Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

I know it's a very nice day today.

All right.

Today is April 1st, 2026, and I call the Lake County Public Works and Transportation Committee meeting to order at 8:30 a.m.

In addition to being able to attend in person, remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom at the link on the agenda.

This meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

Can you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I'm collegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic.

Are you doing the roll call?

Yes.

Can I get a roll clock, please?

Yes, sure.

Member Kasbin.

Here.

Member Hewitt.

Member Hunter.

Vice Chairman.

Member Roberts.

Member Wasick.

And Vice Chairman gave us previous notice that she would not be able to attend today.

All right.

So we do not have.

Do we have any public comment today?

For an items not on the agenda.

I believe we have one virtual public comment, but it is for an item on the agenda.

So staff recommends we wait till that item five.

Sounds good.

All right.

There's no unfinished business.

Our new business item 8.1 is the consent agenda.

Can I get a motion in a second place?

Motion by Kasbin, second by Roberts.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

All right, onto our regular agenda, which is item 8.2, which is a Metro update.

I believe we have the direct our director, Gary Gordon, and the CEO, Jim Dorwinski.

Welcome, both of you.

Thank you for coming today.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'll just say a few words.

So for those that don't know me, I'm Gary Gordon.

I am here in the role as the your representative to the Metro board.

I joined about a year ago.

It has been a fantastic learning experience and really good to be involved in that.

So thank you for that opportunity.

Certainly for Metro, it has been a year of transition between the uncertainties around funding and governance and those pieces.

I mean, it was challenging, certainly presenting two budgets, two planning scenarios, the uncertainty went along with that.

I think it's a wonderful opportunity we have now to move forward.

You know, my commitment as the representative to Metro is to make sure that that opportunity is used effectively and not squandered, and we look towards the future.

Clearly, there's more change coming with the Nita uh changes and what those will mean as well.

Uh so I will certainly be um deeply involved in that and keeping an eye on that and share back with you as appropriate.

Uh and with that, I'll turn it over to Jim to give a day-to-day update on the operations.

Well, good morning, and thanks for having uh us here today.

It's always a pleasure to come out and uh speak with the counties that uh we serve.

Um, I'll take you through some slides, kind of giving up, but I certainly actually look forward to all the questions that you might have.

As uh Director Gordon said, is the year of transition.

Um, I still call it kind of right now.

We're in that purgatory stage where we're we're over here.

We haven't got to where we're going yet, and and there's still a lot of what I'll call uncertainty as we move forward this year.

So I'll start off with those of you who don't realize or know how does Metro work and it's just I'll just walk you through very high level.

I could talk about this for four hours if you had time.

Um, so Metro actually owns two lines, maintains and dispatches.

That means we control everything.

That's the Rock Island and the Metro Electric.

Those are bought in the 1980s.

Um the uh we have two lines that we own.

We got from the uh former Milwaukee Road.

They're now uh dispatched by the CPKC Railroad.

So that would be the Milwaukee North Line, which comes through North Lake County here in the Milwaukee West line.

It's not fun working on a freight railroad where you don't get control of the dispatching.

Okay, so we'll do we'll have a little bit more on that later in some of our challenges.

We have six lines that are owned and operated by various freight partners.

So the three Union Pacific lines, including the UP North line, which comes up through here all the way to Kenosha, UP Northwest to um Harvard and UP West out to Elburn.

Um and then the NCS is actually owned and operated by the uh Canadian National, and so is the Heritage Quarter.

On every one of those lines, when you see a Metro vehicle, that's Metra's equipment.

Metro owns all of what we call the rolling stock on all except one line, the BNSF line here.

Uh those are Metra employees.

Um just last year we brought over 850 employees from the Union Pacific to Metro as we've been doing a um change of services with Union Pacific.

Um BNSF employees, if you've been on their line, they'll wear a Metro uniform, but they actually are employed by the BNSF freight rail rail whale railway company under a purchase service agreement.

So here's our service levels.

Um you can kind of see that this is um um where they were kind of pre-pandemic, um, 2019 per se, right?

So the one line that stands out um is the NCS line.

The NCS line is still only at 70% of its pre-service levels, and that's because we've been having difficulties with CPKC, who dispatches that line and difficulties with CN, who dispatches the line from O'Hare up to Antioch.

Um, we'll talk a little bit more about that.

You can also see on some of the lines, um, we are either at 100% and on the weekends, we've really enhanced uh some of our schedules and various lines.

And and the results are um in that discretionary period where we don't see the typical five-day week rider, we're starting to we've seen the most growth.

Um and we've been seeing this basically since 2021 when we built our first uh regional rail pilot up here on the UP North line.

If I could just make a comment, I think one of the things that's challenging as we think about the service and fares and recovery and things is while the return is back, as you can see in those numbers in terms of true riders, they're not riding as many days.

So the riders have returned, but they are a two-day, three-day rider.

And so that is a unique challenge that that the ridership has returned, but not the volume that comes along with that.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

So looking at this slide, which covers really five years since the pandemic, our low day was April 9th, um, 2020, when we were down 97.5% of ridership.

Morning, Chair.

Um, and you can see that we haven't plateaued.

Um, every single year, we've still been seeing a slight increase in overall ridership on the system.

So that 188 says that's the average weekly rider.

We're popping over 200,000 here's and theirs.

Mondays are depressing by about 15%.

Fridays are depressing by about 30%.

And that's been pretty much solid for the last five years.

How does that look up here on line by line in Lake County specific?

This is what we've been seeing over the last three years.

So you can see the Milwaukee North line is up 23% over three years.

The uh dark brown represents the pre-pandemic.

Um see there on the North Central Service, even though it's up 25%, it's still way down compared to its pre-pandemic number.

And the UP North is doing well up 26%.

And uh again, seeing its pre-pandemic level.

The only one that we're seeing a decline on is Metro Electric.

And there's various different reasons for that.

I can go into if anybody want to, but really there's the three lines and what we've been seeing up here in Lake County.

Um, so I mentioned the fact that we have been moving to what's called a regional rail model.

So, what is regional rail?

Regional rail takes away the two big peaks, where typically that was the core of our ridership, like 90 90% of our riders only rode in the peak period, in and out, five days a week, typically up until about 2015.

Now we can look back and clearly see by the ridership patterns that this Friday work from home was starting in 2015.

It's super accelerated, obviously, uh during the pandemic and it's never recovered.

So, what is uh regional uh rail look like?

It's more frequent service throughout the course of the day.

So your gaps aren't two hours or three hours on some of the lines.

Um, I I tell people all the time, hey, you can take Metro to go to O'Hare.

Good luck as long as you don't have a commitment on your flight, because it's sometimes can be a three-hour gap on that current schedule.

But we actually go to O'Hare in about 32 minutes from downtown.

Um, so this is what regional rail does.

It just provides more of that mind uh-based uh thing.

So I can always pick up my train at the 38 and the 08.

That's that's ideally where we would like to get to, at least half hour service throughout the region, more peaky service, some express trains during the the what we call a peak period, which is now spread way out.

It used to be about an hour and a half to two hours, now it's about three hours because everybody tends to like not get up as early as they used to.

And then they tend to leave the office a lot earlier than they used to.

These are the patterns we're observing on a normal basis.

Uh a little bit on rolling stock.

Uh, the SD 70s there, those are rebuilt locomotives that were freight locomotives built in about the year 2000.

Metro bought 42 of them.

We're getting a last order in this year.

Um, fuel efficient.

Um, best uh emissions uh footprint that we're running right now out there.

I I love them because they got giant fuel tanks on them, meaning we don't have to fuel them every day.

We can sometimes, depending on the run, we can fuel them once a week.

Um, AC technology, that's what the traction motors run on, um, much more bulletproof than the everything else that runs on the old DC stuff.

Uh the new Alstom cars up there, um, they're in beaten built in Hornell, New York, and uh they're going through what's called the crush test.

Uh, it's a brand new car design, and under federal regulation, they have to hold 800,000 pounds of buff strength.

That means they have to build a frame and they literally have to crush it.

And if it bends at all, it fails.

And so then they have to work on that.

But right now it's going for its crush test later this year.

And then once it passes that, then they go into full production.

We've ordered 200.

Uh, we've budgeted for 200.

We have an um uh actual contract with them to receive 500, but we do not have funding for anything beyond the 200.

And then the bottom here, um, the Stadler train sets.

So I'm excited about these.

These are gonna be the first um battery powered, all battery powered train sets.

These aren't hybrids, these are all battery powered train sets in the United States.

Um, they're being built by Stadler USA in uh Salt Lake City.

Um, that that design there they call the flirt, um, the type of vehicle it is.

They build now a diesel uh MU flirts, and there's those are throughout the country.

Texas has some, um, San Diego has some.

Ours is gonna just change out the power car in the middle, it'll be all battery.

San Bernanino just bought uh three diesels and their the first hydrogen powered uh train set in the country.

So same same design, just changing out the middle car, which is will be the power car.

Single level train sets ideal someday for going back and forth to O'Hare on a very frequent uh basis.

Um Metro's bridges.

So you don't have to read all this.

At the end of the day, Metro operates over 926 bridges every single day.

We own 446 of them from the legacy uh things that we bought.

The others are owned by the freight railroads that we run over.

We've identified 210 of these bridges that really need to get in uh in the program.

We either need to rebuild them or replace them.

Uh the rebuild sometimes is uh upgrading the abutment walls.

You're not really changing out the steel.

It's when you change out the steel, it's where you get the biggest improvement.

That's where the roadway opens up.

That's where the columns in the center go away.

That's where the height difference goes away.

That's where we stop getting hit by trucks on a normal basis.

So we put together a program and we kind of said uh this program we want to do is over 20 years, 10 bridges a year, five rehabs, five reconstruction to do 200 bridges.

You can tell just by you know the simple math, it's a 20-year program.

Um, it'll attack this.

Um, it needs about 160 million dollars a year.

The reason I've got the 230 up there is because we've been working very diligently to put bridges into our capital program with the funding we've had available.

We have 19 current bridges in what I call the pipe.

They're either in construction, they're about ready to go out for construction, or they're in final design.

PNEPA's already done.

And that just alone before we start the program, needs a 230 million dollars.

So right now we're kind of on hold on that.

We are on a pathway to go get a uh a rift loan from the federal government.

That's all been put on pause uh by the RTA uh currently.

So that's what a bridge looks like when it gets hit by a truck.

Um structurally, every time that happens, you have to think about this.

We have to go out and inspect it.

