Will County Board Democratic Caucus Committee met Aug. 17.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Ms. Mueller led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Majority Leader Meta Mueller called the meeting to order at 6:07 PM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Meta Mueller | Majority Leader | Present | |
| Sherry Newquist | Member | Present | |
| Amanda Koch | Member | Present | |
| Margaret Tyson | Majority Whip | Present | |
| Kenneth E. Harris | Member | Present | |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Member | Absent | |
| Joe VanDuyne | Member | Absent | |
| Herbert Brooks Jr. | Member | Present | |
| Denise E. Winfrey | Member | Present | |
| Rachel Ventura | Member | Present | |
| Natalie Coleman | Member | Absent | |
| Tyler Marcum | Member | Present | |
| Mimi Cowan | Speaker | Present | |
| Mica Freeman | Member | Present |
Also Present: N. Palmer
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Democratic Caucus - Special Meeting - Jul 14, 2021 6:00 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [9 TO 0]
MOVER: Sherry Newquist, Member SECONDER: Herbert Brooks Jr., Member AYES: Mueller, Newquist, Koch, Tyson, Harris, Brooks Jr., Winfrey, Ventura, Marcum ABSENT: Traynere, VanDuyne, Coleman AWAY: Cowan, Freeman |
VI. NEW BUSINESS
1. Discussion of County Board Agenda
Ms. Mueller said remember this is the part where we are going to talk about items that are on the agenda; any extra things we will do in the committee reports. Does anyone have any questions about honorary proclamations?
Mrs. Adams stated I know Mr. Brooks and Ms. Winfrey will be doing the check presentations. Number 3 though the presentation by Midewin; I don’t know who will be accepting that; and then who would be reading the last one into the record?
Ms. Ventura stated I would be happy to do something with Midewin; if staff would just email it to me.
Ms. Mueller stated they are going to be present on Thursday in the meeting.
Ms. Ventura replied I can be.
Mrs. Adams stated they are going to present something to the Board.
Ms. Ventura said if I need to be in person I can do that.
Ms. Mueller stated that would be great Ms. Ventura if you want to do that.
Mrs. Adams asked do you have any suggestions for reading the Overdose Awareness Day into the record.
Ms. Mueller stated I would like to do that if it is acceptable to everyone. We will have the State of the County Address; that is the thing that we do every year. Executive Bertino-Tarrant will present. Next we will move on to Mr. Marcum.
Mr. Marcum stated we had a busy month for Land Use & Development. The first item we have is a request for a landscaping and lawn maintenance business. This is in Troy Township; it is at 25920 W. Black Rd. in Shorewood. It is right by where Shorewood / Joliet kind of meet; towards County Line Rd. If anybody has been out that way, Tri County Stockdale Co. is across Black Rd. and a little bit to the East from there. Pretty much they want to operate a landscape business. The Village of Shorewood has objected to this use; because in their opinion it is more of an industrial use; and their plans for the future is to have this as residential and commercial. That would be businesses like stores and smaller commercial is what they foresee that being used for. There are letters of support from neighbors that are attached and letters of objection from neighbors that are attached. The basic objection is that the landscaping business would not be a proper use in their area. They feel and other people that support it feel like it is a good use for it because it is still farm fields immediately surrounding it. But Shorewood and Joliet do surround it; eventually when growth picks up out there, it will be annexed into Shorewood. I don’t know if anybody has any questions.
Ms. Ventura stated I have some comments about it.
Ms. Mueller stated hold on one second. Mr. Marcum I got a phone call I think from the property owner on this today; and I hadn’t had a chance to get back to her yet. Can you tell me what Land Uses vote was on it?
Speaker Cowan joined the meeting at this juncture.
Mr. Marcum stated I was the only one on the committee that voted against it. My concern is more towards it is that Black Rd. has some flooding issues that happen right along there. That’s really my concern is about the flooding that occurs out there. I think that Shorewood mentioned it in their letter. I drive out that way because my sister lives about a half mile away; and my brother lives about ¾ of a mile from there. That is my preferred route and it floods; and that is really what my concern is; the flooding. I don’t know where Mr. Gould or Mr. Van Duyne stand on it; I haven’t heard either way. The rest of the committee voted to approve it.
