Motorcycles as well as promoting motorcycle safety, education, awareness, and respect of the citizens of our city and state in the motorcycles of Illinois have contributed extensive volunteerism and money to national and community charitable organizations.

And we're at during the month of May, all roadway users should unite in the same sharing of rural ways within the city of Julia and throughout the great state of Illinois.

Thank you, Sadie.

Thanks, everybody.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

We appreciate you on a bait, too.

Thank you.

Next, we have a proclamation recognizing Saint Joseph Parish, presented by Councilman Clement.

All right, we have Mary and Scott here.

The uh father cannot make it, but thank you for coming.

Um this is a reference to the 135th anniversary of St.

Joe's.

I mean, we've all most of us have been through, have been at St.

Joe's many times for various reasons.

Uh St.

Joe's Park.

Um you can see the photos there.

Dave Sloan from uh Accents Lighting did an incredible job.

It's absolutely stunning.

So you guys did a great job.

So here's a proclamation.

Proclamation.

Whereas immigrants from Slovenia began to settle in the Joliet area during the 1880s to find work, raise a family, and establish a Catholic church that would safeguard our culture and religious patrimony.

And whereas on May twelfth, eighteen ninety-one, Reverend Sosteric celebrated the first mass of the newly formed St.

Joe's Slovenian Catholic Parish of Julia.

And whereas by 1905, St.

Joe's St.

Joseph's Parish built their current church located on the south end of Slovanian Road at that time, north of Jackson Street, and was the first all steel and stone structure in the city of Joliet.

And whereas by October 3rd, 1895, four years after the first church was enacted, Saint Joseph Parish built and opened Saint Joseph Catholic School.

And whereas in 1938, Father Matthias J.

Butello became the fourth pastor and began to develop St.

Joe's St.

Joseph's Park.

And whereas on June 30, or June 20th, 1940, Babe Ruth played an exhibition game celebrating the opening of St.

Joseph's Park on Theodore Street and Rayner Avenue Avenue.

And whereas a celebration mass for the hundred and thirty-fifth anniversary will be held on May 17th, which is two weeks from now.

Now therefore, I, Terry Darcy, mayor of the City of Joliet, Illinois, on behalf of the Juliet City Council, do here by recognize Saint Joseph's Parish and congratulate them on their 135th anniversary.

Signed today by our mayor, Terry Darcy, May 5th, 2026.

Congratulations.

Thank you for this proclamation.

I have to do say that the lighting was Father John Hornichek's our pastor's idea.

And it is beautiful.

And I hope we're around for another hundred and thirty-five years lighting up the north side of downtown and the city center, lighting up the south side, because it's beautiful.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor.

I'd like to just comment before they leave too.

I'll tell you why.

Notre name takes Paris.

Joe.

It's just as beautiful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is the approval of the agenda.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda as written with the following change?

Remove council memo number two fifty-one-26, ordinance adding chapter 21, Article 11, offenses on public property to be voted on at the May 19th, 2026 council meeting.

So moved.

Thank you.

It's been motion and seconded to approve.

Councilman Cardenas.

Councilman Clement.

Councilman Hog.

Aye.

Councilman Avaro.

Aye.

Councilman Moreno.

Councilman Mudron.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman.

Aye.

Councilman Rudin.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Next is citizens to be heard on agenda items.

I do have a few people signed up.

We'll start with Dan Wexler.

Good evening, uh Mayor and members of the city council.

My name is Dan Wexler, and I'm here on behalf of the Indiana Illinois Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting, Representing Operating Engineers, Local 150, and our signatory contractors.

Approval of this resolution gives the city stronger leverage, enhanced accountability, and greater safeguards.

The amended agreement puts Joliet in a stronger position.

The economic upside is also significant.

This project has the potential to strengthen Joliet's regional draw, expand the tax base, and support permanent employment in retail, hospitality, entertainment, maintenance, and operations.

Those are jobs and revenues that can continue long after the construction phase is complete.

But the value of this project depends on more than what gets built.

Depends on how it gets built.

That is why the project labor agreement component is so important.

A project labor agreement brings stability, skilled labor, apprenticeship opportunities, and consistent labor standards to a project of this size and complexity.

It ensures the work is performed safely, efficiently, and responsibly.

For rock run crossing, a project Libra agreement is not a secondary consideration.

It is a core safeguard for delivering the project safely, efficiently, and responsibly.

For those reasons, we respectfully urge a yes vote, and I thank you for your time.

Okay.

Marzell Richardson.

Hey, Council, how are you guys doing?

Barza Richardson from Richardson's have to say Friday night was amazing.

Thank you guys all for showing up.

Um couple things about the square.

The social part of it, the social district of it.

I think it would be a great thing to add to the downtown.

It sets us apart.

We have a lot of unique events going on downtown.

And I also think that it would enhance people coming in.

With that being said, being right outside or inside City Square, Richardson's is the first thing you see.

And we commit to keep keeping that good light in Joliet since you see us first.

But I do see some things that could help.

That drive path.

I see, which was great.

We saw a lot of kids playing, but we also saw cars coming in from both ways.

So to keep this pilot program going, starting and going and hopefully turning it into something permanent.

I would think some kind of I know there's signage, but it's not working.

Maybe uh cones at the entrances or something like that to keep people from coming in both directions, and also stress that it is not a road to use as a regular road.

Um besides that, I I think it's a great idea.

Uh the city has been great working with us thus far, and I'm sure we will continue this great partnership, and uh that's it for Richardson's.

We appreciate you guys.

Thank you.

Tiffany Hernandez.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm here to address several concerns that were raised last night at the meeting for the repair shop at 370 Ruby Street.

First, there were comments about past issues with new businesses on Ruby Street not having adequate parking.

I want to clarify that our property includes a parking lot with space for approximately 25 vehicles, which we do not anticipate needing to use all those spaces at once, but the capacity is there to ensure that the customer and service vehicles remain on our property, not on any street.

It was also mentioned that the vehicles have been left on the street, creating congestion and safety concerns.

From what we understand, these concerns appear to stem from one ongoing business with central mufflers, not all business.

Central mufflers have limited on-site parking, which has resulted in cars being parked along both sides of Ruby Street, on Center Street, and at times even on the sidewalks.

We agree that this creates a dangerous situation.

And we have personally experienced difficulties due to their overflow of parking.

We were also compared to other businesses such as Broadway Auto Body and Central Mufflers.

However, these comparisons are not accurate.

Broadway Auto Body operates in part like a car dealership, displaying multiple vehicles for sale in addition to repair work.

Central Mufflers, as mentioned, has very limited space.

Our operation is designed specially to keep all vehicles contained within our own lot.

Another concern raised was the police were reportedly present at our property on Saturday due to vehicles being parked improperly.

We take this claim seriously.

Police officers were not on our property.

We believe there is some confusion and that this is incident may have involved central mufflers rather than us.

It was also stated that our property lacks parking, which it does not.

We fully understand and respect the community's concerns about parking and safety.

However, we want to be very clear.

We have never parked vehicles on the street, and we do not have to do so.

Our business model and property layout are specifically designed to avoid contributing to the issues currently affecting the area.

Finally, we acknowledge that our special permit is on not becoming a nuisance, but fully support the condition, and we are committed to complying with all regulations.

At the same time, it raises a fair question as to why ongoing issues with other businesses have not been addressed in the same way, especially given that multiple residents have reportedly filed complaints.

We are committed to being a responsible and respectful addition to the neighborhood.

We respectfully ask that you consider the distinction distinctions between our business and others in the area when evaluating these concerns.

Thank you for your time.

That's it.

Michelle Arana.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, City staff.

My name is Michelle Arana.

I'm the very proud owner of Interno Greenery and Home located at 81 North Chicago Street in downtown Joliet.

While I appreciate the city's efforts to create a social district, as this type of initiative is proven to support small businesses, increase foot traffic, and enhance the overall visitor experience in downtown districts across our country.

I would like to express my concern about the proposed requirement that limits participation to businesses with full commercial kitchens.

Well, I understand the intent.

Under the current current ordinance, not only are we excluded from participating in the social district, we would also be placed in a position where we must monitor and restrict customer behavior more heavily than neighboring businesses, despite operating under the same licensing authorities.

This creates an uneven playing field and introduces operational challenges, including the need for additional staffing simply to enforce boundaries that do not apply to other nearby businesses.

More importantly, it may discourage future businesses such as wine bars, tasting rooms, or other specialty beverage concepts from investing in downtown Joliet if they're unable to participate in initiatives like this like this.

Across the country, social districts have been implemented successfully in a wide range of the communities, and there's a strong overall impact, economic impact when participation in these social districts is inclusive.

I respectfully ask the council to reconsider the full kitchen requirement and instead evaluate participation based on existing liquor licensing and regulatory compliance.

Doing so would not only support a more equitable business environment, but would also encourage growth and investment in our downtown.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Okay, that's everyone who I have signed up.

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

Okay, seeing none.

Under appointments, the mayor is recommending John Simpson, Peg Stoibert, and Deborah Summers be reappointed to the Joliet Arts Commission.

Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second.

It's been motion and second and to approve.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Councilwoman Abarra.

Aye.

Councilman Moreno.

Aye.

Councilman Mudron.

All right.

Councilwoman Quillman.

Aye.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Next, we have Council Committee Reports.

We'll start with land use and economic development.

Good evening.

So to land use and economic development committee met here yesterday, Monday, May 4th, 2026 at 3 30 in the City Hog Council Chambers.

In attendance was Councilwoman Ibarra, Councilman Mudron, and myself.

We had the approval of the minutes, and then we reviewed two agenda items starting with agenda item TMP 9751, a resolution to authorize a TIFF incentive agreement with Matisse Events LLC at 113 North Ottawa.

It's in regards to a fire suppression system that is necessary for the additional square footage.

We have we're gonna he's requesting a 79,500 to help fill a gap in between uh the cost of the suppression system and staff has reviewed the request and determined that the proposed improvements are eligible under the downtown Joliet TIFF district redevelopment plan.

So uh we didn't unanimously uh voted to approve the bring to council for a full vote for with our support.

And then next we had a TMP 9846, a resolution amending and authorizing the execution of an amended and restated development agreement with Covenant and Jolia LLC for the Rock Room Crossing Development Project, which we will have a full presentation on that here tonight, so no need for me to kind of start going over that.

So um Councilman Mudron, more than I miss anything.

You got it.

Mayor that'd be my report.

Thank you.

Legislative.

Okay, legislative met on April 29th, 2026 in the council chambers here.

In attendance was Councilwoman Sherry Rudin, Councilman Cardinus, and myself, Jan Quilman.

Also in attendance was corporation counsel Todd Lindsay, Deputy City Manager Krista Desidario, Development Director Dustin Anderson, and a lot of other planners and um directors were also here.

If I name everybody, we'll be here a long time.

So just so you know everybody was here.

We had three items on our agenda.

The first item being uh the city square ordinance, and we voted on that, and I'm not gonna go into great detail about that, but um, that was um brought to uh vote, and it was unanimous vote in Mr.

Cardinus and Sherry Rudin and myself.

Number two was the uh offenses in City Square.

That was also discussed at length, especially with um our attorneys, and uh that was also brought to a vote in a cardinalist, myself and Miss Reardon.

We all voted yes unanimously again to go with that.

And last but not least was the proposed social district.

This will be a six-month pilot, so nothing is written in stone as of yet because we want to see how this is going to work.

And again, we all voted on that as well, and it was unanimous to go to the city council for future references and see how this all works out.

And you can get all this online, right, Todd.

I don't know if it's there right now, we need some technical.

Okay, with all the details that you because everything is a very long paragraph, but very informative.

So if you want more information, eventually it'll be on our website.

No?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

That concludes our report.

Thank you.

Public safety.

Thank you.

The City of July Public Safety Committee met today here in the council chambers at 5 30.

Present was myself, Councilwoman Kulman, and Councilwoman Ibarra.

We approve the minutes from April 7th, 2026.

There were no citizens to be heard on any agenda items under agenda agenda items.

Fire Chief Kerry was here.

The purchase of interior wall painting and sanding services for Fire Station 1 and Fire Station 9 from Smith Painting Services and the amount of $67,000.

The painting is well over 20 years old, and they're going to patch and paint.

