happening.

We we're just really looking for a price, right?

No, no, no, okay.

Okay, maybe I'm conflating this with this my work at the state.

But when we would do an RFQ, it was mostly because it was a simpler project and we were just like focused on dollar amounts.

An RFP was more specific to a complicated process.

So you're saying here at the county those two are flipped.

Sure.

Good afternoon, Commissioner Rafi Sarafi and Chief Procurement Officer.

Thank you for your question.

An RFP, uh RFQ can be used when when uh the agency or the department really wants to focus on the qualifications, the technical expertise, uh, the experience of the firm that they will select through the evaluation process.

And it's especially used in the context of architecture and engineering services, which is what the contract with A Epstein is for.

And so the and price is not even in an RFQ evaluation, price is not one of the criteria because it's critical to go through that qualification-based analysis up front.

Price comes in once the committee makes their selection and you head into contract negotiation.

Unlike an RFP, where price is included as one of the one of the criteria, among other things like qualifications and and that sort of thing.

But then price, but price is then part of that analysis and price can and the the with an RFP price can be an influencing factor in the evaluations when you're getting into comparing pricing submitted by one proposer over the other.

So to remove that consideration up front in an RFQ, you're solely looking at the qualifications in the qualification packages that were submitted.

Okay.

So how many when we submit a request for quote, we give that out to everybody that has historically worked with the county, right?

So every architect and engineering firm that we had would have had an ability to bid on this for the RFQ, right?

Yes.

So what we do uh when uh regarding notification of our contract opportunities, we do a couple of things.

First, you well in advance of this of the solicitation being advertised in the Chicago Tribune.

Uh we we include uh the the solicitation in our annual buying plan, and that's our forecast for the upcoming year.

This solicitation this RFQ was included in the buying plan for fiscal year 24, and we did in fact advertise the RFQ in in fiscal year 24.

So, well in advance of us advertising, we put the notification in the Tribune to alert everybody.

This is coming up.

And then how many people responded?

How many entities responded?

Yeah, I can get back to you.

I can get back to you with that.

I don't have that uh in that detail with me.

But then after the buying plan, then comes the day that we advertise.

Before you go on, so in this is more mid-2026.

So you're saying that back in 2024, we said, hey, everybody, we're gonna put this RFQ out.

Right, so everybody should know and look for it.

And then in 20 when did we actually put the RFQ out?

And we put the we put the RFQ out.

If you bear with me one second, please we put the RFQ out in 24.

Uh I can get you the answer one second.

Commissioner, I'll have to get back to you with that with an answer to that question.

I don't have the exact day that we advertised.

I just I'm curious about the timing.

If we put an RFQ out, and now it's two years late.

I don't know, two years later, that we're now before the board asking the board to approve an RFQ.

What why is it taking two years?

Yeah, I I again I don't have an answer to that question.

I would have to get back to you.

I don't know exactly when we advertised, and I don't know when the evaluation process concluded.

Um let me back up again then.

Like a two years is a very long time frame for any kind of RFQ or RFP.

I mean, six months is maybe for me a long time, maybe for you not a long time, but a year is really long.

18 months is extremely long.

Two years just is way too long.

So I don't seem to understand.

I understand I've done RFQs, I've done RFPs myself, I have written scopes of work.

We you and I have had many conversations about this.

That time frame is way too long for any county to be able to do business in a reasonable amount of time, make decisions and get the work done.

So do you recall with any specificity this particular RFQ and why it took so long?

As as I said, without without knowing the dates and without me getting back to my team and finding out what happened, I I can't give you a detailed answer.

What I can tell what I can tell you generally speaking is that one of the fact a couple of factors are involved in evaluations, whether in an RFP or an RFQ.

Uh the number of proposal the number of qualification packages received.

I don't know how many we received.

I don't know how detailed they were, how many pages they were.

I don't know about I don't I don't know about the availability of the evaluation committee members.

Uh keep in mind that evaluating proposals or qualification packages is not the only task on the desk of each evaluation committee member.

I I mean I understand.

Uh let's back up again.

So, you know, there's only one thing on the list here for uh asset management for 26-1057, and it's this renovation and demolition campus.

And so you're here to talk about that.

So I guess did you prepare in order to come before our board?

Did you look at this material in order to respond to questions?

That's yes, I yes I did.

The one thing I don't have is the that uh the exact dates, unfortunately.

But uh, but I'm um uh uh I I was answering that I was told that questions on the notification process, who we notified, how that our notification process worked.

