Welcome everyone to the City of Joliet City Council meeting here Tuesday evening January 20th at 630 The meeting is presided over by our mayor Gary Darcy.

We will have the invocation from Reverend Carl Huber from the Cathedral of St.

Raymond's, and then he'll lead us in the regular allegiance.

I'd like to start with a uh reading from the first letter of St.

Paul to the Corinthians.

God so constructed the body that there were that there may be no dissension in the body, but that all members may be concerned for one another.

If one member suffers, all members suffer with it.

If one member is honored, all the members share in its joy.

And let us pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you for all of the blessings you've given us.

Bless the members of this city council may their decisions be wise and fair.

Father, bless the citizens of our city, bless those from all walks of life, that they may work together as one body to help keep our city safe by obeying the laws.

And should these same citizens disagree with the law, may they demonstrate their right to protest in a lawful and peaceful manner.

Lord, we ask you to protect those who protect us.

Protect our country's military personnel, police officers, and firefighters.

We pray for peace.

Peace in our world.

Peace in our country.

Peace in our cities, peace in our families.

Bless us, Lord, we pray with peace in our hearts.

Amen.

Please join me in the pledge to the flag.

I pledge allegiance.

And to the republic for which we stand, one nation, under God, individual with liberty and justice for all.

We also want to uh say a prayer for the Elliott family who lost their son, brother, dad.

He passed away in a uh snowmobile accident.

So we pray for the repose of his soul, may his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Amen.

Thank you so much.

We'll begin with roll call.

Mayor Darcy.

Here.

Councilman Cardinals?

Councilman Clement?

Councilman Hug?

Here.

Councilwoman Abarro?

Here, sorry.

Councilman Marino?

Here.

Councilman Mudron.

Here.

Councilman Quillman?

Here.

Councilman Redin.

Here.

First, we'll have a presentation, Cultural Affairs and Special Events 2026 Priorities presented by Ann Sylvester, Director of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, and City Manager.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight and for the ability for me to share the strategic priorities for the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events for 2026.

As I approach six months within the city of Joliet, I have been encouraged by the collaboration, creativity, and community pride that I see across Joliet.

Momentum that shapes how we look ahead.

That momentum points to why arts and culture matter to the city's future.

Alton Carcher Alter Arts and Culture are not luxuries.

They're powerful, cost effective ways to activate spaces, boost local economies, strengthen community pride, and enhance well-being, making Joliet a more vibrant place to live and visit.

With that understanding as our foundation, I'd like to walk you through our 2026 strategic priorities.

Activate downtown Joliet through City Square, enhance programming and utilization of Billy Leemacher Bicentennial Park, strengthen citywide programming and partnerships, improve efficiency and coordination of the event permitting process, and conduct a cultural asset review while strengthening arts commission engagement.

It's important to acknowledge that while I am presenting these, the City of Joliet is in the process of developing its comprehensive plan.

As that advances, these strat these strategic priorities will remain flexible and responsive, evolving as needed to align with this to support the plan's goals, recommendations, and long-term vision for the community.

We are all excited for the opening of City Square this spring.

We're looking to position City Square as Joliet's central gathering place through coordinated branding and promotion and promotion.

In doing this, we're looking at providing programming that's consistent with weekly, bi-monthly and monthly programming, and marquee events.

This will allow us to strengthen downtown partnerships and collaborate with community cultural partners to deliver inclusive programming that reflects Joliet's identity.

As an example of some of the programming that you're going to see weekly programming, focusing on summer months from June through August, workouts in the square, morning fitness classes, dancing in the square, evening of social dance instruction with open dance afterwards.

We're very excited to be working to bring back the Chicago Street Farmers Market, which will be coming to City Square from May through September.

Live at the Square music series, featuring local and regional performers at the stages, and partnering with the Joliet Public Library for family story time, bringing it outdoors for the summer.

We're also looking to have some monthly and bi-monthly programming.

Movies in the square.

Excited to be partnering with the Rock and Roll Museum to bring back cars and guitars twice a month, family performances with the Joliet Public Library, and partnering with the City Center Partnership for a community corner, which is going to give an opportunity for local organizations to take center stage.

Some of the marquee events that we look to host this year and continue are annual events, one-time events, and cultural events.

Highlights include Red Carpet Corridor, kicking off Red the Route 66 in May, annual events coming back like Star Wars Day and Kids Fest, cultural celebrations and partnerships with community organizations, seasonal celebrations like Light Up the Holidays Festival and Parade.

Very excited to say that we're partnering with NASCAR to bring back race fan rally, and then also really acknowledging civic events, including Memorial Day commemoration and the 25th anniversary of 9-11.

We're looking to have the official City Square ribbon cutting June 26th and 27th, which will feature music, food, and a drone show.

This comes after an extensive community input process from artist CJ Chen.

The key elements that you actually see within this design were inspired by resident feedback and taken into consideration.

An outcome is features imagery that you can see here, like bridges, a wheel, a hammer, sunglasses reminding us of the Blues Brothers, a Route 66 sign, and the Realto Theater Chair, integrated into this stainless steel dome.

We can't overlook the cultural assets that we already have, and I'm excited to share some additional programming for Billy Leemacher Bicentennial Park.

We're looking to leverage the park as a shared platform for cultural organizations to partner with them to host festivals and community events.

We've really worked to establish the Joliet Drama Guild as a resident theater partner.

They'll continue to provide their consistent diverse season of theatrical programming in the park, and very excited to announce today that we'll be featuring Joliet's first Spanish language theater production completely in Spanish.

We'll be looking to expand access to arts education and to grow signature music programming with events like concerts on the Hill.

Now with the focus coming a little bit from off downtown.

We do want to acknowledge about the citywide programming all throughout the city of Joliet.

We're looking to collaborate closer with the Joliet Park Park District, not only to provide city produced programming in the parks, but to really work together to showcase what the park district already does year-round.

And in doing this, we're looking to develop and maintain that coordinated calendar of citywide programs that I hear from a lot of council that we really need to make sure that we have a comprehensive list of everything going on throughout the city.

There's a lot going on in 2026 as far as anniversaries.

Joliet is excited to be the host city to kick off Route 66 Centennial with the Big House Ball Game.

And we're also excited about the 250th anniversary of the United States of America Declaration of Independence and excited to be having our Fourth of July fireworks at the Joliet Stadium, along with partnering with many stakeholders to produce events citywide.

In order to do all of these events, we want to approve efficiency and coordination of the event permitting process.

This is going to include simplifying current permitting process that we have to make it more user-friendly for the organizations that are applying and working to implement a new permit application software in the upcoming year.

We also will work closer to provide coordinated support for city agencies to ensure consistent communication.

And once again, all this leads to supporting that citywide calendar of events.

One of the initial things that I heard from council and residents is the amazing murals and sculptures that are currently in Joliet.

So what we're looking to do in 2026 is to conduct a cultural asset review, not only with murals and sculptures, but the organizations, the venues, the programs, and the community needs that will help guide our future planning and investment decisions.

We also are looking to create a network for local artists and performers and cultural organizations to provide opportunities to showcase and for them to be able to go in events.

And then re-engage and strengthen the arts commission to support city staff and efforts for these cultural initiatives.

As a closing, these strategic priorities are grounded in a clear purpose to make Joliet a great place to live, work, and visit through cultural investment, inclusive programming, and meaningful activation of our public spaces.

We are strengthening community identity, supporting economic vitality, and creating experience that reflect Joliet's character and potential.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next is the approval of the agenda.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda as written?

So moved.

Second.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Cardenas.

Hi.

Councilman Clement?

Hi.

Councilman Hug?

Hi.

Councilwoman Abarra.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudron.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quomen.

Councilwoman Rurdin.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Next is citizens to be heard on agenda items.

So I see there are a lot of people here this evening.

We do have a few people that have signed in, but if you haven't signed in, that's fine too.

You will still have time to come up.

I will call the people that have signed in first.

So I will start here with Tom Grotowski.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council.

My name is Tom Grotowski.

I serve as the chair of the Joliet Arts Commission.

I'm excited to be here tonight in support of the 2026 Culture Affairs and special events strategic priorities.

As we identify our priorities for 2026 and beyond, it's important to take a close look at the creative resources we already have, our murals, our sculptures, our venues and programs.

And think about how they can best serve residents, artists, and visitors to our city.

Having a clear plan for maintaining existing public art and guidelines for new works will help us ensure our investments are thoughtful, inclusive, and impactful.

And it's also important to create more opportunities for local artists and cultural organizations to get involved with city initiatives and connect with one another.

By working together and building stronger partnerships, we can really elevate Joliet's art community.

Finally, we look forward to re-engaging the arts commission so we can provide even better support and advocacy for the arts.

We're ready to roll up our sleeves, offer guidance, and help make these priorities a reality.

Thank you for your support and for giving us a chance to help shape Joliet's creative future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Krista Connor.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council.

My name is Krista Connor, and I am honored to speak on behalf of the Juliet Drama Guild.

We have been established in 1932.

The Juliet Drama Guild has served Juliet and surrounding communities for over 90 years, advancing the theater arts through the power of performance.

We are grateful to the City of Juliet for recognizing the Juliet Drama Guild as the theater and residence at the Billy Limecker Bicentennial Park and Theater.

This designation reflects a strong partnership and shared commitment to the arts, education, and community engagement.

As theater and residents, the Juliet Drama Guild will continue presenting main stage productions, and we are excited to partner with the City of Joliet to expand our offerings to include workshops and youth camps.

These programs provide opportunities for students to participate on stage behind the scenes and through specialized camps that build creativity and confidence.

Highlights include the Bridge to Broadway Summer Drama Camp and a new winter drama camp, offering year-round learning opportunities for young artists.

This summer, we also will present the Shakespeare on tour with performances at Bicentennial Park, City Square, and Joliet Park District locations.

In addition, we are proud to partner on our first ever all-Spanish language theater production, taking place May 1st through May 3rd at Bicentennial Park.

Thank you again for your continued support of the arts and for allowing us to serve as theater and residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council.

I'm Emmanuel Lopez, uh, executive director of the Joliet City Center Partnership.

The City Center Partnership prides itself as being the voice of the downtown business community.

I'm here in support of Ann Sullivan's 2026 strategic priorities and programming for City Square.

Um even before City Square officially opens, the downtown business community has been excited because an activated public space drives real results.

Past downtown events have brought in thousands of people downtown to boost uh business sales nearly 20 to 30 percent.

City squares has a major opportunity to increase foot traffic, expect extend the time spent downtown, and change how people experience downtown Joliet.

More activity means more eyes on downtown, more eyes lead to stronger businesses, more economic development, and at the end, long-term growth.

With collaboration and intentional consistent programming, as outlined in the priorities, City Square can open up with energy, momentum, and purpose.

The downtown business community and the Joliet City Center Partnership is ready to collaborate and make things happen.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Emily Gurrow.

Hello, good evening, Council.

I'm here today because I am not in favor of the JCA Stadium being built in our community as someone who lives in the area and it will directly affect.

Please take this into consideration.

As I stand before this council, you are supposed to serve this community, and with this decision going through, if it's in favor, it's only serving one purpose, JCA.

I don't want to keep hearing like JCA keep saying they want to be good neighbors because they don't.

They only cared when we made a rumble about this issue in our neighborhood.

During our local meetings, some council were present, and I appreciate your support and coming to hear us out.

Um, but um, I'm sorry, excuse me.

Um, but one had admitted that they knew about it and have been privately fundraising for it in um for the past 18 months prior to that meeting.

In my opinion, that was failed to serve the role properly, knowing what effects it would have on this community.

This is detrimental to our area as we have previously been in contact with our councilman of our area for many years about the traffic and how it has fallen on deaf ears.

I have lived through this traffic on safe streets because of the congestion.

I've watched children being hit on bikes, I've scraped puppies off the road in front of their own owners, and this has gone unheard.

My brother's car has been totaled in front of my mom's house as I was a teenager because of the traffic and speeding.

I could go on with stories through my childhood.

There has not been proper traffic studies done for this project as we have requested, but to only fit their agenda.

We were told from the planners of this that they have no plan for parking where their lots and statistics presented, cannot hold what they want to do.

Or as they were trying to tell us they could just block off the streets and said they had spoken with JPD about it.

And it was okay for them to do so, but that was unfounded.

Another possibility, they said they would have shuttles running across from the habitat for humanity, um, which is a huge safety issue.

People could be running across Larkin Ingalls, not wanting to wait for you know the bus shuttles.

Let's be realistic here.

There's been many fatalities at that corner.

I believe two or three last year alone.

It's a safety issue at that corner with both those schools there.

I have nothing against JCA.

My two brothers went there.

I chose public school, but I know how money and politics work.

I'm not against wanting better for these kids.

I want them to have practice fields.

I want things to flourish for these kids.

But the size of this stadium does not belong in this tiny community.

I want what's best for the entire community.

I work in my community, I do tons of volunteer work for the city.

I believe there are still good things in the city, and I want to see it grow as a young adult.

I don't want I I do have I do have JCA alumni and parents saying to me to just get over it.

It's happening.

Why are they so confident and sure it's going through?

Is there something that we weren't aware of as citizens?

Um, I do have friends of JC alumni secretly inboxing me, asking me to remain unnamed because they don't want backlash, but they don't agree with this project either.

I always want a solution.

So I want a solution that benefits all.

Why can't our city buy this land and make it into something that benefits our entire community and kids in the area?

There are three schools here.

The far west side has splash pads, nice parks, community centers.

Lastly, from a nature standpoint, we're destroying all these trees and nature.

Are we gonna replace that with other things to help our community?

As far as JCA, they have raised all this money.

I think it would be a great opportunity for them to go west and build this beautiful stadium that they want, have the space, be able to expand and flourish their education and their building.

I think it would be great.

Well, that's where most of these people live.

A lot of these people don't live in our community and see what we deal with on a daily basis.

But please consider voting no for this project and thank you for your time.

Jory Gura.

Good evening, everyone.

Um, I just have a few things.

I am opposed to the building of the stadium.

Ms.

Garrett, put your employer down so we can hear you better.

Is that better?

That's better.

Okay.

Um, there's still some concerns that we have not really addressed.

A proper traffic study we have asked repeatedly for the start time to be 3 p.m.

When all schools are getting out.

There's three schools there that are getting out.

Every traffic study they've done, it's either been during the summer, it starts at four o'clock, four to seven, things like that.

They won't start one at three because the numbers are going to be much higher with the three schools getting out.

We live there, we know what goes on.

You know, they hire a company, they just go by statistics.

They don't live in that neighborhood and see what goes on every day.

Um, we've been complaining about the traffic for 25 years to everyone.

We've gotten maybe an extra stop sign, you know, slow children playing, and that's it.

Everyone keeps saying it's only going to be used six or seven times a year for the football games, and that's it.

Per JCA, this complex will have something going six days a week.

They have mentioned Joliet Softball Association, Juliet Raiders, University of St.

Francis football games.

They're not going to build a 20 million dollar stadium and use it six or seven times a year.

I've attended every meeting about this, and JC said they haven't they have met with JPD regarding traffic, not one time.

Was there a rep from JPD there at any of these meetings?

We've never gotten to speak to them or hear what the traffic plan really is from JPD.

Um representatives from JCA said the traffic problems would be a trial and error.

Why should we have to deal and live through trial and error?

They don't have a true traffic plan.

The committee at JCA that was kept out of public for 18 months that was asking for large donations, $50,000 or more, and that's what we were told at our community meeting by someone from JCA.

Now, one of those people live in our community, live in our neighborhood will have to deal with this.

Our property values will decrease significantly, and our quality of life will suffer.

We will have to sell our homes for practically nothing, then you will have an under undesirable neighborhood, and your school and stadium will be in the center of a low-income, no-income neighborhood.

There's a person sitting in front of me of uh at this time that has supported and been a long don't donator to JCA.

And there is a councilman that has been on this legacy committee for the past two years that has raised money and has donated to the legacy fund and told no one of the surrounding neighbors nothing.

What was being planned?

Isn't that a conflict of interest?

Thank you for your time.

Shame on you, Mr.

Mudron.

Ricky Guerrero.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Coach Ricky with the Joliet Titans.

Today I want to talk about the impact the Joliet Titans have had on our community and on me personally, and also recognize Joliet Catholic Academy for the important role they play in supporting our team.

The Joliet Titans are more than just a sports organization.

They are a positive force in our community.

The Titans give young athletes a place to belong, stay active, and to learn valuable life lessons.

They go far beyond the game through discipline, teamwork, and hard work.

The Titans help shape young people into better athletes and better individuals.

The organization brings families together, builds strong relationships, and gives kids something positive to focus on the community where guidance and opportunity matter.

The Juliet Tanges provide both.

On a personal level, being part of the Joliet Trans has had a huge impact on my life.

I've learned how to work with others, how to push through challenges, and how to hold myself to a higher standard.

The coaches and teammates have become family constantly pushing me to improve, not only in my sport, but also as a person.

Being a part of this organization organization has helped shape who I am today and what I want to become in the future.

I also want to take a moment to thank Joliet Catholic Academy.

JCA has been a big help to the Joliets by giving us the space and opportunity to practice.

Having place having a place to train means everything to a team.

Their willingness to open their facilities to us, allows our athletes to grow, improve, and prepare at a higher level.