And if it's not us, the freight railroad has to go out and inspect it.

Between the time it gets inspected and the and we know about the hit, we have to slow or stop trains over that bridge.

So each and every time a truck hits it, there's some effect to the railroad.

If it's during a rush hour period, it can start having a domino effect.

And even if it's only 20 miles an hour walking spree over that bridge, if it normally is doing 79 over that bridge, you can see how that can start um popping together.

So that's why the bridge improvement program is so important to us.

So this is what Metro's board looks like today.

Um, we'll we're gonna remain with 11 and uh six of our board members are now gonna duly serve, including Lake County here.

Um, what changes for us is we actually add that seat from the governor and we add a second seat from the city of Chicago.

The way that gets fit in there is we used to have five Cook County seats.

So now we'll go down to three Cook County seats, and then the Collar Counties elites uh remain with uh one seat.

A lot of questions from the lawyers about uh duty of care and loyalty to am I on NITA's board, am I on Metro's board?

And do I represent the county I represent?

So a lot of a lot of questions that uh will be answered as we you know figure this out over the next several months and the board start sitting for the boards.

As you probably know, uh NITA actually sits on June 1.

It's their intent that they're gonna go ahead and pass a quarter percent uh tax increase, which will take about six months to roll out.

And then that's one of the two major components that fund the fiscal cliff, the second one being uh a transfer of uh existing gas tax throughout the region.

So, what did uh NIDA do?

Well, it did a lot of things, it put a lot of committees in place and subcommittees, and it actually got rid of what's called a citizens advisory board.

So, all of including the RTA had a citizen's advisory board, they would meet like once a quarter and um talk about issues, hearing get some feedback.

That's all been replaced by these councils and and boards um and subcommittees uh on NITA.

Um, so it it'll be interesting to see again how each county's representation gets on here.

Right now it's not defined in the law, it just basically says these committees will be set up, and it looks like it leaves it up to NITA to determine how they want to set these committees up.

Another one directly from Metra was we were required to do a regional rail pilot on the Rock Island line.

The reason that Stadler train sits back up there is that's where we're gonna pilot that train set.

The first vehicles of that uh train are gonna be in Chicago at McCormick Place for the APT Expo this year in October.

So excited to see that vehicle get here.

After that, they're gonna actually go from a two-car train set to a four-car train set.

We've ordered eight train sets, and they're gonna run on the Beverly branch.

Again, this is the first in the country with batteries, so we're really trying to figure out what is the battery capacity with the cold of the winter and the hot of the summer.

So it's a 15-mile run from Blue Island to LaSalle Street.

We're looking at how we do the different charging.

Some of it'll be done dual purpose with overhead wire, some of it'll be done with plug-in on the ground.

Another thing uh NITA uh law requires us to do is study an extension to Kankakee on the Metro Electric.

We're gonna partner with IDOT on that.

They're gonna fund it, and we'll hopefully kick that off here pretty soon.

Feasibility.

And then of course, it talks about uh forming a task force.

Um, that task force is well underway, even though NITA hasn't sat yet.

The task force has met, it's being led by uh Tom Dart's group out of Cook County, and um, it's got participation from all of the uh municipalities, um, the state, um, the other counties.

I mean, it's Metro goes through 178 different municipalities.

I know pace is like 270, so I don't believe everybody's on the task force, but there's representation from the entire region on that task force.

And what they're they are they're required by the law within six months to start making recommendations on changes for safety and security, and then they disband by the law in three years.

Um, I'll put another bridge up here just because this one helps and and and the operations up here in uh Lake County.

This is the actual uh Fox Lake sub.

So this bridge 318 actually goes over the north branch of the Chicago River.

Yes, that little trickle under that bridge is the north branch of the Chicago River.

What we're doing here is we're gonna add a second bay.

So right at the picture on the right, right at the bottom where you kind of see those two tracks might come together.

That's called round out.

That's where the uh CPKC goes north, and then we cut over, go on to the Fox Lake sub.

That is single track for the first five miles.

This bridge is now gonna allow us to double track or put a siding in, which will help us with passing lanes, which will help us put in more trains on that on that route and save some time on that route because of having to wait for the there's only one passing lane right now in that entire subline.

So that should be going in next year.

I mentioned the fact that we brought over 850 employees from Union Pacific to Metro over the last year.

Um you're gonna read and continue to read a lot.

Um there's we are still at odds with UP over what we believe is fair, and I'll just use a simple term trackage.

Um, that they want us to pay this much.

We're paying this much, and we feel like somewhere in here is the fair market.

Because we can't come to an agreement, we had to go to the Surface Transportation Board, who replaced the um Interstate Commerce Commission back in 95 and regulates all rail.

Commuter rail typically doesn't go to the STB.

We went there and the and the STB acknowledged the fact that we are a rail carrier.

That's actually a big deal, that this is a railroad.

And now we have standing at the STB to adjudicate when we have differences with these big class one railroads.

So we are at the STB right now.

We're in a period of time where the STB is kind of busy with this thing called the UPNS merger.

And they're gonna they're gonna eventually give us a schedule, but right now they keep asking us to continue to try to mediate to try to find a way to trackage.

Trackage was one of the three buckets for the transfer that that was necessary to transfer suburban services to Metro.

Labor was one, that's done, pretty much.

Trackage is two, and the third one's real estate.

Union Pacific says they do not want to sell any of their real estate until the trackage is done.

And so we're in a we're in a position where we're to vent our tax dollars, you know, where they're not gonna say, well, you didn't give it to me in trackage.

Now we're gonna pull it out of you in real estate.

We're gonna we may be at the service transportation board for quite a while at Union Pacific.

I'll briefly touch uh the Union Pacific is obviously announced they want to merge with the Norfolk Southern.

I think um anywhere that the Norfolk Southern or the Union Pacific runs through people should be interested.

And that's a technical term, meaning you file for a letter of of interest.

By April 30th, the Union Pacific has to refile.

They they're they filed their original submission.

It was turned down by the STB as being incomplete.

In 95, all the rules changed.

And the rules said that you can't just maintain status quo when you merge these big railroads.

You actually have to improve prove interstate commerce, improve the public's interest.

These are big concepts in the legal world because Metro is the public interest.

And so you're the public interest as well.

So you file a letter of intent to be interested, and then you have access to everything.

Now, I'm not telling any community what to say.

I'm not saying whether you're for it or against it.

I'm just saying you probably should have an interest.

When the CPKC merger went down several years ago, um, a lot of people were taken by surprise when they said, Hey, how does this affect me?

And you were past the the uh required statutory period where you had to file for your your interest.

So right now, April 30 is when they're gonna resubmit.

It'll probably be 30 or 60 days after that.

It'll be in the docket of when you have to submit your interest.

And then at that point in time, you can determine again whether you you want to um be opposed, neutral, or uh approve.

They're gonna have 45% of all rail traffic in the United States.

I could tell you that the other class one railroads are a bit concerned that they're gonna monopolize the industry's supply chain because of the volume that they'll have.

I can just say that.

Okay, with that, I think we're uh wrapped up if clicker don't work anymore.

Click on I don't know if you want to click at one.

I think it just says questions.

We'll just pretend that there we go.

Questions.

There you go.

And there's a familiar rail yard.

There's our famous A2 interlocker that we light on fire every year that everybody talks about all over the world.

If I only had a dollar for every time somebody looked at it, we'd make make a big um dent net deficit.

That um our we have a vision someday to actually have this be grade separated, and it would be grade separated just to the east of there.

This is 43 switches that can go in any different direction.

Um they're operated by air, they're put there in the 30s.

They're sitting on a bridge, which is 1905.

Um, so yeah, we got a lot of work to do there.

And so um, if they were grade separated, Union Pacific would come up, fly over and go straight.

We would come up underneath Union Pacific, get on to the what I'll call the right side of this picture and just make that gentle turn coming to the you come into the Milwaukee West and the Milwaukee North lines without having to crisscross each other.

Currently, today there's 350 active train movements over this interlocker each day.

It's manually controlled by that little white building up there.

There's two people that literally have to sit in there.

One tells the other person what to do, and then they go ahead and they throw it.

Um, this is not modern at all.

This is Metro's last and final, what we call manual interlocker.

We retired one on the Rock Island last year.

This becomes our last one.

There is one more on the UP that they still own at Lake Street.

So there you go.

A little history.

Any questions?

Yeah, I know we're all gonna have questions.

I just want to thank you both first for coming today.

You know, as this has been so informative, so helpful.

As you know, in Lake County, Metra is vitally important to our residents.

And I think all of us probably get so many questions about Metra, what's going on with the changes, what's going on right now.

And so this is really helpful for us and for people, because I can say you can watch this presentation and then you can get the update.

Because I know a lot of people who want to know.

And then before we get a question, I just want to also thank you.

I love the highlight on that project and round out.

It's someone who took the Milwaukee District North uh line for work for many years, and whose husband takes it every day.

I have spent hours of my life sitting there waiting for the southbound or the easy you know, trains to cross.

And so that is a huge uh bottleneck there.

So you said this year.

Uh maybe.

Well, it's uh the design will be done this year, and then construction should it could start late this year, but the way construction seasons go in permitting, it'd be really nice to you're not Chicago.

If I were to say Chicago, I'd say guarantee we can't start till next year because permitting in Chicago is tough.

Yeah, but we're out here.

So hopefully, and then with that rail yard, is that where that has all the flame still?

Like where all just like when you drive over, it's all like fire.

And yes.

Yeah, no, it's that's always fun in the winter when you're taking the train back.

I do think to your point, one thing I'd say very quickly before questions.

I think that's one of the things was hardest for me to wrap my head around and still wrapping my head around is the fact that Metro does not own the tracks.

That is the biggest complication.

And I think from the public, that's invisible to them.

But the accidents, the delays are typically not Metra, the ability to add schedules, and even as the board was contemplating if we had to do service cuts.

If you pull back from service, you can't just add that back because we don't own the tracks.

So that is a real complication.

And I think when people have questions for me, that is usually the answer is Metro does not own the tracks for the things they have.

Okay.

No more questions.

All right, member Wasick?

My main concern is adding service to North Central.

So it goes through a lot of our communities, but the big gap that you mentioned is like during the middle of the day and on the weekend.

And I think more people would use it if there was more service.

I understand the issues with CN, you know, owning those tracks and everything, but um, we are striving to get more people on the trains, getting all of service up to Antioch, and we have several communities along the route that are under served.

So that's the first question.

What are you proposing to do to help us get more ridership on that line?