And so that uh all three of us uh approve this to move forward at a later date to to approve this at the at a council meeting.

There was uh there were no ordinances uh on the resolutions, resolution authorizing the execution of a memorandum of understanding MOU between the City of Juliet Fire Department and the East East Side Juliet Fire Protection District.

Basically, how chief explained it is you know there are times that it takes you know, usually six to ten minutes to get to the far southeast side of Joliet, and this is an agreement with East Side Juliet Fire Protection District.

At least we can get uh east side rolling there, and we'll continue to to be en route.

And uh we just want to be able to get get our equipment and personnel there to take care of any issues.

There have been times where we've had uh a train go by there on Washington Street, and it just kind of slowed things down.

Is that accurate, Chief?

Okay, all three of us uh were in favor of this moving it forward at a later later date uh to the full council.

Next resolution approving approving a intergovernmental agreement with the county of will for the placement of license plate reader reading cameras located on county highways.

Uh basically, we will have the authority in agreement with the county to place uh these flat cameras on county uh highways.

All three of us uh we're in agreement, and we will pass move this to a full council uh for approval.

Uh then a resolution requesting authorization to enter into a regular 2025 justice assistance grant intergovernmental agreement between the city of Joliet and Will County.

These are federal dollars that come to the county and then would come to the city.

I believe Chief Evans, you said last year we received $50,000 and it goes to good use.

So all three three of us uh were in favor of this, moving it to the full council.

I want to go back real quick.

Jan Quillman had a question about um so movement.

I guess it's plain field uh fire protection jurisdiction or plain field fire department.

They are in trying to inquire some property by the mall.

I uh there's nothing formal at this point, but that is moving forward.

You want to add on anything like that or that's why I was asking about because I haven't heard anything for a long time.

There's nothing formal uh on that at this point, but uh she did bring up the question.

I wanted to just talk briefly on it.

The thoughts are still out there though from what we from the report we received.

So see where it goes.

Yep, and then on our new and old business.

Uh uh Councilwoman Coleman brought up and uh uh was in the paper.

We we gave a bunch of accolades to uh Bill Evans, our uh police chief who who is going to retire.

I can say that now, right?

It's public.

Okay.

Um we just want to thank you publicly uh all the great work you did, and and we wish you uh all the luck moving forward.

He still has another meeting, I believe, don't you?

Yeah, well, this will be this will be the uh pushing them out the door.

Public safety safety.

Last one for public safety.

Um other than that, there was no new or old business.

Uh in addition to that, there are no public comments, and then we adjourned.

Mr.

Mayor, that's uh my report.

Thank you.

Okay, and finally their public service.

Always finally.

So we all got to get our singing chomps up for the next meeting so we can sing for he's a jolly good fellow.

Right, Chief.

Public Service Committee met yesterday at 4 30 in the afternoon here in council chambers, and that would have been Tuesday.

I'm sorry, Monday, May uh 4th.

In attendance on the committee is uh councilwoman Rodin, Councilman Mudden and myself.

We had uh six contracts.

Um the largest contract was for 1.8 almost 1.9 million dollars, and it's for the Campbell Street Water Tower Rehabilitation Project to uh era Valdivia contractors incorporated.

Um the all weather or the uh protections uh covering our codings have all uh reached the end of their their lifespan for that, so we have to to preserve that water tower, do it again, and it's not cheap.

Uh in addition to the 1.9 million, 159,000 was given to engineering, which is less than 8% of the total project.

The other five contracts varied in the amount.

Um just a reminder all committees including our public service committee can be found online just like the city council and pre-council meetings.

Uh there are no videos, but there's audios and there's written minutes.

You can always go over them.

Everything on our public service committee meeting is on tonight's agenda, and we briefly went over them yesterday, so I won't be redundant.

Um we looked at the six contracts, we found them all to be in order, bid appropriately and legally, and uh we unanimously moved them forward to the council with our recommendation to approve.

Uh then we also looked at a required membership in the uh lower to page watershed coalition uh coalition in the amount of about $25,000.

Again, uh we unanimously approved that we move forward with the recommendation for the council to approve it.

Under the ordinance and resolution, three of them are all part of the uh grand prairie water commission or the alternative water switchover we're doing in 2030, and so it's kind of what housekeeping under the contract as uh we move towards it.

Two of them had to do with us giving them uh easement and right away to put in the connection between the water from the commission coming from Lake Michigan, where it's gonna then, if you will, ownership will turn over to the city of Joliet and under the agreement with the Grand Prairie, all communities including Joliet have to provide that space.

Again, we looked at the uh five items under there, which are all found on tonight's city council meeting, and we found them to be in order and unanimously approved to move them forward with committee recommendation to approve.

Um other than that, I have nothing else, nothing.

Then that means mayor, that's our 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 April 20th, 2026, and the city council meeting held on April 21st, 2026, stand approved as recorded.

Invoices to be paid.

It is recommended this report be approved.

Council memo memo number two thirty-three-26, award of professional services contract for roadway mapping and pavement analysis, condition classification to cycle media technology incorporated in the amount of 190,950.

Council memo number two thirty-four-twenty six, award of contract number two nine seven five-zero four two six for the public utilities department generator purchase to Metropolitan Industries in the amount of three hundred forty-nine thousand three hundred two dollars.

Council Memo number two thirty-five-26, award of contract number two nine seven six-zero four two six for the east side wastewater treatment plant, final clarifier repaint to dynamic industry industrial services in the amount of three hundred twenty-seven thousand six hundred dollars.

Councilmember number two thirty-six-26, award of contract to number two nine seven seven zero four two six for the east side wastewater treatment plant final clarifier slide gates installation to Dom Mechanical Industries Incorporated in the amount of sixty-eight thousand eight hundred eighty-eight dollars.

Councilmember number two thirty-seven-26, award of contract number twenty-nine seventy-nine-zero four two six for the well 18D rehabilitation to Great Lakes Water Resources Group in the amount of 220,907 dollars.

Councilmember number two thirty-eight-26 approved payment of the 2026 membership dues for the Lower DuPage River Watershed Coalition in the amount of $25,140.08 cents.

It is recommended Council Memos 233-26 through 238-26 be approved.

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

Motion to approve.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's a motion and second and to approve.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilwoman Abara?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Clumin.

Aye.

Councilman Ruerdin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardenas.

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Under agenda items, council member number two forty-26, order of contract number 2961-0226 for the Campbell Street Water Tower Rehabilitation Project to ERA Valdivia Contractors Incorporated in the amount of $1,893,000.

And a word of construction engineering services agreement to Dixon Engineering Incorporated for the not to exceed amount of 158,950.

It is recommended Councilmember number two forty-26 be approved.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's my motion and second and to approve.

Councilman Abara.

Aye.

Councilman Marino.

Aye.

Councilman Mudron.

Aye.

Councilwoman Plumman.

Aye.

Councilman Reardon.

Councilman Cardinals.

Councilman Clement?

Hi.

Councilman Hug.

Hi.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Under resolutions.

Council Memo number 242-26.

Resolution amending and authorizing the execution of an amended and restated development agreement with Cullen and Joliet LLC for the Rackman Crossing Development Project Area.

Good evening, Council.

I'm proud to say that great things keep happening in Joliet.

After 18 months of working together, this amended and restated redevelopment agreement before the council will tie incentives directly to performance, attract a major anchor with Dick's House of Sport and all the retailers that will follow.

Put Rock Run Collection on track to be the first of its kind destination for shopping and dining at 55 and 80, the crossroads of America.

I'd like to thank city staff for their diligence and working with our experts to negotiate the best agreement for the city.

I would also like to introduce our experts here today that will be here to answer any questions you may have.

First is David Reifman, who was our lead negotiator and uh long-term development attorney.

Wave, David.

Um Randy Coolat, who is our bound council.

Um and Gillian and Samantha, who are here from SB Freedman.

With that, I will hand it over to Kevin Singh, our finance director.

Good evening.

Uh just to recap on some of the points from last night.

So the development is at 300 acres at interstates 55 and 80.

It included a new interchange at Interstate 55 and Route 59, and is currently home to the Hotleywood Casino, 900 square feet of industrial of Chipotle.

There are 264 apartments under construction with completion expected in August of late this year, as well as a Ricky Rockets and Drury Inn hotel under construction at the site.

Amending the agreement, uh the amendment of the agreement uh first off rebalances our risk from our original hundred million dollar bond that financed the infrastructure at the site.

In fact, our risk is being reduced by 16.2 million dollars just by approval of the agreement.

We were also to add requirements for performance and penalties for non-performance.

Uh Cullen will go through the mix of retail and restaurants that are made possible by this agreement.

And then also tax revenue will be higher to the city of Joliet at 234 million between now and 2044.

And then I actually turn it over to Vince Corno from Dick's House of Sport.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Mayor Darcy, members of the council.

Um honored to be here tonight and uh couldn't be more excited.

I uh will tell you I'm I'm a resident of the Chicagoland area, and uh this one is a pet project of mine.

We really want to really want to see this come together, and you are on the cusp of approving the path forward for a world-class mixed-use development that includes among the largest retail developments ground up in the country.

Um just figured today we would give you um a pre a preview of Dix House of Sport and uh what it is and where we're going with it.

This is not your mother's or father's dick's sporting goods.

Uh we've had a long history in the city of Joliet.

We've been very appreciative of that.

The story is very successful.

That usually is an attribute that leads to our interest in doing something at this scale.

Uh perhaps what I'll do first is just kind of uh go through the conceptual um genesis of a house of sport and how it came together.

Uh Ed Stack, who is a very inspiring leader, he's our executive chairman.

Um he's the son of the founder of Dix Sporting Goods, started with two bait and tackle shops in upstate New York.

I got out of uh undergraduate and uh decided that he wanted to go to law school and his father put a kabosh on that very quickly and said, No, you're not going to law school, you're gonna help with the family business.

And this is what put this what puts food on the table for your sit your younger siblings than number four.

Um, in any event, so he was very frustrated, but then he embraced it.

In any event, he's grown the two upstate uh New York blatant tackle shops to 750 Dix sporting goods across the country.

He's very inspirational.

He's always looking around the corner, he always wants to understand where the competition will be coming from in the future.

So about 10 years ago, he gave the charge to a senior leadership team and said, Look, I want you to um come up with a concept that will put every Dick Sporting Goods out of business.

And hence here we are ten years later with Dick's House of Sport.

Uh there are presently 34 of these in the country.

Uh Joliette would be the beneficiary of having one of the very few ground up prototypes that we're building.

A lot of these are taking the form of retrofits of empty department store boxes and in closed mall settings.

I'll touch on that in a second.

But this is uh this is something that is entirely different from anything that we've done.

It's a paradigm shift.

He's trying to the mission that I get drilled into my head every day.

He wants to reposition the entire real estate portfolio of Dick Sporting Goods, so we are going to be market dominant for the next 30 years.

Um with that, I'll just go through a quick uh quick PowerPoint presentation here.

Um again, Dick's House of Sport, um, a typical Dick Sporting Goods is about 50,000 feet, which is the one that we have with you in your community today.

Um we've more than double the size, it's 120,000 feet on two levels.

Um, this really is geared toward the evolution of retail.

I think we are one of the most forward-thinking retailers out there, bar none.

Um the experience is an important element of this.

So another key component that you see to the left of this photo, this aerial, a couple of elements that corner glass enclosure houses um our climbing wall, so you can come in and actually climb a wall inside the store environment itself.

And then we have an outdoor component called a field.

Uh presently have um 15 of those across our portfolio.

So not every house of sport gets a field, but it's an important and integral part of our our mantra here.

And it's been almost kind of surprising, almost by accident.

Initially, the field was conceived to be 17,000 feet of astro turf with a track around it, very, very high quality surface.

And the idea was if you come in and try on a pair of soccer cleats and you want to go, you know, you want to see how they really feel in the field, you can go out on the field and kick a soccer ball around, or you can throw baseball around, try out a glove.

Uh so it was almost initially conceived to be sales support more than anything.

Uh turns out that it uh is really the crown jewel of our community outreach.

So these fields basically serve as venues for birthday parties, yoga classes, summer camps for kids.