We are truly grateful for that support.

Looking ahead, we hope that one day we will have the opportunity to play at JCA's facility.

That would mean more than just using a field.

It would represent a strong partnership, shared values, and a belief in the power of youth sports to bring people together, including the Joliet Titans continue to make a positive impact on the community and on the lives of athletes like myself and with the support of organizations like Joliet Catholic Academy.

Can only continue to grow.

Thank you to everyone who supports our team and believes in our future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tim Broderick.

My name is Timothy Broderick, Juliet Resident, and I'm here tonight to express my strong support for the plan unit development requested by Joliet Catholic Academy for its athletic field expansion.

JCA has been a trusted institution in Joliet for generations, rooted in academic excellence, strong values, and a long history of responsible stewardship in our community.

This proposal reflects thoughtful community-minded planning, including traffic and parking controls, lighting and noise mitigation, respectful green space integration, and responsiveness to neighborhood input.

This is a balanced forward-looking project that supports student wellness, enhances campus safety, and strengthens Joliet's commitment to a well-planned development.

By approving this PUD, the city upholds GACA's commitment to modernizing its facilities, remaining competitive, and continuing to serve local families and communities with excellence.

Thank you.

Annette Jalinek.

Good evening, Mayor Darcy and Councilman.

My name is Annette Jolinek.

I am a neighbor of JCA.

I have been a neighbor of JCA for 36 years, and I am here tonight to uh give my full support.

I actually give would give 125% support to JCA moving forward with the expansion of adding an athletic field to their high school.

I am also an alum of the school, um, so I do also have a personal interest in that area that I would like to see future uh young men and women to be able to continue to go to school at JCA and receive the quality education that they receive there, and it's not just about academics there too.

They that they are rooted in faith.

They raise um, they build up young men and women to be great future uh career in their careers and also on the field.

Um, the athletics program that they've had there has been very strong, especially the football teams.

We know that they have been very successful, and I would love to see them have a field right there on their school property, just like so many other high schools do, have a field right there, and they are in a neighborhood.

Again, I am a neighbor of them.

They have been outstanding um friends and neighbors to us.

They have never done anything harmful to our neighborhood, nor have their students.

Does parking get to be a little crazy around the three o'clock time?

Sure it does.

But we choose to live in that neighborhood.

I chose to live there.

I choose to stay in that neighborhood, and I choose to stay there because I support JCA.

I like having a school as my neighbor.

I think that having them building a stadium there would increase our property value.

If they don't build that there, what else is gonna go there?

And something else that could go there could be a detriment to our neighborhood.

I think them being there is an asset to our neighborhood.

If you choose to leave your house at three o'clock, yeah, you're gonna have a little craziness, but it's not from JCA.

It is from all three schools.

I recently have just intentionally drove past that area.

And Hufford's driving is really crazy.

The parents pull off to our side streets, and the kids are running to get to their parents' cars.

So it's not just a problem of JCA's traffic.

It's from Hufford, it's from Taft in that area.

I live two houses off of Ingalls Avenue.

So I am live on Plaza Drive.

I am extremely close to the high school, and again, there has never been a problem.

I have had friends ask me to use my driveway.

I have had people drive, um, park in front of my home, and I don't have any issues with that.

They can park there any time that they want to.

So I would ask that you guys I would ask for you to consider tonight voting in favor of JCA to build their stadium on the property there.

Um they deserve to have that.

The students deserve to have that, and I hope that you will all uh vote favorably for them this evening.

Thank you for your time.

Max Rathman.

Good evening, everyone.

Administrators, faculty, alumni, parents, and my fellow students.

My name is Max Rathbun, and I'm a student athlete at Juliette Catholic Academy.

I'm proud to wear the Hilltoppers uniform, but tonight I'm not here to talk about wins or stats.

I'm here to talk about what I'm here to talk about something bigger than any one season, the Legacy Fields Project and what it can mean for every student who comes after us.

When people hear new stadium or TURF, they might think it's just about sports.

But if you've ever spent time on our campus after school, you know the athletics at JCA isn't just an activity.

It's a community.

It's a place where we can learn discipline, leadership, responsibility, and how to represent something larger than ourselves.

Right now we do our best with the facilities we have, and we're grateful we really are.

We also know what it looks like to be held back by what's outdated, worn down, or just not built for the number of students who use it.

We feel it when fields are uneven, when practice space is limited, when weather forces cancellations, and when we can't host events the way we should.

And we see it when our tennis courts need real upgrades that match the level of our student athletes and the pride of our school.

That's why legacy fields matters.

Multi-purpose stadium isn't just a place for football.

It's a place for soccer, lacrosse, band nights, pep rallies, senior celebrations, and community events.

It's a place where families can come together and where students can feel the energy of being part of something special.

A true home venue becomes a symbol, something that says this is who we are, and we're building something that way.

And then there's TURF.

TURF means more than a cleaner book.

It means consistency, a safer surface, fewer cancellations, more reliable practice time, and better access for multiple teams and groups throughout the year.

In Illinois, weather is a real factor.

CARF helps us keep it training, keep competing, and keep improving without constantly losing time to conditions we can't control.

For athletes like me.

Time matters.

Development matters, and so does safety.

A high quality plan service can reduce the risk of certain injuries and give athletes confidence to play fast, play hard, and play the way we're coached to play.

Now I want to say something clearly.

The tennis court upgrades are just as important.

Tennis athletes work just as hard to represent JCA with the same pride.

So it should reflect that.

Upgrade courts mean better practice quality, better hosting opportunities, and a message to every tennis player, present and future, that their sport matters here too.

What I think matters most is the word legacy.

Legacy means we're thinking beyond ourselves.

It means we're not just building something for the current starting lineup.

We're building something for freshmen who are just walking into JCA for kids in grade school who dream of playing here someday.

And for students who may never play sport, but will still benefit from stronger school spirit, better campus life, and a community gathering space.

As a student athlete, I can tell you that what we do on the field shapes who we become off the field.

We learn how to handle pressure, how to work through setbacks, how to lead when it's hard, and we learn how to show for each other.

Legacy Field supports all of that because it supports the environment where those things happen.

So tonight I'm asking you to support this project, not just because it looks impressive, not just because other schools have it, but because it aligns with who JCA is a place that develops the whole person, mind, body, and spirit.

If we invest in legacy fields, we're investing in the students who will carry JCA forward.

We're investing in a campus that brings people together, and we're building something that future hilltoppers will look at and say they believed in us before we even got here.

Thank you for your time and thank you for believing in the future of Jolia Catholic Academy.

That is everybody who I have signed up on the list.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak on an agenda item this evening?

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and City Manager.

I'm Dr.

Glenda Wright McCullum, and I am standing on behalf of Resident Ordinance No.

8126 requesting the approval for a community center to be held at 11 McDonough Street.

This morning, as I was listening, I heard the scripture that said the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls.

When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it.

That's my passion for this community center.

Arise was established in 2013 as a 501c3 nonprofit organization, endeavoring to serve underprivileged youth and residents.

We are about existing to uplift and transform communities through youth empowerment, neighborhood revitalization, and active community engagement.

We invest in the potential of young people and those in need to restore underutilized spaces and foster strong inclusive neighborhoods by building partnerships and creating opportunities for long-term growth and resilience.

Through platforms such as after-school programs, summer youth programs, field trips, talents, and musical development.

And I have watched and seen the decline.

I've seen the regression, I've seen the infiltration of drugs and crime and the lack of sustainable support.

I'm humbly requesting approval of the Arise Impact Center in the heart of a community that is in dire need of the services we will provide.

Part of our success will entail help from the city, such as need for sidewalk repair, lighting, and more police patrol in that area.

I'm hopeful for a commitment from my city in these endeavors.

I also have bochures if it's okay that I approach to hand them out.

Is that is that fine?

Okay.

Okay, take them.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

On an agenda item this evening.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Vivian Brown, and I live in Jolliette.

I happen to live in the community that is proposing the stadium for JCA.

I seriously oppose the proposal of the opening the stadium.

Because when I moved in that community 25 years ago, I moved there because it was a very quiet residential community.

Family type, small community.

JCA is a great organization.

I support it thoroughly.

And I know it's done great things, uh, educated great people that have uh committed many things to good things to the city, but our commun our neighborhood does not need a stadium with so many people coming into our small streets, our families that walk, children that go on their scooters and all of that.

So I am asking that you will consider the opposition and the people in the neighborhood that pay taxes, support the city, support the school, and contribute to the city of Jarliet.

Please consider that we do not want this state here.

Thank you so much for your time.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak on an agenda item this evening?

Okay.

Seeing none, we will move on to council committee reports.

Communication technology and information systems will be first.

Good evening.

Uh CTIS committee met Wednesday, January 7th at 8 30 a.m.

in the executive conference room in attendance where Councilman Juan Moreno, myself, Councilman Cardenas was unable to attend.

We had two agenda items.

First was a contract for C DWG for MIMECAST annual renewal of 48,000, 48,880.21 cents.

This is for our web security to protect our users from harmful websites and malicious web activity, and also our critical protection cloud gateway, which is an AI-powered secure email gateway to protect against fishing, business email compromise, malware, and inside threats.

In December alone, we blocked over 14,000 emails.

Renewing for 79,992.

This is our Barracuda Cloud Data Protection Services.

This enables secure data retention, backup, rapid recovery, and compliance with legal and regulatory regulatory requirements.

That's all we had on our agenda.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

Okay.

Well, we reviewed it and we recommended the items be brought to the full council for approval.

Thank you.

Finance?

Finance met here this evening at 5 30 on the committee is Councilwoman Sherry Rudon, Councilman Larry Hug, and myself.

We had a rather short meeting this time.

Um approval of a payment to the heritage corridor destination.

This this amount was 45,000 14 dollars.

This goes towards a travel guide, distribution, and fulfillment cost.

The December Financial Statement, this statement is preliminary as well as being prepared for the annual audit to convert from our cash reporting to accrual reporting.

The general fund sales tax, income tax, interest income, permits continue to trend slightly above budget.

Utilities, replacement, hotel, motel, video gaming, cannabis tax are all trending below budget at this time.

The sewer and water fund, similar to last month's revenues are better than budget, and expenses are lower than the budget.

Parking trending slightly better than budget as the deficit is trending lower than expected.

The other report we have was from the Rialto quarterly report.

The Raroto had 47,229 visitors for the quarter.

They attended 35 events, five weddings, and four movies.

Oh, you're doing that one.

That'd be my report there.

Thank you.

And public service.

Public service met here at City Hall in the council chamber today, January 20th, 2026 at 4 30 p.m.

I'll open the report by telling you there was uh 38 total items, 32 contracts.

If I were to go through each one individually, we'd be here for another hour and a half to two hours.

What I've done, I will acknowledge that all of them are on the city council agenda to be considered that will be touched on shortly by our city manager as she goes through the uh consent agenda, correct?

Um and I've grouped them together.

Ten of them are water main projects that are required as we make our transition between now and 2030 into the alternative water source.

And they ranged in one million dollars up to 5.5 million.

We'll be replacing this year.

The budget will replace approximately 20 miles of water main that we need to to reduce water loss.

And it could be as much this year, 2026 as 22 or 23 miles because there's a couple of miles left over from last year, but that was last year's budget.

We had eight items that were um new materials.

Things uh with names such as here, where would where'd we go with that?

Um sodium hypochlorides.

Anybody want me to explain what that is?

Polyd uh or uh bulk polymer.

These are all these eight items are our items chemicals needed by the water and sewer department to treat sewage.

And so, of course, we have to being in the beginning of the year, restock on that.

We had uh three items for the takeover of the Jolia Sanitary District that we looked at.

And just so folks know the Jolia Sanitary District expenses to be absorbed into the Joliet's water and sewer system is being paid for by the county, not by Jolia taxpayers from Joliet dollars.

It's county tax dollars.

Um we had some professional services agreements like with electrical experts that help us at our sewer and water uh department, and we renewed those items as well, too.

So we did look at all thirty-two contract items, and we found them all to be in order, all to have been bid properly.

We vetted them, and they were all unanimously approved by all three of us to be moved forward to the full council with a committee recommendation to approve.

So that knocks out 32 or 38 items, Mayor.

And I'll just finish up on these uh last few items.

Under change orders pay us from the final payments.

We had two items, both of which were a reduction in what the uh cost was gonna be.

Um was for the uh phase two water main project, uh the highland phase two water main project, it's 191,793 reduced, and the final payment was one point uh roughly 1.4 million.

That's closing out last year's projects.

The other one was a reduction of 287,000, roughly for the the Kings Acres phase two water main project, and again we close that out with a final payment of 448,831 dollars.

And uh we also did an approval of a change order for the North Downtown Water Main Improvements Project on the half of uh deconstruction.

All that did was extend the completion date by a few weeks because of weather.

Um, under ordinance and resolutions, we had three routine items.

Again, we looked at all these items, everything that's on our public service committee.

You got two choices.

You can attend our exciting public service committee meeting and see in action, or you can go to the city website and everything that I'm that we're considering in tonight's council meeting and considered at the uh committee is located on the website, very transparent.

If you want to really dig down to what each contract is gonna cost, you're welcome to do so.

Um with that said, did I miss anything, folks?

I'm disappointed you didn't mention the ice picking, but you know, they'll just have to go online and see what that's all about.

Ice pigging, you guys go online and see what's about that gives a whole new definition of slushies.

That's all I'm gonna say.

Yeah, that's all you gotta look it up.

All right, maybe that would be my report.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I show no other reports.

Under consent agenda.

Approval of minutes.

It is recommended the minutes of the pre-council meeting December 15th, 2025, and council meeting December 16th, 2025 stand approved as recorded.

Invoices to be paid.

It is recommended this report be approved.

Council memo number 34-26, award of contract to C DWG for MIMECAST Web Security and Critical Protection Cloud Gateway Annual Renewal in the amount of 48,880.21 cents.

Council memo number 35-26, award of contract to C DWG for the renewal of Barracuda Cloud Data Protection Services for three years in the amount of 239,976.

Council Memo number 36-26, award of contract for miscellaneous plumbing services at 9 Osgood Street to Omega Plumbing Incorporated, and an amount not to exceed 100,000 dollars.

Council Memo number 37-26, award of contract for miscellaneous electrical services at 9 Osgood Street to Elliott Electric Incorporated, and an amount not to exceed 175,000 dollars.

Council memo number 38-26, award of contract for the 2026 motor fuel purchase to Al Warren Oil Company Incorporated.

Council Member number 39-26, approval of purchase order number one for the 2026 traffic signal software service subscription to traffic control corporation in the amount of 45,493.

Councilmember number 40-26, approval of purchase number one for the 2026 traffic signal materials purchases to traffic control corporation and the amount of 269,690 dollars.

Council Memo number 42-26, award of contract for the Well 29D rehabilitation Great Lakes Water Resources Group in the amount of 221,830.

Council Memo number 43-26, award of contract for the well 24 D rehabilitation to Water Well Solutions, Illinois LLC in the amount of 211,949.

Councilmember number 44-26, award of contract for the 2026 sodium permanganate solution purchase to Keras Corporation for a not to exceed amount of $359,382.72.

Council Memo number 45-26 award of contract for the 2026 sodium bisulphite purchase to Alexander Chemical for the not to exceed amount of $49,680.

Councilmember number 46-26, award of contract for the 2026 bulk polym polymer purchase to polydyne LLC in the amount of 126,050.

Council Memo number 47-26, award of contract for the 2026 bulk sodium hypochlorite purchase to Alexander Chemical for the not to exceed amount of $60,345.

Council Memo number 48-26, award of contract for the 2026 blended phosphate purchase to Keras Corporation for the not to exceed amount of $97,440.

Councilmember number 49-26, award of contract for the 2026 Manganese sulfate chemical purchase on behalf of Keras Corporation for not to exceed amount of 236,933 and 76 cents.

Council Memo number 50 number 50-26 award of contract for the 2026-2028 utilities generator maintenance to Interstate Power Systems Incorporated in the amount of 220,565 and 21 cents.

Councilmember number 51-26 award of professional services agreement for pre-treatment program assistance to Baxter and Woodman Incorporated for the not to exceed amount of one of 120,000.

Councilmember number 52-26, award of professional services agreement for the 2026 Force Main Ice Pigging Program to American Pipeline Solutions in the amount of $71,337.

Councilmember number $53-26, award of professional services agreement for the 2026 Utilities Department, electrical maintenance contract to Elliott Electric Incorporated for the not to exceed amount of $295,360.

Council Member No.

Dillman and Maholick for the not-to-exceed amount of $353,600.

Council Memo number $55-26, Award of Professional Services Agreement for the Southeast Joliot Sanitary District Water Source Transfer Assistance to Engineering Enterprises Incorporated for a not-to-exceed amount of $487,500.

Council Member Number 56-26.

Approval of purchase of water metering equipment for the Southeast Juliet Sanitary District Meter Replacement Program from Corinne Main LP for the not to exceed amount of $523,965.

Council Memo number 57-26 approval of change order number one for the Highland Phase 2 water main improvements project to Aries Incorporated for deduction in the amount of $191,793 and 40 cents and pay an estimate number 4 and final in the amount of $1,388, $388,541.22.

Council Memo number $58-26.