Ms. Ventura said I got a call from Griselda Davalos who is the owner of the property today. I spoke to her in length and then I went out to the property and looked at it. I spoke to her husband Daniel and their son Juan. She had called to say that initially both of her neighbors to the east and the west were in support of this. Then later there was some issue; and then they got a complaint from their neighbor to the east who didn’t want them to do it. Later when I spoke to the husband at the property he said that the neighbor to the east is Kobe; that’s the last name. They have a trucking company. I did take photos; I am happy to share them here or at the meeting on Thursday. They do have trucks, semis stored on Kobe’s property. According to Mr. Davalos; they had asked to use his storage garage that they had put up and Mr. Davalos refused. It was after that; they had a problem; they said something to the neighbor to the west. The neighbor to the west contacted Shorewood; I’m just reporting what they said to me. They suddenly had all of this opposition to that. I did drive out that way; it is just past the feed store and the railroad tracks. Mr. Marcum is right; that area by railroad tracks definitely can flood. It is across the street from the Saddlebags residential development that is out there. The County stipulated they needed to put up fencing. I asked if they were going to do chain link or wood fence; because that was the recommendation of the County are. They said they are going to put a wood fence up. I did look at the property they do not store any material currently. They do not plan to store any mulch or dirt or anything like that. The guy said they deliver that directly to the job site; they do commercial landscaping. So most of the trucks and stuff will go directly to the job. They had some bobcats stored there for the winter; they do some plowing. They don’t do any dumping of the landscape material on the property at all. They have a huge front yard; so if it has to do anything with flooding honestly I don’t see any issue. Because the front yard is not going to be used; all of the stuff is in the back part of the property. They are surrounded by cornfields. Both of their neighbors have corn fields; they plan to put the wood fence along the cornfields that would create a screen. The Village of Shorewood said that their complaint is that their comprehensive plan wants to use this for residential. There is quite a lot of agriculture still out there; while there is that Saddlebags residential property across the street. The next residential is closer to the Rt. 59 area; and then there is a light between Rt. 59 and where they are at. There is some residential in there; the rest of it is all still farms. Some of the farms have silos and large storage barns and stuff like that. It does look more industrial/agriculture out there. I guess that their neighbor directly to the east of them has semis stored in their garages. I see no problem with this; if this is about retaliation because they didn’t get to use their garage or rent it out; that’s ridiculous. We’ve got to consider this; this is a small business; this was one of the things that we talked about at Land Use when we looked at doing this A1/I1 blend. Was having this special use permit because we saw more and more agriculture places moving to landscaping. We’ve approved some of these in other areas. It is far enough from the Village of Shorewood line that they would have to annex a lot more property and long before they get to them. Including the feed store that is there and the farms that are surrounding it. I don’t think that we should vote no on this. I think we should go ahead and approve this special permit. But I am happy to either email the pictures to Mrs. Adams; or if they want to share a screen I can show the photos that I took today of both the truck property and their property.
Ms. Newquist stated she called me too; she was busy today. Ms. Ventura she didn’t go into as much detail with me; but I probably spent 15 minutes on the phone with her while she explained the situation. My question is; the company that’s operating the trucking business next door. Do they have a special use permit; or are they out of compliance?
Mr. Marcum stated we would have to ask staff; I don’t have that information.
Ms. Newquist stated it almost sounded like; again I am only getting this information from her. She was saying that they did not build the building; it sounds like they are only trying to build a storage building for some of their landscaping vehicles and some equipment and things like that. She made the point of saying that they were attempting to get the permit; they wanted to do it the right way; they didn’t want to wait till they put it up and then got caught or whatever. Assuming that there’s no other facts that we aren’t aware of. I am inclined to go along with Ms. Ventura on this.
Mr. Brooks said she called me also; it sounds like she called a lot of us. She spent about 15 to 20 minutes on the phone with me; and I listened. She sent me over some information. I am not going to repeat everything; I think you all did a very good thorough job. I do appreciate the lady taking the time out calling me and explaining it to me; so I am in support.
