You ready?

Okay, good evening and welcome to the City of Joliet Diversity and Community Relations Committee for Thursday, May 14th at 4 30 in the City Hall Council Chambers.

Can we get roll call?

Councilman Clement?

Here.

Councilman Moreno.

Here.

Councilwoman Ibarra.

Here.

Has everybody had an opportunity to look at the minutes of the September 11th, 2025 diversity meet and community relations committee meeting.

Yes.

I'm all good.

I have no questions.

No comments.

Good.

Can we get a motion to approve?

Motion.

Second.

All in favor.

I motion passes.

Citizen to be heard on agenda items.

Are there any citizens to be heard on agenda items?

Seeing no citizens to be heard on agenda items.

We're going to newer hold business, not for final action or recommendation.

Black Joy Update Parade.

Sorry, Black Joy Parade Udate.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

All righty.

All right.

This is an overview.

Say who you are.

I'm sorry.

Charlene Boyd, Special Events Manager, City of Joliet.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All righty, overview of the Black Joy Parade Joliet.

Uh the Joliet community is invited to celebrate culture, connection, and community spirit at the Black Joy Parade on Saturday, August 29th, 2026, with the parade beginning at 1 p.m.

This is a free family friendly event celebrating black heritage and history with attendees encouraged to line the streets, wave flags, and honor the contributions of the black community to Joliet's culture and economic legacy.

The parade will begin at the intersection of Chicago Street and Benton Street and will continue south to Jefferson Street, east to Scott Street, and return north to Cass Street.

Following the parade, a community celebration will take place in City Square from 2 30 to 5 p.m.

featuring a DJ, live van, food trucks, and a variety of retail and resource vendors.

There's also a map on the second page in case you would like to see.

Um the actual um layout for the parade will take place.

The event is being organized through a collaborative effort involving the Joliet City Center Partnership, East and South Regional Alliance, City of Joliet, and a newly formed committee of black community leaders chaired by Boise Walker.

The history is Black Pride Incorporated was co-founded by the late Dale Evans in 1987 to promote the positive aspects of the Black Community.

For 24 years, Black Pride uh sponsored parades, recognition banquets, essay contests, youth activities, and gospel concerts.

After the passing of Dale L.

Evans, the parade celebrations continued in his honor.

Spearheaded by the Unity CDC, the 25th annual African American Heritage Parade was held on September 22nd, 2013, led by organizers Mac Willis, uh Betty Gabin, John King, and R.

Dell Evans with the theme Building Our Future with a Spirit of Self-Pride.

So this is the drafted schedule.

The street closures will begin at 11 a.m.

Chicago Street closer um closer to 12 p.m.

Vendor setup in City Square, 10 30 a.m.

Parade line, lineup begins at 11.

Parade begins at 1, parade concludes at 2 30, and the after celebration is from 2 30 to 5.

Um the back page kind of lists um we have five different committees.

They are registration committee, and you can see the um those people that are participating in that committee.

We also have a fundraiser and sponsorship committee, marketing and publicity committee, logistics and volunteers committee, and then the city's career activation committee.

Um each of uh there's actually a couple more members as well that don't actually participate in the co in a committee, but they do provide their insight as well.

Uh would you like me to go through each of the okay?

Can I ask a really quick question?

Yes.

Did you reach out or did anybody on any of these committees reach out to the original founders of this parade?

Just like Betty Gavins on here and Dale our Dale Evans family.

I know is still around here.

So I just wondered if anyone reached out to that's all the questions I have.

Any other questions, anyone?

No, thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

We're very excited.

All righty, thank you.

Let us know if we can help.

Okay.

Um, can I add one thing?

Um, just so that you're all aware.

So I I just want to add that the parade this year will will have a limit of 50 units, um, similar to the Mexican Independence Day parade.

And I'm only noting that just because it's something we're gonna be promoting.

Um looking forward to expanding it in future years, but since it's the first time back, it will be limited to the 50 units.

Okay, that was it.

Do you have a question?

Do you have a question?

Oh, yeah, I was gonna ask.

Um what is the name of the the committee of the black community leaders or who's on the committee?

Just a question.

Which committee?

Uh the the one chaired by Bolsey, uh Bosey Walker.

Uh Garland Mays, Boise Walker, Veronica Robinson, and um I think those are the only four in four in that actual committee.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, and welcome to the City of Joliet.