We'll have celebrity appearances, um, you know, you local uh Russell Wilson, who was then the quarterback of Pittsburgh Steelers was you know throwing out throwing passes to kids out on the field in in this store here in Ross Park.

So, in any event, the field is an important component here.

We would have a field that would have a very prominent position right along the freeway.

So this would be a real beacon for for the community for the project, and then for Dick's sporting goods.

Umteen billion dollars in sales for Dick's business or just the Dick's business.

We acquired Foot Locker last year.

You may have read that.

So we are we are big and continue to grow.

But again, it we're relentless in trying to strive for perfection uh in terms of retail.

This is um the house of sport that we did in Binghamton, New York, which is uh the home of Dick's Sporting Goods.

This is where Ed Stack was raised.

Uh this was a former Kaufman's department store that was basically an empty anchor and a dead mall.

Um, a local friend of his uh in the community said, just bought the mall, Ed.

Would you do a house of sport in our community?

And we did.

Uh so we transformed uh that particular box.

We built the field as you can see there.

Interestingly, that um ice rink there um is one that we do with select locations in cold weather climates.

It's really yet another means by by which we reach out to the community.

Um, that particular ice install, it's it's interesting.

Um, the developer who owns the balance of the mall said, Ed, do you mind if I put a big Christmas tree out there first Christmas that we were opened?

And so, sure, no, no problem at all.

So it really has turned into Binghamton's version of Rockefeller Center.

People go there, public ice skating sessions, the kids get out there and they practice uh ice hockey, the mini mites.

It's not a full NHL regulation sized rink, but nonetheless, it's a it's a very important amenity.

We have a lot of fun with it.

Another interesting story to show how how uh demanding it is.

I don't know if you can see the window that's above the rink there.

Um we were walking the store literally a month or maybe a little bit more than a month before the grand opening, and uh that was a back of a house uh portion of the store.

Um and Ed said, wouldn't it be cool if we could do some type of window so that parents when they come to watch their kids practice hockey could uh watch from inside where it's warm up above the rink.

So uh everybody got together and we get we got it done.

We got that window installed in record time, and that's now an architectural element of the store everywhere we're going.

Um, as I mentioned to you, interactive experiences are very important, uh, elevated service, high heat product.

Uh, one of the secrets to this particular model is that uh Perylin footwear, uh, there's been a convergence that we've seen.

Um, you know, you you look at societal norms have changed over time.

You know, it there it was uh you know, it was going to be a long time when I was in law school 30 years ago that I I would ever think that I would go to a city council meeting in anything other than a blue blue suit and a button down and a tie.

Um so I think what that's done, it's really provided a tailwind for us.

A lot of the fashion trends that you see lend themselves toward the athletic footwear uh and apparel.

That's a big component here, and it's allowing us to get brands that we never really would have even dreamt of even five years ago.

Um, and I'll touch on that in a second.

Um, the interactive experiences are very important, though, as I mentioned with the field.

A couple of other elements, we have a batting cage.

The batting cage is is not a baseball batting cage, it's uh it's computerized so that you can place anything.

You can play lacrosse, you can shoot soccer balls against the best goalies in the world.

Um, so it's um it's a very important element.

Um, one other thing I wanted to mention that is kind of cool.

Um, we're always always challenging each other to come up with new and innovative ways to retail.

Uh one one anecdotal uh thing that we're doing in our stores.

Um we're using RFID technology, which are the chips, and you put it in the merchandise.

And initially it was you know, the the intent was to track the merchandise more accurately and in your inventory, but uh we have parlayed that into a marketing tool.

And so we have these displays in houses of sport where you can go up and it's a screen, and embedded in the screen are different shelves, and on each of those shelves is a different shoe, an athletic, you know, an athletic shoe.

Um, and it's called lift and learn.

You can go up to this this fixture and pick up the shoe, and the shoe and the screen will automatically start to tell to tout all of the uh attributes of that particular merchandise.

You know, it'll give you the 360 degree, it'll show you the you know the the technological advancement.

So it's that type of thing that we're incorporating in our stores.

Another thing that we're doing is uh what we call our Dix Media Network.

Um we built a complete infrastructure behind all of the Dick Sporting Goods stores.

And when you go into a house of sport, what you're gonna see is a high level of LED displays.

We use them on all of our fixtures, um, and that's all centrally controlled.

All the content uh is centrally controlled, and it's a really cool way to promote within the store environment itself.

So this is something special.

This is something that nobody else, I would challenge that.

I don't think anybody else in the business is doing it, and as a result, we've seen very pleasing results.

We've seen other retailers say, Wow, if you have a dick's house of sport, I'm in because it's that special.

So this is a rock wall that I mentioned earlier, uh glass enclosed.

Uh it's a it's a very prominent architectural feature of our stores.

Kids can come in.

Um, there's a bell at the top there.

It's uh it's you know, we're we're in the business of memory making in this environment.

And uh that that this is a this is a core element of it.

There's the field, there's the ice rink.

Uh golf is Ed's favorite sport.

Uh he's a scratch golfer, and uh as a result, we have a big big golf presence in these stores, including putting greens.

There's uh there's new technology out there called Putt View, where um that you can actually get on a green that's inside the environment, and you hit a ball, and the ball will be tracked by lasers that are up above, and it'll show you know the path of your ball and then the you know the prescribed path to get the ball into the hole.

Uh pretty pretty cool stuff.

Uh hit tracks.

I mentioned the the batting cage, that's an important element.

And here's a quick video that uh is um just gives you a feel for the store.

It is not like anything you've seen before.

So that that captures it that you really have to see it and feel it to really get the full effect, but uh we're very proud of it.

Um a few things that might be of interest to you all.

Um we um we have we I mean obviously when we're building this scale, the market draw is much greater.

The geographic the geographic area that we capture is much greater, uh the visits are much greater.

These slides illustrate uh a number of these concepts.

Um perhaps most importantly though, and I think you know, we we we have established ourselves as a leader in the industry.

So with this commitment to this project will be a host of other commitments that you'll get from other retailers that want to be around us because they recognize the traffic that we'll generate for the shopping center.

Um to create jobs, the visits, the dwell times are up.

This is a slide that captures just some of the names.

Uh, Viori was a big one just recently, Arcterics.

Um, we've got a huge relationship with Faredy, uh, Gym Shark, first uh time in the United States to distribute through uh bricks and more retail is through us.

On Running, we were one of the first uh partners with On Running to bring that brand to the United States, and that has been tremendously successful.

Uh Chubbies, you start to just go through this, and a lot of these brands kind of blur the line between you know athletic footwear, athletic apparel, and fashion athletic or fashion apparel and fashion footwear.

Um interesting new uh idea that we had.

This was the genesis for this is when Paul Skeens came out of college and he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Uh there was such a buzz and uh topp's trading cards, what they do is uh a rookie card with the patch that he actually wore on his uh first pitching engagement.

Um, and he signed it, and there was a big um big, big uh lottery if you want to call it that, where they put one of these cards in a pack and put it out there, and everybody there was a frenzy surrounding, and everybody wanted to try to get this card.

Anyway, a kid in California ended up getting it in his pack, and um you had an option.

You could keep the card or you could sell it.

And so we decided to put it on the block, and we paid paid a lot of money for that card, and we brought it back to Pittsburgh because we thought he's a Pittsburgh pirate pitcher, it should be in Pittsburgh.

Um, in any event, we prominently displayed it in the store, and then we we were we were really surprised by all of the interest that this car generated.

So it it prompted us to think whole all entirely differently about the collectibles business.

Uh and we're in the card collection business in a big way.

If you would have told me even three years ago that we'd be selling Pokemon cards, I wouldn't believe you.

But uh, that's another interesting element for our store.

Uh Jim Sharp, I mentioned uh we have these collab spaces, we call them.

We designated a portion of our retail floor area on the front of the store, and we do we do interesting and creative things.

We have among the most creative merchants in the business I've ever seen.

I've been in the business for 35 years.

And this collab space is really where we feature uh new and um you know brands that are coming in from around the world.

If they don't have a footprint in the United States, this is a great forum for them to be able to demonstrate the wares, and it's been tremendously successful for us.

Um we uh have had a meaningful impact on existing malls.

This is really almost, you know, it it what's happened is when we come in and there's an empty anchor, Sears box and an empty mall.

You activate that anchor naturally, the mall becomes much more active and the sales uh increase.

So that that that's a going to be a uh continuing theme.

We're starting to see the as we get more of these open, more of this data coming in.

It's a very, very real fact.

Mall sales go up, traffic goes up, and in this particular case, it's ground up, so we we will be the primary draw.

Um right now we're up to 34.

This was an older slide.

Um had a couple more opening up before FIFA World Cup, one down in uh Arlington, uh Texas, right across from ATT, where we're we're hopeful that uh there'll be a lot of a lot of soccer fans coming into our store and buying jerseys.

But uh, we're delighted to be here.

It's a privilege.

Um I want to compliment your leadership.

You know, there aren't many many leader or leaders in this country, uh, not many communities that are as forward thinking as you all are.

I know this is a big step financially, but no one else has stepped up to do this, and I think you will have the envy of many mayors, if not all the mayors across the country when this is up and running.

I think you're gonna have people coming in from across the country saying, I want one of those, how do I get it?

Um, because there's just not a lot a lot of this activity going on.

Uh compliment to Diane.

Um, she without her vision, without her persistence, you know, we wouldn't be here today.

And uh Mayor Darcy, as I mentioned to you, I'm always going to remember that uh that meeting in the trailer when I had my boss and and you were there, and uh we were we were destined to go to another location, and uh your persuasive skills were very good.

You were you were spot on.

Uh so thank you for doing that.

Um, this is our Boylston Street location right at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Um, so we're trying it in urban settings.

Uh so it's it's um you know this is this is something that we were very proud of.

34 today.

We're gonna get the 75 to 100 of these by 2028.

This will be the first um prototype that we'll do ground up in all of Chicago land.

We will have other houses of sport given the size of the community here.

Um, but this will be this will be a crown jewel.

It will be exactly like we want it because it'll be ground up.

So, with that, I guess I'll turn it over.

Maria.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the city council and city manager.

I'm Maria Tolleapolis, Chief Strategy Officer for Collin Properties, and I am excited to share with you what will happen once we build the field of dreams that Vince just described and what it will do for the mixed-use development known as Rock Run Collection and the City of Joliet and its community.

As you can see on this slide, the new Dix House of Sport will be located in the area highlighted in yellow.

This will provide exposure from both I-55 and 80, and will be visible during the day and evening with the lit field that Vince described.

In addition, Dix House's sport will serve as our key retail anchor, which will put the city of Joliet on the map as a nationally recognized super regional destination.

Approving this agreement unlocks Cullen's ability to push forward with a significant amount of retail development highlighted in yellow, joining the over 1 million square feet already completed or under construction at Rock Run Collection, which includes the Hollywood Casino at 170,000 square feet, the adjacent free public parking deck for a hundred for 421,000 square feet, approximately 900,000 square feet of industrial development, and the view residences, clubhouse, and garage, where over 117,000 square feet are complete and residents have already moved in.

In addition to what's already open to the public, we are also under construction for an over 100,000 square foot jury hotel with 180 guest rooms and a 15,000 square foot Ricky Rockets that will join the already open Chipotle and recently announced culverts and Chick-fil-A that Kevin alluded to earlier.

This demonstrates real momentum and real investment, and that the project is actively happening today.

In addition to what I've already highlighted, we are ready to move forward with 300,000 square feet of retail construction this summer.

This will bring the total new construction opportunity to 600,000 square feet and advancing the master development to 1.3 million square feet.

But this is not just about buildings on a site plan.

It's also about the significant economic impact to the community through job creation.

The total master development will be responsible for 8,000 construction jobs, resulting in over 510 million in wages, as well as 5,000 permanent jobs with 200 million in annual wages.

These permanent jobs span a cross-retail, hospitality, and other service sectors and provide the community with opportunities ranging from entry-level positions to management.

In order to make this happen, we need scale and we need an anchor.

As a result of the draw that Dix House of Sports brings, we have over 50 national and regional retailers that are contingent on Dix House of Sport anchoring the project in order to come.

This group of retailers represents a diverse mixed-use environment comprising of traditional retail, ranging from junior anchors, soft goods, and home furnishings to higher-end lifestyle and apparel brands.