And two, and if there is such a thing as a list of the priority bridges that you're gonna fix.

So I I know of two bridges in my area that are showing rebar.

So all right, number one.

That one's easy.

Um we've been negotiating with CN and CPKC for about two years to add back just the pre-pandemic trains.

And it's not gone well.

Um, the remedy to that is to get it adjudicated by some official body.

I'm saying that in very coy terms.

I we're probably gonna have to seek a judge's opinion.

Um, that's not the route we want to go, but we've given them enough opportunity to allow at least the pre-pandemic trains back.

So that one's a difficult thing.

They did um, if you recall when the the Democratic National Convention came to town, they uh let us run hourly service to O'Hare.

And then they went ahead and thank you.

And then they went ahead and they told all the delegates get in buses because it's safer.

So it's kind of almost like the opposite of what um the DNC was touting.

They actually did the opposite.

But the people that did take it, we did survey them and they loved it.

They said do more of this.

We actually have plans uh to do an O'Hare Express.

It would add another main line from A uh 5 all the way out to B12, which is where we turn north, fly over the CN, land on the west side of the CN and just go up to the O'Hare Transfer Station.

Um, a lot of work, a lot of money.

Um, and I've been pitching that in Washington now for about five years.

Your second question about bridges.

So there's a lot of old bridges in this country.

The FRA just uh took and they're about to train 120 of their what they call field inspectors.

These could be people that inspect mechanical signal track, and they're training them in in bridge bridge inspection.

And um, the reason I bring this up is uh the freight railroads are not and we're not supposed to give out the conditions of the bridges.

They are targets.

I'll say it in that simple term.

What I could do in a non-public form would be to have our engineering folks come out, sit down and explain how we come up with the sufficiency of a bridge.

There's 14 different elements that go into it beyond just age.

And then from that, you can maybe pick your two bridges you like and say figure out kind of where they're at.

But we've been um since uh 2020, we've re-kind of did the way we look at bridges.

Now, one of the bridge projects coming up, which is going to affect Lake County here in the coming years is what we call the UP North Line Bridges.

The UP North Line had 22 bridges um in the city of Chicago that uh for 1890s are getting replaced.

11 were done several years ago.

The South we call the South 11 are gonna start later this year.

The project's gonna take like five years.

Now, the nice part is there used to be three tracks there.

So this is gonna require a shift, put a new bay in, shift onto the new bay, put the new bay in, shift from the old bay to the new bay.

So it's it's an engineering challenge, but it's not as bad as what we had to do when like we did Grayland.

We had to build what's called a shoe fly.

We literally had to build a rail bridge around the rail bridge that freight trains could be supported only for temporary basis, fix that bridge and then take that shoe fly out.

These this will be different, but it's going to impact service.

Just like any time you're on the roads and there's a little construction, it will impact service.

Uh so we're going to be very um diligent watching how the service runs through there when we start these projects and see if we have to make minor adjustments because a lot of it has to do where the trains meet.

If the trains meet at the wrong time, as you pointed out, they wait.

And so the same thing is going to happen on the UP North line, depending on how the bridge work uh uh goes down.

A lot of what we try to do, if there's gonna be bigger challenges, we try to do them on the weekends.

But again, uh if you got specific bridges, I could do that offline.

Yeah, I I'm just I think we'd all like to know if there's bridges in our districts that are on your list, and if they're not, how do we get them on your list?

Well, again, there's there's there's engineers that put together these the sufficiency rating, and the way they look at a bridge is it's 14 different factors come in.

It's not just the corrosion.

There's uh so again, if you want if you want to learn about that, we can we can have somebody come up here and meet with you.

Yeah, say and member you could just send their concerns to Gary and he could pass them along.

Yeah, Chair Hart.

I know you're for me.

Well, actually, you did ask right after Member Wasick in the meeting.

So go ahead.

Thank you.

And I'm so sorry that I was too late this morning.

And thank you so much for being here next to CU Jan and Gary.

Um, so I just want to circle back real quick.

I think you said June 1 is when the Nita board was starting.

I thought that's when the governor was going to sort of uh state who his folks were, because I thought it was the September one.

It's September one seated, June 1 is when appointments can begin.

Great.

Okay.

It does say sure we weren't needing to um, you know, just move some things up.

So we are fine.

The charity, it is my understanding on June 1, the RTA, which won't be called the RTA anymore, will hold a special board meeting to raise those taxes.

And so the same people that sit on the RTA today will be NITA on June 1 for that first official board meeting, even though the members might change out between June 1 and September 1.

That action is my understanding that action's happening on June 1.

Got it.

Okay.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

So just our board.

So we have somebody who currently serves on RTA.

That's Pat Carey.

So anyway, so we'll just figure that out and we make sure that we'll do the appointments in the appropriate time.

Um, so that was just one.

You mentioned about filing a letter of interest.

So this kind of a question for Matt.

Is that something that Lake County government would file this letter of interest, and then they could do it on behalf of the county board, if you will, and make sure that we're getting all that information.

We've been putting in our thoughts on that.

Um, and then I wanted to follow, and thank you about the bridges.

I had actually reached out to Jim.

I I don't know, was it like on Saturday or something like that?

I reached out to Jim about a bridge in my district and recalled that it was it's kind of confidential, right?

So um, you know, I know you guys made improvements on one of the bridges that needed it in uh in my district.

And so I trust that you guys are obviously looking at these bridges and making sure they're going to be safe for the trains.

Um lastly, the you were talking about the new line to O'Hare.

Um, can you help me understand why we would why that line is needed when CTA goes to O'Hare, or is there just too many people who want to use it and they can't get onto CTA?

Yeah, so it's it's probably three or four things that come together with this.

So the vast majority of the CTA blue line riders to O'Hare are workers at O'Hare.

So you're not grabbing your business travelers and tourists.

Uh the Eisenhower is is jammed.

Yeah.

And um, so there's a calling for, and there's has been for a while, to is there another way in Chicago?

Now on the CTA, it's a 45 to 55 minute trip, depending where you're getting off.

On Metro, we think we've got it down to 28 minutes.

Now, that's the challenge.

So when New Jersey, New Jersey transit tied into their rental car facility, similar to what we have, they saw ridership raise up within one year to 7,000 boardings a day.

Now that's New Jersey.

That's going to Manhattan.

It's a bigger thing, but you know, Hare is fairly large, and there's certainly a lot of people transversing on the Eisenhower.

So it's not about taking away anything from the CTA.

They're they're probably some people reasons people probably don't ride the CTA is is time, uh crowded.

Those vehicles aren't really built for suitcases.

One of the things we would target in building an O'Hare type transfer vehicle would be one that's kind of, you know, it's got the suitcase racks and everything that you would need.

Thank you.

Member Hunter.

Thanks, Chair.

A couple of things.

First, your knowledge on trains is incredible.

Um you've had to do this since a little guy.

But uh, I I grew up uh on the East Coast and my family was involved in trains.

And it was it's so it's always kind of been in the background.

I echo what member Wasick said regarding the North Central line.

That's a real shame because it runs right through I handle Antioch and a lot of Antioch in Lake Villa specifically, and they're constantly asking for it.

And all I can say is the same thing that you said.

It's tied up in in politics way above my head.

Um, but um uh I echo that.

Uh Curie, uh and the work on the Grayland stop.

Thank you.

It's done finally.

I mean, that was a real mess.

Um, especially if you want to you got off there, just wanted to go to the tavern on the other side.

You you were walking a long way around.

So I th that's that's very nice.

Thank you.

Um the resale value on the Allstead cars or on the cars themselves.

You had shown the the the 200 cars are on order that were 500 in order, you're gonna take receipt of 200.

What are we what is roughly one of those cars cost and what's the resale value of the ones you're gonna take out of the system?

And where do they potentially go?

Yeah.

Okay, so they cost about 3.5 million.

Um on average, cab cars cost a little bit more, but if you blend them together, it's about 3.5 million, and it doesn't include the non uh uh one-time engineering cost.

Um so when the last time we bought cars was 2005 to 2006, we bought uh 300 cars.

Um we did have a tremendously difficult time finding places where the old cars could go.

A lot of cases they just ended up, some you know, few in a museum, but we were disposing of you know near 200 cars back then.

And so there were some places they they did land.

Uh Tennessee ended up uh starting up commuter service down in Nashville, we'll kind of knock on their door, go, hey, you want some of these um stainless steel ones?

Now they're old.

The cars we're gonna be retiring are 1953 to 1980.

Um they're they're not EDA compliant, they don't have you know the modern um ways to do maintenance on them.

So other than museums, there's a couple spots in Michigan that have shown some interest uh that they want to start up some um shortline type excursion service that we've been hearing about.

Well, we have to by by uh Illinois law, we're gonna have to put them out for sale.

Sometimes what happens is we end up paying someone to take them because if they have asbestos or lead on them, then the abatement costs kind of outweighs the scrapping costs.

And a lot of this will be driven by the the steel market at that time.

But most of these cars have been through abatement when they went through, you know, one of their many rehabs.

Part of the reason I asked is my father's company made those cars that you're gonna get rid of.

They worked for Bud Company.

So that was part of the their deal.

So if you guys want some up in Lake County here, we can get you a really, really good deal.

Member Hunter, can I maybe add a few comments to what Jim said?

One, um, I just for everybody's understanding, you asked about a station, like the tracks.

Most of the stations are also not owned by Metro.

They may be municipal or others, but most of the stations are also not Metro owned, as well as the parking around the stations as well.

So just as a point of of understanding there.

And then in terms of the cars, um, you know, Jim talked about how long it's been to replace cars.

One of the things that I found so impressive when I joined the board of Metra, I spent a few days visiting facilities, and I went to some of the facilities where the men and women are rehabbing the old cars, tearing them down, rebuilding them.

It is remarkable what they're doing to rebuild those and the cost savings of refurbishing versus replacement.

So it's unusual to replace them because of those service centers, and the cost savings on those are huge.

That's part of the benefit of being stainless steel too.

I mean, at least the carcass stays alive.

It's just everything else.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks.

Member Roberts.

Well, I guess after all of this, everything has been answered.

I uh thank you so much.

What a great presentation.

Everything I wrote down, somebody asked and answered, and trains are fascinating to me and my family.

My son grew up on trains, playing with trains.

I'm surprised he wasn't a conductor, but anyway, thank you for the presentation.

We're hiring.

Well, he went a different route, but remember Kat.

I want to thank you for taking the time to be here today.