Thank you.

Next, we are gonna have a CBDG update presentation by Bridget War Roar CBDG program manager.

Thank you.

And also, welcome to the City of Joliet.

I'm very excited.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, now you're fine.

Thank you.

Bridget Roar, uh CDBG program manager for the City of Juliet.

Um I wish and hope I could be as brief of that, but there's a ton of information.

Um so I encourage you to ask questions um throughout.

Don't feel as if you can't interrupt me.

Um, because this can be a very lively, good um way to get feedback into how to proceed.

So I encourage that.

Um I'm here today to talk about the CDBG, the community development block grant um programs.

We have a long history with HUD of receiving these funds.

Um they are uh the projects go live October 1st and they end uh September 30th, 2027.

So we're in a constant cycle of where we accept and do the applications, then we start managing the projects, and then we start right back in.

Um I kind of want to start with um let's rewind back to 2025.

The City Council had approved our consolidated plan.

Um within that consolidated plan, uh we have to do one every five years.

Uh we also do an action plan once a year.

Our consolidated plan, uh we go out to all the stakeholders, we talk to them, we talk to all of the subrecipients, and we go out to the public and we have open town halls and all that stuff in order to collect information on what the community needs.

Once we gather that information, we then um compile it into the consolidated plan.

Um as I said earlier, the city council approved that plan in September of 2025, and um then we sent it to HUD, and then HUD uses that information as to how we are allowed to spend those funds for the next five years.

Um we must also consider eligibility as a part of the application process.

Um as you see here, there are three main criteria.

They're called the natural uh the national objectives.

Uh you must be a low to moderate income person or within a low to moderate income service area.

Uh must be an urgent need.

COVID is a great example of that.

And um, or you must aid in the prevention or elimination of slum and blight.

Uh a popular project for that would be like demolition for you know creating vacant lots and cleaning things up.

Uh that being said, there are four categories that a project typically there are four categories that a project will fall into, one of which is public service, public facilities.

I use capital improvements in public facilities interchangeably.

So just kind of think about that as I talk.

Umic development and um administrative costs.

As you see in the chart there, the um the LMI amount, it actually takes uh effect June 1st is $68,000 uh for one single household family.

So actually, I would say that's relatively um you know the the average here in Joliet.

So uh uh most of our city does qualify within that.

Um this year we were allocated $924,000.

Um we have a public service amount of 138,000 and 138,608 dollars, and capital improvements, facility improvements is six hundred thousand dollars.

The reason why public service is at that amount is we have a 15% cap that we cannot go over.

So of that 924,000, we are only allowed to use 138,000 of that towards public service.

Um that being said, you'll see in a minute the applications that we had come in.

And that is by far our most competitive um category.

Um then of course uh capital improvements, they typically run a little bit more expensive, so that is the alternate uh funding.

This year, in order to receive applications, we did a uh ton of outreach.

Um we did five full days of open office hours where I sat in the conference room and had people come to me uh at any time uh throughout the day.

We did um one full day of virtual assistance, and then we did personalized appointments.

We also had stuff up on the website, and we ex we received only digital copies, nobody asked for any paper applications.

So that's encouraging to know that the application process is pretty simple.

Um and then work is kind of exciting because um you can see the totals between 2025 and 2026, and from what I understand, 2025 was also a big year for applications.

So we actually doubled our applications this year.

Um we received 15 applications in 2025, and in 2026, we received over 33 applications.

Um we also the request amount for 2025 was 876,000.

Uh this year it was requested 2.4 million dollars.

Um obviously it's gonna be tight because we only got the $924,000 allocation.

Something worth noting that I feel is is important to not only this committee but to the city of Joliet is that ARPA funds are running out, so a lot of people are trying to get those funds subsidized and by using the CDBG funds.

Um I was I was thinking in my head, sorry.

Oh, okay.

Um so speaking of applications, we have to grade these applications.

We got 33 of them in this year.

Um there are criteria that we re that we review, and there's a weighted scoring system is how it works.

Um the first category is a con plan, like does it align with our con plan?

Uh does it meet the national objectives?

Isn't in a redevelopment area like an opportunity zone that HUD would designate?

Um is it health and public safety?

How many people does it help?

Can we start you know shovel ready?