Ms. Ventura stated Mr. Marcum the only other thing I would say if you felt better about asking them to put in some maybe grasses in the front of their property for the drainage. I know we have added clauses like that before; I mean they run a landscaping business. They probably should be the most welcoming company in the world to add something like that to a clause. If that is the only hold back Mr. Marcum I might consider amending it to include some type of drainage grasses in the front.
Mr. Marcum stated my concern isn’t really just with this one property; it is with the surrounding area. I think we need to take care of some things before we start going crazy with building. It sounds like they have a good plan in place. I have nothing against their business model or anything. I’m concerned about that area and the road having problems with increased growth out there. I don’t think it will be a problem and I think it will pass pretty easily. Our second case is a pretty easy one; it is a zoning map amendment form A1 to E1 in Green Garden Township. This is in Monee in County Board District #2. That one passed PZC and Land Use unanimously. Our third case is a zoning map amendment from A2 to C4 it is in New Lenox Township on West Maple Rd. in Mokena. This is County Board District #7. Pretty much they are seeking a map amendment from A2 to C4; they own a sprinkler business for golf courses. PZC voted 6-0 to approve; Land Use voted 6-1 to approve; I think it was Ms. Traynere who voted against it. I am not sure as to why; but I don’t want to put words in her mouth; does anyone have any questions on that one. Then we have the resolutions; the first one came last month out of committee but we weren’t quick enough to get it on with clean language. Our Building Code updates and our Fee Schedule update. Our Fee Schedule is changing to more of a flat rate for projects as opposed to cost of project. Everything else for the building part of it was pretty much updates and some clean up; so we are consistent with our language and the different state codes, fire codes, and things in our code that we don’t have jurisdiction over but we have to reference. If the language isn’t exactly the same as the organization who have jurisdiction over it. I will say we started working on this in February of 2020 so right before COVID so this has been a very long process. It was extended quite a bit because of COVID; it was also a lot of work.
Ms. Newquist said I looked at this but I confess to not literally studying it yet. In general are the fees less or more with the flat rate system?
Mr. Marcum replied most of they are probably a little less; some will be about the same. Our fees were already low compared; we were very fair in our fees compared to surrounding counties. This makes it fairer in most cases; homeowners should be very happy.
Ms. Ventura stated I will say that one of the conversations in committee; especially on the Republican side was they were saying; if you put expensive things inside; it used to be based on cost and how expensive the cost was to build your house. If you put in marble verses wood countertop; why are you being penalized with more fees? This satisfies some of that, if it is just a set amount then no matter what you put in it doesn’t change the price of your fees. I think that is a good compromise. If you build a bigger house I do kind of think you should be spending a little bit more. If it is a flat rate then it is fair for everyone; and I think that is okay.
Ms. Mueller asked do the fees that we charge cover the cost we spend on it administratively.
Mr. Marcum said yes, that was one of the delays. We had to make sure that everything fit; such as how much it cost to have inspectors go out. It will cover everything, they did a good job of not rushing and going through everything with a fine tooth comb. It gets a little complicated; you don’t realize how many things have to be inspected; or how many times the inspector has to go out and such.
Speaker Cowan said I am sorry I didn’t get my hand up early enough on the Troy Township case. I just wanted to clarify Mr. Marcum’s point. Are you saying what you are concerned about is basically setting a precedent; that this one place isn’t a problem but if everybody did this it would be a problem; of course that’s the whole point of zoning laws. Is that your basic concern?
Mr. Marcum stated my concern is; I think the area is not handling the growth well. I think that Shorewood, Joliet, Will County, and Township need to get together and fix the problem before we add on to more of it. That area is extremely close to the City of Joliet; it is extremely close to Shorewood; it is going to grow and I would rather deal with it now rather that what we tend to do and push it off.
Speaker Cowan stated and essentially fix the infrastructure so that it is prepared for growth; before we allow the growth and then don’t have the infrastructure for it. I will probably be with Mr. Marcum on this in that case. The current one I have heard tons of conversation about this back and forth. I do feel if you are building a $5 million home; verse a $100,000 town home. I don’t see how having flat rate fees is equitable. I know you guys have been back and forth about all of this; I’m torn between trusting the process of what you guys come up with and still not being convinced about it. Is there anything you can say to me to get me over that hump?