There will truly be something for everyone.

The dining category will include a diverse mix of restaurants from quick serve to fine dining, catering to both daytime and evening weekend traffic.

The jury hotel will bring town guests from out of town when they're visiting the casino here for business or making a strategic stop along the way to participate in all that rock run collection and Joliet have to offer.

We're also focused on entertainment as well as public spaces to provide placemaking opportunities for the community.

And for the local community, we will be bringing various health and wellness retailers as well as everyday services and conveniences that not only serve the local community but also provide an opportunity for local retailers and businesses to grow and capitalize on the foot traffic that the and draw that the national and regional tenants and Dix House of Sports brings to the project.

As you heard, Cullen has invested in the infrastructure which unlike unlocked the site for access, visibility, and viability, and attracted Dix House of Sport as an anchor.

The approval of this agreement and the partnership amongst the city and of Joliet, Dix House of Sport and Cullen will bring significant retail from dining to lodging, shopping and entertaining to both serve the community but also to attract new residents, young professionals, and employers to consider relocating to a first-class project that has already gained national recognition and will shape Joliet's economic future and regional competitiveness.

Thank you, and I'll now turn it over to Kevin Singh for additional context around the redevelopment agreement.

Thank you.

So just want to review a little bit about the financial requirements of the redevelopment or the new agreement.

The first part is we wanted to make sure that the city was protected.

It's also important to note that the payment of incentives will come from taxes generated on the site, not from the city as a whole.

We also tied the payment of incentives to the opening of stores, binding contracts, and vertical construction.

We also accounted for in the off chance that the park project does get delayed.

The incentive would be reduced annually starting in 2028.

And that retail was of a high quality and had sales of $350 per square foot.

A little too far.

Um part of the financial components is we are repurposing money that was included in the original hundred million dollar bond to create a payment reserve uh to create additional safety net for the city.

The new incentive is structured as a reimbursement and paid on when revenue is being generated to pay back the incentive.

And the new agreement is performing has performance-based incentives that are paid only if the project is successful.

Uh additional benefits of the agreement is a much faster pace uh of development with retail opening sooner.

Uh more revenue to the city, as I mentioned earlier, about 237 million dollars in addition to bond payments uh will come into city coffers between now and 2044.

And then jobs were touched on with 8,000 construction jobs with a payroll of over 510 million and 5,000 permanent jobs with over 200 million annually in worker wages.

And additionally, that it the site will become a regional destination.

Thank you.

Mayor Kevin could you briefly explain the city's 20% share.

Yes.

So our share of the first so first off, the revenue from the site gets generated.

We then make bond payments.

The city gets to keep 20%, and then the rest go to fund those uh incentives that I mentioned that are if the site is successful.

Once those are paid off, we receive a hundred percent of the revenue.

So bond gets the first payment and the city gets the second payment.

City gets the second payment, so we'll collect 41 over 41 million dollars before the developer gets some additional funding.

And I want to take a moment here because people are familiar with the representatives from DICS that were here, they obviously are from Dick's boarding goods.

They understand the colonel representatives how we're there at in this table.

They know where the mayor and everybody else is.

SB Friedman was mentioned.

And uh they're a consulting firm after my own heart because they're very conservative.

There's consulting firms out there.

I remember when we brought them on some years back, there's consulting firms out there that will tell you what you whatever you want to hear.

SB Friedman will tell you what's gonna happen.

I do want to say that the all the estimates and projections we've done on this, if I understand it correctly, is at an 80% occupancy.

Correct.

So if we go 100% occupy occupancy, which is very likely, it it goes up even further.

Correct.

But yeah, we wanted to account for making sure you know real-world scenarios for SP Friedman that they accounted for retail turnovers that only 80% of the square footage would be paying taxes.

And then the last thing I wanted to get before you sit down, um, you know, folks sometimes misunderstand you know the TIFF and the tax incentives.

Um, so you have all this extra tax, potential tax money, you're not collecting it because it's given to them, therefore everybody else pays a tax.

That's not how it works.

They are taxed, it goes into the TIFF, and then they can draw off the TIFF if they meet certain requirements within the TIFF.

And when we do our levy, we do not include any dollars that were put into a TIF and any value of that property.

So nobody's making up for any lost revenue.

Correct.

It's actually created as a separate district, does not have any impact on the city's lobby.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Can we have questions for Dick?

I think so, yeah.

I mean, it's it's vote time, right?

Can I ask a few?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Uh for Dicks.

If I didn't understand, thank you.

So we are getting a rink.

Um that has not yet been determined.

Um we don't put rinks in every one of the houses of sport.

Um that will be a later date before we would decide on the rank.

So it's not a no for sure.

It's not a known for it's not a foreshore, it's not a known for sure.

You want to kind of investigate the market to see if it and I can tell you there's a lot of hockey fans and younger trust.

I painfully know that well.

Okay.

Um what will happen to the current dicks over on Route 30?

Um that too has not yet been determined that we're still in the very early stages, but what I would tell you what is commonplace when we surrender a 50,000 foot store that is near a house of sport.

There's a obviously the larger volume that we would do in the House of Sport generates a lot more clearance uh merchandise.

So we have a concept called going gone uh that has backfilled a number of the the DIC sporting goods in fact uh that that's that's pretty commonplace.

Um so I think that that that certainly is a possibility.

Um but it's not yet been determined either.

But it could be uh a clearance store or kind of like a factory direct that some people are familiar with.

It it could be.

Yes.

Okay.

So when will we know that?

Um it'll be later in the deliberations.

I mean, I think uh you know, we're we start construction this summer.

It'll be in the next uh 12 to 18 months, certainly.

We're we're you know, we will have to make a decision with that.

Um that real estate.

Okay.

And then we we talked about the retail draw of the Dicks house of sports.

Um I understand that this is the first round up, but we have other ones.

Some don't have the fields.

Let's talk about the ones that do.

What's the typical foot traffic?

What's the typical draw?

How many bodies really um I don't have that off the top of my head, but I will tell you it um you know that the it is it is a material draw uh in and of itself.

Um as I mentioned to you earlier, it it really has become a community focal point.

Um another example I talked about you know the yoga classes, birthday parties, celebrities, the the Pittsburgh Penguins in the rink that you see right there would hold camps for the kids.

Um we also you know would would um the in the case of the Binghamton location, the local university, uh SUNY New York, um they they basically didn't have enough time on their fields for the intramural program, so they would come over after hours and use it.

So it's almost a quasi-public uh amenity uh as we see it.

And almost by accident, because again, this was supposed to be you know try before you buy.

This is a sales sport uh amenity more than anything, but it's really it's really panned out to be a really nice uh nice partnership with the communities we're in.

And how many do we currently have in Illinois?

Is it uh houses of sport?

Yeah, uh one under construction in Woodfield, uh Schaumburg, which is a retrofit of a large DSG that we have there.

Uh it pre-existed, and it was a big building, so we're in the process of of converting that, but uh no others uh that are in this far uh along in terms of development.

Uh we are uh in discussions and pursuing uh House of Sport Northern Park as well.

Um but that too um would be a retrofit, it wouldn't be a ground up.

Okay.

And I think my last one will be a little it's kind of baiting, and that's okay.

This could be you or Cullen.

So we talk about the retailers that typically follow you, and I understand we all understand that some retailers until it it is uh either approved or not approved, right?

If this is approved, how quick quickly can we expect to start hearing some of the names of the other retailers?

Um I would I would defer to my friends with Cullen um to provide you the timing on that, but what I would say to you, and we really appreciate the timeliness of the city council's consideration because with the approval tonight, uh you put us in a position to be able to go to Las Vegas.

We have an annual convention out in Vegas.

Uh it's called the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Uh, it's one of the largest conventions in Vegas.

Uh, May 18th, uh so the next couple weeks we're going out.

Um, in fact, I'm bringing my boss Ed Stack with me on this trip out.

Um everybody in the business goes out for this, and to be able to go out and unequivocally say that yes, we're done with the city, yes, we're done with uh Dick Sporting Goods, we'll put Cullen in a pretty strong position to be able to start to nail down those commitments and go public with uh the identities of those that would follow us.

And if you had to choose one, which Dick's house of sports right now that's been built and obviously has the fields and all that is closest to what you're imagining for Jolia.

Um where would that be?

There's really very limited uh in terms of ground up.

We did a conversion of uh Dick Sporting Goods in Polaris in Columbus.

Um I'm trying to think the Columbus Columbus, Ohio.

Ohio and Polaris.

Polaris is a shopping center, it's on the north side of town.

Um but you know, if if any of the council members would be interested in coming, we'd be delighted to have you come tour um a Ross Park flagship.

That's where kind of that's where the sausage is made, so to speak.

Well, I'm kind of giving a spoiler alert because now people can do a Google Google Earth search and see who's uh who popped up around the other one.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, no, that's true.

I think if you if you talk to some of our landlord friends in the business, those are thrilled.

And uh again, we only have had 10 of these that have normalized, they've been open longer than a year, where we have a data set where we can even start to say the before and after what it looks like.

But I will tell you that it's clearly uh demonstrable that when we come in, the before and after is pretty dramatic in terms of the foot traffic that we're generating the shopping center, um, in terms of the sales performance, not only you know the you know, our our store, but of all of the the other retailers that are in the the enclosed mall environment.

It it is a real uh it is a real synergy that you get.

Okay, thank you.

You but Colin then can you can you answer the question?

He deferred to you.

I won't let you off the hook.

Yeah, no, I know.

Um so obviously we can't release names, but we are we do have executed PSAs, we have executed leases, we have leases that are contingent on us being able to move forward, counter-sign and announce with this deal because we can't fulfill the obligations under the current agreements until we get this deal done and ready to go.

So we are in a really strong position to actively move forward on the construction that we talked about based on the fact that we have those leases you know kind of in our back pocket, ready to go.

Um and so we really need this deal to move forward to start the domino, which will then obviously keep everything else moving.

Um as Vince also mentioned, we have ICSC coming up in less than two weeks, and that is a huge opportunity to be able to focus on getting additional retail into some of those other locations where we've really been concentrating on under the redevelopment agreement, the lifestyle in the power center.

And it's my understanding that to do their due diligence and their analysis, SB Freeman does have knowledge of this.

They do, but they're under a confidentiality.

Exactly, NDA, but they do have it, and uh they kind of gave us a conservative thumbs up.

They are the unsung heroes of this process.

Thank you.

Mayor, I'll just my final comments will be this.

I was a little hesitant at first, you know, when we first 37 million.

And I'm you know, my wife is frugal, I'm cheap.

Okay, and um so I I depend a lot on SB Friedman.

I really do, because they're just as cheap and conservative as I am.

They're a great firm.

As it came together, I drilled a lot of people, Kevin can tell you.

He had to use his handkerchief and wiped the sweat beads off.

It's like roll them as well.

We drilled really deep on this.

I will say this.

Uh the gentleman, what was the attorney?

David, is that his name?

David, you did a great job in negotiating this that I see this.

It not only goes in uh a better uh a newer and better direction, it does take the old agreement and it tightens it up quite a bit.

It tightens up it this is a better agreement than the original one was.

I have to tell you that.

So I was slow to come to the table, but once I did all my due diligence and uh bothered a lot of people a lot of times, uh this is a good project.

Thank you.

Mayor May.

Joe asked first.

I mean, I just want to thank uh Diane Cullen and her and her team.

You know, this has uh been in the making for a while.

And uh I want to thank uh Dick's house uh sport, uh the city of Jolie.

I don't want to thank uh Beth and your team and the all the uh city employees that city staff that that helped answer a lot of the uh questions that we had.

We had a few meetings.

Um I'd still like to see Tommy Bahama come.

That would that would be a little outlet over there.

I think we spoke about that.

But uh again, very exciting uh project.

You know, we have the uh mixed use over there, industrial, residential, Hollywood's there, and this is just gonna take off like like uh crazy.

So but thanks again for uh for coming to Joliet.

So yeah, I just have a so a few quick comments.

Um as far as the city goes, you know, it reduces our risk, you know, we're in a safer position than what we were in the old deal.

Um we're holding the the developer to uh performance-based incentives, and you know it's gonna bring a lot of local jobs.