And and that was that's what I was prepared to speak to.

The detailed questions, unfortunately, I don't have the I I don't have that information with me.

Typically I do, but in the information I was provided, it was not included, so I'm unable to provide you that detail right now.

Okay, well, I would just say going forward, you know that I have a lot of curiosity about these things from my work at the state and my work here.

And I think that you and I have had enough conversations that you know that these are the type of questions that I would ask.

So I'm not asking you to read my mind or kind of go down every rabbit hole, but for things about RFQ and RFP.

I mean, Jamie and I did have a full con conversation about this, um, and I know that it was probably communicated to you in general, but about a a two-year lag in that time frame is something that I would I would want you to come here and be able to explain why that happened and give some detail around it.

Again, I'm not asking you to read my mind or do anything that would be outside of the bounds of a reasonable request, but these things well we have to vote on them, and it is this contract that's almost a two million dollar contract.

It concerns me that we have stale pricing, that there could have been other folks that would be able to respond to this in the interceding time that would give us a better quality of work, somebody who might do the job better at a better price.

And at the baseline, those are things that I'm gonna look for when I want to vote for a contract like this.

So I guess my expectation and the kindest way I can say it is please come next time with these types of um details available.

I'm fine if you don't have everything.

I'm always happy to take more information later, but it at a baseline I think it's fair that I have these questions, and it's fair that you come with the responses.

Understood.

Okay.

Um so I would like to know how many people actually responded to this, but I appreciate that.

Um those were all my questions.

Thank you.

Jamie, thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Okay, madam secretary, we need to go back and do the roll call.

Yes, ma'am.

It was interrupted, and so your item on the floor was to approve item number one zero five seven, moved by Commissioner Aguilar.

Second by Commissioner Britton.

Yes.

So yes, yes.

Okay.

Okay.

And if you're ready, I'll start again.

Yeah, please take a roll call.

Commissioner Aguilar, your vote?

I.

Commissioner Naya.

Commissioner Britton.

Aye.

Commissioner McCasco.

I.

Thank you.

Commissioner Degnan has joined us your motion.

I mean, your vote, ma'am.

I have an aye.

Thank you.

Commissioner Degnan has been added as an I.

Commissioner McCaskell was an I.

Commissioner Moore.

He was here before.

We missed Commissioner Moore.

Okay.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison.

Commissioner Sean Morrison.

Morrison I.

Thank you.

And Madam Chair.

Aye.

Madam Chair, we have eight ayes and one absent vote for Commissioner Moore.

Okay.

All right.

This motion passes.

Now we will go and take up item number 26-1144, the 2025 Build Up Cook program.

And can you please describe this item?

Can anybody hear me?

Mike.

Green goose neck is on.

Oh, there we go.

Hi.

Ma'am, you can put the motion on the floor, please.

I thought we already did that.

Okay.

Motion on the floor to uh receive and file the file item 26-1144.

Moved by Commissioner Naya, second by Commissioner Dagman.

All in favor.

Discussion and then roll quick.

Now we want to have the discussion, please.

Okay, sorry.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Jamie Myers and the Interim Bureau Chief of the Bureau of Asset Management.

And today we're here to give a summary of the Build Up Cook annual report.

And for that, uh I'd like to introduce my colleague, uh Andrew Williams Clark.

Hi, uh my name is Drew Williams Clark.

I'm the director of Build Up Cook in the Bureau of Asset Management.

I do have a brief presentation.

I promise it'll be five minutes.

My colleague Victor Gutierrez is on the teams link, and so I'm just sort of flagging that so that that screen is he can share a screen so that folks that are able to can see the presentation.

Excellent.

That looks right.

Uh so I'm just gonna plow through this.

I know it's been a long day.

I've been instructed to be brief.

I intend to follow instructions.

So if you exceedingly brief, even more than happy to.

So Vic, if you could answer uh advance to the next slide.

Uh overall, Build Up Cook is intended to be a transformational program designed to address critical infrastructure needs across Cook County.

Um we focused on under-resourced municipalities.

The map that you're seeing on that slide shows the 60 projects that we are on track to complete by the fall of this year.

Um you can see they they cross a lot of different categories, but these are all critical uh infrastructure needs.

They're not uh nice to have, they're absolute musts.

Many are backup measures in times of disaster.

So if we could advance to the next slide, I want to focus on three uh four themes for the overall presentation.

All of this is contained in the annual report, which we did uh go around and try to distribute in hard copy earlier today.