Are we ready to go?

Um budget realism is a very real problem that we have where somebody might submit one um one estimate to be done for something, and you know, they say, okay, it's a thousand dollars to get this roof done, and we go, oh okay, and we give them a thousand dollars, and then it turns out when they go to bid, it's a twenty thousand dollar project.

So we have to take those type of things in consideration, along with past performance and compliance risk.

You know, have they been a good um you know participant with the city of Joliet in the past?

Um do they have the organization organizational capacity to handle doing this project?

Are they putting any of their own funds in?

Is this a long-term solution or is it a short term?

And then what kind of measurable outcomes?

Uh wow.

Yeah.

So uh 2026, well, in 2025, City Council approved for 170 through 170,000 to go into a owner-occupied rehab program.

Uh we have not gone live with that just because as you know, my first day was March 30th, um, and the way the turnover happened with my predecessor, we just haven't been able to get it up and running.

Um, but we are making strides in that, and so we're asking for another set aside of 170 this year.

Um, and as you can see, the before and after picture, um, you know, we feel staff feels that it's a great improvement, and it's something that we should focus on with our funds.

So we're gonna be requesting that.

Quick question.

Um, I know you said owner-occupied, but you know how sometimes we have a lot of rentals where the owner can live on the top floor and rent out the bottom.

Does that still count, or is that only for like a single family owner-occupied homes?

I believe that that does count.

I would have to go back to the regulations, but I'm almost certain that that would qualify.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um, the good thing with CDBG funds is we are able to uh do the rehab on a property, but then not holistically have to do the house.

So that's something to keep in mind with this program is that you know we are able to do exterior, do ADA accessibility, uh, put a new roof on, do new windows.

We we that doesn't mean we have to go in and do all the plumbing and the electrical and all that, because that can sometimes be tied to funding.

So it's actually a uh CDBG is a great alternative to cleaning up houses and cleaning up neighborhoods and helping people afford the things that they can't afford.

Um the other set aside is our senior snow removal, um, which is a very, very, very, very, very popular program.

Um Dustin made me aware of that on day one when you know he said, Oh, we get all these calls, and everybody's so excited about it.

Um it's something that we plan on asking for this year as well.

Uh, that would be a 45,000 dollar set aside.

Um with that, you know, we do have uh you know a question to pose to the committee about this.

Um as of right now, eligibility restrictions are you only have to be 62, um, live within the city, and you can put in an application and it's first come first serve.

Um it's been under consideration and mentioned before.

Perhaps we should tighten that in a little bit more because it is so sought after.

And I believe last year the application was only live for a couple days before they had to stop taking applications.

Yeah, I think I think it was.

So can I jump in?

Yeah.

Uh because we had that significant storm in November, uh remember we had about four or five inches.

Uh so I had the uh the unique and enjoyable opportunity to talk to just about every senior snow recipient because uh we used a different contractor, that contractor was not performing.

We had to run them off and find a different contractor.

So I I got to talk to everybody who didn't get served, right?

And a lot of people said, Oh they didn't come.

I had uh my neighbor's guy do it for me, or I had my kids do it, or I actually did it.

So there's folks who are signing up who just wanted it.

And far be it for me to determine over a phone call if you need it or not, but they were able to pivot immediately and find an alternative solution where we all know that there are many, many people in this community that do not have alternative solutions.

So we're bringing it to you as an item of conversation uh for you to guide us.

Do you want us to tighten this up a little bit to make sure to help make sure we can't make sure 100%, but to be a little bit more intentional that we serve our most vulnerable uh population, or and it's a totally legitimate perspective.

You know what?

This is the application deadline, get here first and you get it.

Uh that that's that's also a totally legitimate and defensible position as well.

But we did think it was worth bringing to your attention uh for your feedback.

And you don't have to do you don't have to decide that right now, but we are daylighting that you don't you have until basically the application period, which is in October.

So you don't don't feel like you're under the gun right now.

But we did want to daylight that for you.

Thank you.

Oh, just a real quick question.

Uh when you say time up, basically, is this what the eligibility requirements that we have, are these the what we have now?

Yes.

Yeah.

So in most so senior citizens are considered what's called a presumed eligibility group.

Um so you can pretty much fund anything for a senior citizen, and that's how we've been using this program in the past.