And this is obvious is definitely a great project.

You know, I support it.

And thank you to city staff, uh Diggs and Collin for making this happen.

And my only concern may be, you know, my kids are probably watching this and they're like, hey, now we're gonna let's go spend some money over there.

So I don't know how I feel about that, but I think I can support it.

So thank you.

Mayor.

So I think for the man from Dix, the owner of Dix, would you mind coming up to the mic for a moment, please?

Well, and thank you for coming to the city of Jolia.

It was a great presentation.

I want to point out that you want to be involved in community, and this is probably for the calling in properties.

We have someone here from Tomorrow Starts Today, nonprofit, Geron Neighbors.

He has a bunch of underprivileged youth that go to his youth center five days a week.

And I'm sure this is a place that he would love to take the kids.

So I'm hoping we can make connections like that.

He's in the back with the glasses on, raise your hand.

We can make connections like that and make things happen for the people who can afford it and for the people that can't afford it.

It would be great to be involved in community in that way.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

We uh we we are very we are very active in in charitable initiatives that support sports and Ed is impassioned by it.

Uh you know, he he he has uh he tell he tells the story if I may.

Um when he was uh working in a store and and a young kid came in and um basically I won't do the story justice like he does, but uh in any event um the kid uh tried to steal baseball glove and started to run out and and they caught him in the parking lot, brought him in and he was crying and uh Ed's father, Dick Stack, uh, went up to the kid and he said, uh, why'd you try to steal the baseball glove?

And he said, all I want to do is play baseball.

And uh Dick Stack looked at him and he said, You know something, son?

He said, You can take that glove, you go pick out a bat and go pick out a ball and never steal again.

And uh, you know, he he tells that story with passion and it really inspired him for the rest of his life.

Um, you know, to to make sure that those that can't afford to play sports are afforded uh the resources to be able to do so.

But uh we will be very active in that regard.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Matt.

I just want to welcome you.

I'm so excited for this to come.

I've been just every meeting we've had, it just gets me more excited to see this place.

It's just gonna explode.

But I was telling my staff at my office before I left today, you know, the you guys are gonna know about it.

It's at our council meeting tonight about Dick's house of sports, and they're like, what is that compared?

You know, so we pulled it up on the internet and we're looking at all the pictures, and they were all like, Wow, this is amazing.

And my one male in the office, he says, Wow, I wish I was young again.

This is great.

Like you're 28.

I think he can do it.

So he's excited as well.

We sell fashion too.

Well, thank you very much for investing in us.

Well, no, we're delighted to be here, and thank you for your consideration.

Any other questions before I said?

No, just a nice comment.

If you may I have been on this council quite some time, okay, and many, many years ago, we were supposed to put the bridgetown mall, which I told you when we had met, and me more than anybody up here have been waiting a very long time to get that property with a mall and sports and everything that you can theaters, everything you're gonna put out there, and I just cannot wait for this to happen.

And uh it was worth all those campaigns just to keep this thing going so that we could get something out there.

So thank you very much, and everybody I'm very excited, and I knew someday this would come.

I'm just glad I'm still here to join in the celebrations.

Stars are aligned, there's not a better piece of retail real estate in the country.

I mean, crossroads of America really really captures that, as Beth said.

Uh it's great real estate, and you will be proud.

Mayor?

Can anybody else Caesar?

Um yes, I just want to comment um again as a city of our size, you know, we get a lot of uh big projects that you know we get approached with, and there's a lot of hard decisions that we have to make, and sometimes these big numbers it's hard for you know us to understand and or the general public to understand.

I'm you know appreciative of our staff and all the trust that we have in our staff to make sure that we vet these projects and making sure that we're protecting the taxpayer and that we're getting this stuff done.

Uh, but this is just another example of you know our our city manager and our staff and everyone and their due diligence that they do, and also the access that we have to experts, right?

That that help us and and and checking out these agreements.

And you know, I'd love to hear like uh we know we have David Reifman here with us as was to help uh a big part of the negotiation on this, and just your opinion on this agreement amended agreement and uh where we stand today on it.

Uh thank you, Councilman.

The uh I think it's an excellent agreement for the city.

We had two objectives going into this, which was first to um make sure that we secured the deal for um not only Dix but for all the other retail that has to come with it, so it's not just Dicks.

I think it's a very important point that in order for the city to be obligated to make any payments, there's also an additional 350,000 square feet of retail and hotel that has to go into this center.

It's uh it's a whole holistic project.

And secondly, it restructured the original agreement, which you know didn't give the city the type of leverage that it should have in a situation like that.

All of that's been kind of put back on track.

Everything from the original project will be built as well as all these new things.

So the city has remedies, the city has penalties if there's no performance.

Um so I think it's an excellent agreement for the city, and um I'm glad that I was a part of representing you.

So thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

So, yeah, just to you know, just to put it out there, right?

We're the we're still the third largest city in Illinois, and we're gonna continue to grow.

And so, you know, when they compare us to a lot of other communities of what they do or don't do, uh, I think we're trying to set the pace and show and lead by example of what we can do uh to lead uh lead in a in a great way.

Uh but I'm excited for for this.

Uh I think in today's retail, you know, people have their opinion about retail, but uh like in one of the slides where you said uh the chairman said he wanted to put something in front that would put us out of business, and that's a great way to think, right?

So people are today are looking for experiences, so being able to go try on the shoes, yeah.

The days of shopping online are still there, but at the same time I've I've ordered plenty of things where I just have to keep returning them because they just don't fit.

So having that option of being able to then now go try stuff on, try it out on the fields, try it on the golf, you know, turf and whatnot, uh, is gonna be exciting, like and like Councilman Reno said being able to take the kids to do something as well and make a day of it is gonna be great.

So thank you for for choosing Joliet, and thank you to the staff.

I'd be remiss if I didn't tip my cap.

I'm in front of a lot of municipalities across the country, and um bold leadership results in bold results.

And I think that what you're what you're doing here is bold, and it it will pay off in dividends that you can't even imagine.

Um you know, there aren't many folks that are out there developing super regional ground up mixed use developments in the country.

Um and this this will be a case example for many, many municipalities across the country as to how to do it.

And uh I I compliment you on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

I just wanted to tell them you're you you like to weave a story.

You tell some good stories.

So I got a story for you that might make you cringe, it might make you cry.

Councilwoman Quillman reminded me of it with her comments.

Jan, you'll remember this, right?

We had the failed what was called the bridges or whatever it was called, and it was vacant.

Remember when that company came about eight years ago and wanted to build warehouses there and turn it into a logistics.

Yeah, and they were offering a lot of money up front to do that.

This council stood firm and said no.

We paid for the city.

It was Ross Perot that wanted to put warehouses up in there.

Right.

And uh, which was a fine for his company, you know.

Actually, we we have a partnership with them.

Um, you know, but that wasn't the right place.

But you know, we passed up several million dollars and in their incentives to get that done back then because we said there's something better, and then this happened.

I will tell you one thing, you're in a weird city.

If you're going to thanks, thank you, Councilwoman uh for bringing it up, the interaction with if you go to schools, right?

Remember, not all schools in the city of Joliet have Joliet in their name.

Plainfield schools are part of Joliet, some of them.

Troy schools are too.

So if you need direction, so we make sure, otherwise, you're just looking at like you have Joliet Central High School, it makes sense.

Joliet West High School, it makes sense.

Plainfield South is in the city of Joliet, and it serves Joliet residents.

So we have three three districts, great school districts, and five high school districts that serve our ours.

So when you start doing your benevolence, remember to include all of them.

Duly noted.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thanks, Vince.

I'd like to make a couple final comments if anybody else wants to speak.

Go ahead.

But um every morning my wife and I read the the Bible, and I try and garner some wisdom from Solomon.

So in Proverbs 15, 22, he says, plans fail for lack of counsel.

But with many advisors, they succeed.

And I gotta tell you, um, January of 25, Diane Cullen and her team, myself, Vince Corno, and Ed Stack came to politely tell us that they weren't gonna come to Joliet.

And after I don't know, we're probably in there a good hour, just kind of going back and forth, and what would it take and how do we do it and what could we see?

And the nose turned into a well, let's take a look at it.

And um the collaboration that that has put this opportunity together is something I've never seen before.

I've been on national councils with General Motors, I've been in a lot of things, but I really love this one.

And you know, first I have to say thanks to the Cullen team to Diane.

You know, you had the vision to put that interchange in and uh perseverance to push to get it done.

I mean, you know, you you had uh people as high as uh Senator Durbin jumping when you asked him to, but you got it done, and that was the emphasis of getting this project done.

And the morning that uh we sat in that trailer and we heard no a couple times, it was a soft no, and we turned that into a lively conversation, and I really uh have to thank uh Ed Stack and and Vince for continuing to pursue this idea.

And we had an open house at the casino a while back, and and Vince invited, you know, I call him the Pied Piper of Retail.

He invited many of the national retailers, and I can't say the names either because I don't want to go to federal prison for six months, but I don't want to break the NDA.

But it was very impressive, and uh the passion he put into this project, I think even started to sell him even more on this idea because they are a leading retailer, they're so innovative that this is this is really a first in many places, and we're so proud to have your passion and your perseverance to help us push this thing to the end zone.

I have I also have to thank you know, Kevin and our staff, you know, again, it takes much counsel to do a deal like this, and many hours are spent, you know.

It seems like everything just all of a sudden comes together at once, but there's a lot of time and effort, and there's a lot of um legal wrestling that went on with this, but it it worked out as a win-win for everybody.

So I really have to thank the staff of uh SP Friedman and our staff here at the city and Dave Reifman, he's been monumental and helping us, and Diane, your your legal team was it was fun to work with.

Not always fun, but we all we got the job done.

Um, I really want to commend Beth Beatty.

Beth Beatty came here as one of four finalists as our city manager applicants, and one of the things I heard her say was that she was used to working on complex deals.

And I gotta tell you, too, to take a deal like this apart and put it back together is a complexity.

And then you pull together the best council you can find, the Dave Reichsman's SP Friedman's, and then everybody wakes to the call and everybody understands the job that has to be done.

Friedman's, and then everybody wakes to the call and everybody understands the job that has to be done, and it was it was a lot of fun.

I gotta say, one of the most fun things I've done in a long time.

So I want to thank everybody.

I want to thank the residents for allowing us to to do something like this for the 150,000 of us that live here, and we're gonna be a regional draw for everyone.

But we're here for the best of the city, and and I thank this council and everyone involved in making this decision, and I and I gotta say this path was cleared in a way that we all understand completely the complexity is now a simple project that we need to put together, and we're committed to work with moving this project along.

We know that it's gonna be monumental to get 300,000 feet built in an 18-month window, but we we're prepared to do it.

And I just want to say thank you to everyone that's involved in this, and we are so grateful to kick this off, have you go to ICSC and make it happen.

So thank you very much.

I think we should run the vote now.

Anyone else got anything else?

Okay, it is recommended said resolution be adopted.

I would recommend thank you for saving this for me.

I just approved this.

Oh, this ordinance.

Thank you, thank you so much.

A lot of hard work, long time waiting again, but uh I would move to approve.

Second, thank you.

Any other comments?

Actually, real quick.

I thought about it.

I have one more time.

Look, hey uh Vince.

You know, since Joliet's gonna be monumental, or it is monumental, and this this development is gonna be extremely successful.

You know, maybe you can talk to Ed, maybe moving uh headquarters down here to Joliet.

Thank you.

That's a great idea.

I love that.

All right, thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye, councilwoman Quillman?

Absolutely aye.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinus?

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hugg.

We think.

Aye.

Councilwoman Abarra?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number two forty-three-26.

Resolution to authorize a tip and set of agreement with Matisse Events LLC at 113 North Ottawa.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman McQuillman.

Aye.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinus?

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Huggs?

Aye.

Councilman Barra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried Councilmember number two forty four-26.

Resolution approving an easement agreement for the water delivery structure and between the Grand Prairie Water Commission and the City of Joliet, Joliet Quarter Delivery Structure.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So move.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motion and seconded to approve.

Councilwoman Queman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals?

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Huggs?

Aye.

Councilwoman Navarro.

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number two forty-five-26.

Resolution approving an easement agreement for water delivery structure by and between the Grand Prairie Water Commission and the City of Joliet.