Approval of change order number one for the Kring's Acres Phase 2B water main improvements project to brand excavating incorporated for deduction in the amount of $286,699.37 and pay estimate number five and final in the amount of $448,831 and one cent.

Councilmember number 59-26, approval of change order number one for the North Downtown Water Main Improvements Project on behalf of D Construction Incorporated for adjustments to project completion dates.

It is recommended Council Members 34-26 through 59-26 be approved.

Is there a motion to approve all said consent agenda items?

So moved.

Second.

It's been motioned seconded to approve.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug.

Mr.

O'Hara, I I got kind of distracted when you were reading that list.

Can you go through that with aye?

Councilwoman Abarra.

Aye.

Councilman Moreno.

Aye.

Councilman Mudron.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman.

Aye.

Councilwoman Ruerdon.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Under agenda items.

Hey, Lauren.

Uh, can we remove uh item 63-26 so we can vote on it separately?

All right.

Is Austin Tyler?

It's already separate.

We already did the appreciate it.

All right.

Under agenda items.

Council memo number 61-26.

Award of payment to heritage corridor destinations in the amount of forty-four thousand five hundred ninety-five dollars and twenty-four cents.

It is recommended council memo number sixty one-26 be approved.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motion and second and two approved.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman of Barra?

Aye.

Councilman Marino?

Aye.

Councilman Mudron?

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Reardon?

Aye.

Councilman Cardinus?

Abstain.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Memo number sixty-two-six.

Award of contract for the Southeast Joliet water meter water meter replacement program to Calumet City Plumbing Company Incorporated in the amount of one million twenty-seven thousand two hundred and fifty dollars.

It is recommended Council Member number sixty two-26 be approved.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman of Barra?

Aye.

Councilman Marino?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Reardon.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinus.

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Memo number sixty-three-26.

Award of contract for the Cunningham Phase 1 water main improvements project to Austin Tyler Construction Incorporated in the amount of 4,256, 274.71 cents.

It is recommended Council Memo number 63-26 be approved.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Moreno.

Abstain.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilman Reardon?

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman of Barra?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Memo number sixty four-26.

Award of contract for the Emerald Lawns Phase Two Water Main Improvements Project to Brant Excavating Incorporated in the amount of four million eight hundred and seventeen thousand and forty-five cents.

It is recommended Council Memo number sixty four-26 be approved.

For moved.

Second.

Comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Mudrin?

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Reardon.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilwoman of Barra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number sixty five-26.

Ward of contract for the Forest Park Phase 4 Water Main Improvements Project to Len Cox and Sons Excavating in the amount of 3,475,515.

It is recommended Councilmember number 65-26 be approved.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments, questions?

Thank you.

It's been motion and second and to approved.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardenas.

Aye.

Councilmanclement.

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Barra?

Aye.

Councilman Marino?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Member number sixty six-26.

Award of contract for the fourth and eastern water main improvements project to PT Farrow Construction Company and the amount of three million six hundred and one thousand six hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents.

It is recommended Councilmember number sixty-six-26 be approved.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments, questions?

Thank you.

It's been motion and seconded to approved.

Councilwoman Reardon.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinus.

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug.

Aye.

Councilman of Barra.

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilman McQuillman?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Memo number sixty seven-26.

Award of contract for the Heggy Park phase two water main improvements project to construction by Camco Incorporated in the amount of five million five hundred twenty-nine thousand one hundred eighty-eight dollars and four cents.

It is recommended Council Memo number sixty seven-26 be approved.

So moved.

Second.

Comments, questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Cardinus?

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman of Barrow?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudron?

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Member number sixty-eight-26.

Award of contract for the Oneida Water Main Improvements Project to deconstruction incorporated in the amount of two million five hundred and twenty-seven thousand two hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-three cents.

It is recommended Council Member number sixty-eight-26 be approved.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Barra?

Aye.

Councilman Marino?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Reardon?

Aye.

Councilman McCartanus?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Member number sixty nine-26.

million five hundred and twenty seven thousand two hundred ninety nine dollars and ninety three cents it is recommended council member number sixty eight twenty six be approved so moved second any comments or questions thank you it's been motioned and seconded to approve councilman clement aye councilman hug aye councilman barra aye councilman marino aye councilman mudron aye councilwoman quilman aye councilwoman rearden aye councilman cardenus aye mayor darcy aye motion carried council member number sixty nine twenty six award of contract for the twin oaks phase two water main improvements project to Austin Tyler Construction Incorporated and the amount of two million sixty nine thousand five hundred thirty eight dollars and sixty cents it is recommended council member number sixty nine dash twenty six be approved the move second comments questions thank you it's my motion and second and to approve councilman hug aye councilman of barra aye councilman marino councilman mudron aye councilwoman quillman aye councilwoman reardin aye councilmancardiness aye councilmanclement aye mayor darcy aye motion carried councilmember number seventy twenty six award of contract for the Virginia phase two water main improvements project to lend cox and sons excavating in the amount of four million six hundred ninety thousand nine hundred nine dollars and forty one cents it is recommended council memo number seventy twenty six be approved so move okay any comments or questions thank you it's been motioned and seconded to approve councilwomanabara aye councilman moreno aye councilman mudron aye councilman quilman aye councilman reardin aye councilman cardinus councilmancleman aye councilman hug aye mayor darcy aye motion carried council member number seventy one twenty six award of contract for the Washington Street Water Main Improvements Project to Steve Speace Construction Incorporated in the amount of five million one hundred and twenty seven thousand seven hundred and forty three dollars and sixteen cents it is recommended council member number seventy one twenty six be approved so moved second second any comments or questions thank you it's been motioned and seconded to approve councilman moreno aye councilman mudron aye councilwoman quillman aye councilwoman reardon aye councilman cardiness councilmancleman councilman hug aye councilwoman aye mayor darcy aye motion carried council member number seventy two dash twenty six ward of contract for the York Avenue water main improvements project to construction by Camco Incorporated and the amount of one million five thousand eighty four dollars and sixteen cents it is recommended council memo number seventy two dash twenty six twenty six be approved secondary questions okay thanks it's been motioned and seconded to approve councilman mudrin aye councilwoman quillman aye councilwoman rearden aye councilman cardinus councilman clement aye councilman hug aye councilwoman of councilman marino aye mayor darcy aye motion carried under public hearings council memo number seventy four twenty six program year twenty twenty four consolidated annual performance and evaluation report public hearing this is a public hearing so comments would be in order at this time but to start we are going to have Dustin Anderson the director of community development provide a brief presentation regarding this item after which comments will be heard thank you Ms O'Hara I did note the word brief as the descriptor uh for my presentation I do want to say thank you for the opportunity to present uh project year 24 uh consolidate annual performance evaluation report that's a large amount of words we'll call it a caper from here on out and this is kind of like a self-graded report card for the work that the city does uh on behalf of the housing urban development department uh in partnership with local nonprofits so I just wanted to say real quick out loud what we can all plainly see I'm not Jackie Lazata I'm more like a team move Jackie Lazata I'm not the real thing uh but I am here today and that is to say that the work that is presented here the accomplishments are really Ms.

Lozada's uh and more importantly the people in this community who stepped up uh and work hard on behalf of their neighbors uh other residents so we are gonna fill that role and we'll be on track for our program year uh 26 in March so if we go we look at the program year program year 24 was the final year and the five year consolidated plan each year is broken up into two sections one is the annual action plan that's what we're gonna do and this is part two uh what we did so to be eligible for HUD funds is very specific if you look at these grant agreements and past council agendas they're very thick they're very prescriptive uh so they must meet the uh HUD eligibility standards and national standards so we looked at 17 applications found 10 that did meet those standards and we funded them uh in any given year the city of Juliet administers around 900 thousand dollars in HUD funds sometimes it's a little more sometimes it's a little uh on the low side of nine hundred this year we're anticipating you know nine hundred and twenty maybe it'll be more maybe it'll be less we haven't got that information yet so if we look at what we've actually accomplished in 24 uh we can break these into three uh buckets the first bucket is facility improvements so we've uh added security measures we've done significant ADA improvements we've installed HVACs and roofs uh

Sometimes it's a little more, sometimes it's a little uh on the low side of 900.

This year we're anticipating you know 920.

Maybe it'll be more, maybe it'll be less.

We haven't got that information yet.

So if we look at what we've actually accomplished in 24, uh, we can break these into three uh buckets.

The first bucket is facility improvements, so we've uh added security measures, we've done significant ADA improvements, we've installed HVACs and roofs, uh, and we've uh installed some security cameras uh for the United States policy.

You'll notice Catholic Charities Daybreak says open.

Their work is completed, we're waiting on certified payroll.

That project is complete, but for accounting uh purposes, we list it as open to be honest with you.

Uh we do public services uh Casa of River Valley provides child advocacy for abuse and neglected children.

Uh we funded a social worker for the Joliet Fire Department.

Uh we provide snow removal for over 300 uh homebound and uh differently abled residents in the city of Juliet.

This is all work that we can be very very proud of participating in.

Uh additionally, we've done microenterprise for economic development.

Uh we have done on our own side of the street some ADA improvements to the Broadway Greenway, and we've also provided housing counseling.

If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer those for you at this time.

I'm sensing uh the piano playing me off, so I will take my leave.

Okay, is there anyone who would like to speak under this public hearing?

Okay, seeing none, we will let the record show the public hearing is now closed.

Council memo number 75 dash 26 public hearing for a resolution approving an annexation agreement for 580 Caton Farm Road A 5-25.

This is also a public hearing, so comments would be in order at this time.

Is there anyone who would like to speak under this public hearing good evening, Mayor, City Council, City Manager, uh Corporation Council, Nate Washburn with KGGLLC.

I'm the attorney for the applicant for this matter and the subsequent ordinance approvals that will follow.

Uh I also have here with me this evening uh Bill Caton, who is one of the brokers, uh, Tom Livo and uh Russ Fratto, representatives of the developer, and uh Cole Helfrick and Brendan Clemens with our surveying and engineering team to the extent anybody on the council has any questions.

If not, uh we would certainly appreciate the opportunity to bring this project into the city, and we would rec uh request uh that you vote to approve the annexation and the agreement and the subsequent ordinances to allow us to implement this plan.

Mayor could you give a brief description of what's intended for this property?

Yes, uh, I can certainly give you a brief description.

It's a five-acre uh approximately parcel off uh on the south side of Caton Farm Road.

Uh it is surrounded by vacant fields, and there is a residential subdivision uh immediately to the east, uh I guess southeast, and there is a residential subdivision across the street.

The principal anchor tenant, which would be the first phase of this development that we expect to be completed uh by late summer this year, would be a daycare facility for children of America.

Uh proposed lots two and three are currently uh projected to be some sort of strip mall or uh quick service uh type you know ice cream shop or something long or Starbucks, something along those lines.

However, uh right now the piece driving this project is the care for children of America, and the other two lots would be marketed uh for future development.

So we're talking daycare and retail.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, is there anyone else who would like to speak under this public hearing?

Okay, seeing none, we will let the record show this public hearing is now closed.

Is there a motion to approve council memo number 75-26 resolution approving an annexation agreement for 580 Caton Farm Road A-5-25?

So moved.

Second.

It's been motion seconded to approve.

Any comments or questions?

Can I just would you mind if I ask, is this Larry Huggs district?

No, this is uh Sherry's district.

Are you in agreement with us?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilman Ridden.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

All right.

Councilman McClement?

Hi.

Councilman Hug?

Hi.

Councilwoman of Barra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudron?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Motion carried.

Under ordinances.

Council Memo number 77-26 ordinances associated with 580 Caton Farm Road ordinances.

Ordinance approving the annexation of 580 Caton Farm Road, A-5-25, ordinance approving the classification of 580 Caton Farm Road to B1 neighborhood business zoning A-5-25 ordinance approving the preliminary planned unit development of 580 Caton Farm Road.

It is recommended that ordinance be adopted.

Motion approved.

So moved.

Any comments, questions?

Thank you.

It's a motion and second and to approve.

Councilman Reardon.

Aye.

Councilman McCartanus.

Councilman McClement?

Hi.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Abarra.

Aye.

Councilman Marino.

Aye.

Councilman Mudron.

Aye.

Councilwoman McQuillman.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council memo number 78-26 ordinance approving the preliminary planned unit development of Jolet Catholic Academy Subdivision.

PUD-10-25.

So move.

Oh, sorry.

So moved.

Are we going to have question answer period?

It is recommended that ordinance be adopted.

Okay.

So moved.

Now we're questions and comments.

Okay.

So I do have some questions, but who's going to be uh answering them, Mayor?

Do you have any idea?

So I would say that um JCA is prepared to answer questions.

They can also give a presentation on the matter if that's helpful.

Yeah, can we do a presentation?

Sure, do the presentation.

Yes.

Please.

Dr.

Budge.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Jeff Buds.

I'm the president and principal at Jolia Catholic Academy.

I'm in my 21st year at JCA, and I'm 20 years as a prod resident of Joliet.

It's great honor to be here tonight to be able to present our basically future plans of our school of our community of what we have done at JCA, what we've done for the community, what we've done for our neighborhood.

So I start with a thank you.

I start with a talk about this is about our future, about the growth of our school, the growth of our community and the health of our school.

I feel in my time and before my time, we've been great neighbors.

We've been at obviously at JCA, that location for the last 36 years as JCA.

And I feel that we've done our best to be the neighbors that I think our neighborhood wants.

Most importantly, this project comes from our expanding our legacy strategic plan 20 uh 23 to 2028.

Um it wasn't a plan that I just made up off the top of my head.

Uh it was uh over a hundred community members, um, people associated with uh community with JCA, our alumni, our students, our faculty and staff, um, our some of our neighbors.

Um, we're all involved in a strategic plan because we obviously want what's best for our school and what's best for our community.

Um we want to invest in Joliet.

Uh we want to invest in our community.

We want to invest in our students, we want to invest in our alumni and all who care about our student our school.

Um, most importantly, this is about opportunities.

Um, when I was hired, it was about what are you gonna do for our students, what opportunities are you gonna create, and obviously uh this expansion would be a major opportunity for our students.

We want to make sure that uh we have the same opportunities as our local high schools and schools and our conference.

So I believe we have a PowerPoint presentation that I want to turn it over to uh Mr.

Ryan Quigley, our director of institutional advancement, who will go through some slides, um which will probably answer a lot of your questions.

So again, thank you so much for your time tonight.

Um and I'll turn it over to Mr.

Quigley.

Coming I can I could fill some time with a brief history lesson here real fast if we're if we're waiting, and that's fine.

Um, Mayor Darcy, council members, thank you so much for hearing us tonight.

Um saw Ann Sylvester's presentation earlier, right reminded me of being a kid going downtown looking at the murals.

Uh we used to go down and see my mom's mural.

She had her pigtails on, playing basketball at Juliet Central, and that's when I was a kid.

Um I was a kid, I thought it was because of Jesse Barfield, my mom, uh Bill Gullickson, these major athletes, and it actually was 1926 to 1928, the Jolia Township Band winning national championships.

And then in that same time period, 1927 and 1928, Joya Catholic High School basketball team won national championships, and they used to light the victory light up because people didn't have radio so that they knew that they won.

So the City of Champions is something that's important to us.

Um that was my little segue there.

Um, and I've got my clicker here too.

So expanding our legacy.

Um Dave Silverman's gonna introduce some of these people throughout the night.

Um we have Dave, our attorney from Mahoney Silverman and Cross.

Uh we have our civil engineer from White and Company, Sean Benson that we partnered with.

Uh, we have our traffic engineer from KLOA, uh, Knig Lin Grand O'Hara and Abuna, uh Javier Milan.

We have our survey and engineering expert from Twig or the Will Group, Dave Zentec.

We also have our owners rep for the project, Trent Palter from TJP Consultants, uh, who's worked with sound engineers and lighting engineers.

Uh you can see our property here.

Um, and we talk about the City of Champions in that era from 1926 to 1928.

Um, this project has brought so much history to the table.

In 1924, Mrs.

Sarah Lagren gave a deed or gifted 127 acres to the Franciscan sisters.

Um then 33 years later in 1957, the Franciscan sisters built St.

Francis Academy.

So I learned very early on with this.

Sister Jean gave me a great uh piece of advice was when you have the opportunity for land, you don't pass it up.

Uh the Franciscan sisters, it took them 33 years uh to build St.

Francis Academy on that property.

Um so I don't feel so bad about this taking two or three years here.

Uh we're working hard to make this happen.

Uh you can see our 127 acres on campus.

Uh the Northridge shopping complex operates that 1 or 45 50 acres to the northwest.

Uh JCA is in the Southwest.

OLA, our Lady of Angels was in the southeast corner, and then the village at Our Lady of Angels is staying on the campus.

So this expands JCA from 38 and a half acres uh to plus or minus 48 acres with the PUD.

Um here's a look, uh, our 2D site plan.

Um the multi-purpose stadium would go in in the southeast corner where OLA used to be.

We would move our tennis courts to the north.

Uh they'd act as uh a bridge between the condos and our facility.

We would also pick up significant parking on campus.

Um there's a look at uh the stadium from our current tennis courts or where our student activity center is.

Um so you notice we we do want to pick up the brick and the style of the current academic building as well as the student activity center that was built in 2006.

Uh here's another view that's looking northwest uh from like the visitor stand side.

