The City of Joliet held a Pre-Council meeting on July 6, 2026, at 5:30 PM in Council Chambers. The meeting included a presentation on water conservation awards, discussion of consent agenda items, ordinances and resolutions, and public comments. No formal votes were taken; items will be considered for approval at the regular City Council meeting on July 7, 2026.
To the July 6th pre-council meeting of the City of Joliet, uh 5 30 in Council Chambers. Presiding is the Honorable Mayor Terry Darcy. We'll begin with roll call. Mayor Darcy. Council McCartiness. Councilman Clement. Here. Councilman Hug. Councilman Abarra. Here. Councilman Moreno? Here. Councilman Mudron. Councilman Fulman. Here. Councilman Vergon. Here. First, we'll have a presentation. April Grand Prairie Water Commission Conservation Challenge winner, Q2, 2026. Water conservation incentive program winners and intro for Q3 2026 program presented by Alison Swisher, Director of Public Utilities. Okay. I feel like I started. So we're really excited tonight to further recognize our water conservation winners. So in uh April, the Grand Bay water fishing communities had a water conservation challenge, and so we had members of each community take a pledge to conserve water. And the community with the most pledges was the winner. And the community the winner for Joliet was Lori Ludson. So really happy that Lori is committed to saving water and was our winner for our water conservation challenge. Thank you, Lori. And then also we have our ongoing incentive program and for Q2. So thank you for that. And each quarter we also have a kids challenge. This year, this quarter, the kid challenge was um collecting water sniff baseball cards, which um I'll give blood cards and groups for being extremely creative and coming up with uh 12 different cards, uh baseball cards with water uh conservation tips on them, and Felicity is our kids' winner. Um so again for Q3 now we have our new incentive um for our adults. We have a survey that adults can take to show how they're saving um water. Um and then we're gonna do our baseball card um contest again for uh the kids to continue to collect those 12 cards and submit them to be uh a winner. So we're really encouraging everyone to participate in these activities through September 30th, and they're all the information is available on our re-big water joliet website. So um encouraging water conservation. Um we also have a baseball game, a water conservation themed baseball game at the Slammers. Um the game starts at 635, but we're gonna have um activities starting at 530. This is a partnership with Will County Green that we've done for a number of years now, and so there's gonna be a lot of information at the game about how to um conserve water and the importance of water. So encourage we're participating in this fun um activity tomorrow, and we're also gonna be participating in in kids' fest and continue to spread the word on the importance of water conservation as it relates to um our switch to Lake Michigan water. And then lastly, just want to pat ourselves on the back. We were the recipient of a gold level water ambassador award, and so we have um been a gold level for a number of years now. Um, and the the um water ambassador program is um something the Illinois American Water Works Association sponsors, and it was created to elevate public perception, knowledge, and consumer education of the water industry. Um the program aims to accomplish these goals by presenting communication platforms and promotional content in a manner that's relevant, engaging and consistent. So we're going above and beyond with our water conservation activities uh in Joliets. We're a model to many other communities who want to engage in with the public in water conservation, and we're one of thirty-six communities across the state that has achieved this gold level. So that concludes our update on our water conservation efforts, and we'd love to get a photo with the council of our thing. Congratulations. Okay, seeing none.