Joliet secondary delivery structure.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So move.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Aye.

Council McClement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilwoman Navarro.

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin?

Aye.

Councilman McQuillman?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number 246-26.

Resolution amending three agreements between the City of Joliet and Will County for American Rescue Plan Act funded projects.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned and seconded to approve.

Councilman Cardinals?

Aye.

Councilmanc Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilwoman Abarra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin?

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Rudan?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number two forty-seven-26.

Resolution approving an intergovernmental agreement between the Grand Prairie Water Commission and the City of Joliet establishing a joint improvement agreement.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motion and seconded to approve.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Abarra.

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin?

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinus?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilman number two forty-eight-26.

Resolution accepting an easement agreement for the railroad street water main improvement project with Hawkeye Land Company in the amount of 40,000 dollars.

It is recommended said resolution be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments, questions?

Thank you.

It's a motion and second it to approve.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilwoman Navarro?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman.

It was not.

Councilman Rudin.

Councilman.

Councilman Cardinals.

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Under ordinances.

Councilmember number two fifty-26.

Ordinance adding chapter 21, Article 11, governing the general use and accessibility of city square property.

It is recommended that ordinance be adopted.

So move.

Second.

Comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motion and seconded to approve.

Councilman Abarra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Aye.

Councilman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinus?

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilman number two fifty-two-26.

Ordinance amending the Joliet liquor code by adding a social district to Chapter 4, Article 2, Section 16, liquor permits.

It is recommended said ordinance be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments?

Can I have a second?

I I do not I really want to see this happen, but I do not in good faith think that I can allow my business customer, business constituent to be left behind, who was recruited to come here to the city of Joliet, hung on by her fingernails, trying to make it work for her family, and leave her behind in all of this.

So I'm shooting my shot to see if there is anything at all.

Since we determine the liquor codes, we can additionally determine this person that desperately wants to be a part of that.

And I don't know.

I'm shooting my shot to see if there's any way that can happen.

The ordinance as written took a lot to get in.

Um it's a pilot program that goes for six months.

So the way we wrote this is kind of a test case.

Um at the end of the six months, we can reevaluate, but it what we what we're trying to do is test to see if this works.

So if we think if it's the will of the council, we can definitely look at it.

Um there are legal reasons why we put the restrictions in, is what Todd's trying to say, but it doesn't mean that we can't bring it to council in a couple weeks or in a month or or whatever to evaluate that.

So it's really up to the council.

Um I would recommend passing it for this evening, and I can um commit to you that we will work with her.

We have been working with her.

We arranged a whole liquor license around her, so um, I don't know why we couldn't help further if she would agree to come to the table with all of us.

I'm gonna talk to the liquor commissioner and see what he thinks.

Yeah, Mayor, are we read on?

Yes, thank you.

Mayor, yeah, I I mean we brought it up yesterday.

Um we did not want to leave you out or others.

Um I don't want to hold this this uh up.

It is a pile of program, like like you said, Beth, we could bring this back when we think you know I got a bunch of other ideas, but we're just not gonna be able to do it tonight.

So what I'd like to uh move forward, get get this going, and then we'll build on it.

So I agree too.

I think I'd like to move it forward today, but if if we have the opportunity to talk about it some more and maybe bring it back in a few weeks or a month, whatever it takes.

I would agree with that.

Mayor.

Can I ask the city manager if we cannot make her wait six months but try and figure it out in a shorter period?

Absolutely.

If she'd like to come in, I mean immediately we can have the discussions.

I know Krista reached out to her a couple of weeks ago, so we're happy to sit down whenever she's available.

Mayor, thank you.

And that's that's great.

That's that works for you, Mayor.

Okay.

Um, I will say is just to stress it.

This is a pilot program.

This is a test run.

We're gonna see whether we'll have it at the end of the sixth month, we maybe won't not do.

Or whether we tweak it, or whether it's such a great model, and we find a space somewhere else in Joliet that we need to do the same thing, if that's possible.

These are all possibilities down the road.

You know, this is just the test run to make sure it goes well enough.

It's it's it's in progress.

It's a work in progress.

Exactly.

Okay, thank you.

All right, I think we're all good.

Okay, it's been motion and seconded to approve.

Councilman Marino?

Aye, Councilman Mudrin.

Aye, Councilwoman Quillman.

Aye.

Councilman Ruordan.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals?

Aye.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Barrow?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number two fifty-three-26 ordinances associated with the approval of the rock run crossings lifestyle center subdivision.

Ordinance approving a preliminary plat for the rock run crossing lifestyle center P-4-26.

Ordinance approving a recording plat for the Rock Run Crossings Lifestyle Center RP-5-26.

It is recommended said ordinance be adopted.

Move to approve.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's a motion and seconded to approve.

Councilman Mudron.

Aye.

Councilman McClillman.

Yes.

Councilman Ruerdan aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Navarro?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number two fifty-four-26.

Ordinances associated with the development of rock run crossings drive phase two subdivision.

Ordinance approving a preliminary plat for rock run crossings drive, phase two subdivision, P-2-26.

Ordinance approving a recording plat for rock run crossings drive, phase two subdivision, RP-3-26.

Ordinance approving a plat of vacation for approximately 1.7 acres of quartz drive v-1-26.

It is recommended said ordinance be adopted.

Move to approve.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motion and seconded to approve.

Councilman McCullem.

Aye.

Councilman Ruiden.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Councilman Clement?

Aye.

Councilman Hug?

Aye.

Councilman Abarra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudrin.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy?

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number two fifty-five-26.

Ordinances associated with the development of the shale road subdivision and rock run crossings.

Ordinance approving the preliminary plat for the shale road subdivision and the rock run crossings P-3-26.

Ordinance approving the recording plat for the Shale Road subdivision and rock run crossings RP-4-26.

It is recommended that ordinance be adopted.

Moved approved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motioned, seconded to approve.

Councilwoman Rudin.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

Aye.

Councilman Clement.

Aye.

Councilman Hugg.

Aye.

Councilwoman Abarra?

Aye.

Councilman Moreno.

Aye.

Councilman Mudron.

Aye.

Councilwoman Quillman?

Yes.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Councilmember number two fifty-six-26.

Ordinance approving a variation of use to allow an indoor and outdoor commercial recreation facility of B3, general business use in the RB restricted business district, located at 749 Hoboat Road, ZBA 2026-10.

Is recommended said ordinance be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Any comments or questions?

Yeah, mayor.

Um I think it's Mike.

I spoke to you uh earlier.

Do you mind coming up to Mike and just explain uh a little bit of background of what you're doing there?

And uh just the history of the school stuff.

I know we had a good combo before, so you doing on Mike Peterson, the owner of Dive Right in Scuba.

My lawyer Kathy.

Kathy West.

So one of the things that we're looking to do, and we've been in business for 20 years in the playing field area as well as Olin Park, um, one of the largest dive shops in the world.

Um actually coming right here to Joliet now as we needed some bigger space, and uh our swim program, the swim advantage is gonna be moving from Orland Park to here with a bigger pool at the Gallowitch formerly Gallowish YMCA and everything.

And uh we're very excited to really get going here.

And I know Dix is kind of riding our coattails of us coming to town.

That's okay, we get that.

You know, they heard about you.

They can sell all the stuff to the people that we are getting activated in sports and everything.

So you know we'll be doing scuba, swim, the basketball courts.

We have a local organization, no mercy travel basketball is gonna be renting the court space for basketball to really grow their program.

And then we've got 12 acres in the back of grass for mixed use with baseball, football.

So it's gonna be uh really cool to continue the legacy that the YMCA created and spark something different in the area as well.

So you will have um swim lessons for the public?

Correct.

Okay, um and your kids too.

Oh answered all my questions, Mayor.

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks for choosing Joliet.

Great idea.

Great, great to have you here in the city.

Thank you.

Councilman Marino, will you have any money left after you leave Dixon?

No, I won't.

Now you guys are wanna be clear on this.

The YMCA was nonprofit.

Am I correct on that?

Okay.

These are not these are for profit.

They'll be back on the tax rolls.

Okay.

And just briefly explain why we need to make the zoning change so people watching understand that.

Dustin, talk about zone.

I love land use, Counselor Hook.

So this is a variation of use.

So a variation of use asks the council to consider approving something that's okay in one kind of district in a different kind of district, which means we can say yes in other places, but we're asking special permission to say yes here.

So that is what's before you tonight.

And administratively we are recommending the uh issuance of a variation of use to allow this.

And does the outdoor version, indoor outdoor?

That's part of the reason why we need to re rezolate, right?

It's an approved use in the B3 district.

This particular parcel resides in the restricted business district.

Thank you.

And then welcome to Jolia.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

And you did say you're coming from Oriolet Park, right?

Yeah, we're gonna keep that store there too, though.

But yeah.

So we'll have the location here in Joliet and Well, they may be the golf capital of the world, but we're the scuba capital now.

Now you definitely will be.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay.

Okay.

It's my motion and second and to approve.

Councilman Cardinals.

Hi.

Councilman Clement?

Hi.

Councilman Hug?

Hi.

Councilman Abara?

Hi.

Councilman Moreno?

Aye.

Councilman Mudron?

Aye.

Councilwoman McQuillman?

Wish you luck.

Aye.

Councilman Verdon.

Aye.

Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Council Memo number 257-26 ordinance approving a special use permit to allow an automotive repair facility located at 370 Ruby Street, ZBA 2026-18.

It is recommended that ordinance be adopted.

Mayor, if I may.

I went by there today, and I'm going to ask for a table because it's very, very crowded, and you can't tell the difference between their business and the muffler business.

There was cars all over, and I understand right now that there are Ruby Street Summer Construction, and it's kind of a mess right there.

But it's um I would like to see a traffic study done before uh we approve this or disapprove it.

Um it was quite the mess out there today, and um it's very difficult to get in and out of there, and I don't know when uh Ruby Street will be done if they'll be able to turn left on Ruby Street, because that's a very difficult term.

That seemed to be the only in egress from that property.

But um, to be fair, I think we should really look at a traffic study around there with all the cars and differentiate between the two businesses.

Mayor?

So I'm gonna ask for a table.

I've been by there a few times.

Um I was by there this morning also.

So was I.

And Tiffany, I'm speaking now, Jan.

Sorry.

Tiffany, uh, I believe is correct in the muffler shop, uh had all the cars parked on the street.

Uh not quite onto the sidewalk, but was somewhat blocking the entrance off of Ruby Street.

Uh they do have more than enough parking on their property.

Uh I do have a question, I think for Dustin.

Uh little I don't quite understand the center street issue.

Uh I I understand the corner where you wanted some green space, some new sidewalk on Ruby.

Uh what were you what was the requirement coming up?

So I'll describe the site plan a little bit.

Uh the conditions that staff is recommending for the site improvements of this parcel include uh removing the asphalt at the northwest corner of the parcel, which is at the corner, uh the southeast corner of Ruby and Center Street to clear the uh cone of vision so you have clear site lines both uh coming off and coming on to Ruby and Center respectively.

Uh removing the asphalt uh across a large swath of the northern part of the parcel along Ruby Street, because right now it's completely paved.

The whole the whole site is impervious.

So one of the conditions of approval that we're recommending you consider is the inclusion of some pervious surface both to uh clear the cone of vision at that intersection and also to control the ingress and egress off of Ruby Street and Center Street.

So with the uh improvements to that southeast corner of Center and Ruby on the northwest corner of the parcel, there will be uh enough area for an ingress egress onto Center Street that will be controlled.

So if you drove past today, uh I don't know which direction you traveled to and from, but you'll notice that on Center Street it's a it's a zero drop entrance.

It's just flat.

Streets flat, sidewalks flat, parking lots flat.

That will be changed if you approve this as well.

So there will be a clear differentiation and a clear entry and exit to that site from both center and Ruby Street.

The Ruby Street today uh is a little different, but are you saying they would have then two entrances on Ruby Street?

There will be one entrance on Ruby Street and one entrance on Center Street for two total entrances.

Uh today that would have been an issue because the uh muffer shop car was parked uh a quarter of the way into one of their entrances.

I I I I don't doubt it for a second.

That's a different issue.