However, HUD also gives us, remember when I talked about those LMI numbers, they also give us those as guidance if you're not a presumed eligibility.

So I would imagine that if we were to want to put eligibility in, you know, you know, income verification in, that we would we would use the HUD standards already.

And we would say, um, and I mean I can go back to the slide, but it's it's in the packet.

Um for the one single person there's low, extremely low, and low to moderate.

You could choose one of those categories as you know, those people are that their first come entry.

I like to talk about changing it.

Because if you had a pivot, you don't need this.

Like if you immediately had a pivot in your pocket, you probably don't need this.

I had a constituent that was like 90 years old on chemo.

She needed to be shoveled out.

But there's a lot of people that just do it.

Yeah, there's there's people in my gym that are 62 that can run like nine minute miles, right?

But under this, they would they would qualify if they got here first.

Yeah.

So yeah, I I would like to uh tighten it up, but yeah, how do we go about that is another story.

If you want to say uh Bridget, Dustin, bring us back a plan for us to react to.

We're we we can absolutely like there's 62-year-olds that are in better shape than most taking anything away from them, but let's get the people that uh really need it financially.

Uh their health is uh is poor.

Um they live alone they're handicapped.

Those are the people we want to focus on.

Okay.

I agree.

Thank you.

Yeah, we can bring something to this committee a little bit more tightened up and um schedule.

But thank you.

Um which leads us to moving forward.

Um we are ongoing scoring.

Every application takes me anywhere between an hour and a half to three hours, and that's if they do not have extra questions I have to reach out and ask.

Um so I've been doing that.

Um we need to have a second committee meeting in the month of May in order for me to hit my timeline.

So hopefully uh we can have another one of these and you can all meet again in a week or so.

Um and then we have to have a public comment period, uh June 1st through June 30th in order to meet the deadlines.

And then it would go in front of City Council for approval in uh July.

Then it's my responsibility to draft up the action plan that we send to HUD that outlines every single project, all the goals, all the dollars we're allocating, and all the details, and then I have to submit that before August 15th.

Yeah, so just to follow up on that, if you could go back one slide, Ms.

Rohr.

That next meeting that would happen in a week or two, that would be us uh bringing you the scores, right?

Like here very transparently.

Here's how we graded it, here's how they graded, here's how much money we have.

Here's our recommendation.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't say that.

Uh so it it's really hey, now you know before you see it at council, this is this is what it is.

This is what we're recommending.

Yes.

Um and the reason why the packets are printed is all of the applicants with a short description are listed there, so you can um kind of see the application, the application quality we got this year.

Okay.

Are there any questions for me?

Just have uh comment.

Welcome to the city again.

Um Caesar Guerrero was on this committee with Susanna and myself.

Why not think you were on it at at the time and collectively we talked about um and this was before you came here, we wanted to reach out more to more organizations to get this spread out more, and and I think we accomplished that um just by looking at the numbers.

Yeah.

So very happy.

We very much did, and uh you know, um what's what's really interesting about that too is um so the county also gets these funds as well.

Um we will get a lot of applicants that apply to the county, and then they apply to us this year.

We were a week behind normally what we normally are, uh, but we typically pair with the county and see what they're funding, and then we can sometimes go, okay, you guys weren't able to fund them, but they applied to us, so we'll fund them.

Um and to be honest with you, I wanna say off the top of my head, out of all of the categories, I think like eighty percent were funded Joliet City um nonprofits in the area.

And if you you know my outreach to all of these were phone calls, emails, um I got a ton that said, you know, yeah, Ibarra reach out to us, and you know, so that was really awesome.

Um but yeah, there it's a tightened community, quite honestly, with a nonprofit.

So it was really great to get all that feedback and get everybody and talk to them all on the phone and hear what their needs are in person as well.

Can you do us a huge favor?

Because when things don't go the way the public would like to see them go, they're coming to us with complaints.

Um Jackie Lozato, I probably shouldn't say her name anymore, but she would come to council like starting in January.

Okay, and like give a presentation.

Or was it January or February?

She came really early.

I almost feel like we have to poke the community and continue to poke because I found out about it personally with less than 10 days left, maybe.

Yeah.

And when the community gets mad about finding out about what 10 days left, they're getting mad at us.

So I I don't want to interrupt.

And I it was bad timing for you.