I have three uh packets for the three commissioners on the committee that weren't available when we did that.

We'll make sure that you get one on your way out today.

Uh so the three four themes I want to focus on are critical, foundational, the impact that we've had thus far, and some looking ahead to the next years of the program.

So Vic, if you advance to the next slide.

Uh the work that we're doing is both critical and foundational.

I say critical because without the work that we are doing, um, residents in many cases would be in jeopardy of public health crises or would be in in challenging situations in the uh in the context of a natural disaster.

So I'm showing one as a very, very specific case is emblematic of what this means.

Um we're looking at a water supply main uh under the bridge at on Halstead at 129th place uh that feeds uh several different communities uh and is owned by the city of Harvey.

Uh two years ago it burst uh and was raining uh potable water into the little Calumet River uh for several days.

Um we were able to go in and replace uh a redundant supply main to make sure that the uh 40,000 people who receive potable water through the supply main would be safe and in the situation in which there was a dramatic freeze thaw cycle uh so that those communities had potable water.

So what you're seeing here is the before picture, the after picture, several of the team members that were involved in the ribbon cutting involved in that uh particular project.

This is emblematic of many different projects.

We're doing several different water main replacements, a lot of valve hydrant replacements uh in communities that sorely need those uh to make sure that fire suppression is possible, and also so that critical fixes to water uh supply infrastructure can be made.

There's a lot more to say about this, but the the point I'm trying to make is that the construction work, especially that we're doing is critical and and is extremely important.

So for the next slide, uh the other side of this that I want to emphasize is that we're not just fixing things and putting bricks and mortar into the ground as important as that is.

We want to make sure that the 24 municipalities with whom we have active partnerships also can build their own capacity to be able to respond to these emergencies and in fact to be proactive so that they don't happen in the first place.

So we've done that in a variety of ways.

A series of assessments, um, some building assessments in particular, looking at uh buildings that are in really really uh bad shape, um, village halls, fire departments, police departments, and the communities that you've already seen in that map.

But we've also done a series of capacity building workshops in partnership with several different entities.

Um that you're seeing on this slide is specifically training water operators in the communities that we work with so that they can uh make sure that they know how to exercise valves, what a valve exercise schedule looks like, uh, make sure that they have a plan for that so that when repairs go to be made, uh, those valves don't collapse because they haven't been turned in in several years.

Uh so that's one example.

We've also done workshops on uh financial readiness, grant preparedness, a series of other topics that are critical to making sure that folks have both the finances uh and the asset management SOP that they need in order to uh address these critical infrastructure issues.

So if we go to the next slide.

Thank you.

These are some highlights of some of the wins that we've had uh by the numbers, so to speak.

Um, we're very proud of the fact that the um construction dollars that we're spending thus far, and this is as of construction projects in 2025, 49% have gone to minority uh women and small business enterprises.

That's a great uh that exceeds our goals as a county.

Uh, it's a it's a really good return on what we're able to do and making sure that the folks who need to participate in this market are able to do so.

Uh the other thing I want to emphasize is that we are these are this is job creation.

So we've got 149 laborers and 344 skilled trade workers that are involved in these projects overall.

If you go to the next slide, uh finally, a key aspect of the capacity building work that we're doing is making sure that communities with limited capacity can compete for uh the substantial uh federal monies that are available for lead water service line replacement.

Uh the state of Illinois got almost a billion dollars over the past three years uh under several different acts to make sure that we can replace the lead water service lines across our state.

We wanted to make sure that the under-resourced communities that need those dollars the most can actually compete for them and then can be compliant and spend those funds down during the period of performance.

So as of now, over 50 million dollars have been raised through the support of the Build Up Cook program that are in the hands of those municipalities now, and they are working to implement those programs, bid out those that work uh right now.

We go to the next slide.

I want to just do a quick uh overview on what we're doing next.

Um, this program was initially stood up with over 30 million dollars in American Rescue Plan Act federal funding that the county allocated several years ago.

Uh so far, as we said, we've split that 30 million, roughly two-thirds into construction projects because we wanted to make sure that we weren't uh studying folks.

We wanted to make sure that we were actually putting things in the ground that would have a lasting and sustainable impact on the communities that we intend to serve.

And then the remaining uh third of that funding we're spending on capacity building.

Moving forward, since we won't have 30 million dollars of federal money, um, we're really going to be focused on that capacity building work.

So, again, I'm showing you sort of an example.

Uh, we've worked with incredible partners doing this work.