It it is, and to be fair, uh you know, we we received some feedback as staff last night uh on a number another parcel on Broadway.

I shared with a council member we did go over there, and this is something else that we're more than happy to stay on top of as well.

Thank you.

Mayor?

Yeah.

Question, Dustin.

I I think you just referred to that.

Yesterday we talked to the petitioner, had come back uh come here some time back and gotten a special use for a different business, a truck hire repair business, and there were certain restrictions and requirements for that special use.

And you said you weren't here when that was issued, so you would check into it.

Have they met all the restrictions and requirements?

I I just want to be clear.

Are we talking about the 1101 Broadway right now?

Uh where's her truck tire repair?

I I think I think there might be a conflation of two different parcels that have similar challenges.

Uh there was at 1101 North Broadway some discussion about uh there was uh one point in 2021 contemplated a truck repair.

There was at one point in 2023 uh an auto sales uh contemplated with a special use that was granted by council.

And and the and that parcel uh accurately does have some challenges that we are addressing even today, right now.

Uh so I think I don't want to put words in your mouth so you tell me if I'm wrong.

Uh you're trying to get at a follow-up to what we talked about yesterday.

Right if there is a parcel that is in compliance.

Uh so the short answer is they're in compliance with the special use, but they're not in compliance broadly, and we're taking remediation steps on those noncompliance items.

Okay.

So I may add to that, Mayor.

I went by there as well this morning.

And uh in the back of the one little building is a vinyl fence, and there's like rows and high tires above the fence line towards the back.

And the fronts, they had well more than 12 cars.

People were working on cars.

There was cars parked on the sidewalk, and um that was just this morning.

And then just before the meeting tonight, the owner called me and said, Oh, what's going on?

And I said, Look, how many times have I talked to you?

How many times have you called me?

And this has been a nuisance, and you haven't fixed it, and you keep saying you're going to do it and you haven't done it.

And he says, Well, I'll get on it right away.

So maybe we can just follow up with that.

I just want that information out there.

That's not what we're talking about today, but that's what we talking about yesterday.

So did you go over there too?

Mayor.

Uh hey, doesn't for this.

What's what's in front of us today?

Obviously, I know that there's certain things that they have to do before they're approved, right?

So I'm assuming we have a yearly inspection, right?

Oh, building inspections that people go through.

You get what I'm saying?

Kyle.

Uh we don't inspect every property on a yearly basis.

We do monitor that with the resources that we have.

A lot of it is, hey, did you look at this and we we va verify that they're still a compliance?

Or there might be an additional request from that business owner, and we go back to check uh compliance before we allow them to move forward with another application.

Uh so it's not like uh the residential uh rental program where the where there is like we issue a permit and you're good for X period of time.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um just real quick.

If it does get approved today or whatever happens, I would like to see enforcement on the street parking.

Um people park.

I know we have it.

I don't know if you anybody can see it, but so we have the lines, and I actually drive by there quite often sometimes.

Um people park like all the way up to the corner of the street, and or yeah, to the intersection, I should say.

And you know, we have it marked off to where you cannot sold sometimes and also in front of the the grocery store.

Um and it's dangerous.

I don't want to get I don't want to see someone get run over or something later on.

Um so I would like to see enforcement on there uh for the parking tickets or something.

And so yeah, that was my comments.

I think that's fair, and I think that our police department uh is incredibly collaborative and a good partner with our uh neighborhood services and our zoning inspection.

So I I think we're well equipped to execute for you.

Maybe uh one more question, Dustin.

Uh with what you described where there was the zero, you know, dab that just goes right from the parking lot into the street.

By making these changes, will this give a more clear delineation to where the entrance and extra entrances and exits are so that people would not park there?

Obviously, it's an entrance.

Yeah, that's a great question, and absolutely it would.

It would it would make a visual clear delineation of where you can and cannot uh park and drive.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

Mayor.

Are you done?

Yes.

So in reference to uh 370 Ruby.

The petitioner, she she's saying we're she's not gonna park any vehicles on center or Ruby.

So that's a plus.

The problem we're having over there is the muffler shop.

So Dustin, now you're on board.

You took her you're working on that issue on Broadway.

I'm very happy.

We're not gonna talk about it, but you're doing a great job there already, so I'm happy about that.

I think the same thing can happen here, and the muffler shop.

I think we we just have to get on it and have our police department issue some tickets and and uh we can go from there.

That's that's what I believe.

I think I think this could work.

I think compliance with the flaw is a good baseline expectation.

And the bottom line, if this gets approved, they won't get occupancy until they improve the property to the specifications that our staff has put together with them, correct?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, all right.

We have a first and second you asked to table it.

There was no series.

We didn't vote on it.

We just talked about it.

There was no second table.

Is there a motion?

Okay.

So it's the main motion we need to go.

Is there a motion or table?

I didn't catch a motion.

What I said was I would I was thinking about tabling this because I wanted a uh traffic study, and then everybody just started talking.

So there was never motion made to go with that.

All right, so we need to move on to the main motion.

Okay, it is recommended said ordinance be adopted.

So moved.

Second.

Any other comments or questions?

Thank you.

It's been motion and second and to approve.

Councilman Thummit.

Aye.

Councilman Hugs?

Aye.

Councilman Ibarra?

Aye.

Councilman Marino?

I councilman Mudron?

Aye.

Councilman Quillman.

I'm gonna hold you to this, Dustin.

Okay, because I really wanted to table this, but now that we have everything out in the open with the problems are with the mufflers, the car cars and everything, and there I will vote aye.

Councilwoman Reudon.

Aye.

Councilman Cardinals.

All right, Mayor Darcy.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Next is the city manager's report.

I will be brief because we've heard a lot tonight.

So I was able to attend a number of community functions since the last council meeting, including the bank's bridal suites ribbon cutting and Joliet Public Library Black Road Branch Open House with some of our other council members.

We had some amazing local events last week as well, including the big house ball game and city square opening.

Um 66 was our first event out at City Square.

We will have a larger event on June 18th for a ribbon cutting.

So encourage everyone to come out for that.

Um May is National Historic Preservation Month.

We're doing so daily social media features throughout the month, focusing on Juliet buildings and areas of historical and architectural importance.

Yesterday was International Firefighters Day.

It's a day to honor firefighters and remember those who have died in the line of service.

Please join me in thanking our own Juliet Fire Department for all the work they do for our community.

The Neighborhood Hero Award program is officially back for 2026.

It's a program to celebrate residents who show exceptional pride in their property and contribute to the beauty and spirit of their neighborhoods.

Nominations are now open and will be accepted through Monday, June 8th.

That's all I have.

Next we have public comments.

Um comments on non-agenda items this evening.

If there is anyone who would like to address the council this evening on a non-agenda item.

Okay, okay.

Good evening, Maynard and Council Members and staff.

My name is Diane Matter, and I reside in Juliet.

Wow, not sure where to begin.

So much to tell you guys, but let's start with yesterday.

April 4th.

The force was really with Love's truck stop.

Thank the Lord no one was hurt.

It could have been a catastrophe.

A 20 town, a 20-ton excavator hit a two-inch plastic high pressurized natural gas line, which led to a shelter in place for residents in the immediate area.

911 was called.

The fire department that showed the fire department showed up.

There were 15 NICOR trucks that came to the rescue.

It was very scary.

They finally were able to squeeze the line to stop the pressurized gas from escaping.

Well, that was a close call.

It took many hours to fix the problem.

They didn't leave until 11 30 last night.

Some of the workers, NICOR was um left earlier.

If that wasn't enough excitement for you, here's more.

On Wednesday, April 22nd, around 10 a.m., the fire marshal came out to inspect Love's truck stop development.

We were informed that everything was fine at Love's Truck Stop, but he failed to see my neighbor's driveway with the that was left with the two-foot drop overnight.

What if there was a fire?

I commend him for his efforts and I thank him.

On that same day, shortly after the fire marshal left, a representative of OSHA showed up.

We were just entering the dangerous part of the road when we encountered the OSHA vested representative.

We were shocked.

That's the biggest and baddest people to come visit your development.

You seriously do not want OSHA to show up any time.

Allegedly, violations were found, and they were fined accordingly.

There were times I just had to leave my car on the road and walk to my home.

I just turned off the car and left it there.

What was I to do?

I needed to get home.

It has been a living nightmare.

We still have no mailbox to get our mail.

I know taxes come out.

I haven't got mine.

I don't know if I ever will.

We did get garbage picked up finally.

There's way too much construction going on to consider this to be far from safe.

Okay, let's talk about my trees, which are you guys are going to be seeing a picture go around.

My trees are going to die because the expigator damaged the roots.

When roots get damaged, the tree can no longer transport nutrients or water, causing the roots to slowly decompose over time.

I was told today by Peter Zubeck that one of my trees possibly is a heritage tree.

The ordinance 18302 states an arborist needs to be on site when excavators are involved.

There was no arborist when this happened.

A stop order needs to be put in place until this issue is dissolved.

Steve is well aware that he has killed our trees.

He has told us twice that he knew he killed our trees.

And that's the contractor.

Now let's talk about our fence and driveway.

Steve is also aware of the damage to our fence and the problems associated with our driveway.

We need answers on who is responsible for all the damages we have suffered through because of Love's truck stop.

We did not ask this, we did not ask for this, and we should not be responsible for damages caused by improper planning.

Now I'd like to touch on ordinance 14-17.21.

Signs regulation.

On page 207 and page 209, there are ordinances, regulations that I believe are being violated.

So I am asking you that you look at the sign that Loves has put up and make sure that it conforms to the city ordinances.

Now, I have saved the best for last.

Now, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the people at St.

Peter's Neighborhood Cleanup, waste management, all the police officers, the explorers, the CERT members, all the volunteers, all the people and organizations that donated prizes and provided donuts, drinks, and pieces, pizza, and also a big shout out to councilwoman Susie Ibera for also joining in a fun-filled productive day picking up garbage.

I also won some very cool prizes, so that really made it even better.

We also attended ribbon cutting after picking up garbage at the Rock and Roll Museum with councilwoman Ibera.

I had champagne and cheesecake.

That just melted in my mouth.

The scaffolding was ugly to see, though.

It's been there forever.

Is it ever going to come down?

We also attended the festival Friday night at City Center and ate at Richardson, which was very yummy.

My favorite car was Betty Boop, but there were so many others that caught my eye.

It was really a lot of fun.

I'm really excited for the summer to have a place in Joliet to gather and joy activities in the new city center.

Can't wait to see the dome done and attend the celebration.

At this moment, I would like to thank everyone that has put in all the time and effort to make this dream for the city center to become a reality.

I believe the city center is going to be a great asset to the city.

And you're going to see a lot of people having a lot of fun.

It will be a terrific meeting place.

I hope everyone checks out all the activities that are planned.

I'm definitely planning on going to see the rich the righteous hillbillies.

We can bring long chairs, can't we?

Or blankets.

All right, thanks.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to address the council this evening?

I just want to thank you for listening to our concerns about our areas and our neighborhoods.

I think the city's come a long way as far as its growth potential and growing.

But I do think we need to go back to looking at our city services, our neighborhood services.

There are a huge amount of abandoned cars, there are a huge amount of people with a lot of junk and garbage in their yards and in our neighborhoods that's bringing down values.

There's a huge amount of people who are not maintaining to walk down the street and you have to push trees out of your way because you can't use the street.

We need to go back and get neighborhood services to come through our neighborhoods again like they used to.

We we used to see them at least once a month, sometimes twice.

I haven't seen one out there unless we've called them.

And I'd like to see that become a bigger and better program for the city so that we can keep maintaining our growth and the happiness of our our uh people.

Thank you.

I would like to I would like to thank you too for your consideration in our area.

I would like to see a traffic study done up there, though, and we will continue to work with the new business and try to solve some problems.

Also, you put these uh nice little bricks up by our houses.

My yard is full of snakes.

I can sit out there, all the people.

There's snakes all over the place.

Why can't you go back to the concrete walls that we used to have?

You've got snake motels all over, and they're starting to fall over.

A lot of the places my wall had to be refixed.

So I wish somebody would do some consideration because I don't like the snakes.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to address the council this evening?

Oh God, what a night.