Uh so you'll notice we have a lot more than just uh a football stadium.

It is a multi-purpose stadium, soccer, football, uh, the potential for lacrosse again.

It's been a club on campus for several years.

Uh soccer, track and field, tennis, uh, our P classes, all of our students that will utilize this great facility.

Um here's a look at our campus right now and what it looks like.

Um and and we need to do better for our students.

Uh we had a a young gentleman, Max Rathman that came up here and did an incredible job talking tonight.

Um, and that did not look like that in 1999 when I was a freshman coming into JCA.

Uh so this project is important for the future of JCA.

We've seen the results already.

Uh we had our largest entrance exam in the past five years.

Uh we anticipate an enrollment growth because of this project.

Uh so we're very happy uh with what that's going to do for our student body.

Here's a closer look at the concept plan, just kind of zoomed in.

So uh again, we expand parking considerably.

Um we've got a great layout here.

Uh project one phases.

We've already done abatement demolition.

Uh the purchase is contingent on the approval here, so we do have a signed PSA purchase and sale agreement with the Franciscan sisters.

Um, multi-purpose turf field construction, including lights, the tennis complex relocation, stormwater retention and detention, um, and parking lot one addition.

In the first phase, we don't plan on moving football to JCA.

So in the first phase, it'll just be the field, the tennis courts, and one parking lot.

Um so you can kind of see phased out here on the map.

Uh phase one is in blue, phase two would be in gold, and then phase three, uh, redoing the track, redoing the baseball field, and redoing our lower fields uh would be dependent on fundraising.

Um, this entire campaign is a 20 plus million dollar capital campaign uh for JCA, and it's become more than just an athletic campaign for our school, and I'll get into the exact numbers with that a little bit later.

Um phase two would be parking lot expansion, home and away stand construction, stadium entryway, concessions and bathroom building, track resurfacing, softball field relocation, and further stormwater management.

Um, and then phase three, I I outlined.

In our master plan from 23 to 28, uh, which we'll pick back up again in 2028.

We have uh plans for a fine arts center on campus as well.

Uh project considerations.

We already hold 120 plus nights per year on campus.

So typically our soccer and lacrosse crowds average 200-300 fans.

Um, this gives those students the opportunity to play in a stadium and not where their parents are bringing up lawn chairs and we're renting uh a temporary scoreboard.

We would have four to seven maximum home football games per year, depending on the playoffs.

Uh this year we had four home games the way the regular season uh shook out, and then we had one playoff game that was on the road.

So it was a low year with four.

Um here's a look at our last three years of attendance.

Um in 2023, we averaged 3,245 fans, uh, but without that Providence game, uh our average was 2,394.

Um so the days of 10,000 fans at Memorial Stadium are honestly long gone, and it's not just JCA, it's Spectator Sports, it's NASCAR, it's MLB.

Um we're seeing more and more fans that are streaming online and aren't actually going to the games, um, but our student body does.

So we're seeing uh a little bit of a dip from an attendance standpoint due to streaming and due to just I think people being busy with their kids.

I've got a 10-year-old and a five-year-old.

When I was playing on Friday nights in 2001 and 2002, Joya Catholic was the only game in town.

Now we're playing on a Friday night, sometimes in November, there's a softball tournament going on down at the fields.

Uh the ice arena is going.

Uh, there's multiple things that are going on because youth sports is such a big business.

Um this past year, uh, there's a breakdown of our attendance, so our largest crowd this year was 4,127.

Uh so you see this year that province game was 3,124.

Uh, one of the things that we're able to do too when it comes and um KLOA will get into this with the traffic management plan, but technology has allowed us to be better to be ready for different crowd sizes.

Uh so we typically know from our pre-sale what we can expect in our final attendance, uh especially when it comes to playoff games, because those have to be online tickets through the IHSA.

Uh parking comparisons, uh, so Memorial Stadium capacity, it's 10,000 fans.

It's a WPA project, so big stadiums.

They don't build them like that any like they used to, uh, but 5,000 on both sides.

There's 1,093 total parking spots at Joe A Memorial Stadium.

That's 9.1 for spectators per spot.

Um, and I will tell you when we have games going on, there are other things that are going on as well, and people are utilizing the the parking lots.

So again, hockey, um, softball, uh, youth baseball tournaments with primetime sports and Jay Darnell and his group.

So it's not just the JCA game that's going on on Friday night.

Uh, this proposed stadium capacity would be 5,500 fans, 7,000 would stand near them, 481 current parking spots on campus, which is larger than any school in the Catholic League just currently.

Um, but with this, we knew to be a good neighbor, we wanted to expand our parking lots.

So uh this in a sense is almost adding uh anywhere between 800,000 to a million dollars to our capital campaign to double our on-campus parking.

Uh so right now we have 481 current parking spots.

We'll expand with the two parking lots to 452 additional parking spots with 933 total.

Uh, those are actual parking spots, that's not any internal campus parking or shoehoring shoe shoehorning uh cars um up the drives.

So that's six spectators per parking spot.

We actually have a better ratio than what we currently have at Memorial Stadium right now.

It's a 94% increase in total on-campus parking.

Um, in order to meet the city's code though, um, our uh traffic study expert, Javier is going to come up and he's gonna talk specifics about uh what KLO KLOA conducted for us.

Good evening.

My name is Javier Milan.

I'm a principal with KLOA Incorporated.

Um got my engineering degree from our kitten university uh with a concentration transportation and traffic engineering.

I'm a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and I have over 30 years of experience of a traffic engineer.

So we conducted a thorough uh traffic evaluation, which its scope was actually based on agreed upon with discussion with city staff.

As part of the study, um, and to determine current traffic conditions during game days on under times, we conducted big period traffic counts in the area on four separate occasions.

So they were conducted in June and also in September.

As you have heard, and based on JCA historical data, there is typically four to seven home football games per year.

These games have a typical attendance between 1500 and 3100 guests, with the exception of two games with either Providence Catholic High School or uh Morris High School.

The campus parking, as it was uh mentioned, will be increased by almost 100%, which can accommodate all of the events the school holds with the exception of those two games that I mentioned the Providence Catholic High School or the Maurice High School game.

So, in order to accommodate this additional parking, JCA has made arrangements for remote parking with the University of St.

Francis, which is adjacent to the school, and the habitat for humanity.

Northwestern these KLOA also prepared a traffic and parking management plan in coordination of the city staff on the police department.

And it contains a number of measures to manage and accommodate the traffic, such as fully utilizing the parking on the JCA campus, utilizing cones and portable signs to block access to fill lots and guide motorways to the next available lot.

Utilizing the remote yet proximate off campus parking when needed, providing events, uh motorway information using portable, changeable message boards and or portable static wayfinding signs, and continuing utilizing the Seat of Joliet police officers to manage outbund traffic at the conclusion of the football games.

So in conclusion, with implementation of the event traffic management strategies, the roadway system generally has sufficient reserve capacity to accommodate the traffic to be generated by the stadium.

And lastly, the City of Joliet staff, as well as the police department has reviewed this study, and they concur with the findings and recommendations in it.

Our sound study was completed by NPI Audio Visual Solutions.

Trent Punkers here from TJP Consultants.

We have a grass burn fencing tree line to reduce noise between the tennis courts and the village property.

We have a 100 plus foot easement between the north fence line of the tennis courts to the village condos.

And we also have 100 plus feet from Ingalls Avenue to the south.

The distance to the east with Wyoming is 240 plus feet.

The sound study shows an estimated industry standard range of 86 to 98 decibels within the future stadium footprint.

From a lighting standpoint, we have total light control, no glare or spill to the neighbors, improved visibility, environmental environmentally friendly, neighborhood safety.

Right now we have not selected a lighting company, but we have quotes from both GeoSport Lighting and Muscle Lighting.

GeoSport Lighting is owned by Tencata Sports, two of the leading lighting manufacturers in the country.

The applicants lighting engineer, this is from the city staff report, has confirmed that all the lighting will be downcast onto the multi-purpose athletic field with minimal spillover to the adjacent residences.

I can't tell you there's been a big difference just in athletic facilities over the last 20 years.

We even see it with our own parking lot lights.

But you go to Memorial Stadium now when I was a kid, we used to be able to play in the north and south end zones.

We actually had a little light spillage.

We could see the ball when we were trying to catch it out there.

Now it's a little dark because of the way the lights work, which is good.

So you drive by Whiteford, okay, and you get an opportunity to look at that and you see the neighbors and how much better the new lights are.

So we are committed to doing that as well, going with Muscle Anti-Glare or GeoSport Lighting Anti-Glare Lighting.

The attached lighting study that was in the PUD application, it generally shows a foot candle measurement of 0.5 to 1.3 foot candles along the south side of Engels Avenue.

That would be the area that would be most effective, uh affected by light spillage if there was light spillage.

And you can kind of see just to the west of the school, the darkness to the north of the school with the anti-glare spill on the lighting.

But again, I ask you to drive by Memorial Stadium, drive by Whiteford just locally, and you can see uh the upgrades in lighting and what that does for facilities and for the neighbors.

From a stormwater management standpoint, I'm going to introduce Sean Benson here from White and Company to take over.

Good evening.

Sean Benson from White and Company.

I'm professional engineer, have over 20 years of experience.

Um White worked on the civil engineering design and stormwater management for the project.

Um, the project will meet all the city and county stormwater ordnance requirements.

Um, stormwater detention will be provided north of the existing track on the existing JCA campus, and the release rate for the site will be reduced even with the new development as compared to existing conditions.

So this reduced runoff will be a benefit to the surrounding community.

It will allow additional capacity for the uh adjacent storm sewers and the roadways, and we're also reduced the overall runoff to the north.

This picture here in blue, you can see the existing basin north of existing existing track there.

Um we're proposing to provide almost 13 acre feet of detention.

Um this will be achieved by storm sewers, overland flow, and swales.

It should be noted that the majority of the east JCA campus and the north side already are in this watershed and drain that way to the north.

The OLA parcel has been engineered to also drain to this basin.

So overall, stormwater management will be greatly improved for the campus and be um will be an improvement for you know adjacent watersheds.

I'm here for any detailed questions regarding the stormwater management and appreciate your time.

Some additional project considerations.

So we have had two meetings with the city staff and uh Russell Bash from the City of Joliet's traffic division.

Um we've connected with the Joliet Police Department to develop increased security measures for Friday night football games, crowds and traffic.

Um we work with them right now with Joliet Memorial Stadium as well in our games there.

We also also have had 40 plus years of tennis court lights on campus, 200 plus nights per year in addition to parking lot lights along, uh Larkin and Engels campaign success so far in our quiet phase.

So we haven't even gone public with this from a standpoint of our mass mailings to our alumni and friends.

Um just in the past 18 months, uh we've raised over 12.75 million dollars.

So we talk about the legacy campaign.

Uh I liken it to the mid-50s and the campaigns that Catholic Eye had and the Franciscan sisters had for expanding Catholic Eye and building SFA.

Um these are generational campaigns, and I think it's gonna help Joliet maintain its reputation as a city of champions.

We've raised over 7.2 million in cash and pledges for construction and land purchases.

Um we've raised over 5.496 million dollars for endowment purposes for tuition assistance.

Um you'll see in our first phase, um, and these are our ballpark numbers that we've received from different vendors and from White and Company, but the acquisition of OLA, uh so we're purchasing that from the Franciscan sisters, uh, construction of the new multi-purpose field, uh, purchase of all JC buildings and land from the Franciscan sisters, and construction of the new tennis courts.

Uh we're happy to report that we have the ability to get moving on phase one right now, um, and the more certainty we have with this project, uh, we have the ability to go back to donors that have given privately already uh that are motivated to give towards expanding this and making phase two and phase three a reality.

Um at this time I'd like to introduce, and I spoke a little bit about the Franciscan sisters here uh and their history and what they've meant to us.

Um, but uh the chair of our board of members at JCA and also the president of the Joliet Franciscan Sisters, Sister Jean Bassett.

Thanks, Ryan.

Good evening, Mayor Darcy, council members, uh city manager, and others.

Uh my name is Sister Jean Bissette.

I am currently serving as president of the Sisters of St.

Francis.

This past summer we celebrated our 160th anniversary in Joliet.

We were founded right at St.

John the Baptist Church on Hickory.

In fact, our first sisters lived in the house right behind it.

Over the years since that time, 160 years, we have been well.

I hope we've been good neighbors in Joliet.

We certainly have spent a ton of our lifetimes here.

Uh and it moved way beyond selling chocolate bars to build the places that we're talking about tonight, you know.

Um, but we we were the founders of Guardian Angel Home, which is now Guardian Angel Community Services a couple blocks away.

Our Lady of Angels retirement home, which I'm happy to tell you is now flat.

Uh people by there when it was a complete disaster zone for a while.

Um St.

Francis Academy, which is now JCA.

St.

Francis Academy is in its third home on that property.

Uh we founded the Franciscan Learning Center, which operated for I don't know, good 25 or 30 years in Joliet and in Frankfurt before that, and then the University of St.

Francis.

Some of those have closed.

There was a time when, as Ryan said, the sisters owned all that property.

The first piece of property we sold up there was that whole parcel that became a shopping center.

And we sold it so that we could buy our sisters' way into social security.

Because we have worked for the church, we had never we really didn't have salaries.

We got little little bits of money.

And we weren't able to go into social security.

And we started a retirement fund for our elderly sisters with that parcel.

We've sold a piece of it to uh the university where Guardian Angel and the Franciscan Learning Center were.

We built our Lady of Angels Village.

Those will actually be some of the closest neighbors to this new athletic complex.

And some of you will be happy to know that one of the people that will be absolutely the closest to it is Sister Faith, who was the longtime president of the school.

Her she has the closest house to the football field.

We have 27 residences there that represent about, oh I don't know, 50 people.

They all know about this, they are all supportive of it.

They get the biggest picture of this.

Our congregation has staffed seven other grade schools in Joliet.

We've supported my gosh, the Spanish Center, Catholic charities, the Peter Claver Center, which many of you won't even remember, the Center for Correctional Concerns, which we're still involved in, that educates uh people at the Will County jail to try to s to stop recidivism.

We've always had prison ministries.

We're in a prison town.

We don't so much have casino ministries though.

We have always been concerned about being good neighbors in Joliet and everywhere else we've been.

Personally and professionally, I mean, what do I know about what I'm talking about tonight?

I've spent my whole adult life in high school.

I've been a teacher starting at St.

Francis Academy and St.

John the Baptist.

I've been a high school principal, and most recently, before I was elected to this position, I was a high school president in Cincinnati.

I founded a high school there, and before I left, after 11 years, we built a brand new school from the ground up.

I've been involved in every aspect of renovation, planning, and then construction and building.

I know it when I see it.

And JCA is a successful high school.

It could be more successful, and that would be by enhancing its campus and improving its athletic facilities.

What they didn't mention is the kinds of improvements that have happened in that school, especially over the last 36 years with a new athletic center, a new uh gym with IT.

I mean, they're just state of the art in those areas.

A brand new chapel that actually seats a couple hundred people at a time.

Really, the the the improvements have been constant.

And the improvements have been there for only one purpose, and that's the kids.

There's no other there's no feather in our caps otherwise.

Um at the very same time that we were considering closing our Lady of Angels, JCA was beginning this planning project for finally now athletics again has rolled onto their uh their agenda.

And I asked them, what would you do with that property if more property became available?

Because I knew that the likelihood of closing OLA was about a hundred and twenty-five percent.

And that um we it was going to close.

And uh it caused them to go back to the drawing boards and completely rethink what they could do on that property with that additional several acres on the corner.

JCA has the winningest football program in this state that doesn't have its own uh stadium.

I've worked in three other Catholic high schools that were landlocked by houses.

I've been dealing with this for years about what do you do when the neighbors are close.

But where are schools?

You know, schools are built where people live, they're built in neighborhoods.

Um we don't have the we we didn't have the playing field opportunity to go out and get the gigungus uh farmlands, you know.

We we have what we have, and we try to do the best we can.

Um I just I believe this, I believe JCA is an asset to the Joliet community, to Will County, in fact.

Uh I'm asking you to do something good tonight, and it's something good for kids.

But honestly, I think it will be something good for Joliet.

I think it will be another uh little gem in this city.

You know, I was here when the baseball stadium was built.

I was here when Joliet Central improved their beautiful fields out there.

People could have said, oh, it's the east side.

Why would we do that over there?

It's beautiful.

God bless us for doing that.

Uh I was here when the NASCAR came in and other improvements.

I think this will be one of those things, one of those gems that will make people sit up and notice something beautiful is going on in JCA.

And the beautiful thing it is, in addition to, I agree that this is going to raise property values, frankly, to have great schools that even look good in your neighborhood.

Um it will be really good for uh the people that we fundamentally all care about with everything we're doing, and that's our kids.

Thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Dave Silverman.

I'm an attorney with the law firm of Melanie Slovenic Cross and Joliet.

And uh thank you, Ryan, for putting me uh after Sister Jean, which is definitely a hard act to follow, right?

But uh here we are.

We're asking for your approval tonight of a preliminary plan unit development.

And what we're asking for is that this concept be approved by the city council.

And if it is approved tonight, we'll be back at some date in a month or so for another public hearing before the plan commission on the final PUD.

And the final PUD will really be a refinement of the engineering issues and some of the architectural issues.