Um, I was able to tour some of those um refurbish trains and and learn about them and the cost savings.

I think you were there with me, Gina, and so is uh Chair Hart.

Um thought that was fascinating.

Uh thought it was a wonderful uh use of tax dollars.

I was quite impressed.

Uh pride proud wife of a uh three-time awake rider on the Milwaukee North line.

Um I I really have no uh questions, just thank you for your leadership.

Um I I was significantly edified by your presentation, and I'm interested to learn about the the fact that we you don't own the track and the the issues that that brings up.

I'm I'm grateful that you included that today in your presentation.

And I will be reading more about it um as as uh we move forward.

So thanks for being here.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

And we have somebody online, member Frank.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks both for the really great presentation.

Uh two quick questions.

Uh Cher Hart was asking about Metro service to O'Hare from from Chicago.

I thought she was gonna ask about the uh North Central service from Lake County.

I'm curious.

Has has there been any discussion?

Is there any plan to improve the connection there for riders who choose to take the Metro to O'Hare from Lake County?

You've got to take your luggage across two streets, across through the entire building just to get to the people mover.

And as you mentioned earlier, when you're trying to travel, you're looking for ease of connectivity if you're taking luggage or children and or both, and you're looking for uh timeliness.

And it doesn't seem like it would be a real challenge to build a little bit of enhanced infrastructure to make it easier for people to get from the metro platform to that people mover so you can get to the terminals.

I think you'd find enhanced ridership if there was something that we're gonna invest in.

And then quickly, my second question is is there any conversation or planning about connecting from Kenosha to Milwaukee on the UPN.

Um, thank you for those questions.

So starting with O'Hare, you know, if I had my way and and and all the money in the world, we'd actually go underneath O'Hare and we'd end up in probably Terminal Five.

Um, that was our discussion we had with O'Hare when they were setting up to do that reconstruction of Terminal Five.

The money's not there though.

And uh so we probably cut off a lot earlier.

That'd be the ideal thing, just like a modern city.

Um, to your point about the the walking across two streets, absolutely, that's that's the challenge right now.

Um, one of our visions in this idea of doing an O'Hare Express train would be adding another track right next to that uh rental car facility and then facilities would take you to the third deck, and then um either you know, gangway on the outside of the the rental car facility or you know, covered or moving pedestrian way, whatever to get people over to the um people movers.

That would be you know the ideal part of the entire project.

The second question you have about Kenosha to Milwaukee.

We've met with Wisconsin several times.

Um there's um railroad, no, no, not they're not a railroad.

Um, what are they?

They're investigator committee called Mark, Milwaukee area racine Kenosha.

They want to um, they've talked with us, they've talked with UP about building commuter service from Milwaukee to Kenosha, which obviously ends up in Chicago.

We've advised them to get, you know, kind of formalized and actually to get county back.

There's three counties there.

They've got to get the different county backings.

You have to have a funding source.

You have to find the capital dollars.

That track going up there is 30 mile an hour at best, and it would need all upgrades of what's called positive train control.

So you're in a fairly significant dollar range to upgrade tracks to actually get significant service on that line.

But there is a lot of interest uh from Kenosha and Racine in Milwaukee on that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Good.

All right.

And then I and I and I have a couple questions myself.

So as someone who lives by the Libertyville train station, I have a lot of neighbors and people who take it every day.

And so they what they've been asking me is when is it going to get better?

Right.

I mean, there used to be four trains between seven and seven thirty.

Now there's one.

You miss that train, it's 50 minutes to the next train.

And then there's some express.

And so what I keep what I've told them is hey, there's going to be a new board, there's a new funding source.

Um, it's going to get better, the conditions are going to get better.

The air conditioning is going to be broke all the time, which is a complaint I hear from a lot of people how hot it is.

Um, the I tell them the trains are going to be improved, and also there's going to be improved safety.

There's still safety concerns.

Um, and so is that correct?

So is it when this starts?

Because I say just be patient.

So that my whole mantra is just be patient, things are going to get better.

Um, and I'm like, and I know the I think the tax maybe start July or 1st, but then it won't be like you won't get the money dispersed for like six months.

So I'm like, it's gonna be another year, right?

But is that is that what the plans are?

Like, will there be more trains?

Um, you know, because there are a lot less trains.

Are you looking at more expresses?

And with facing again.

This is Milwaukee District North.

Yeah.

But not just on my, I mean, I'm sure it's not just you know, Milwaukee District North and Liberty Vault, but it is um, you know, people are willing to put up with this for a while, but it's it is, you know, they're they're willing to go back to work in person, but this like there's only one train instead of four, you know, and you're right, people are going home.

Well, people I know are going home earlier because there aren't that many trains, you know, to go home early, you know, at all.

Where there used to be, you know, when I back in the olden days, you know, there was a you know, you know, 454, then there was a 504, there was a four, you know, 5'11, and now there's just you know, five uh 450 or a 520.

You know, it's it's lett less.

So do you think we'll is the plans, or is this kind of what we're working with?

And we're you're just gonna try to make this service better.

No, so again, we've been negotiating with CPKC who dispatches the Milwaukee North line for about four years, and they've been giving us a stern no that they don't want to allow us to even put back on pre-pandemic service.

They've also been giving us uh and and they'll use terms like, well, unless you make all the proper improvements.

So we have to make improvements to our lines so that we can run our trains and protect their capacity.

This is me being a little facetious.

Because we went to we actually oppose the CPKC merger based on some of what we're now experiencing, saying that, well, their future capacity is not impaired, but our future capacity is completely impaired by this merger.

And they're saying, well, the organic growth is only projected to be eight of these trains and four of those trains.

It really doesn't matter if it's eight or four.

What matters is is the line's capacity actually being utilized.

And those are those extra trains.

And so what we have in the contract right now is what's called protected windows, and they're very distinct.

And they'll say from 315 to 5 o'clock in a northbound direction on main track two from mile post eight to mile post 17, uh, metric can do is whatever it wants.

But you got to get those trains into that sector.

So it basically builds these blocks, build rush hours and they build rush hours based on 1980 ridership patterns.

So we've argued that the contract needs to be revisited.

And unfortunately, the people that sign that contract uh signed a 75 year agreement.

Wow.

So we're in like your 40s, and so we're at a point where we're saying we're gonna have to go adjudicate the differences that we believe are our rights and their rights within the contract.

So if we could get the dispatching, um, if they would allow those trains there, we'd put them on tomorrow.

So it's it's really it's we're gonna have to unfortunately go to court.

That is really important to know.

So even though the trains were there before the pandemic, like once they were away, then you can't just put them back.

No.

I think that's important for people who ride to understand.

Yeah.

And it's because the merger, and so they're the ones that are.

Well, it's partly because of the merger.

What I would argue is even though rail traffic in the US shifts all the time.

Right now it's in a lull, meaning car volumes are down, commodities are way down.

That makes freight trains shorter, it doesn't make them less frequent.

And so the trains are there, but they're like, well, when the trains get longer and we need to split this into two trains or something like that, they call that their future capacity.

And they always get worried, and this is across the country.

They get worried that you put a passenger train in there, it never leaves.

And so there's this argument that we have, being commuter, being the public interest for commuter rail or regional rail, that we have a right to that, that space as well, and that there's no um official way to define capacity.

So Amtrak's a little different, and Amtrak actually has statutory rights when they were formed in 71 that said they can get access to the to national railway network.

And it had to be on lines where pre-existing passenger trains were.

That's why they can go to Milwaukee.

They can't just arbitrarily add more trains, but they can basically use the STB to push their way in and say, I want to add two more trains, and then they would, you know, adjudicate with the freight railroad and say the freight road might say, well, you got to put in two more sets of crossings or another siding that's five miles long, so we can do this one pass every once a month or something like that.

Yeah.

It's uh, I'll tell you what, uh, you want to find a place that's got unlimited resources in the lawyer world, go go mess with a class one railroad.

Yeah, well, we've yeah, even yes, putting signs by them can be difficult.

Well, I think that's really important for us all to understand and for the people riding it to understand.

So, do you expect so but you're so you're trying, but maybe it would have to go to court?

Would it be like federal court or whatever adjudicated railroads go to?

Yeah, we've been again trying to really work with them, you know, honestly show that they're they're a decent partner.

I mean, they dispatch us out of Kansas City and they dispatch us fairly, I believe.

Yeah.

The point is if you're only dispatching this many trains, how do we ever get to the point where it meets the uh needs of the region?

And I always like to bring out two pictures.

I like to show them.

There's a picture of a uh Milwaukee Road uh commuter train somewhere on the on the west side, and two cars on it.

That's 1980.

And that same train over time is developed into three nine-car trains within that same you know, box and window.

So as the suburban sprawl has occurred since the 80s, the the railroad kept up with it only to the pace of where the now the CPKC is is halting our our progress of um adding more service.

And not even the pre-pandemic.

All right, and my last quick question is what's a train set?

Is it train set?

Because it's like the is that smaller trains than you we had pictures of them where like the engines in the middle, and it could you like doesn't do the more frequently or all right?

So a train set is usually a fixed amount of vehicles that are all together.

And so they can say call like there's a on our cases there'll be a cab on both ends, there'll be a power car in the middle, and that'll be a train set.

They'll stay hooked together.

The everything else that we run, since we take it apart, put it back together, we call it a consist.

And so the consists could have, you know, nine cars in it, eleven cars in it, or four cars in it.

But because it can get taken apart and put back together, it's it's not a train set per se.

Those other Stadler vehicles will be train sets.

All right.

Well, I look forward to seeing them.

All right.

We could honestly talk to you all day.

We also enjoy trains and transportation here, but we've taken up a lot of your time.

So we really appreciate you both being here today.

I hope you know we continue the conversation.

It'll be interesting to see you now with the new board and improvements, but also like how we can be helped too.

Oh, we can help too, like speak to our constituents about these issues because um just being here today has really helped, I think, our communication with um with other people that we we talk to.

I'll just give one last and this is just um a preview of an opinion.

And I think it again, it's the NITA is now a law.

They need to read into the law.

The new board members will need to understand the law.

And again, where's the duty of care and the fiduciary responsibilities go to be determined in the near future?

In 2030, I believe that's when the formulas all change.

And so the formulas right now are gonna have this hybrid blend of number of trips, and I'm talking about the service boards.

So number of trips, distance, and vehicle revenue hours.

So under number of trips, CTA wins every time because they do what's called unlinked trips.

So they can do a million trips a day.