Mr. Marcum stated I was the only person in committee who voted against going to a flat rate; just for the same reasons that you just said. I will say however; in a bigger house you are going to technically have more to inspect. You’re going to end up paying more because of the flat rate involved in figuring it due to more bathrooms, larger kitchens, more walls, and more electrical. So you are going to have to have more things inspected but the price will be based off of; for an example I don’t know why you would put in wood countertops but everyone likes that one. Wood counter tops verse marble counter tops. That won’t be penalized but if you have 30 ft. by 50 ft. kitchen as opposed to a 100 ft. by 100 ft. kitchen. Then the 100 ft. by 100 ft. will have more inspections which the flat rate will be a little higher just because inspection fees.
Speaker Cowan replied that actually makes sense to me. So what you are saying is instead of being based off of the cost per square footage of the home; it is based off of in a sense more like the square footage. If you have 8 bathrooms to inspect you will get a flat fee for each of those; not just one flat fee for all bathrooms.
Mr. Marcum said cost of construction is the term; so it won’t be the cost of instruction it will be on what is actually being inspected. They will actually go through and have a list so you will know what is being inspected. That is what the price will be based off of. Instead of somebody saying it is going to cost us $20,000 it will be what are you doing; this will be the fee for one bathroom and this will be the fee for the pluming and so forth.
Speaker stated that actually helps me a lot; thank you very much.
Mr. Marcum stated I am more comfortable with it now than when I was in committee.
Ms. Freeman said I am looking at the fire resistant instruction requirements. Did you finally decide nothing for the sprinklers?
Mr. Marcum stated the County does not require sprinklers in our code. The issue with the sprinklers came up was because the New Lenox Fire Protection District takes part of unincorporated Will County and the Township. They are the higher fire code authority out there. They don’t follow our fire code for building; they follow New Lenox Fire Protection District. That was where that whole conversation came from. It wasn’t that we were looking to include sprinklers in all residential. It was just unique to New Lenox.
Ms. Freeman asked if it is something we might consider in the future for new construction.
Mr. Marcum said I don’t know how much support it would get. I asked the committee back in February before COVID if we were interested in discussing requiring it. Nobody wanted to discuss it at that point.
Ms. Ventura stated first Mr. Marcum I have wood counter tops; so they are a lot more affordable and you can finish them off with a boat glaze so if that ever comes up; that is why you put in wood countertops and they look cool. Second of all, I do think to give Speaker Cowan some more encouragement that our County definitely needs to build more houses. So anything that could encourage that and lower those barricades; so the price of individual residents building houses is fees and we’ve somehow made them at cost. I think that is a positive case. For the sprinkler fitters that guy was asking us to make some type of county wide ordinance or something so that doesn’t happen to people in the future. I know that New Lenox has a very unique situation. I would be interested in a future meeting to try and find a solution there so that some homeowner in the future doesn’t get saddled with the same fees that they got saddled with. The other thing is I know the sprinkler fitters have come to us and asked us to install some rule that we have to put sprinklers in all new buildings. But that can cost up to $20,000 per house it all varies. But again we are trying to encourage more building of houses and the price of lumber is already high. Labor cost are high; so including more things that increase the cost of building is kind of contrary to what our goals are. I wanted to go back to the previous case where Speaker Cowan was talking about the flooding. Mr. Marcum said this is very close to, but it is not that close to Joliet. It is closer to the Village of Shorewood; but there are several farm lands before you get to the Village line of Shorewood. They would have lots of other areas to first build up; and if they built the area as residential; part of a residential plan would be to address drainage. I mean it is one of the new things that we have learned; is that building these houses without drainage is part of the problem. This area tends to flood a lot because of the corn that is there; because it doesn’t help bring down the water into the ground. All of this area that we are talking about where the flooding is happening is in the county. It is our responsibility right now; not Shorewood or Joliet. If they annex they would obviously have to deal with it at that point. At this point it is the County; if we wanted to put some ARP dollars into putting better drainage along the roadway there where the corn fields are at; it is not pushing that water on to the road which is what has been currently happening. I think that Mrs. Ogalla has addressed this in her area; why the drain tiles are so important for those farmers to put in. If this is something we want to look at now would be the time to do so. This particular property that wants a landscaping business has probably has 1/8th of an acre at least; if not a 1/4th of an acre in the front area that is all actual grass they’re not growing corn. So their area if anything is probably sucking the water down into the ground. Again, all of this stuff that they are building is on the backend of the property; which is furthest from the road. If our reason for voting no is because it would flood; that is something that we should be addressing. They are a long ways from building all of that farmland up. Even if Shorewood decided to annex it all in they would have still have to address some type of drainage before they put homes in there.