You don't know how to talk at all, but you know, when I heard last night, oh God, the talks about the panhandlers out on the Joliet streets.

You know, I pity for the for them.

I understand quite a few of them have their bad habits, drug habits, and everything, but you think they want to be out there doing that.

And everybody says, oh, they try to help them, get them in the shelters.

Well, I wanted to tell you all shelters are not the best place on the planet.

I don't want to ever go to shelter because they're terrible.

You know, when they you think shelters are heaven, and no, they're not because you know, when they get you up at six in the morning, throw you out in the street, you gotta stay on that street all day, and you don't get to come back to the shelter till maybe four or five o'clock in the evening, and you gotta be in bed by nine.

Well, a lot of people, you know, can't go to bed at night.

They can't just you know shun their minds off and go to sleep.

We know we're not robots.

A lot of people don't like shelters, and that's why a lot of people choose to just stay on the street and live and be homeless.

It's because the rules of shelters are just plain ridiculous.

They're you know, like I said, you treat you like a robot.

They expect you to live like a robot.

And you know, we just expected to sleep there with strangers sitting right there next to you sleeping.

People you don't know, you don't know who they are, you don't know their bad habits, or they're snoring, or they stinking at who wants that.

I therefore I think that the whole dilemma about you know, shelters is getting over.

You know, you guys need to understand how bad shelters are.

They're not heaven.

You know, and I've been homeless the third time in my life, twice by development, in which this last time has lasted forever here.

You know, it's not a place anybody wants to be is be homeless, you know.

We need more more I don't know, more funds to go for funding homeless people because if we could build, have everything else be built and everything for everybody else and everything, you know, we need more homeless shelters and everything for homeless people because homeless, you know, people are being put in motels and everything now because there's just the housing is not there.

Affordable housing, as we know, is not there for us poor people.

Or us disabled people.

SSI simply just does not pay enough to live on, no matter what.

You know, I suffer in you know for every day, you know.

I struggle to why should I get up in the morning, let alone try to get to sleep at night and everything.

No matter how many sleeping pills I take, you know.

Let's try to get to sleep.

Let alone when I do get to sleep, I think why do I want to get up?

What am I gonna do?

I don't have my life anymore to go outside and look at my flowers, you know.

When I go to the store and see flowers at the stores and I cry because I don't have my flowers anymore.

I don't have you know, I don't have my mom's property to treasure anymore and do my things anymore.

And you know, here in Dick Sports, you know, one thing that hit me with Dick Sports thing here when they're talking about baseball card collection, you know, a card collection.

You know, they talked about that one card they that they had, thinking they was worth a lot.

Well, I have my own baseball card sport card collection, which of course I lost because of whimsy trucking taking my everything I had from me.

And I had one of these rarest cards and most expensive, you know, the most expensive card in the country and in the world.

A hungest wag one of those rare homest Wagner cards.

On eBay, you know, over seven seven million dollar card, as well as my Michael Jordan rookie cards and all my other top player sport rookie cards.

I had it all, but I lost it all because of development.

Thanks.

Is there anyone else who would like to address the council this evening?

Okay, seeing none, we will move on to Mayor and Council Commons.

Um I'm gonna keep it long and brief.

Uh no, I just want to congratulate the city on uh you know, it was a great weekend with uh Thursday kicking off the uh the big house game at the prison, which was a great experience, and it was cool to see uh Bill Murray walking around also visiting a few of the businesses.

So we're just excited to see all this going on in Joliet uh this past week, and it kicked off the hundred year anniversary uh red carpet quarter for Ralph 66.

Uh, we've seen a lot of people from outside of Joliet that obviously been visiting the city.

Um on Saturday I was able to attend the Ralph 3600 anniversary telegraph ball in Springfield, Missouri, where Joliet was also represented as one of the satellite cities for uh this Ralph 66 kickoff.

You know, Joliet right now is really setting the standard on the map or standards place on the map for Ralph 66, and we're getting a lot of you know international travelers and stuff that are coming through here.

So that was exciting.

Uh it was cool to see the Realto also had a really big event, so you know they had you know pretty, I think they were about a thousand people that came through to the Realto on Sunday, which also activated our city square.

Uh and it was great to see that.

We had our first event uh with the Sounds of 66 and partnership with the City Center Partnership, which was also great to see.

So it's just good to see that finally the square is open and it's being utilized, and and you know, see the excitement on people's faces as they're approaching the squares is really cool.

And then lastly, just thanking, you know, the museum also uh opened up the doors so that uh youth baseball league on the east side of Joliet was able to have a whole day of baseball on Saturday to experience being able to play on those fields.

Um there's a there's a league that's been around for about 50 years in Jolie that also got to experience it on Sunday.

So a lot of families that haven't had a chance yet or have not attended any events at the uh at the prison, were there for the first time from the east side of Joliet and they got to experience the prison while the kids were playing, parents were touring, uh so everything was still open, so that was just really exciting to see.

Uh so just really seeing these spaces activated and the community taking advantage of was really cool uh and happening.

So just thank you to all the staff and and everyone that's had a part in and just kind of keeping Joliet exciting.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, I'm I'm gonna let you handle the uh all the big events.

You know, it was uh a busy few weeks, so yeah, I'm gonna pass.

Can I one more real quick?

Happy Mother's Day.

I can't forget that one.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.

That's all I have now.

So I just want to say that 100 million dollars in community benefits from the data center agreement is brilliant.

That's a lot of money, but I'm respectfully asking for some care concern and equity for District Five, particularly the East Side.

The East Side constituents would really like a grocery store.

But all of my constituents in District Five would like great sidewalks, amazing roads, family friendly economic development.

District five definitely needs some equity, so I'm respectfully asking for that.

I want to wish a happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.

My mother is amazing, not only an amazing mom, an amazing human being, and has a million talents, including crafting, cooking, baking.

So happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers in the city of Joliet.

Lastly, the City of Joliet has had two brutally violent murders in the last three days.

Two young lives cut short with these violent acts, and I'm asking for a moment of silence out of respect for the families.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I want to say one more thing to our city manager who this week has gone above and beyond, including everything that she did for the agreement.

I had two really pressing issues that were lingering on forever, and I've gotten as far as I could get with staff.

She promptly did above and beyond what was expected of her, so thank you.

Hey Beth, I just had a question.

Is there a way that we can possibly get into a in like a uh intergovernmental agreement with Comed or of some sort, or just kind of bring them to the table.

I know some of the street lights in our neighborhoods throughout the whole city, and I know Krista has been helping me out a lot, answer every question.

You know, she puts in the tickets.

Um so thank you.

But you know, comet takes months to to take care of these, and obviously it's not their top priority, but I know it's mine, and I'm sure the city council can join me on that and the mayor.

Um so maybe we can get them to the table whereas an agreement where hey, we'll we'll fix them, send them the bill or something.

I don't know, just an idea.

So I'm happy to try to get them in here to talk to everybody.

I mean, your struggles are my struggles, and all of us that try to work with Comed.

I mean, all departments do, and it's the reaction time isn't what we'd hope.

So yeah.

We need to do something.

Is already announced by others, uh the staff, uh I don't know how many of the staff, but uh uh I I saw lots of staff everywhere from the baseball game to all the events downtown this past weekend.

Uh thank you for everything uh that you did there.

Uh I think that obviously you say happy Mother's Day also.

Um but the the Friday May 1st actually started with me.

Uh for for me, the second graduation from the fire academy.

So a couple years ago they had a cla a large class.

They had another large class this past Friday.

Uh and I'd like to read uh names of the nine new firemen that we have now.

Uh Tyway Gannon, Dakota Meeks, Jordan Brown, Donald Katz, Ariolo at Ruez, excuse me, Ryan Bang again, Sean Flori Florian, who was developed at Tor again, um Davis McCallff and Marcus Stone, who is awarded the leader of the class.

Uh great looking bunch of guys, uh Chief.

Congratulations on doing a great job.

The back of the program probably has 40, 50 maybe uh firefighters who volunteered to help the training.

So it was a great opportunity for all these guys to meet a number of the other firemen.

And uh I'm sure it'll be great for the city of Joey.

That's it.

I'm up.

Okay.

Um I attended the many events this week.

Uh the Thursday was the ball game, and uh it was raining and calling, but a lot of people had a lot of fun out there, and that was good to see that so crowded.

We live 15 minutes from the park.

It took us over an hour to get home that night because of all the people that were here to see that game.

It was amazing.

Friday night was wonderful downtown at this car show, and the uh band was wonderful.

It's the big kick off for the city square.

Sunday, um, the Rialto was fabulous, great for the kids.

They had a magician there, they had uh balloon maker, and they had all kinds of activities for them and for everyone else.

They could take a tour, even go downstairs where all the signatures were from all the stars that have been at the Rialto Square Theater over 100 years.

It was great.

And then it was topped off by the movie Cars, which is the Disney movie, and to see all these little ones.

I was there with my nephew, he's three years old, and he was just having a great time.

He just couldn't believe it.

But the thing was he was scared of the organ.

He it was so loud that day, he goes, he stops the usher and says, It's too loud.

It's just too loud.

It was really funny.

So anyway, we had a good time anyway, and um I want to wish not only Mother's Day to all the moms, but to all the aunts and grandmas that step in to be aunts, uh excuse me, to be moms.

Mother's happy Mother's Day.

We celebrated my mom's hundredth birthday on April 18th.

It was great.

And her family in uh let's see, we we went to the uh Arbor Day celebration with uh the Lynn Thigpen Elementary School.

It was really a lot of fun.

I just love being around those little kids, the energy and everything.

So Jan, Sherry, Pat, myself uh enjoyed that day.

We also uh kicked off the uh redo of the the uh Westside Library, which was another good event.

I mean, it's it's so neat to be back in that building, and you look out the back window onto the forest preserve, and it's just uh a great spot.

Um the next uh thing that I think is really cool.

So we talk about great things happening in Joliet, and Brian Utavich has got this uh show, American Blues happening which draw a lot of energy, and this is just a shot of them working.

I think that might be Bluff Street one morning, but a really cool picture that Brian took from across the river at sunrise from Bluff Street of St.

Joe's Church.

Let's throw that one up there.

Oh my god.

When I show that to people, I said, what city in Europe do you think that is?

That's really cool.

That that's our St.

Joe's Church.

Let's see.

We also obviously the uh the big house ball game last Thursday.

We had some special coaching out there.

We had a celebrity coast coach on first base.

Look at that guy.

14 again.

Nice legs.

Yeah.

It was a great event.

You know, and Bill Bill Murray was so gracious.

He spent all of his time just talking to people, signing autographs, taking pictures.

He actually spent a couple extra days in town.

I think he really started to like Joliet.

So it was cool to have this event, and it just it showed what we can do when we uh work together.

So that was that was neat.

Over 5,000 people enjoyed that day, a little rainy, but still a great day.

Uh everybody's famous for 10 seconds, so mine was when the guy hit me in the belt with the baseball.

Um I pitched it, I didn't think he'd hit it, neither did he, and luckily it hit me in the belt.

So it didn't hurt.

But it was fun.

I mean, and all these reporters are great.

They they really brought a lot of uh positivity to Joliet.

So it was it was fun to have that event, and uh we thank everybody that worked so hard to put that on.

So then we talk about the city square opening up, and uh, you know, what a wonderful uh uh opportunity for the city to come together in a center.

This is the uh the lighthouse of the city now.

So this is what combines all the neighborhoods of Jolia, you know.

Until you have something like this, you have a bunch of neighborhoods.

But now we have a place that we can all join together, enjoy each other from one end of the town to the other.

Um that young lady that did that uh and Angelica Crystal.

That's so cool what you do with that bench.

That's the back end of an old Dodge pickup truck, and uh it's just it's just neat to see the talent we have in our community here.

And Shija Chin has just got such cool energy, and and uh while I was there, some some of the teachers from Joliet Central came over that were super excited.

And when we open this and we dedicate this in June, we want all those high school kids back that were a real part of making the magic of this sculpture for the city.

And it's gonna be a wonderful uh it's gonna be the being in Chicago here in Joliet.

We're gonna have people leave Chicago to come down here and see this.

So that's all I've got.

Uh God bless everyone and happy Mother's Day.

Thank you.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

So we'll all in favor?

Meeting adjourned.