But we really hope that that you'll see your way clear to vote uh in favor of this tonight so that we can move forward with the project.

Uh you know, and why why are we here tonight?

Why is this a planned unit development?

This originally uh started with the city uh excuse me with uh Ryan and Dr.

Butts and his team uh coming to the city in September of 23.

So it's been almost two and a half years ago with this project.

And uh through public comments here at the council, uh the council suggested that a planned unit development might be more appropriate so that the council could could really review this and vote on it.

So I'd like to say thank you for those comments because I think it's really given us the opportunity to air these things both in front of the planning commission and the city council so that we've been able to have a good discussion.

And what JCA has heard from the three community meetings that they have, and what they've heard from your city staff and city administration is that you in Joliet want like every other project that you're looking for, a first class project.

So they went out, they retained appropriate consultants, they made sure that they have state of the art lighting, that they have state of the art sound, that they have a good traffic management plan that uh we can work with your amazing police department on to implement as as these matters come up.

So it's I think the project has turned out better because of that and because of the community input.

So thank you for that.

Uh your staff has been great to work with, so thank you to the staff and administration.

It's been a long, a long road, and there's been a lot of studies submitted and a lot of review time on their part, and you know, we have a good project here for you.

And I think that through the lighting and the sound professionals, through the traffic management, we we provide you an opportunity in landscaping and other things, an opportunity to have a great project here that really can be compatible with the neighborhood.

And you know, so much emphasis is on the stadium and the football program.

There's so much more here.

There's you know, there's the lacrosse, there's baseball, there's softball, there's tennis, there's the kids in the band, there's the there's the people are cheerleading, all the other sports that go on there.

And this uh this football stadium helps us to do that and to really make this legacy campaign come true.

So uh we're gonna ask you to uh to please give us a favorable vote tonight on this.

It comes with a positive recommendation from your staff after hours of analysis.

It comes with a unanimous recommendation from your planning commission after a lengthy public hearing there.

Uh we've kind of abbreviated uh moved a little faster through this here tonight, but we don't want to go faster at the risk of not answering your questions.

So uh Dr.

Butz is here, Ryan's here, I'm here.

We have our professionals here.

If you have any questions, please ask them.

Um we think we're presenting a good project for you, and we'd ask that you give us a positive positive vote tonight.

Thank you.

Any questions from the council?

Yes.

Who would like to answer my questions?

Depends on what the question is.

Well, first of all, um, what is the enrollment?

We have enrollment at JCA's 539 students.

And how many of those students live in Joliet?

33% of them.

33 percent.

That's the largest percentage.

21% of the yeah.

And what's the tuition a year?

22% for them, sure.

$15,000.

Yeah.

So a lot of our kids can't even afford to go there.

What do you mean our kids?

Well, our kids that live in Joliet.

They love they would love to go.

Not all of them can afford to go there.

So may I finish, please?

I'm not done with my question.

Yes.

What type of scholarship program do you have for the residents that live here?

Yeah, we have that want to go and can't afford it.

We have a leverage financial aid program.

Our average scholarship is $5,000.

Uh, we've been in front of this council before, uh, talking about the Invest in Kids Act, um, low-income and middle income scholarships for our students here in Joliet.

Um, unfortunately, the Invest in Kids Act sunset three years ago.

Um, I did talk to our elected officials about that and the impact that it would have on JCA.

So we lost $652,000 in scholarships, and we lost 54 students.

So in three years, we've lost 52 students since the Invest in Kids Act uh from an enrollment standpoint.

So 54 were on Invest in Kids Act Scholarships.

52 were lost because of it over a three-year period.

Um so what we've done to pick that up from an endowment standpoint, we've raised we've raised over five million dollars in the last 18 months so that more students can go to JCA.

Uh we're also going to be working with our elected officials on a federal program called the Educational Choice for Children Act, which would which would pick back up the Invest in Kids Act at a federal level.

So we have states right now that are opting into that program.

Indiana, Colorado.

Um I think we have 18 states so far that have opted into the Educational Choice Act.

Well, I would think with all the money that you're raising for a stadium, you could certainly raise a lot more money to help these kids be able to go to JCA.

And we are doing that.

Okay.

Um you keep saying uh it's only gonna be six or seven games played at the stadium.

So six or seven games, maybe eight if they're go to playoffs.

Now, what other teams are gonna be playing there?

Our lower level teams, so our freshmen and sophomore football teams.

I mean outside how about uh University of St.

Francis and other places that might you quit interrupting me?

Yes.

And listen to what I have to say, and then I will listen to you politely, like I have all night.

Yes, I will.

Thank you.

Yes.

So my question is other teams may want to play there because they don't have a stadium.

Will you be renting that stadium out to other players other schools?

We will be renting that stadium out to other youth organizations, not other schools.

Other youth organizations that youth organizations like the Juliet Titans, the Juliet Steelers, um, so there'll be other games being played there besides the six or seven that have just been pandered out there.

Let only six or seven games a month.

Yeah.

No, we're JC.

Yeah.

Boy.

You're a teacher.

Uh I'm the director of institutional advancement.

And you don't know how to listen?

Okay.

So my next question is uh when were the parking studies done?

The parking studies were done in June and September specifically.

In June when the school is out.

Uh and then we did it, and then we did another study when school was in.

So we did them June 6th and then June 7th while athletics were still going on because they were after school.

Um, and then we did them again on September 19th and September 20th after meeting with the neighbors.

And did you discuss this traffic issue with the Chill High Police Department?

Uh yes, we did.

Did you come up with a plan?

Yes.

Okay, because I haven't seen the plan either.

Um let's see here.

What other entertainment events will you be doing there to help pay for the stadium?

Like are you gonna be having musical bands or things like that?

No.

Not at all.

No.

No events will be other than football.

Uh we'll have football, soccer.

Uh we're not planning on any events at the same time.

So there'll be soccer events there as well at the stadium.

Before just baseball or football.

Our high schools, our high school soccer games, yes.

Mm-hmm.

So that's more.

How many games do they play?

Um 30 per year.

So 30, which they currently play on campus, majority of them.

But they'll be playing there then, too, right?

There'll be 30 total games per year home games.

They each play 30.

So girls' soccer and boy soccer.

So and then there'll be playoffs there as well.

Playoffs are minimal, two to three games.

Well, but what about football?

There's a lot of playoffs.

Uh there's four to seven games total.

So we play four to five home games during the regular season, and then we'll play an additional two to three playoff games depending on how the playoffs shake out with the brackets in the seating.

And it'll just keep adding up, adding up over the years.

Uh more and more.

What we're currently hosting on campus, we would only be adding four to seven events on campus compared to what we're currently hosting.

We are already hosting soccer games on campus.

They're just gonna have a stadium to play.

Okay.

Um I'm very concerned about the residents that live there.

I would like to see um in this agreement, written in writing, that uh it would be residential parking only, but not at any cost of the residents that live there.

Can you repeat the question, please?

Okay.

In the very that little neighborhood that lives there, okay.

These people have lived there for years, these are houses an established neighborhood.

Okay.

Okay.

And um they have very they don't have driveways, their sidewalks are terrible.

They don't have many alleys, there's no garages, and they have to park on the streets.

So if you have two or three more cars in that home, that's maybe three three cars per house around there, just to say that.

Okay.

So residential parking is one of these I'm asking when school is in and when the games are played.

A lot of people do not like to park in the parking lot.

They want to park on the street to get out quick.

So what I'm asking for is residential parking only for the residents that live there at no cost to the residents that live there.

Residential parking at no cost for them in their own neighborhood.

Yes, be yes, because what was said they don't have to pay to be.

That's what they were told.

That's why I want to make that very clear.

No, they were not told that our TNP has nothing with paid parking for current residents.

Okay.

That's what I want to know.

Are you willing to put that in writing?

Um I don't know that we would need to put it in writing because it's not a change of what the current standard is.

I don't know what the current standard is.

I haven't seen anything.

It's free parking on the streets for neighbors.

Yes, but you're gonna take me.

Where do you live, Mr.

Quigley?

I live in Shorewood.

Uh-huh.

Yes.

Uh-huh.

Where do you live?

I live in Shanahan.

Uh-huh.

Oh, yeah.

My family's been in business in the city of Jolette for a hundred years in different businesses.

So I feel like I'm pretty attached here.

I grew up here, and I have a business here that employs about 20 people.

So I am invested in this community in a number of ways.

But you don't live here.

You don't live in that little tiny neighborhood.

You're trying to put a square peg and a round hall.

I used to do that.

And you're disrupting these people that don't make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

There's a lot of people that have invested in those homes.

They bought them in the 50s and 60s when they were built.

And you know, and now the housing value is going to go down because people don't want to live by a stadium.

And I know it was said earlier by Sister Jean, we know all due respect, that the schools are there in the residential areas.

But you're trying to put this here after this established residence been there for 50 to 60 years.

These are people's homes.

And they're going to disrupt everything, and there's going to be coming and going and noise and lights and everything.

And I know what you're saying, you're trying to do everything to calm that down, but still the overflow is going to go into that established little neighborhood.

Well, we look forward to working with the Jolet Police Department on parking and traffic.

We're adding a large number of parking spaces.

We're also working with Habitat and others for off site parking if we need that.

And kind of the beauty of this whole thing is I mean, you saw the attendance numbers, they're not that great.

Hopefully they'll be better.

But they will be, it'll grow because you want it to be.

Well, well, hopefully they will grow.

But but as a grow, uh, as Mr.

Quigley mentioned, um, the tickets are pre-sales.

So they know ahead of the game how many people are going to be attending the game almost to the head, right?

So what they can do with that is they can go down to your traffic division and they can work on a plan that's specific for that game.

And they can put that in place and implement it later.

And we know that your police department is is very good at handling special events, and and we're we're confident that they'll come up with a good plan for that.

And I hope that you would have confidence in your police department also.

Oh, I have a lot of confidence in our police department.

I want to know who's going to pay for all those extra policemen that are going to be out there.

That'll be on the taxpayers to pay the extra overtime.

I mean, JCA, I think, pays for the officers now at the stadium.

I know, but now you're adding something else.

Well, we won't.

And it'll be a lot of extra police department and there'd be a nightmare.

I talked to some police officers anyway.

It's going to be a nightmare trying to get people in and out of there.

However, you're going to have to put more police on there, which will be a cost to the taxpayers that not only live in that area, but all of us.

It's going to cost us more.

I guess we have a difference of opinion on that.

Well, of course we do.

Of course we do.

So I still want to know who's going to pay for all that.

And um couple other questions.

So you're telling me you're not going to rent it out to anything or entertainment venue, or you're going to do that eventually.

No.

No, no, no concerts.

I mean, there'll be school-related things, or the you know, the band might be playing out there and think the school band.

There's not going to be, it's this is not going to be the site of the taste of Joliet or you know, fixed concert or anything like that.

This is a this is an educational facility that's and it's being made for our students for for their benefit and for the you know the benefit of everyone pretending.

So can you put that in writing as well?

Well I mean, sure, we could we could we can tell you that there's not going to be any concerts there.

And now you can tell me, but I'm gonna see it in writing.

It doesn't count unless it's in writing.

Verbal agreements are not any good, it has to be in writing.

You asked me if we could put that in writing, and I said sure.

That was my response.

We can put it in writing that um that we will only have educational uh institution um events in the within the stadium.

I mean, that's that's our intent.

You know, if if that were to change in the future, obviously we would come back to the city of Joliet and ask you if you wanted to change that.

But we have no intent to do anything like that.

I'm not even sure, you know, how those rumors got started.

But uh, you know, we we can we can drop a letter, you know, to your city staff tomorrow and tell them that there will be only educational uh institution uh events held there.

And then what about the extra cost for the police department?

Well, we've always handled that cost, right?

Um I don't know that there would be additional costs because our games we currently have four to seven home games per year.

Um those are at Memorial Stadium.

Uh that would just be moving to JCA on campus.

It's already an existing cost.

But you said you're gonna have other things there too, like lacrosse and such.

What what's the no?

We already have those things at JCA.

And the the fans and the spectators, there's 200 to 300 people at it, that they don't require police presence.

It's less than our outdoor sports besides football, or less than a basketball game, an average basketball game that we have on campus.

Well, I disrupting a nice little neighborhood of people that have lived there a long time, they have their whole lives invested in that.

A lot of them are retirees, and others are people.

That's just about all they can afford, those little houses, and they can't afford to move.

You're disrupting that whole neighborhood.

And I I just don't think it's a good idea at all.

We're we're asking for your vote tonight.

Uh, it doesn't sound like we're gonna get yours, council Councilman Quillman, but we hope that we get you know a majority of the votes tonight, and we'd like to move forward and GC JCA is committed to do the best they can to make this project compatible with the neighborhood.

And I think you've seen that that we can make it compatible.

Will everybody like it?

No, but it's it's never as bad as people think it's well.

So I'm just asking all the questions that I was asked to respond to.

We we really appreciate your input and uh and I hope we can work this out.

Well, because I'm I'm sure this is already a done deal.

I'm I'm positive it is.

But I just had to before it became to a vote, I had to have all these questions asked for the people that that live here.

We understand that.

Thank you for your family.

Okay.

All right.

That's all I have, Mayor.

Thank you.

Mayor, yeah.

So I see this as a whole different view.

We saw our pre you just said don't talk when another person was talking we had a presentation earlier from Ann Sylvester showing everything that she and we, the City of Joliet, are trying to do.

We have a new city center that will be opened.

We are doing more or will be doing more at BIPAC and having other activities downtown.

Obviously, we have the race coming back here.

Uh the Slammer Stadium added uh a number of uh different activities that weren't exactly baseball, but the hot dog drop and uh the uh the just bringing more people to Joliet.

I look at this as an asset to the to the city and to the neighborhood that it will increase the home values, I feel in in Joliet in general, I believe in options.

We the city need educational options, both private versus public.

As Mr.

Quigley said, it raised almost 13 million dollars, seven of it going to land acquisitions, and almost six of it going to tuition assistance.

We need this educational option to help attract new people, new homes, new options here to the city that they could have private as well as public education.

I have family teaching in the public education, I think it's very good here, but people want private and they should have it.

As we all know, we've lost one hospital and a private golf course over the last few years that we can't afford to lose any other large operation like JCA.

Um by park is already mentioned, uh the tuition uh and yes, we up here all represent the whole city, and we're voting on helping a hundred and fifty thousand plus people on what would be best in the future here.

I'm for the project.

That'd be all right.

Maybe Mr.

Mayor.

Can I ask your question?

Brian.

So we're no.

Is the school gonna make the kids park in the new parking lots?

Yeah, yes.

Is that the plan that's yes?

And we yeah, we currently currently do as well.

So the kids and the employees have a tax system on their rear view windshields.

Um so we don't our parking lots are not at capacity right now.

Right.

Okay, I just want to make sure it's gonna take some of the vehicles off the roads there in the neighborhoods.

And we have about 320 students who park right now at school.

Um we have 539 students, but it's your sophomores juniors and seniors that elect to drive some of them carpool or still be dropped off by parents.

Okay, thank you.

Mayor.

Yeah, Mr.

Quigley.

Yes.

What's the legacy committee?

The legacy committee uh for legacy fields, that would be like our steering committee for the capital campaign.

So, like the planning of this, yes, yes and the fundraising.

Yes.

And how long has it been together?

Uh about 18 months.

Okay.

Before I go any further, I just want to get some house, Todd.

Do we actually have a somebody said we have a member, it's not me.

Yeah, a member up here that's uh has been on the committee all 18 months.

That is false.

There's no member of this committee.

No.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That's not true.

We had open discussion.

This is out of order at this point in time.

Nobody on this council.

No.

Who is on that committee or had been let's move on from there.

All right.

With that said, um, you know, I I see it's got pretty pretty ugly.

I didn't get any contacts from anybody from either side of the issue until this past weekend.

Interesting, right?

Boy, did I get a flood in the last three or four days.

Um a lot of opposition, a few people in favor.

I I'm not I don't want to say who I talked to unless he gives me a nod that I can say him, and if he doesn't, then I won't say him.

But that kind of gave me some background on the pro side, okay.

My mother graduated from St.

Francis Academy in 1955 when it was still at the university.

It used to be, you talked about the third place, right, sister.

It used to be in the in the in in the uh university.

And she always talked about a a nun that was our teachers that called them her little darlings.

She would tell me that story all the time.

I went to Providence, so I'm certainly pro-Pochial, pro-Catholic uh education.

People are bantering about a lot of different opinions about how JCA should spend their money, about education.

People have said uh nobody has said anything negative that I caught about the JCA not you know taking care of the student properly or being a good member of the community.

That's all a given.

It's it is a good school.

Providence, JCA, Mount Carmel, they're all good schools.

And so was Plainfield Central, Joliet West, you know, they're all good schools.

So it really boiled down to one thing for me.

There are concerns from the from the homeowners there.

I told them when they the ones that did reach out to me when they said they would prefer that it not be built at all.

I said, I don't know that that's gonna happen.

What we're gonna do is find a medium, happy medium here.

Um, you know, they do have the property.

So I told them, I said you can't just not build it, we gotta hear them out and see.

So with the details I got, and I told them if they if they do what I ask them to do, then they're gonna get my vote.

And I did ask, and I'm sure you're aware of this, Mr.