A lot of those are free trips because people went from this to that, and they didn't have to pay a second time.

Metra has a a fair product today that allows if you buy a monthly, you can buy a CTA Connect pass for 30 bucks, and you can ride all CTA and pace for the entire month.

It's a actually fabulous deal.

We we marketed it.

Um, we get about six percent takers of uh all Metra monthly sales.

Um NITA wants to take over all the fares, they want to eventually get to a universal fair product, which will probably lead to something called fair capping.

And fair capping used all over the world, arbitrary number, 150 bucks.

Once you hit 150 bucks, the rest of your month's free.

And so it's almost like use it, use it, use it.

If it's a more expensive, less expensive.

But once you hit your fair cap, the rest of the month's free.

And that's the way a lot of um progressive uh cities across the world work.

So they may not matter, but after 2030, there's there's a distinct possibility, areas like the outer counties are gonna see less of the actual funding pool um out in the suburbs.

And so right now, before we went into the pandemic, we had to do a 50-50 recovery ratio.

It was actually a blend of all three.

And then in the future, that recovery ratio drops down to 25%, like actually in 2027, which we won't even meet next year.

We're gonna have to have a waiver just for year one, even with the funding, because um just as a as a system, we just won't make 25%.

And then they'll have to adjust fares and figure out how to balance that 25%.

But it's worth having people take a look at and then advocating for what they have to represent when it comes to this this formula, which is not defined.

It it literally says these are gonna be the things that are gonna be measured, but it doesn't say what percentages are gonna be weighted on.

So it got plenty of years to do this right now, but it's going to be a change.

Yeah, we'll have to definitely keep touching with our representative.

And thank you for highlighting that so we can look at that.

There's lots of things to think about here.

Thank you.

All right, thank you both so much.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

So now we are into public works.

Um, item 8.3 is a joint resolution authorizing the first amendment to the agreement for sewer disposal between Lake County and the North Shore Water Reclamation District.

Can I get a motion and second?

Motion by Robert, second by Hunter.

Good morning, Director McFarland.

Good morning, Chair and committee members.

Austin McFarland, uh Lake County Public Works Director.

Good morning.

Emily Carey, Assistant Director of Public Works.

This is a um intergovernmental agreement between the North Shore wastewater reclamation district and the county.

We add a 10-year agreement that ended last November.

And that agreement provided wastewater services to customers in the Northeast Central region.

And some of those villages includes Grays Lake, Wildwood, and Gurney.

Both parties, if there's a uh due desire to extend the agreement for an additional 10-year period.

All the elements of the old agreement are embedded in this updated agreement.

Um the exception is that there is a rate increase of 20% in the new agreement.

The state attorney's office did take a look at this IGA and the sanitary district did approve this agreement back in February of this year.

And I approve on recommend this update.

Yeah, thank you.

And I know you were you and your staff and everyone has worked really hard on getting this.

And so it's really like a 10-year um just for another 10 years.

And I believe like the rate increase is set by North uh the reclamation district, right?

The North Shore water reclamation district.

So this is just you know, continuing on our part.

Member Roberts.

I was can I ask a question about that rate increase?

Is it always 20% every 10 years?

Or that's huge.

I I know we add a rate increase from them, I believe back in 2019.

That was 30%.

Oh my but it's that's we we with us voting on this, we agree that it'll the 20%.

We can't request it.

No, I don't think I think that it's set by that by that's not part of like our just that's why I'm curious.

Yeah.

And just keep in mind it's maintenance and it's it's it's the issue that's faced by a lot of reclamation districts in not only meeting the new regulatory challenge, but dealing with the the infrastructure that's at their facility.

How do they get how do they move forward and and keep up with services?

All right, thank you.

Member Wasick.

I didn't have a chance to read the attachment.

No, it's it's uh it's a one-time increase.

It'll move the rate from 274 to 329.

And I'm assuming like all the other water rates we get in our our villages, that's gonna be embedded in the fee that uh the village charges us uh for these services, right?

Right.

Okay.

So and the I'm assuming that they have some capital priorities that they're investing this money into.

Yes, there is uh significant amount of work they want to do with the Gurney facility, and so this is going to be used to address those improvements.

And this is strictly for the uh sanitary sewer services and uh the water.

You know, the primary information we got from them was to do upgrades at the Gurney facility.

Okay.

All right.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

Any other questions?

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Item 8.4 is a presentation and discussion regarding amendments to the water, sewer, and pretreatment ordinances of public works.

I believe we're having the discussion and presentation at this meeting, and then our next meeting, we will do the vote.

All right, it is.

All right, good morning once again.

I'm here with our engineering supervisor, Brittany Sloan, and today what we'd like to do is to present um some information to you on our ordinances.

These ordinances have been in place since around 2019, I believe.

And so the purpose of these ordinances really is to establish the rules and regulation regarding how does the public or private entities or businesses use our water and sewer services.

How do they connect to it?

What are the rules?

Of course, you do understand that bow water and sewer are heavily regulated by USCPA and IEPA.

And so our duty as providers of the service to make sure that folks who are connecting to these facilities on the standard rules.

So we put together these ordinances to share those with folks who want to connect and also the users to make sure they understand the rules of the road, and that's the purpose of these ordinances.

Why are we updating these right now?

The big driver for the update comes from USCPA.

USCPA is requiring most all wastewater facilities throughout the state to have a pre-treatment program.

And so that's the big driver for these updates.

The pre-treatment program affects our pre-treatment ordinance and our sewer ordinance.

It does not impact our water use ordinance.

But since we were taking advantage of update in those two, we felt it makes sense to there were some modifications that we may wanted to make to the water ordinance.

So we're bringing all three before you today, but I just want to make sure that you understand that the primary driver is the impact on the pre-treatment and the sewer ordinance as dictated by USCPA.

The other thing I want to point out in the you know, we talk about a pre-treatment ordinance and a sewer ordinance from an USCPA perspective, there's just a sewer use ordinance.

Internally, we make the distinction because it's just easier to manage the two differently, but I just want to point out to you this from a USCP standpoint.

So there's the sewer ordinance.

Within our sewer ordinance, there's your CMOM program, your fog program, and your pretreatment program.

So when you look at the ordinances before you, you will not see these definitions in the pre-treatment ordinance.

All the definitions are embedded in the sewer ordinance because from their viewpoint, you just have a sewer use ordinance.

So I just want to make sure that you you have that distinction.

All right.

So what have we done so far with all of these ordinances?

Um we've shared them with our partners with other departments.

We've shared them with our consultants and contractors, and the idea is just to get these this information out so we can get feedback.

Um both the sewer and pretreatment ordinance, those were shared with USCPA.

They were reviewed by the USCPA and approved by the USCPA.

So the ordinances before you have been reviewed and approved by that agency.

Any formal pre-treatment program that that is authorized by USCPA must have at least a 30-day public notice.

And so these program, um, this pre-treatment program for the county was given a 30-day public notice, and the USCPA was kind enough to do that on our behalf, and we did not receive any negative comments regarding the proposed formal application of a pre-treatment program for the county.

In addition, we worked with our communication partners to get this out on the website to solicit public comment as to any concern with these ordinances.

And so all these comments, both from USCPA and our partners on the public were reviewed and adjustments were made where necessary.

So for now, what I like to do is to turn it over to Britney to walk you through and all we're looking at today is just the major changes for both the water, sewer, and pre-treatment ordinance.

And Britney would start the sewer for us.

Thanks very much.

Beginning with drinking water, our overarching goal in looking at chapter 52 has been to align ordinance language with our current practices.

So there are no applicants should expect no new surprises from the language that's here.

Um, and that's especially evident in point B that the county must review plans, permit and inspect installation of new sections of pipe.

This is something that's been a long-standing practice, is required by the IEPA.

And so we want to make sure that the language aligns with that practice.

We also note in item C that water main extensions must extend across the full property frontage unless approved otherwise.

This has been a practice of our this has been a practice and allows for future expansion and development upstream of the property.

There's language noting that service pipes must be as short as possible, which minimizes water loss and the opportunity for leaks.

And we have an option that's available for customers to send backflow certification electronically.

Um, some of our customers have backflow prevention devices for things like lawn irrigation, and so it's a device that needs to be inspected annually, and customers are able to submit that online for their convenience.

Our sewer use ordinance, chapter 53.

This contains some pre-treatment updates and a couple of other items.

The first being that we want to clarify the definition of sewer service pipes so that it's clear and easy for your average property owner to understand.

Right now, it's a little bit technical language, and so this streamlines language to make it easier for folks understanding.

This is an alternative technology that's not appropriate in every application, but is an advantage in certain locations, and we do have some notes and standards on that subject.

Item C and D relate to pretreatment, with the first being automobile service and repair.

Um, that does require some pre-treatment measures, including installation of a triple basin device that would capture oil in Greece before discharging it to the sanitary sewer.

This will be applicable to new buildings going forward, and then also modifications of existing buildings.

Item D for dental offices that also requires pre-treatment.

It does not apply to every dental practice.

It depends on the services that they offer.

In this instance, based upon USCPA requirements, we will be conducting outreach to practices so we can begin collaborating with them on compliance and any changes they might need to make to their buildings.

Are there any questions on water or sewer?

Member Roberts.

The garages that are doing the repairs.

Is that I know that it's just for unincorporated, but are we giving that information to our municipalities as well to maybe they can follow this ordinance as well?

This is um it's somewhat common practice.

I think a lot of times they're installed already because of um building code requirements.

So I think anyone who's building a new building would expect it, and it applies to any um sewer customer connected to our system.

So it's okay.

Some unincorporated and then some are would be within villages or municipalities.

Thank you.

All right, I'm I'm gonna move on and then we'll have questions at the end.

All right, so that brings us to the pre-treatment.

The local limits were established.

We have three wastewater treatment facilities, and each of those have their own local limits.

Local limits mean that there are parameters that we have identified that could be a problem if those levels are exceeded, so those are established and in place for each of the treatment plants.

In terms of jurisdiction, what that means for us is that if, for example, an industrial user is in the village of Gurney and they're and the and they're up and running, and the question is, well, who has jurisdiction over them?

Is it a county or is it North Shore Sanitary that treats the waste?

The question for that industrial user would be that it would be North Shore Sanitary who has a jurisdiction over their discharge.

So even though they're discharged into county interceptor, it is the facility that treats that as the jurisdiction.

So the North Shore Sanitary Pre-treatment program would monitor and have the regulatory statute to take to do the monitoring and to issue permits to that particular industrial user in Gurney.