One significant partner is the Great Lakes Community Action Partnership that helped us put on those water operator trainings.

Um, and so we intend to continue to part with them if at all possible, um, and through obviously whatever agreements and and legal means we have to do that, but I wanted to showcase one of the partners that we are working with and ways that we intend to continue to do that.

If you go to the next slide, uh the other things that we intend to keep doing besides hosting workshops, working on asset management plans uh and a variety of other topics with those workshops.

We've put out at least one guide.

We're on track to complete another.

This is the uh the build up cooked 2025 grant guide that we produced a couple of years ago that has helped several of our municipal of our municipal partners uh walk through a complicated grant process, make sure that they are planning ahead to do that, understand the way the cycles of federal and state grants work, um, and can be uh creating a team and putting things in order to be able to compete more effectively for those resources.

Uh, and then uh in the other screen, I'm sort of emphasizing the other graphic on this screen, I'm emphasizing that uh a lot of the work that we do moving forward will focus on finance.

So that was the grant guide.

We're actually working on a guide now overall for making sure that municipal uh financial structures are put in place effectively so that again that you can compete more effectively for those grant resources and that you have uh the structures as a municipal government to be able to do very significant capital projects, which many of the communities we're working with will need to do in the next several years.

Uh so the last thing I'll say before we turn on to questions, hopefully I'm still moving quickly enough.

If we advance to the next slide, um, one key aspect of the work that we're doing right now is a huge uh study uh in partnership with the University of Illinois at Chicago's Government Finance Research Center.

Can't believe I just said Illinois without silencing the S.

I didn't grow up here, please don't hate me.

Um, but that that entity is has been a great partner so far.

They've actually done several studies for the state around drinking water finance, um and they've actually been able to survey uh all of the 118 municipal drinking water utilities in Cook County to understand what are their capital needs and dollar value of those needs.

We got a 50% response rate, which for this kind of survey is incredible.

Um we do think that the results will be generalizable to the entire county.

The goal of the study overall is to be able to say this is the total dollar figure to bring Cook County's drinking water utilities up to a state of good repair in the next 10 years.

We know the figure is going to be in the multiple billions, but unless we know what that figure is and a little bit more about it, it's going to be very hard for the county and Bill of Cook to be a good partner to make sure that those are brought up to a state of good repair.

The other side of this report will make recommendations about governance because we know that these utilities are fragmented very, very much in terms of the way that they're run.

So we want to look at strategies that can save costs and leverage uh collaborations in the future in order to make sure that we move on from the the crisis that we're in right now in many of our drinking water systems overall.

So with that, I will pause uh and entertain any questions that you all would like to pose.

I'm happy to respond to them, but I do know again that everyone wants to keep moving forward.

Thank you.

Questions?

Sean Morrison.

Commissioner Morrison.

Just a comment based off of Illinois.

Is it jewel or jewels?

It's the jewels.

The S is chewed on and prolonged.

Any questions?

Come on, Britain, that was one.

I'm sorry.

I just had a question actually, if there's no other questions.

Oh, Commissioner Aguilar.

No, no.

Oh, okay.

Um for the municipal water infrastructure survey.

Um, can we get a list of municipalities that participated so far?

Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, and also is it also segmented by um municipalities that get water from where they get the water from?

One of the questions was source, absolutely.

Okay.

And then the other question about that was was the South Suburban project that's already been underway regarding the water infrastructure plan.

Was that incorporated into this at all?

Or is that a question that might be on there?

I'm not sure which which plan.

I'm sorry, ma'am.

We'll talk about that offline.

Sure.

So we we can talk about that later.

All right, thank you.

All right, seeing no further discussion, all in favor of receive and file.

Item number 26.

Okay.

26, 11, 1544.

Okay, roll call.

26, 1144 to uh receive and file.

Commissioner Aguilar, your vote?

Aye.

Commissioner Aguilar's aye.

Commissioner Naya.

Hi.

Commissioner Britton.

Previous votes were aye.

Commissioner Dagnan.

Hi.

Commissioner McCaskill.

Aye.

Commissioner Moore is absent.

Previous votes were all.

Aye, Commissioner Kevin Morrison.

Commissioner Sean Morrison?

Morrison, I.

Madam Chair.

Aye.

Ma'am, you have eight ayes, one absent vote for Commissioner Moore.

Okay.

The in uh opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.

The motion is approved.

Vice Chair Aguilar moves to adjourn.

Second by Commissioner Britton.

All in favor of adjournment say aye.

All opposed say nay.

This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all.