Quigley, that we put in writing as part of the development agreement that it would be used only for JCA, you know, events because everybody tonight has been focusing on the kids, sister focused on them three times.

She said this is for our for the kids.

And and I can vote yes for the kids.

Yeah, but I was told that that's not something that that JCA was willing to do to put it in as part of the agreement, and without that I can't vote yes.

Okay.

Yeah, and from our end, it would just put a standard on us.

The Joliet Titans were up here tonight.

They played home football games at Juliet Central, the Tri-City Wolverines play home football games at Manooka at Plainfield Central.

It is a standard uh throughout the Catholic League.

Uh when I coached freshman football for seven years at JCA, we'd have a freshman B game on a Thursday night at Brother Rice.

Um, and once the game got done, two youth organizations would come in and would be practicing with their cheerleaders.

And we we are a hub for the community when it comes to indoor sports and basketball and baseball teams that practice in our gym.

We're not able to do that with our outdoor facilities uh to the extent that we would like to.

Um and that's where we see this, not as uh either-or when it comes to fundraising for JCA, it's both, um, and that we're fundraising for our facilities and we're fundraising for tuition assistance to be able to help students be able to come to school.

But to get kids to come to school, we need to get them on campus.

Uh we see favorable data on that when it comes to youth organizations.

And Mr.

Quigley, uh, I'm unique to the members of this council.

I'm a football official.

Yeah.

Okay.

I referee football have since 1978.

I was 15 when I started, so I don't make any jokes.

Um, yeah, I I I went there.

I didn't think it was the the Titans.

There was uh another group, but it's been a few years.

I don't do that.

The the youth football is.

Right, and they did it more.

There's no more job.

I was a good idea.

They were at your practice field because I refed it.

Yes.

They did it.

So they they can do that.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Also I want to make clear that I understand some people don't understand it.

The only new sport bring we being brought on campus is football.

Yes.

But it's the big one.

Yeah.

Um, because I I I'm fired baseball and softball, not for uh several decades now.

Way back when it was still St.

Francis Academy.

Catholic high played their the when they even when they were still downtown, they played their baseball games there.

Yep.

And you had three fields at the time, I don't know how many you have now that were for like the sophomore freshman baseball as well as the girl softball.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I understand you're not adding any new sports that aren't already played there.

Um but again, short of, you know, and and if you're saying you want to do just the youth, but you see, even if it's just the youth with an open end without wording saying that this is going to be for our students.

Then you got my vote, right?

Without that, maybe you leave JCA.

What your intent is, it's not written in stone, right?

The next person can say, hey, we're gonna run an event every night, those lights are gonna be on.

And that's what these people are afraid of.

Yeah.

I'm being told that's not what we intend to do, but we won't put it in writing.

And I can't justify that.

We won't do it, but we won't promise not to do it in writing.

We just want the same thing.

Joliet West and Juliet Central aren't required to put in writing that they won't host youth organizations or just youth organizations.

We just want to be the held at the same standard that our local public schools are.

I get Providence isn't in Joliet, but um, you know, we are we are partners in Catholic education, we're competitors on the field and we're competitors for students.

Also when it comes to Bennett Academy, Providence, Joliet West, and Juliet Central Minucca, we have to be competitive for students, so we want to be at the same level that those schools are.

Um to my knowledge, and talking with their development directors and athletic directors, my wife works at Joliet Central, my sister in law is an assistant athletic director and the head softball coach at Joliet West.

Um they don't have to sign those agreements.

The city staff did not recommend that we had to procure an agreement like that.

Um so we would ask that the council wouldn't consider that.

Okay, and and I appreciate that position.

Now, here's the difference.

I would like to respond to you if that's okay.

Here's the difference.

They're publicly managed and owned facilities.

They have their own governing boards, the Board of Education, that all of these people can vote them in and out when they make those decisions.

We can't tell the Board of Education what to do.

While you're not a business per se, you're a nonprofit, you're a school very good school, excellent school, right?

You are on the private side.

That's the difference.

I understand that staff didn't.

Um I I'm at a loss to tell you why they wouldn't have at least um you know checked into that.

This is what I needed to do my vote.

Again, product of the Catholic schools, graduate of uh Providence before it became Providence Catholic.

It was just Providence back in the old days with Bishop Campir.

Yeah.

1981 I graduated a few decades ago, folks.

Like I said, my mom who passed away in 2014, went to the uh uh St.

Francis Academy when it was still housed in in university.

I'm focusing on what this isn't even in my district.

It's not going to affect any of the constituents in the district I'm elected to, but I have had a number of people from the community uh reach out to me.

I'm trying to trying to find Solomon's solution by saying, Look, sorry folks, I I I can't back you on saying they can't build it.

If they're gonna build it just for their students, I'm for it.

Can you guys say that just for your students?

We don't want to do that.

That leaves me in the middle of a spitting match, okay, of two extremes, and I can't support either side.

Thank you.

Appreciate your comments and concerns.

Sure.

Any other comments from the council?

Yeah.

We have a uh we have a the vote would be next once the council asked their questions, correct?

Yep, yep, we know we've got a first and a second.

Yeah, we have a motion second.

I had a question real quick.

Oh no problem for you guys.

I the audience can't really.

I'm a pro-development guy.

I like to see construction, like to see uh these being built, right?

But at the same time I got elected to do a job.

Uh on Sunday, I got reached out by a constituent and they said, Hey, come look at what's going on in the neighborhood already.

Uh we drove around for about two hours.

Um they already have con congested areas because the schools and they are their main concern is the traffic.

And I understand you are putting out parking spaces to alleviate that, right?

Would you be willing to to allocate money for if we turn into turning that neighborhood into a no parking zone is up to basically us the council and not not you guys.

But would you guys put money?

I don't want to have the Jolia residents pay to put signs up, uh, whether the cost of the signs or the cost of the labor.

Um so that the overflow doesn't go and park inside of their um the neighborhood.

Uh would we be willing to put money up towards that?

Yes.

Um, I don't think we do at this time.

I think my solution for that would be effective communication strategies.

Um I understand people will think that people are gonna park uh at the most convenient spot for them to be able to get out.

Uh adding these two new parking lots, the most convenient spot is gonna be closest to the stadium for them to be able to park.

So uh again, I think with what we're expanding, and that's where the money's going.

Um and significant six figures towards those two parking lots.

Okay.

And then um so what you know.

I mean, I get it, it's you know, this is a great thing that's gonna happen uh for the students and for the school.

But what about for the like the residents or low-income uh kids that may want to attend?

Actually, I've never even heard of that.

Investing kids, I I would really the act is that in the state level or is that on the Yeah?

So we had uh the state of 75% income tax credit for low and middle income students that was alive for five years in sunset in 2023.

So the educational choice for children act is its federal equivalent.

So that's a hundred percent income tax credit at the federal level for donors up to 1700.

So that's something that we're uh definitely championing right now, and we'd love to have your involvement with it locally.

Absolutely.

Actually, if I can help with this, I'm more than happy to hope.

Um, but as far as well, that that'd be long term, right?

But for now, what can we do for the residents or um yeah, the neighbors, since they're basically it's it's going to their backyard, right?

So, like what's in it for them, basically.

Well, you know, it they gotta deal with the headaches with the city.

You know, somebody mentioned if not this, what you know there's something that's gonna go there.

We think we've presented a good plan, Councilman Marino, for you, and and we've done our best to try to protect the neighborhood.

Again, we'll work with your police department.

If they think closing streets off is is the best solution, then we you know we would certainly cooperate with that.

We understand that they don't think that's the best solution, and that that the parking lots and the remote parking would be better solutions.

But you know, we're we're gonna be here game in and game out working with the police department to make sure that we have the best plan available.

And you know, there's there seems to be plenty of parking on site, and that's gonna be maybe for all but one or two games a year, and we've made arrangements with Habitat and others to provide that parking.

So I you know what can we do for the neighborhood?

I'm not sure.

I mean, I I I think it's uh you're gonna have a good institution there, you're gonna have a solid neighborhood, and I think that we need to focus on all the good parts of this, uh all the other things, and in the football stadium is a great part and a great asset, but it's just you know, a handful of nights out of the year.

And um and JCA is is committed, and I know the city staff will hold us to uh making this a good project as we as we go forward.

I I don't know what else to say.

I don't know what we can do for the neighborhood, but and uh you know, and I just if you don't mind me, I just Ryan.

How many when you have the Titans when these when these kids come out and play, how many, how many people, how many spectators are there?

Um typically 300, 400 uh at a game like that, just like our soccer games.

So um, you know, and one of the things we haven't been able to host those youth organizations, and I don't blame them because from a scheduling standpoint, they don't want to play on our grass field on campus.

Um they elect to go to the turf fields at the various high schools because it gives them, you know, if there's bad rain or things like that, they don't have to worry about canceling or or injury risk.

So this gives us an opportunity to bring some of those organizations back on campus that used to be uh on campus when all of the local schools had grass fields.

You know, and two pack your traffic insurance for the neighborhood.

By the time people start coming in for the football games, you know, Hufford's gonna be flushed out, all that traffic, calf all that traffic will be flushed out, JCA students will be gone, you know, be it later in the day.

So it's not gonna be everybody there at one time.

It'll be controlled.

And the folks from KOLA uh I think I think came up with a good traffic plan and submitted it to your staff, and they thought it was a good traffic plan too.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Just a couple comments real quick.

You know, there's been a lot of great and good dialogue here, a lot of good discussions.

You know, I know a lot of people that live in that neighborhood.

I used to live over there, so I I do know some of the issues that are going on.

Uh Beth, we really need to keep working with the neighbors with any issues that pop up.

I know this is a good project, and and and it's it's tough to sit up here.

I guess we're earning our money today, right?

But uh, you know, I I know a lot of people there, they're not gonna be happy, but but I am gonna support this this project.

I really really think it's it's gonna be good for the school for the the the area and Beth, we really have to work with these neighbors any way we can to to alleviate any any uh problems moving forward.

So mayor.

I think it's actually something no one talked about tonight, which I think there's a lot of economic opportunity here.

My best friend of the last 42 years is one of your football moms at July Catholic.

And when they go to other cities, they're spending money at grocery stores, they're going out and dining and going to clothing stores.

If they like it here in Joliet and they want to come see this new stadium, they're gonna spend money here.

Your ticket sales will probably go up too because they all want to come and see the new stadium.

So I think nobody has talked about it tonight, but I think there is a potential for some really good um advanced economic opportunity here, because once they're here, they're gonna spend money here.

Thank you.

And it's just pride in the community, right?

Even though it's not a public school, I think I think Jolie Catholic is always brought a lot of pride to the community, and I think with this project, there'll be even more from what we're hearing.

You know, from the student enrollment uh numbers are hopefully gonna start ticking up, and there's more interest now.

So, you know, this will this will raise everything, I think, around the city.

Any other questions or comments from the council?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Okay, it's been motion and seconded to approve.

Councilman Cardinus.

Aye.

Councilman Clement.

Aye, Councilman Hug.

Again, I'd love to support it if we restricted it just to JCA students use only or JCA use and since we can't, I understand it's a disagreement there of uh of uh of opinion.

I have to say no.

Councilwoman of Barra.

Aye.

Councilman Marino, no, councilman Mudrin.

Aye, Councilwoman McWoman.

I appreciate the discussion this evening and no no animosity, but I'm just doing my job up here, and uh, I have to do what my constituents asked me to do, and I'm going to vote no.

Councilwoman Ruden.

Aye, Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried council memo number 79-26.

Ordinance approving a variation of use to allow a laundromat, a B1 neighborhood business use in an R4 multifamily residential zoning district located at 629 North Hickory Street, ZBA 2025-55.

And it's recommended said ordinance be adopted.

So move.

Second.

What district is this?

That's me.

Okay.

Yeah, good.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Abarra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quoman?

Aye.

Councilman Reardon?

Aye.

Councilman Cardinus?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilman number 80-26.

Ordinance approving a special exception to allow a roof-mounted solar installation located at 214 Oakleaf Street, ZBA 2025-58.

It is recommended said ordinance be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Question Mayor.

Why is an exception needed, Beth?

Or Todd, whoever's why is there a special exception?

Councillor Hug, if I may.

This is very similar to an item we had last month where we talked about the difference between uh very variations and exceptions.

So in this case, this is uh roof-mounted solar, which would be a buy-right, just file a building permit if you if you do it if you do it the right way.

But it requires a special exemption because it is uh funding electricity beyond the meter, right?

If it was just powering their building, it would be uh a by-right use.

But because they are selling that uh electricity for uh community benefit back to the grid, that uh is a use that is not contemplated in our current uh zone uh zoning code.

So it requires a special exemption.

We recommend that exemption because if it was just powering its own building, it would be a by-ret you you would never hear about it because it'd be on top of the roof beyond the parapet wall, you never see it.

But because they're selling electricity back, that is considered a uh a secondary use uh that not contemplated in our zoning ordinance.

Okay, thank you.

And a quick question, Dustin.

Homes do the same thing, don't they?

Do we require a special exemption for homes that do this?

Honestly, I don't know the answer as you put put me on the spot.

I could find the answer for you and follow up here.

It doesn't directly affect this item.

Yeah, but and that thank you.

You educated me because homes are supposedly doing the same thing, right?

When they put their solar out, they want to sell the excess back, and that's supposed to save money, right?

I don't know.

I can't afford solar panels in Indiana, sir.

I think so.

So if you can find out at some point, let us know.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilwoman Barrow?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Reardon.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals?

Aye.

Councilmanclement?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Memo number 81-26 ordinance approving a special use permit to allow a community center within an R2 single family residential district located at 111 McDonough Street, ZBA 2025-53.

It is recommended that ordinance be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

I'll just say as the district councilwoman for this project, I'm a thousand percent in agreement with this.

This project is actually within walking distance of three youth that have been shot over the last 12 months, maybe.

So I am it it actually was a dumping ground where they dumped garbage, beds, everything.

I am so in favor of anything good in this district.

Anything we can stand up and cheer for in this district.

And Glenda McCollum Wright is bringing a lot of services and a lot of hope to this community.

So I just want to say on the record, thank you so much for bringing it.

Um we need this desperately at District 5.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilwoman Abarra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quulman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Under resolutions.

Council memo number 83-26 resolution authorizing execution of an intergovernmental agreement between the county of Will and the city of Joliet for plumbing requirements and inspections associated with a thousand with the Southeast Joliet Sanitary District water meter replacement program.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So move.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman.

Aye.

Councilwoman Reardon.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Councilman Clement.

Aye.

Councilman Hug.

Aye.

Councilwoman Barrow?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Motion carried.

Council Memo number 84-26 resolution authorizing execution of an intergovernmental agreement between the City of Joliet, the Southeast Juliet Sanitary District, and the County of Will.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So moved.

Second mayor, can I make a comment about this really quickly?

I just want to say I I've said it before, I cannot be happier this is happening.

During Christmas, there was a five-day period where these people in the in the um sanitary district did not have any water at all.

So if I know there's one thing good that they're gonna get out of this, it's very good service from the city of Joliet and probably consistent water.

And this is everything that this area has asked for.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Mudron?

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman.

Aye.

Councilwoman Reardon.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Councilmanclement.

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilwoman Barra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Memo number 85-26.

Resolution authorizing execution of a consulting services agreement with governmental solutions incorporated for state advocacy services.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Mayor, can we explanation on us?

Kevin, you want to hit the bullet points on this?

Um there's a lot of benefits the city can have from a lobbyist representing us in Springfield.

Um the city currently does not have uh a lobbyist, and there has been information collected from each department head on needs that they have that uh could be benefited from having a person representing us in Springfield.

So that would be the plan moving forward.

Um we did issue a request for qualifications that was advertised publicly.

Um we did issue a request for qualifications that was advertised publicly, we received three submittals and um interviewed two, and so after that interview process, we did select uh governmental solutions, and uh they've been working with many municipalities since about 2005.

Um we will be uh reviewing um their work, you know.

Uh we meeting with them on a monthly basis, and so we can terminate the contract uh with 30 days notice if we don't feel like they're performing.

Um but we do feel like there's definitely a need for that service.

And this starts in February, right?

Yes, curr uh currently the spring session is ongoing uh in Springfield, and you know there's opportunities to receive funding that we are missing.

I know there's a lot of departments that that have needs that are not necessarily funding related, but in my case or in the um my department more of uh policy related.

So I think there's um numerous activities that they would be involved with.

Thank you.

Mayor um go ahead.

Oh, sorry, you want to go?

You can go ahead.

Okay.

Umite fest here.

So, you know, I I'm not a huge uh fan of lobbyists.

You know, there's a lot of stories about it.

I did talk to Allison at the committee meeting.

And I like I said in the committee meeting, only in America do taxpayers have to spend more money on a third-party lobbyist to convince their elected servant to give them their money back.

But uh that's how it works, unfortunately.

So it's the most important that's an effective lobbyist.

We tried lobbying several years ago before some of you were here.

Um I don't think it worked out very well.

Um that's because we weren't in one thing I asked Alison is what are we doing to quantify their what they do to make sure that they're actually doing something.

Alan said essentially they're gonna have a scorecard with the projects we want them to do, and we're gonna see which ones are red and which ones are green.

Green.

If they got too much red, then like you said, we can cancel them.