So that's what this particular item establishes.

As far as the next item C, which looks at categorical categories or standards set by USCPA with certain parameters and limits, they are put together because there are certain industries based on the byproduct from their um production, may have certain contaminants embedded in those discharges that could pose a problem to the sewer and to the treatment facility.

As a result, USCPA has put together a group of tested that are required and standard for these industries, and they're referred to as categorical standard.

Some of these industries may include folks who produce papers or do electrical uh make electrical products or oils and gases, folks who may be involved in electric electroplated and timber, woods, all of these industries are regulated by the US CPA and our and the standards that they have to apply to or refer to as categorical standards.

Currently, we have about three or four in our systems.

They would have to meet the US CPA categorical standards as well as our local limits.

The last item on the slide here refers to industrial users and the survey.

So this simply means that if Company A moves into one of four uh service area, they would have to complete a survey.

And that survey gives us a chance to know what are they produced and do they have chemicals on site?

Do they have storage?

Do they have a plan of action if there's a spill?

Who do they notify?

Who do we need to notify and contact on that site?

So the survey is important, gives us a foundation for establishing a baseline monitoring for that company and allows this company to know that they they will have to meet certain regulatory standards at it as it relates to the local limits that may be within that that service era.

So that in essence are the primary changes for the pretreatment ordinance.

And we'll pause here and take any questions that you may have on any of the ordinances.

Member Kasmin.

So it sounds like the regulatory authority for some of these things is it's it's like it depends on where you are in the county.

It in essence, regardless of where an industrial user may be, they would have to meet the local limits.

But based on the type of industries, the type of industry, they would have to meet in addition to the local limits, the categorical standards set by USCPA.

Okay.

So who has the authority to monitor like violators?

So once if these ordinances are approved, they go back to USCPA.

EPA will review these ordinances that were sent back to them.

And if there are no objections, the county will receive a formal pretreatment program that will then authorize public works to be the control authority and will begin the official monitoring of these facilities.

And that would be everybody countywide, or it would just be unincorporated or everyone that discharges directly to our sanitary assistant.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Member Hunter.

Thanks.

This is my favorite subject.

I'm a huge proponent of pretreatment coordinators.

I think that we're lax in that horribly.

We have got to when it comes budget time, we have got to re we have got to be uh have that flag in our hand for extending our pretreatment coordinators because we don't have enough.

We don't have enough, and then you can see it how it's with the reference to the heavy metals and things like that.

I mean, there are violators out there.

There are people we just don't know.

And we on the other side of it, it affects our discharge permit.

And we it we need to do a better job at that.

We need to fund you to do that, and we understand that.

With the adoption of this of this pre-treatment court uh ordinance, is this mandating that any more personnel that we need or more of what's the financial cost to the county based on what you're asking for permission to do here?

So what we're doing here today is we're having a discussion, we're not taking any action in this today, but we're gonna bring it back for action on the pre-treatment.

What we want to do as a at the onset is to get the ordinances approved so they can go back to USCPA for final review and permission from them to have a formal pretreatment program.

We what we did last year, I believe, was to come back to the county and say we look, the the USCPA is requiring us to have a formal pretreatment program.

We want to start slow and get a pre-treatment coordinator in place, knowing full well that this was coming down the pipeline.

So we do have a pre-treatment coordinator in place.

She's been working um a lot to get us to this place where we are.

And so we're gonna continue to take baby steps with this.

We know that there's a lot before us, but I believe we have our working in concert with our laboratory supervisor and with our operations manager.

So she's not alone for for now.

And we'll continue to monitor that and see where it takes us.

I I know that uh Northwest treatment plant in Fox Lake has a long-standing pre-treatment coordinating coordinator and program.

North Shore, I I'm pretty sure they have one too.

Yes, they do.

And we have one for all the balance of everything else that goes to that, and it's just not enough.

I mean, it's I I I just implore this group to really think about this when we're at an FTEs for public works, we need more than one person.

It's just crazy to think that that person can do everything that we're asking.

And now you look at an 84-page pre-treatment program that we're going to be authorized to remember at budget time.

We gotta give it to them.

Thanks.

Well, I believe we yeah, and I remember having this conversation at the budget, which is I think why we did start with this pre-treatment coordinator, because we knew, as you said, we knew this was going to be coming.

So at least you do have a person that is, I know you do for the pretreatment.

And then I guess after this goes in, then we can see if there is more staffing needs for like the monitoring and things.

And I wanted to thank you.

I know um you you this was partly because of the US EPA and the pre in the pretreatment program.

It was a good time to review the other things to kind of just make sure everything is modernized.

And from looking at the language, it looks like it's just really modernizing practices we're already doing and just making sure it isn't um the best practices and everything are in our ordinance.

So thank you.

I know a lot of work went into this.

And uh I'm glad to see it today.

Oh, yeah, member Casmin.

It sounds though like what is here is reflective of what we're already doing rather than it and codifying it rather than we're changing things to to meet this.

So it's everything for the exception of what we cited in the sewer and pre-treatment are not in place.

Okay, because we don't have an official program as yet.

Okay.

But up on approval, those will those practices will go forward.

Okay.

Thank you.

Member Wasick.

And Austin, what I think I'm hearing is that these drugs will harmonize with existing regulations from IEPA and USCPA, but don't reflect other things like uh new PFAS um standards or anything like that.

So it's well, it does indirectly because you know, once we st once we start monitoring, we will have to monitor for PFOS from all the industries.

So that's embedded in bedded there.

It's not stated here, but it's sort of sending to them and they're gonna send back to us and say, okay, we we have the authority to do that.

Right, they'll take a look at our effluent and say, okay, well, your effluent is X, where is it coming from?

And then we will have to go out and investigate and and find out.

And I would uh back uh Kevin's suggestion that we look at what is our need for more pre-treatment coordinators.

I would entertain a proposal to see if if we have enough coverage, if we do need more people where should they be um, you know, somewhere around budget prep time.

Yeah, and the budget's obviously a uh it's an enterprise fund, so it comes out of the yeah, there are of the um payments.

Um, but yes, I definitely think we're gonna see.

And I do feel like I know Member Humber Tenter, you've talked about pretreatment for a long time.

And the fact that, yeah, we need to do this and we need to do this now because as if we're not monitoring it, then we are the ones who end up, you know, with at the end.

Exactly.

It is our permit.

So this is really important.

I mean, the sooner we can do this the better.

And um, so I'm really glad to see this here today.

And we will let us know going forward, obviously, what kind of certainly we'll do that and appreciate that.

Right.

Any other questions?

All right.

We so then is it next week we'll they'll come back for a vote or okay.

Perfect.

All right.

All right, thank you.

Good conversations.

All right, item 8.5 is an ordinance proposing the creation of Lake County Special Service Area 18 and providing for a public hearing and other procedures in connection therewith.

They're with the Del Mar Wood Subdivision, an unincorporated area within Lake County.

Can I get a motion in a second?

Motion by Hunter, second by Casvent.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Uh Matt Mars Deputy County Administrator, Steve Rice, um, States.

And um, Steve, you're gonna have to help me with the clicker there.

Well, today we're here to talk about uh the creation of a special service area.

Share one thing um of note.

There is a virtual public comment request that we have, but I suggest that we go through the presentation first for background for the members prior to here.

Okay, and then do it.

Um so if if you had not heard of Delmar Woods, it is a uh 80-some resident um or 80 some home subdivision at the northeast corner of Route 22 and Waukegan Road, uh, just behind the Marianos there.

And it was created in the 20s, uh 1920s, and in the 1970s, uh the subdivision wanted sanitary sewer.

So they created their own sanitary district that's run by the residents and managed by the residents to create that and uh create an assessment uh that would then fund the uh construction of the sanitary sewer.

And it had been in place and this the sanitary sewer is out there, and they had been managed via three appointees by the county board for a number of years um up to today.

And I don't believe there are any appointments currently, as the challenge has been there has been problems finding appointments to a sanitary district run by a subdivision of residents in the late teens.

In the late teens, the assessment was stopped, and there was not a desire to continue staffing the sanitary district, staffing by the residents out there.

And that has been a challenge, and something that the county, Steve Rice and I have been working on since the late teens on trying to find solutions for the sanitary district that was created in the 70s with a sole purpose.

But you can imagine the challenge with finding residents that want to manage a sanitary district within their subdivision and stopping an assessment and leaving a system unmaintained and unmanaged.

They do have some funds available in a in an account, but there's nothing currently being assessed on those residents for the long-term maintenance management.

And at some point, reconstruction of a sanitary sewer system in their subdivision.

Throughout 20 early 20s, we we um Steve and I had started having discussions with residents and the board member, uh member Parrick, before member Park, it was member Rummel about the challenges in the subdivision and what potential solutions would look like.

And had some discussions outside with other agencies regarding how this could look going forward without having the residents manage a sanitary network within their subdivision.

And uh through the 2024 and 25, we came up with some potential solutions.

Steve, if you go to the next slide, which was let's try and reestablish the Delmar Woods Sanitary District.

Let's get three appointees from the residents within the subdivision.

They need to begin meeting planning for ongoing maintenance of the system, and they can reinitiate the assessment via referendum, which is how it would have to be reinitiated.

We tried this in the early 20s.

There were some folks in the subdivision that were um excited about the concept.

Steve and I kind of put together a plan, and um you know, it's just something that didn't move forward, and there was not, and there is not a significant amount of interest uh for residents to uh be appointed to the sanitary district.

The other option was the creation of an SSA to fund the long-term maintenance and management of the sanitary system uh system.

The residents would not have to be burdened with maintenance of the sanitary system and our selection for a long-term uh management agency that would be funded via the assessment is the Lake County Public Works.

We took these concepts.

If you go to the next slide, to the residents and said, Hey, here's some options for you.

And of course, what they wanted to know was okay, well, what are we talking about from an assessment standpoint?

And our response was well, there hasn't been an assessment for a while, and we should probably take a look at the system to see what state it is to see what this could look like going forward.

So Lake County Public Works had a study completed where we analyzed the system, and then there were some recommendations and potential costs that were put forward in early 2025 that we then went back to the residents with, and Steve next slide.

And it resulted in a two-phased approach, which would be immediate uh repairs and maintenance, which would be cleaning and route control, followed by uh aligning of the entire system, which would put a significant lifespan uh improvement on the pipes that are currently out there now, given them potentially another 50 years.

Uh next slide, I think it's costs.

So the estimate cost of completing those two phases was approximately $600,000.