Yeah, it was good for the city of Jelly, yeah, but bad timing for you because it was like in the time that you came in.

But um moving forward for like next year, yeah.

Can we just start it um early and have it be done very publicly?

So even if you didn't get the phone call or the email you saw it on TV, and that would be great.

If you can do that, we would be very appreciative.

Very much so.

Um yeah, that's no problem.

Um and I think also because of my past experience, I already know a lot of the nonprofits in the area.

So I had you know, even with me leaving in the transition that that was um the may I will say this, the major nonprofits, they all know.

They all know it's grant season.

And they had they you know they reach out months before.

Um but you're right, some of the smaller nonprofits that need a little bit more help.

Um, they need to be nudged a little bit earlier.

My goal through this program is to be reaching out to them and helping them year round, quite honestly.

And not just being yeah, because a lot of them are lacking um administrative knowledge in general, and or they're duplicating efforts that another nonprofit is doing.

know it's grant season and they they you know they reach out months before um but you're right some of the smaller nonprofits that need a little bit more help um they need to be nudged a little bit earlier my goal through this program is to be reaching out to them and helping them year round quite honestly and not just being yeah because a lot of them are lacking um administrative knowledge in general and or they're duplicating efforts that another nonprofit is doing and so one of my kind of personal goals is to make sure that if we can get two nonprofits to work together and then they're servicing more people like that is more productive and more efficient so let's work on that so um going community meetings is something I think is very important and I've been um encouraged to do so um that's how I see this moving on um but I'm always open for suggestions and um my email I think all of you have my email um I encourage you to reach out to me I'm a resource for these funds or how to get these funds or I I had somebody the other day call me and they're like I know I don't qualify for C D BG funds but I was interested in other federal dollars what can I do?

And I walk through that process with them.

So yeah very good do you have any questions I don't know um for the economic development one I don't so I thought it was only two sections the public safety and the capital improvements do we always have economic development one that's very interesting.

Um economic development is a category that is not always funded specifically so it's kind of the best way to describe it is remember how I said public service has a 15% gap or a 50% cap we can't fund over that economic development is a weird niche where you can um fund it and it pretty much is a public service right we're helping you reach out to people and help you help people but they don't consider it a public service so within the category.

So it's been a way for us in the past because we know that our nonprofits love it's so competitive and they love spending in there so we've typically funded that so that it's kind of a little it I I don't want to say a workaround but it it it's a public service but it's not counted.

This year applications were so intense and honestly very well written and very well put together um I do think the extra workshops and all that really did help.

So we're we're grading everything based on you're starting at zero and you're getting your points so if the economic development um applications score high then I imagine that we would be funding that that would be part of the staff recommendations but it's not necessarily guaranteed.

Okay.

Thank you.

Are there any unused funds from previous years that you could recreate question.

Yeah so uh um for public service if they're unused funds they get rolled over to the next year as capital improvement you can't reuse them okay um but if you have capital improvements like if a project is canceled or you know we say you have done no movement we're canceling this project we do roll them over into the next year.

So as we have allocated 924000 there you know a nonprofit may have come in under budget um in that case we roll it into the next year's funds but you would see that into the staff recommendations so you'll notice if if we know that we have the extra funds you'll notice that it won't add up to 924 it might add up to 962.

Do you have any other questions?

No I I think it'd be appropriate to maybe set the date in a couple weeks we can do that right now.

Do we do that?

You can okay.

Then Laura Lauren Helen will tell Lord O'Hara 26 how about the you're gonna be gone yeah me yeah for the week or what no just that date how about the 28th we just do it two weeks from now same time can you try and set that over there okay at the same time it would be good for me.

Yeah okay that makes me so happy because I I'm worried about my my deadline so I want to say we could not have had anyone with more experience than you because I know of your works with the county and I just can't think of anyone else we could add with more experience.

I really appreciate that.

So this is a passion of mine too.

I just want to throw that out there that I really so when you guys call me or when you email me you're never bothering me.

And I love being questioned because there's always very weird nuanced federal rules and guidelines and I geek out on it and I love it and I look in the rules and and so I I encourage it.

Very cool.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome to the city is there anything else is there anything you want to address we have anything to address no is there any public comment is there any public comment seeing that there is no public comment can we get a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second all in favor aye thank