And if they're they're hitting on all cylinders, certainly we want to keep them.

So again, um not a huge fan of lobbyists, but I do support this.

Uh you kind of answered the question.

My question was we there's not something brand new to the city, something we've done in the past, right?

Yeah, yes, the city has had lobbyists in the past.

We currently do not have one.

Um, but like you know, Councilman Hug said, I mean, there's you you need to be on the defensive, so we need to be made aware of legislation that's being proposed that could negatively impact the city, and we also need to be on the offensive to be proposing um you know uh legislation that would benefit the city.

So there's you know, like you said, there's there's a way to track what their performance and the work that they're doing to make sure that we are getting value out of out of the lobbyists.

And I think that might have been what was not done in the past was holding them accountable and tracking that, which will be different this time.

Mayor.

Can I have one thing?

I'd like to know the return on investment.

And I don't want to know that in a year.

I'd like to have regular updates, like maybe every three months, give a regular update to the council.

Um because I don't want to decide in a year that the money we've spent every single month um didn't work out for us.

I would like to formally request some more regular updates on this, like maybe every three months.

Yeah, and that is something that we've already incorporated into their scope of work is that with each invoice they have to indicate the work that they performed for that prior month and then the work that they will be uh completing in the next month.

So we will have that information that we can easily share with the council.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Thank you.

It's been motion and seconded to approve.

Councilwoman Quillman.

Aye, Councilman Reardon.

Aye.

Council McCartanus.

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Navarro?

Aye.

Councilman Marino?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried Council Memo number 86-26 resolution approving and authorizing the execution of the collective bargaining agreement between the city of Joliet and IUOE Local 399.

It is recommended that the resolution be adopted.

So move seconded.

Any comments or questions?

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Reardon.

Aye.

Council McCartanus.

Councilman Clement.

Councilman Hug.

Councilman Ivarra.

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudron.

Aye.

Councilman Quillman?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Next is a city manager's report.

Evening.

So I want to begin by thanking the men and women of the Joliet Fire Department.

Not only working so hard in these brutal temperatures, but also for offering some simple suggestions to help all of us get through the next few weeks of sub-zero conditions.

The Juliet Fire Department recommends if you're driving, keep a phone charger, flashlight, and even a blanket in your car in case of emergency.

And try to keep your fuel tank at least half full.

If you're spending time outside, walk more slowly over ice and snow and stay off ponds, even when they appear frozen.

Make sure to check in on your friends and neighbors too.

If you need to visit a warming center, a list of locations offered by the city of Joliet in Will County can be found at Joliet.gov.

While the city is making great c progress replacing much of our infrastructure, this extreme weather can still wreak havoc on our water main.

So if you need to report a water main break, I remind you to call 815-724-420 24 hours a day.

Even though it's freezing outside, it was nice to think about the great things happening here in Joliet this spring and summer.

I'm personally looking forward to the opening of City Square and helping our commun country and region celebrate some major milestones like the hundredth anniversary of Route 66, and of course America's 250th birthday, along with Rialto.

Lots of lots of great things happening here in Joliet to be highlighted for people to attend.

We'll have many reasons to bring friends and families downtown this year, and I'm excited to hear more from Anne as even more arts and culture programming is locked in.

That concludes my report.

Next we have public comment.

I have some names of people that have signed up to speak.

So we will start with Sandy Costa.

Hi.

I've been seeing this ad on Facebook a lot lately.

And it's claiming that the uh Joliet Technology Center will bring new revenue for schools, public safety, and infrastructure, all without raising taxes on residents, and that is real value, they say.

That's real relief.

Any business entity will pay city taxes, but it's not a real value if it costs each resident more in utility rates.

AI data centers add massive pressure to existing power grids, and utility customers are ones who are going to bear that cost.

That's not a value.

We've already drained our water aquifers, and we're moving on to Lake Michigan water.

AI centers are a huge drain on local water supply, leading to even higher costs for customers.

That's not a relief.

Other areas with AI data centers are suffering from environmental degradation.

Air pollution, noise pollution, loss of sleep for nearby residents.

They're going to pay the cost and resulting health problems.

That's not a value, and that is not a relief.

The ad closes with City Hall needs to hear from residents who want growth that protects our wallets and strengthens our futures.

And you do indeed need to hear from us.

But the growth that comes from an AI data center is not it.

Such a facility sends boatloads of money off to distant tycoons, and we, your residents, are left in the ashes.

No thank you.

I guess the only real relief is that they don't pretend to bring jobs.

Thank you.

Timothy Antell.

Hello.

And good evening.

My name is Smithy Stewart Antell II.

I'm a resident of Joliet, and I'm here tonight to speak against the proposed Hillman Powerhouse Data Center.

I'm not sure if the council members have seen it, but in December, there was a joint report released by the Illinois Power Agency, the Illinois Commerce Commission, and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

Their report estimates that Illinois will begin to face severe energy shortages within 10 years, if not sooner.

I have an excerpt from a CBS write-up about the report.

The new report said that in the next five years.

Demand by Comet customers will jump 24%, which could mean Illinois may need to outsource power from other states.

The consequence is that electric bills could rise.

They found that data centers that continue to build out across the state are putting a huge strain on our resources.

About 80 data centers operate in Northern Illinois according to ComEd.

Without the means to bring a whole bunch of electric supply online as quickly as these data centers are coming online, you see skyrocketing prices as a result.

So it's Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Sarah Maskowitz.

Meanwhile, the report also says that electrical systems in Illinois are likely to face significant challenges because of aging coal and gas generators.

There will be others speaking tonight who will talk more about more important issues that the proposed data center will cause, but I want to highlight the financial impact for our council.

I'm not an economist, but I think it was third or fourth grade when I learned about supply and demand.

We all know the basics.

When supply decreases, price increases.

When demand increases, price also increases.

Council members of proposed data center will permanently increase the cost of living for Joliet residents.

This isn't just me saying that, it's multiple state agencies and experts.

Sticking a data center at the edge of town will make our lives worse.

The only people saying it won't are Hillman Powerhouse.

And they will say whatever it takes to get the thing built because they stand profit from it.

And even if it means lying to get the job done, don't let them fool you.

Like I said, other people will also be speaking against the data center tonight, and by now it should be clear to you all that we don't want this thing.

So I offer a humble suggestion.

Put the data center on the agenda and let's be done with it.

Nobody wants it.

And it's taking valuable time and energy from us all.

Better yet, put a proposal on the agenda to ban construction for any data center in the future.

Let's put the matter to rest permanently.

Thank you for your time.

Andrea Baumhart?

Good thing.

Okay, Andrea Baumhart Manhattan.

I've been here many times already, and you guys know I live right on the edge of where Manhattan ends and where that data center is slated to be built.

And we know it's not on the agenda today.

I'm glad it's not in the agenda, but you know, people keep showing up because we care about our community and we care about our resources.

So that's why I'm here.

And I too keep getting these ads on social media from the Joliet Technology Center.

Um I kind of find them disturbing because they keep advertising about how great it is.

And let's be clear.

If it's so great, why can't we have three basic questions answered?

What is the water source?

What is the power source?

And how much power is it going to be using?

Let's just make it public.

But they don't want to make it public, and you guys don't want to make it public either.

Okay?

And that's not cool.

Politically, this needs to be addressed.

Okay.

Um, Joliets, you have to acknowledge you have a big conflict of interest on your hands.

Okay.

You've got this new city planner that shares the same last name as the Bernhard Family Land Trust that's poised to make the megamillions with the sale and annexation of this land parcel for the data center.

Okay.

And I hope that there's someone from the patch here because like this this does need to get reported on.

This is big news.

Okay.

Let's be clear.

Let's make this transparent.

Is your city planner director or their family on that land trust?

Okay.

If yes, clarify that.

If no, clarify that.

If they are, how much money will they profit?

And if they are, please acknowledge, okay, as the council.

Tell us in writing, how is this ethical?

Provide reasoning.

We want to know.

Okay.

I wasn't here to watch, you know, the bantering that went back and forth between the JCA Stadium and the council, but it was quite interesting to watch as just an observer.

And I just want to say, I am so encouraged, knowing that there are council people present who I'm going to quote, would you want this going in your backyard?

What's in it for us?

Thank you, Marino.

And Quinlan.

Okay.

I also like to have things in writing.

I care about little neighborhoods that don't want to be disrupted when it's their whole livelihood and all that they have.

I identified with that.

That's my family.

Okay.

I don't think any of you live within walking distance of where that structure is going to go.

I do.

Okay.

I don't even have a Joliet address.

And I look closer to all of it than you do because it's on the edge of town.

And you're making a big decision.

That affects a lot of other people.

Please keep that in mind.

Okay.

Because to you, I know it's just a dollar sign.

But to me and my family, it's our home.

Thanks.

Isabel Gloria.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Isabel Glory, and I'm a resident lifelong of Joliet.

And I'm here tonight again because I'm opposed to the proposed 800-acre data center for many reasons that have been already been mentioned, but I wanted to speak specifically about the water issue.

I want to start by saying that I support that the city of Joliet today assumed ownership, operation, maintenance of the water and sewer system currently operated by the Southeast Joliet Sanitary District.

I think that's huge, showing that we care about water being a right for the people, not for profit, it's for the people.

And that's exactly why I'm concerned about this project.

So as we all know that water is a finite resource.

That's why we had to move from the aquifers to Great Lakes, specifically Lake Michigan.

And that reminds us that the City Council cares about the community.

I think that we've been showing that we are thinking long term.

I commend you all for thinking long term about the water that is given to our community and our neighbors.

And with that said, I think it's important that we acknowledge that residents are asked to conserve through the Rethink Water campaign.

What are we doing in terms of industrial water use?

We can't ask residents to count every drop while approving a massive industrial water user that would consume and discharge water at an entirely different scale.

So I've heard that this data center is going to have closed loop cooling systems, and that's supposed to reassure us.

And yes, it is more water efficient than older designs.

As I've been doing my research, I've learned that even closed loop systems rely on chemical treatment.

Over time, these chemicals and minerals build up, and to keep these functioning, the operators must periodically release a portion of that water known as blowdown.

So blow down water is not just warm water.

This is water that contains biocides, corrosion inhibitors, anti-freeze compounds, and trace metals.

And additionally, many large data centers also use a two-loop system.

So the inner loop that cools the servers directly is a closed loop, but the second outer loop that releases the heat can involve evaporative cooling and wastewater discharge.

So in other words, the system is not as closed as it sounds.

So at a small scale, this might be manageable, but we're talking about 800-acre data center.

Um so, in terms of maintenance drain downs, leaks, emergency releases, and the risks, the risks increase.

We're talking about the volume here about this contaminants, pollutants.

So when something goes wrong, it could become a public burden.

What I'm concerned about in terms of regulations is that regulatory compliance is not the same as protection.

If we exceed the limits and they only result in fines, these fines can just become a cost of doing business.

Residents should not have to rely on after-the-fact penalties to protect something as essential as water.

So I urge the council not to move forward with approval of this data center, or at the very least least, I ask you to really consider Joliet's long-term water security.

Um, the city's own conservation messaging and your responsibility to protect public health and future generations.

So water is not just another utility, it is the foundation of life, public health, and economic stability.

We're borrowing this water from the future.

I hope we choose to be good stewards, careful, thoughtful, and willing to say no when the long-term risks are too high.

Thank you.

Okay, that's everybody that I have assigned up.

So if you would still like to speak, um, you can please come to the center.

I feel like I got a tap dance or something.

Wake everybody up.

We're all guys glassed over.

It's been a spin a long night, so I appreciate y'all hanging out and listening to us.

My name's Abby Ballmer getting the whole trifecta tonight.

I'm from Elwood.

And I'm here once again to discuss my fears for this data center.

Um as you've heard in previous weeks and tonight, everyone's talking about very, very important um topics that endanger our local environment, things like the water, water supply, hike for electricity, things like that.

And while that is very true and very terrifying, I also wanted to speak about what AI does to its users.

AI is currently 100% free reign.

There is nothing protecting us or protecting your children, protecting students, protecting teachers, the elderly, no one.

And um it's evil.

It's so evil.

Um I would like to bring up a fact that really resonates me.

I'm going to be a future speech uh pathologist at the school level.

Um 80% of this country is not literate proficient, meaning that 80% of this country is either not reading where they should be or completely illiterate.

A recent statistic is 54% of American adults are reading below a sixth grade reading level, and 20% of that percentage is reading below fifth grade level.

AI continues to make our lives easier.

It is um dumbing down passages for schoolwork, summarizing books so students no longer need to actually read or comprehend anything.

This impacts people's ability to write.

People are using AI to rank essays, projects, applications, letters of recommendation, class notes.

These applications of AI will continue to plummet literacy scores and intelligence across our country.

I don't know about all you, but I wouldn't want to go to a doctor, ask say one minute.

Let me chat GPT or symptoms for my diagnosis.

But that seems to be the path that we are on.

Uh terrifying story by the Wall Street Journal published last uh August.

A man was confiding in an AI chat that he was having delusions, and the AI bot told him that his instincts were sharp and began to justify all the signs that Eric had been seeing.

Even as far as say that he was right.

His noodles had been sending him symbols that had secret messages conveyed in them.

AI kept bringing him back because that's hey I AI makes money.

You need to keep coming back, you need to keep using it.

That's how we make money.

It put him into such a deep state of paranoia that he mistrust his doctors, his friends, and his own mother.

The chatbot ached him on enough to commit a murder, suicide, killing his mother and himself.

Children and adults are using those same bots to have therapists as friends, advice givers.

If you go online, you will find news stories, studies, concerned bloggers, all stating the evil's AI and these chats.

AI scams are running rampant, stealing thousands from the elderly and families by using voices and pictures of loved ones to lie.

And even worse, in the storm of evil from AI, is that it's currently being used to create child pornography.

I'm not sure about anybody in here.

I'm a stranger things fan.

That poor little girl who portrayed Holly has been the most recent victim and had her pictures used from the show and then altered on AI to make the most disgusting pictures and videos.

And the scariest part is can happen to anyone.

It could happen to me, it could happen to any of you, it could happen to family, friends, neighbors, no one is safe.

AI is disease, it is evil, and it is spreading.

If Julia allows this AI center to come in, what does it say about the morals of this town and its bored?

That you are okay with adding to a system that corrupts, kills, and harms the most vulnerable populations, that you and Joliet will side with those making deep fakes of children and side with a system that encourages suicide, murder, and misinformation, that AI is okay as long as it is profitable.

How much more do we the citizens need to scream that we do not want this and that it is terrifying before you are all scared enough to listen?

For the safety of and health of Joliet and the safety of children, I ask you guys to please vote no.

Thank you.

Hi there, everybody.

My name's uh Felix Ortiz, another uh Julia, lifelong resident.

Um I'm also here in opposition of the approval for this 800-acre um AI generative um data center.

Um so to the understanding of most of the community, we've been told that this is going to be a data center that's going to be expected to produce over um 10,000 jobs or somewhere around that uh area for uh many of the laborers here in Jolia, specifically the trades unions.

Um but as many of us know those kind of contracts are very temporary and limited in their vast scope.

Um it might seem like a huge prospect for many of our laborers, it will ultimately not really have a significant contribution to the overall well-being of the J uh job and labor market here in the city of Jolia.

Um as the average um span for most of these facilities is usually only 200 jobs.

So these are 200 jobs that were likely be non-unionized in the long term, 200 permanent um jobs.

By comparison, MDW4, which is uh one of the Amazon facilities here in the city of Jolia can employ between two to four thousand employees during any given off uh season during the year, and that is about 16 times um smaller than what this current data center is being projected to be.

Uh so when you think about it, uh the amount of investment that's going to get put into these 800 acres of farmland is really a misuse of, in my opinion, Illinois tax dollars to essentially create a non-worker friendly place because even if it ultimately supplies labor for the trades unions, um the big trade-off is that it'll ultimately lead to a huge significant um increase in their utilities.

Uh just to give you a perspective, a um a recent Illinois uh electric uh resource uh study that was done this year found and accounted that over 800% of utility spikes that have happened in the state of Illinois is due to a massive influx of data centers that are now causing a huge surge and burden on our power grid.

This is money that is essentially going to raise people's utility prices by about 70 to 100 dollars on average across the next four years.

And when you think about it, that's money that our taxpayers um can afford.

We've already fought for water affordability because we're projected to see a major increase between 150 to 200 for the average um household in terms of what their water utility is going to cost by 2030.

Now imagine that also being taxed on top of what they have to pay now for their commed bill on top of that.

Um this is unsustainable, it's gonna hurt everybody in the local um community.

It's ultimately going to be something that the taxpayers are gonna have to um take the full burden on, and for something that ultimately does not create a union worker-friendly environment.

Um, most of this technology is ultimately used to automate um positions, um, both specifically um within the tech field, um, but many other um more housing and logistics jobs.

So you're essentially replacing human work with automated labor and all just so that you could continue to get um small contracts that aren't really efficient for the city of Jolia.

This money could instead be used to be allocated to um instead bring in more diverse commerce that would provide more essential jobs and utility for the city of Jolia.

On top of that, these automated systems are ultimately used to um contribute to the mass surveillance that currently our federal government is partaking in.

Um, as many of you probably know, uh companies like Palantir investing hundreds of billions of dollars to um essentially fund the current rogue ice agent predicament that we have.