This would be about 675 uh per year per household over a 10-year period.

Lake County Public Works would initiate the project and fund it, and then they would be paid back over a series of 10 years.

And um the SSA would be perpetual.

I do want to note that.

So after six after the 10-year period, if we create the SSSA, um, that 675 would significantly decrease, and it would just be for the ongoing maintenance and management of the system uh from there on out.

Um so I I took these costs and next slide, I put together a survey, a poll that I provided to all of the um residents of that subdivision, and I said, here's the two options that we have.

We could create this SSA.

I went in the details to what that looked like, and then the other option was um, or the the sanitary district, which already exists, could could could reinitiate itself again and um here's some of the things that would need to be considered by those residents that are appointed by uh the county board.

And I receive uh everybody selected for the ones that we received back.

Um let's go let's go forward with the SSA.

I did not receive one comment related to let's let's uh let's get going with this sanitary district again that's been in place since the 70s.

So um the county went back out, and we can go to the next slide.

This was in late 25.

Um so we're gonna move forward with option A.

And I went back out, uh, we went back out in late 25 to confirm that path.

I'll say the one thing that surprised me, and um throughout this whole thing, one thing surprised me.

But uh one thing that I heard at the late 25 meeting was hey, this is good for sanitary.

Um, there is a storm pipe that was placed at some point in the early 20s uh 2000s um that is in the rear of the property on private property that was maintained and managed by the sanitary district that will continue to be maintained and managed through this SSA.

Um, but there's storm sewer network throughout the subdivision in the right-of-way.

And um, there's a number of stormwater challenges, drainage challenges in the subdivision.

And what we did hear from the residents at this last meeting was hey, let's just make sure the option is in there that we could potentially use this SSA for stormwater related, and we'd work with the township who's the responsible party for the stormwater if we were to proceed in that direction.

And I know stormwater management commission is looking at a potential study for the subdivision to come up with a drainage improvement plan that potentially this SSA could fund going forward.

Initially, we're just looking at sanitary and replace that sanitary district with this.

Um that was the comment I heard, and that's what we've worked into the SSA.

And then I think the next slide.

Steve, if you want to just chat on the SSA.

Yeah, so an SSA Um SSAs are common throughout Illinois, they're common in Lake County, and you know, they can be used.

We have SSAs in the county that are used for roads.

Um SSAs are commonly used for roads, sewer, water improvements.

Um Long Grove has a historic district that uh has an SSA that helps fund it.

SSAs are um commonly used for generating revenue for a specific purpose for a specific geography.

And this is the kind of uh you know, postage stamp area that is somewhat well suited for the creation of an SSA because the Delmar Woods Sanitary District, I mean, it is literally a postage stamp, it's bounded by forest preserve and um the road way, and now what is the Marianos there?

So um the idea is to create an SSA.

You might think of SSAs as having defined terms of 20 years, but they can be perpetual, and this one would be intended to be perpetual.

Why?

Because the sewer pipes are perpetual in essence, uh, unless the homes went away, which they won't.

Um, you know, these sewer pipes will continue to exist.

Um the SSA is intended to generate revenue broadly, the for the purpose of budgeting for the main the immediate maintenance of the pipes.

Um the public works had a had the study so that we could say in the SSA, this will be the initial levy.

Um they'll use that levy over a 10-year period to pay for the initial project work that they do, which encompasses the lining of the sewer lines.

When you line the sewer lines, um, you know, they should be good for another 50 years, maybe even longer.

Um, so that's really the initial work that needs to be done, but you would keep this SSA in place for future needs as well.

And public works would be the entity that would oversee the SSA, oversee the work done, logically, their sewer pipes.

Uh public works knows something about sewer pipes.

Um, and so in essence, the SSA is replacing uh the funding mechanism that was formerly the Delmar Woods Sanitary District, and public works is the you know, the engineering or the brings the expertise to uh manage the projects that need to be done.

Um the the process for the SSA is it comes through committee, it gets approved by the board as a proposing ordinance, then the official statutory notice goes out, so there would be publication, all of the homeowners uh all of the property owners of record will again get notice of the SSA.

Um the county then holds a hearing, and and what we've done in the SSA is as we've done in the past, we've uh asked that the county board assigned to the public works committee the uh the conduct of that hearing.

So at a future public works committee hearing, we would conduct that hearing.

Typically, at such a hearing for an SSA, um residents can come in and make objections, and then the committee decides those objections in the past.

I think objections might be my parcel should be out, my parcel should be in.

I wouldn't anticipate really those types of objections.

Typically, an SSA looks like a gerrymandered congressional district.

This one, as I said, is a postage stamp, so it's pretty obvious which parcels should be in.

Um after that hearing, uh, it would go back to the board to establish the SSA, uh, the establishing ordinance.

Uh and then it goes on the tax bills, which of course, since we tax in arrears is a multi-year process, but it would start generating revenue.

Um, and in the meantime, public works can um start the maintenance work uh to uh get the sewer pipes ready for their future.

I think there's slides actually, Steve, that walk through exactly what you just said, so you could just keep going here and we'll talk about yeah.

So this talks about the public hearing, the objection process, exactly.

Um the intention is to establish the SSA first, which would provide the funding mechanism to allow public works to get going, and then we would proceed with dissolving the sanitary district and and turning over um the responsibility to Lee County Public Works now that they have the funding mechanism established.

There are reserves that the sanitary district has of approximately 150,000.

Those will be applied directly to the projects that have been identified by public works.

Then I think there's just some timeline slides.

So in 25, we established all the details.

This project goes back to the teens.

In 26, we're we're uh, as Steve had stated proposing the ordinance, having the hearing, um proceeding to dissolve the district later this year, and then annually approve that levy, and then 27 is when public works would start some of the phase one uh maintenance and cleaning of the pipes and uh the SSA levy was is gonna start to appear on the tax bills in 28 and then 29 is expected that they would begin that lining project uh for that long-term maintenance component.

I believe that is the last slide.

And uh sure that's what we have.

We do have one public comment that I'm aware of.

If we'd like to hear that or yeah, let me just say I just first want to thank you, and I want to thank you first.

I know Matt, you have worked how many years?

I don't even know.

So many years on such a complicated and important project.

And I don't think we would be here today if it wasn't for your work, truly.

And this is really and I want to thank you, Steve.

I want to thank uh member Park for his work on this.

I want to thank the residents too, because I think when you all came together, this was a this was a problem, and I totally understand.

I can I don't think I would want to run a run a sanitary sewer district myself.

And for the residents of that neighborhoods to have to think about a sanitary, you know, trying to figure this out, but to get from there to here really is all of your work.

So, and this is how government changes life.

This is how you know public works is also agreeing to take this on as a project and you know, and and doing the funding and doing this, but it will allow these residents to have terrific sanitary sewers.

And I think we all appreciate having good sanitary sewers.

So I think this is a great, and so thank you all, and especially thank you, Matt.

Um, and then let's hear a public comment.

And then we'll do questions.

We have uh one public comment, and I have a couple instructions to read very briefly.

Individual has three minutes of cumulative time to provide public comment.

They must be related to the business of the county board, not redundant or political.

When appropriate matters raised by public comments, you'll be referred to appropriate city committee.

Public needs to refrain from commenting about private activities, lifestyles, beliefs of others, including county employees and elected officials that are unrelated to the business of the county board or county government in your public comment.

Comments that are uncivil, rude, vulgar, profane, or otherwise disruptive will not be allowed.

Candidates running for public office must refrain from including comments that are political in nature or that promote or support a specific candidate, including refraining from identifying oneself as a candidate for public office.

The one public comment we have is Brian Scalender.

And Brian, you should be able to unmute.

Yes, thank you.

I just wanted to reserve the option to speak up if I wanted to.

I have no questions or comments at this time.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Brian.

Do we have to have uh Bob?

If you can you can go to the um we'll let you tuck on the microphone, if you don't mind.

That way we can all hear you.

We'd like to do clearly.

All right, is this on?

Yep, it is.

It's green, it's on.

The Delmar Woods Sanitary District.

Uh I'm glad that we're making this, hopefully, making this step toward consolidating governments, because as you know, Illinois has the most small governments that may be unnecessary.

And if you can consolidate, great.

Anyway, the Delmar Woods Sanitary District never had any responsibility for stormwater management, the pipes or anything.

It was just a sanitary sewer.

Um I just want to make sure that this special service area 18 can also collect funds to address problems, which are many with the stormwater system in Del Mar Woods.

And uh what I understand, which may or may not be correct, is that West Deerfield Township would address the stormwater.

But can funds be collected in the same SSA for West Deerfield Township so they can address stormwater.

So that's that's my main question.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

And I'm sure we will we will address that because I think that's an important part of this whole SSA conversation.

Thanks.

Um, and actually, um, from what you said from the from the overview, it sounds like by adding in stormwater as a uh as a potential use.

Then Steve, is it true then that way if um the West, because I do believe stormwater is controlled by the township, and so that way they could work with West Deerfield Township, and then there was a levy um they where they could with this SSA help fund future stormwater projects.

Is that correct?

Yeah, the question with an SSA is the SSA must define what the funds can be used for.

So uh, you know, I mentioned a bunch of different things like historic downtown water, sewer, roads, lots of different things.

Um, so that's what the SSA does.

Um this SSA is a county created entity.

Um SSAs are also created by municipalities.

The SSA statute functions the same.

So it will be the county that will be spending the money out of this SSA.

Um if it partners with West Deerfield Township, for example, if it partners with stormwater management, if it partners with anybody else, it'll still be the county spending money from the SSA.

But the what defines what can be spent is what the SSA ordinance says.

And stormwater is included in our in the in this ordinary stormwater maintenance is uh would be an approved use of the funds, yes.

Okay, good.

All right.

Other question, Pure Hart.

Thank you.

Um, I also just really have to thank uh Matt and Steve.

I don't know how many meetings we went to.

Sometimes they could be quite contentious.

Um, but it this was uh, you know, we do have SSAs, but um, I think it was a really novel idea, right?

There were other things that had come up as a potential idea, and I think moving towards this SSA was was a great one, really.

Um and I I said about 10 years, but I think Matt, for you, it was maybe about eight.

Uh, I think Mike Rummel had worked on it for maybe four, something like that.

I had met Bob when he had first uh when I first became chair and he came in with a lot of papers, and um, so it has been a big hardship for the residents too.

And um, this is another example of us taking a look at an area sanitary district in this case to say, hey, you know what?

Is there a better way for us to serve these customers?