And you know, if you know anything about Joliet, the side of Joliet and Latinos, we are the major tax contributing bracket here on the east side.

So I ask you guys vote no.

Thank you.

Hi.

I'm Rick Norman, a lifelong Joliet resident.

I'm the founder of Ben Data Centers Illinois.

When the mayor and the council was elected to their positions, it was assumed the yellow cared, had the best interest of Jolia, the community, and residents at heart.

The proposed data center should have been denied without hesitation.

Approving of the data center would only bring ruination and shame upon this town with the increased unaffordable utility bills, cancer causing pollution, and production of AI-generated child pornography.

Joliet would no longer be one of the top cities in Illinois if this were approved.

Show and prove that you all care about Joliet, the community and the residents.

Pass a resolution banning data centers from Joliet.

Hello, my name is Larra Williams.

I'm a homeowner in Joliet, and I'm also an AI researcher with a master's degree in data science.

I'm currently studying for my PhD in data science.

So I know a lot about data as I work with it every single day.

So expected value is an important concept that's taught in statistics.

Essentially, multiply the probability of an outcome times the benefit of that outcome.

And I think today, as we're faced with a decision on whether or not to build a data center, we need to understand what is the value it would generate.

So first thing, what are data centers?

We've talked a lot about it, but mostly data centers are utilized for cloud computing, and they're also utilized for generate generative AI.

Specifically, a data center of this size would only be used for generative AI.

They utilize GPUs instead of CPUs.

The difference between a GPU and a CPU is that a GPU takes 10 times more power than a CPU.

So they're taking a lot of power to run these GPU servers.

Generative AI is a small portion of the field of AI.

It has its uses, but it cannot cure cancer.

It's not going to come up with a cure for cancer, and it's often not behind some of the most innovative solutions to benefit people.

My own research work, which focuses on identifying viral insertion sites within cancer genomes.

I'm able to run it on a laptop.

And if I want to use more data, I could use a supercomputer that could fit in a small room.

Colossal data centers are not necessary to improve to bring about progress.

Additionally, a study from Cornell University suggested that experienced software engineers were 20% slower when they worked with generative AI.

So we can see generative AI is not really necessary for progress, and it doesn't really make anything any faster, as well as taking a lot of power.

Additionally, researchers in China were able to develop a model called DeepSeek, which takes a tenth of the power of most US generative AI models.

According to CNBC, a one gigawatt data center is equivalent to the power of a city of 1.8 million people.

Within Will County, there's about 700,000 people.

So putting up this data center, we would need power, not more than double the power that we already have generated in order to do it.

And that's only if the data center is working at 85% capacity.

If it increases to 90, 95, or even has surges, which happened to 100%, that could be significantly larger on our power grid.

And there's been a lot of questions that just have not been answered by this company that need to be answered.

How much power will it use?

Can the grid sustain it, even considering additionalization?

Because this is doubling, over doubling the power consumption.

Will costs be passed on consumers?

What is the safety of the coolants used?

Because that's another question we don't know.

And where are the state disposal methods of the coolants?

Trust me, bro, is not good enough.

Thank you.

Hello, Judy Juliet City Council.

My name is Noah Martinez.

I live in neighboring Crest Hill.

In October of last year, a FOIA request was filed by Sun-Times reporters seeking transparency from the City of Juliet on the Joliet Technology Center.

In December, the city returned a 1,314-page document to the public.

Of those 1,314 pages, 1,307 of them were completely redacted and appear only as black sheets of paper.

The large volume of documents for a project that hasn't even been approved by the city's elected officials suggests a high degree of communication within the government of Juliet and with Hillwood outside of the public's view.

The FOIA, accessible on Juliet's website as reference number R040455-112325.

Requested, and I'm paraphrasing all documents, including but not limited to correspondence, emails, letters, memorandum, site plans, engineering plans, and photographs about a proposed data center involving company representatives and city of Juliet City Council members, community development and planning and zoning officials and staff, and or between City or Juliet officials, departments, and staff.

Our deep anxiety towards this proposed development is rooted in what we recognize as a disturbing trend of big tech data centers, pillaging our communities and the environment.

But when the public requests for transparency are met with Epstein file level redactions, our anxiety is not alleviated.

Continued quietness from Joliet officials on the public backlash and a half-baked public relations website from the Jolie Technology Center, an endless bullshit Facebook ads do nothing to address the public's distrust either.

With more and more lawmakers introducing bills to slow or stop this AI data center crisis, I hope the city will get ahead of the changing tide by refusing the project and recovering some public trust before Springfield steals their thunder.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Abraham Martinez.

I live in Joliet, and I'm against building the AI data centers.

I want to start by saying AI as it is currently being deployed in the United States is a scam.

It is a waste of time, money, electricity, and water.

There's no reason to treat it as anything but.

I believe many of you already have your mindset on the construction of this facility.

It seems you don't have any remorse about the negative impacts that it will have on Joliet's environment, its citizens, and its future.

You are basically saying you are okay with the center poisoning our water, poisoning our air, and poisoning our children, creating noise pollution and raising our electricity bills.

Whatever you believe you will gain from building this is not worth the amount of damage it will cause.

All you see is that it will bring money and jobs quickly, and that's about it.

I wish facts could help you see that what you plan to approve is not a good thing in the long run for Joliet.

So just know that the internet is forever.

These video recordings exist, and the names of every single city council member and its mayor that sit here today will be known to future generations that they were the ones that sat and listened to the countless testimonies and pleads of the people of Joliet, telling them that these data centers are not good, that we don't want them, and that they will hurt more than they will help, and yet they still allowed them to be built.

They did not care for the pleas of its citizens, they did not care to listen to reason.

All they cared for was receiving instant profits.

Know that that is what you will be remembered by, and that your families and businesses will be associated with you and your poor choices and wrongdoings every time that people look back at Joliet's history.

I do hope you prove me wrong though.

Please prove me wrong.

Please try to be remembered as people that did write for their citizens, not for the ones that sold us out.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, staff.

You guys are earning your money today, you know?

It's a long meeting.

My name is Porsche Gallegos.

I'm a Joliet resident, taxpayer, and registered voter.

Um I'm also here to talk about the data center.

I have a lot of questions about the data center, and one of them is it's being developed by Hillwood, which is a Texas-based company.

The people who own Hillwood live in Texas.

They don't live in Joliet.

They're not moving to Joliet.

The profits go to Texas.

They don't stay in Joliet.

The labor for many of these folks who make data centers, one of the reasons that they get them in quickly and on time is they have specialty crews that are based in Texas, outside of Illinois, and that's who they bring in to do the labor.

They don't use local union labor, or they use a little bit of local union labor, kind of as like the frosting, you know?

But the bulk of the labor is being done by crews, specialty crews who know how to make data centers who come from out of state.

So I have another question, which is where is this labor coming from if this data center is approved?

Are the citizens of Joliet going to be subsidizing anything for this?

Have anyone has anyone on council or have any staff members signed NDAs, non-disclosure agreements?

And if you have, why?

Why is a project that the public's going to be interested in that deeply affects the public and our electricity use in the city of Joliet and our water?

Why are they asking you to sign a non-disclosure agreement?

As public officials, I don't know anything about the law.

That doesn't even seem legal to me.

So I one of my questions is have you been asked to sign any non-disclosure agreements, and what's the rationale behind that?

I think Isabel Gloria did a great job talking about water.

Water that's used in installations, including in closed loop cooling systems, still has PFAS contamination.

So what would happen to the water that was released?

How would that be treated?

And where would that water go?

Would it go into our local streams and our local rivers?

I don't know because this has been a very opaque project.

Closed loop systems, while they don't use nearly as much water, use a lot more electricity.

And Councilman Hugg, I know a friend of mine said that you would talk to people and said, well, we're we here in Juliet Joliet specifically, it's not going to make our electricity bills go up, specifically in Joliet.

And that's true because we are part of Illinois and a number of states in the East or East Coast are part of PGM for transmission.

And PJM has these giant auctions a couple times a year to figure out how much power the member states are going to need.

And we just they just had one, and it was the most expensive auction ever.

And a lot of that is because of data centers.

So we're not going to be paying more specifically from Joliet, but all of us in Illinois are going to be paying more.

And right now, electricity has gone up in the last year.

5% for normal ratepayers like you and me, and you guys all know it because you're paying it, and 2% for data centers.

We're already subsidizing them.

I would ask, you know, we have very good planners at Juliet, we have very good staff.

I have a lot of faith in our government and in our staff.

And I would ask that there's a moratorium on any data centers being approved until staff can develop an ordinance where data centers have to provide their own clean energy, provide their own water, and have a water disposal plan, have strict controls on noise pollution and air pollution because they have to have 24 hour days, 365 day a week reliability.

So they use diesel generators a lot of places, and that causes more air pollution, more noise pollution.

And use local union labor for the construction.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I think we need a really strong model ordinance, and I have faith that Joliet can develop one before this is even considered as a potential new business, Texas-based new business for our city.

Thank you very much for listening.

I know it's a long night, and please I do really hope we'll have a moratorium on this until we can get a much better, much more transparent ordinance.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Jim Rolfe, and I am also a resident of Joliet and have been for more than 50 years.

And I'm also been asked to serve as chairman of the City of Joliet's comprehensive plan community advisory committee.

I heard a lot of energy and excitement tonight.

I would encourage all of you, both here and who are home watching tonight or watch the replays over the next few days.

There are some meetings coming up because we are in the throes of developing a 20-year plan for the city of Joliet.

All of your input, all of your input is important to that.

And I would suggest to you that there are three meetings coming up.

One is on arts, culture, and heritage, and we all think that's important, at least I hope we do.

Another one is on economic development.

We heard a little bit about economic development tonight.

I would encourage you to come on January 26th in this very chamber to give your input on what you think Joliet should do by way of economic development activity for its future, for our future.

There's also another one on January 27th, that is land use and future development.

All of the things that we need to think about.

We have a lot of things that have happened in the City of Joliet and the County of Will over the last 30 plus years.

I've been involved in some of them on a volunteer basis as chairman of the Will County Center for Economic Development.

And I think we need to be thoughtful about what we have.

We have limited resources.

We have a future.

We want to make that future the best that it can be.

So I would encourage all of you to come to these workshops and provide your input.

I heard more tonight on certain subjects than I've heard in the eight or nine meetings that we've held already as a comprehensive plan committee group.

Please.

You can go to the City of Joliet website.

There's a comprehensive plan tab.

I think that's what they call it.

Somebody here knows more than me than I do.

Hit that.

It'll give you all the meetings.

It'll give you a recap of what's been done.

We did 150 pages of data gathering to find out where the city is currently situated.

And how do we look to make it better in the future?

And we need to make it better.

And we want to make it better for everybody.

In there, in the plan that's being developed, it talks about unity.

We need unity.

It talks about leadership.

We need leadership at all age levels.

And the input is important.

I've been involved in a lot of things in my 50-year career working at banks here in Joliet.

One of them was as a lobbyist.

So I understand that part too.

But what's important is that we come together, play the cards face up.

We need to do that.

We need to do that to make sure that the plan that we develop is good for everyone in our city.

Emphasis on every one.

Almost.

Thank you.

Hello, good evening.

I thank you guys for putting in the time to continue listening to our comments even as we go later into the night.

And I would like to apologize if my words are not that concise.

I have been at work since 6:30 this morning, went through the whole day.

I teach at Juliet Central High School, grocery shop for my classes that are going to be cooking this week in our new kitchens.

And I'm still here now, so I apologize if my words are not the most concise.

However, the vote tonight in approval of the JCA legacy fields made me feel both very proud and very confused as a community member and teacher within the Joliet area.

I cannot show my appreciation appreciation enough for the comments made by the council members.

I apologize on the importance of the community, well-being, quality of life, and economy as a whole as they relate to developments within the community that continue to pop up.

These community, I apologize.

These comments said earlier by council members should not be used in the sense of just looking at one issue or agenda item at a time.

Comments were made by members in relation to how would you feel if this development was in your backyard and people working with what they have and have spent their lives working towards, and what effect certain developments will have on those lives.

Points were also made in the direction of what will bring people into Joliet to visit to spend their money to see what we have to offer, even moving in and making Joliet an even more diverse and thriving community.

What will a data center do to truly benefit that argument?

What will this data center do to draw people into our community instead of continuing to drive them out?

Hiding it on the edge of town will not mask the existence of such a building or what effect it will have on our community.

The resource usage, the effect on the environment and impact on our community as a whole, will still be seen by all, as well as the community comments and concerns that were ignored to move forward with such a project should the vote go that way.

A comment was made earlier by council members.

It's just a fact.

You need to keep in mind the people who voted you into the seats and that you now sit in and you occupy.

The people who voted you in have a voice that you were meant to listen to, consider, and amplify.

Not once in a single meeting that I have been to and attended myself.

Have any community members said anything other than no?

Please keep us our well-being and our voices in mind as you continue to look towards the possibility of the proposed statement center.

And I do truly thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to address the council this evening?

Hi, Jory Gura.

I was up earlier.

I have a question.

I'd like to ask the council and the mayor if I could make a statement about JCA earlier because I felt like we weren't hurt.

Public comment, you can say whatever you want.

Okay, well, it was stated earlier, Larry.

You had asked that if there was a council member that was on that committee.

That was openly stated by a council member in our neighborhood meeting.

All the neighbors that were here were there, and two of the other council members were here.

That's how we found out there was a committee going for 18 months for this fundraiser.

And I just wanted to put that out there because it was stated in an open neighborhood meeting in front of other people, and it just shows the deceitfulness that goes behind it.

The rules of public comment, though we're not supposed to address the comments to the council, like to somebody specifically, they just need to be addressed by council as a whole.

I just knew this was Larry's question.

I didn't I apologize.

One of the council members asked.

So thank you.

Just to verify, Councilman Marino and I were at that meeting when that was stated.

So it's not a lie.

Just for clarification.

Is there anyone else who'd like to address the council this evening?

Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to mayor and council comments.

No comment.

Bethel should get text on some things.

Thanks.

Nothing.

No, thank you.

Have a good night.

Let's stay here till midnight.

No, um, I just want to say thank you for everybody that came out here.

Whether um, I know a lot of you guys feel not heard or heard, but the reason why you guys feel like that is because it's not in the agenda, so your questions aren't answered or your concerns aren't addressed.

Um, but I'm sure that if it comes to council or if the data center comes to uh planning, your questions would be answered.

Um so don't feel like you're being ignored.

Uh, we're here, we're listening to you, and thank you for coming.

Have a good night.

Okay, uh just quickly.

I I feel like we missed an opportunity here to get Amazon.

Uh, if you anybody watch the news last night in Orleans, Amazon is going over there to build a new building where you can actually go and shop, not just a grocery store, but you're gonna be able to go there and buy what uh things that you would purchase online, but you can go there and buy them.

And with Amazon in our backyard, I I just don't know how we missed that opportunity why we didn't have a seat at the table or just tried to get it, you know.

We're I think we missed that, and that would have been a perfect thing to put out at our mall because it's off of 55, Route 30, I-80 close to buy, and um I just wish that we would go after more of these things, and um it's just I don't know why we're missing out on this stuff.

We've missed out a lot of things.

Um, we could have put a thing in for the bears, who knows?

It's always a done deal, it's not a done deal with everything signed because we've got a race track down there that just sitting there empty.

That was a possibility.

Maybe it's far-fetched, but you don't know unless it's tried, unless you try.

So you always have to try, and that's my point there.

And on a nice note, happy note, on Sunday morning.

I turned on ABC News, and who's on there?

But our very own deputy fire chief, John Cook, and he was on there talking about the community risk reduction week.

And he did a very good job.

He was talking about how important it is to do CPR, and he went through this whole thing, and I was just so proud that we finally made the network, and they actually said he was from Joliet, and they usually don't do that.

So um, Chief Tello, thank you.

I was watching, and that's all I have.

I do uh how important smoke alarms are, I get it changed all the time, and don't just wait for the daylight savings, just check them all the time.

Very important.

And he also he gave the whole thing, and um maybe we should have a presentation one night when they can come just for a PR thing for the community about fires and what starts quickly, it's usually in the kitchen because you forget it and so on.

So I I won't talk any further on that, but uh I do appreciate everybody that came here tonight.

Um sorry it got a little heated, but sometimes things happen, but nothing, no animosity here with me, and I just want to that's that's what we're here for.

So thank you very much for still staying, and um I'll be home soon, dear.

Thank you to all my colleagues up here.

Have a good night, thank you.

Stay warm and have a good night.

Can't forget the meeting.

All right, real quick, just last week.

Uh Caesar and I uh attended the uh ribbon cutting for El Sabor Latino, which is a uh a new restaurant on Essington Road featuring Venezuelan Colombian food, it was really good.

Uh also we do have a public service or a uh workshop tomorrow night here in our city council at 6:30, and we love for all the people to attend that can help us.

We do value everybody's point of view, and we take it to heart.

So thank you.

And lastly, our thoughts and prayers go out to the Devin Elliott family who lost his life abruptly and uh has been a good partner to the city in a lot of the electrical contracts.

We work with them, so our prayers to them.

God bless you all.

Thank you.

Okay, is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved, second.

Second, all in favor?

Aye, aye.

Meeting adjourned.