And there is no benefit, if you will, to the county, right?

So um Steve is giving his time, Matt is giving his time.

The county is investing these resources in order to improve the quality of life for residents in this unincorporated area.

So I just can't uh thank you guys enough.

I honestly thought, oh, we're gonna fix this really quickly.

And here we are, um, at least since I've been chair seven years later, and we're almost there.

So I just can't thank Steve Rice and Matt Myers enough for the diligence you've had on this project, because it was very difficult.

So thank you, and thank you to Bob for for serving for so many years.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Oh, can I also say and thanks so much to Alison Feiger?

She is the West Deerfield Township supervisor who said, Look, we don't normally do this kind of thing, but we really want to be helpful to these residents.

So count us in as we're you know, figuring things out.

Um, we really want to be part of the solution.

So many thanks to Alison Figer.

Thank you.

Member Hunter.

Thanks, Jeremy.

I got a lot of a lot of things crossing my plate on this one.

Uh Paris, I I wish he was here.

I want to hear.

He's going to speak next.

Is he wonderful?

He's going to speak next.

Wonderful.

Austin, you're are we talking about grinding and in situ foam and this type of for the existing pipes that are already there?

Okay.

It would have been helpful to have a map.

I'm not sure where Del Mar is on our presentations.

I always get a map so I can see it.

Um I'm consolidation.

Hey, I got rid of Lakes Region Sanitary District.

I'm I'm all about this.

I I think it's a it's a great idea.

I am concerned though about the stormwater portion to add that to uh as one of the items that can be used for it because stormwater mitigation can be really expensive.

And I don't see anything that anybody have there's no input from SMC here.

If there is, I uh please show me where it's at because I sit on SMC on top of that, and you know, uh I'm all for fixing what's there and things that didn't get done or and things like that.

But that $675 a year isn't going to fix SMC stuff.

Do you want to um yeah, yeah, so I'll say that uh stormwater management commission was involved uh in some of our earlier public meetings where they recognize the need for a drainage improvement project in the subdivision and they've recognized it for years.

And um uh executive director Woolford was in attendance in those meetings and talked about the fact that he wanted to proceed with it.

However, he wanted to ensure that there was some kind of as you know, member Hunter, they don't they don't maintain sewers.

So he wanted to ensure there was an identified maintenance um component, a method of funding maintenance going forward if they were going to proceed with a project in the subdivision.

Um so he does have an engineer that's working on a uh potential drainage improvement uh plan for the subdivision, and um he was looking to potentially include this as one of his um uh uh projects with I can't remember the DC, the DCO funding with the potential next round that he receives to fund this improvement project, but he wants to ensure that there's a long-term maintenance uh plan for the subdivision that SMC is not going to be a part of because they don't maintain the stuff once they improve these projects.

So we've included that to ensure that that's there.

Uh so Kurt has that assurance that there is this long-term plan for whatever he does out there with respect to drainage improvements, but that would involve the township as well as the township is the the maintainer of the storm sewer network that's within the right-of-way in the subdivision.

And we as the chairhart stated, uh Alison Figer, the supervisor has been involved in this project.

We we she's aware that we're proceeding with this SSA.

She's aware that West Deerfield Township is included uh in that in the SSA that states that the county is gonna work with the township on any proposed maintenance or uh improvement of those pipes, uh storm pipes.

One just one follow-up, thank you.

Um Steve, uh, this would be for you.

How let's just say eight years from now, we find that's something and it can't be funded through a deco grant or something like that.

How flexible do is the county?

And uh and I support SSAs, and there you're right, there's a million of them for a million things.

Uh as all of a sudden you say, well, that thing's gonna now gonna have to from 675, it's going to be 1250.

How often can that be done to try to or I mean so protect the residents so they can't be changed every year, but at some point if something's recognized that it can be raised.

Are you talking specifically about stormwater or about the sample?

I mean, there's a lot of things on this SSA within that postage stamp.

Yeah.

So uh it's an astute question.

Um, clearly you know your SSAs.

Um the you know, the way we've drafted the ordinance is primarily sanitary focused, but includes stormwater with regards to maintenance.

Because as you're saying, a stormwater project wouldn't fit within this SSA really.

That would be a different SSA or uh a stormwater management project for for example, that maybe the funding comes from elsewhere, there's grant funding from elsewhere, DCEO or whatever else.

Um, so really what what this is intended to do is provide the authority to do maintenance work, but not do a major stormwater project.

It's different for the sanitary because the sanitary, first of all, we've identified immediate needs, and then of course, in 50 years, it may need more drastic needs.

And so this also anticipates that bonding could be used, that the SSA could be used to pay bonds, you know.

Uh, some of our larger SSA projects like the water project that took water out to the western parts of the county.

I mean, those are big 30-year SSAs that are funding bond issuances, 30 million dollar bond issuances.

So um, with regards to sanitary, we have thought through those things with regards to stormwater.

That was working with SMC to think, well, where would the funding come from?

Not not this, but somewhere.

I would be apt to include it just because if it gives you some flexibility on I and I problems too.

I don't expect you to know that that's Austin.

But I mean it does give you some flexibility on that.

So I just questions.

I I these these are things that once we establish them, they're there.

And I mean, and it sounds like everybody wants to do it.

I'm not, and I'm not opposed to that.

I just want to make sure that what's included in the ISSA gets is what we really want it to be.

Yeah, thanks.

This is the time to do it.

Member Park.

Yeah, thanks, Chair.

Just uh to Member Hunter, you're you you brought up a really good point.

And you know, we've discussed that with um with Kurt at SMC um pretty vigorously on this topic.

And so we're hoping that the funding we get from that second round of grants would be able to help um with the initial work that's needed.

And in conversation with Kurt, the maintenance envisioned would be fairly minimal moving forward on stormwater, but the SSA does allow us some flexibility, right, and how to address it without taking on major projects.

So I think we all felt pretty comfortable from that perspective.

Um so I I just do we have any more general questions from the committee because I'm just gonna kind of want to just thank some folks here at the very end.

Yeah, go for it.

I don't want to just go.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna start by quoting Al Gore, who I believe quoted the Grateful Dead and said, This has been one long, strange trip.

And it began many years before I joined, and um lots of entities were involved, and frankly, lots of entities didn't want to get involved in this.

And so it took, I think, the extraordinary abilities of Lake County to come together to solve for a problem that I felt that many residents thought they were being abandoned, right?

This was um, you know, we all live in a home, but we're not all expected to be engineers.

We're not all expected to be experts in sanitary, we're not expected to be experts in stormwater, and yet we were kind of making them feel like they had no other choice but to be experts.

And it was um frankly, for many folks, really stressful that they were being put in this situation uh given the stressors they already have in their lives.

So I want to thank Steve and Matt for for continuing this for so many years.

Um I want to thank Patrice for coming out to meetings late at night after hours.

I was really impressed when she first joined and was coming to these meetings.

I'm like, my God, if Patrice is coming to these meetings, how many meetings is Patrice going to?

Because we're talking about 80 homes here that we're expecting her to attend to.

So I want to thank her.

Um, I want to thank uh director McFarland and his staff because they ultimately are taking on um this responsibility.

And again, it's one of those things where we call on people to do above and beyond and to support one another and helping our residents.

And so, and I want to thank Chair Hart, who uh the I think probably the day I joined, it was like, okay, welcome.

We have this issue in Delmar Woods that it's solved for.

Um, and so uh I want to thank her for really keeping a fire under this um one for the residents to recogn you know, for us to recognize the residents are most important for us, but also too, in terms of and consolidating government, right?

We want to eliminate government where it doesn't make sense and align it to the services that we have for efficiency and for security.

Um so let me stop there.

I'm just so thankful for everyone.

I'm I'm really excited to see this vote happen.

Um, so we can move on to the next phase.

So thank you.

Yeah, member Roberts.

Well, I just want to thank Paris as well, because you know, he he makes us all look good, right?

When we're all doing our our job and governing the way we're supposed to govern.

And thank you to everyone, because getting a level getting rid of a level of government is my you know, my jam.

Thanks.

When it's appropriate, we do need some government.

Yes.

And like government is good, and I think this is a really good example of why government and like county government works so well.

I mean, you'll notice, I don't know if you all noticed, but we're gonna they're gonna move ahead next year, I believe, with public works and starting to do these maintenance issues, even before the SSA has been collecting money.

So by allowing Lake County to do this, we're gonna be like, because we know that SSA funds will be coming, but this way the work can be done more efficiently and more quickly.

And we all know there's in you know, time of the essence.

So I think this is such a great example of when it was appropriate and how you know, like county government and public works, this is the right place for this to be.

And um, everyone is going to be happy.

I look at Bob.

I'm like, all right, we're gonna move forward.

All right.

So on that, oh yeah.

Chair Hart, I just had one one, oh sorry, one last comment.

Yeah.

Uh just I want to thank Bob for attending as well.

Um there's been all I mean, it's in, you know, me being only in the neighborhood for 15 years.

Um there's people who've been in this neighborhood for 50, 60 years.

And so Bob has seen a lot of change, and I'm glad that he's finally getting um some recognition of what will what you know what we can do for him and and residents and make sure that um all of them are are feeling in a much better place after we take this vote today.

So thanks, Bob.

Thank you.

All right, member Casbin, you got the last part.

Thank you.

Um, I just for anybody who may be watching at home, I I want everybody to understand that Matt and Steve and Patrice Um and Austin and Kurt have plenty on their plates.

Um, and I just want to thank you for your time, your dedication, um, your willingness to think outside the box to solve this problem.

And I think it's an example of good government in Lake County and our ability to change the lives of of the people in our in our county for the better.

Um, I want to thank Member Parrick for his leadership and member Hart for your leadership.

Um, how many districts have been do these tiny districts have been resolved since you were chair?

Uh I'll have to well, one of them started, but are we on like seven or eight or something?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Matt's the guy with Steve.

Yeah.

Oh, thank you.

I'm proud for you about it.

Oh, thank you.

Thanks.

All right.

Well, on that happy note.

All right.

So thank you, everyone.

And all in favor, aye, any opposed?

Motion carries.

All right.

And thank you, everybody.

Okay, do we have um a county administrators report?

There's no executive session under member under members, any members remarks.

I did wonder if I forgot to mention that a member Hewitt did tell me ahead of time also that she was not going to be here today.

So I forgot to mention that at the beginning.

All right, if there's no members, I declare this meeting adjourned.

Our next meeting is April 8th, 2026.

Thank you, everyone.