Mr. Marcum replied the Village of Shorewood is right across the street from the neighboring parcel; so it is literally right there. Then the City of Joliet is two parcels away; three if you go into Kendall County. So it is not far away, it is right there.
Ms. Ventura stated all of that area was farmland other that Saddleback; that was the only one that was built up residential.
Speaker Cowan said I believe we have zoning rules for a reason; and special use permits and deviating from our zoning plan should be done very rarely. I don’t know how I’m going to vote; but thanks for all of the information.
Mr. Marcum said next we have designating a historic landmark that is pretty straight forward. The next thing was an appeal of the Planning and Zoning Commission; this is in Monee in District #1. The applicant for the appeal needed a special use permit for a variance for an accessory building area from 1,800 square feet to 2,422.12 square feet. Also a variance for a minimum side yard setback from 10 feet to 4 feet. To totally understand this one you are going to have to look at the map in the staff report. If you look at that you can see that this property is awkwardly shaped; the applicant actually owns Laurel Lane which is a private road in the area. Their frontage is actually on Governors Highway and on Egyptian Trail so they don’t have a rear setback they just have a front setbacks there. That is all of the accessory buildings on the property; not just the one. If the detached garage is on the property plus a shed then that is included; it is the total not just the single building. It is a unique situation; in committee we discussed how it is unique with Laurel Lane being shared; but a private road owned by the applicant. Having frontage on both Governors Highway and Egyptian Trail is a unique situation that I thought made it more difficult. Part of the way this came about with the denial was; the applicant filed for a building permit to do some work. He went above and beyond it and ended up building a new business without getting a new permit. Then the neighbor who filed an objection; who is I believe is right across from the new building objected because the permit was not received before he built the building. I know this applicant has been calling a lot of people too. I don’t know if anyone has any questions or what they need clarified because like I said it is unique out there.
Ms. Ventura asked what the vote in committee was on this one.
Mr. Marcum stated it was unanimous to overturn the appeal; so to grant the variances.
Ms. Newquist said guy has called me and I have not had the chance to go out and look at the property. I felt kind of bad about that; he wanted to give me the whole tour. So in the committee it was unanimous then? I know the area out there is really odd; I did tell the guy that I tend to be hard lined about people that build and then ask for permission. But I agree it is an unusual situation; it is a private lane. As much as I really hate it when people build out stuff and then go and get the permit. His neighborhood turned him in I believe also has buildings on his property that he does not have a permit for. At this point I think it is fine to give him the variance. It is a decent property and it looks good; I drove by the front of it and that was it.
Ms. Freeman stated I talked with this gentleman; I even read the minutes from the Commission’s Report. I think the biggest problem is he built this structure; he told me it was on the existing building, but he made it much larger and taller that the original building. So I told him that is not the original building then when you made it bigger and taller; you can’t say that it is the same. He build it very close to the property line. I think that is my biggest hang up; I grew up in a rural area and you just don’t put something that large next to the property line when there is someone right there. I heard the back and forth; the he did this and he did that. That’s not what we are looking at; we’re looking at where he built the shed and is it okay for it to be there. I am still very torn on this.
Mr. Marcum stated first off it is going to take 20 votes to overturn the PZC; so it does take 3/4th of the majority. Also, if we don’t approve the appeal then he’s pretty much going to have to have the building lifted and moved six feet. Then it will be in compliance; he will have to knock down some size or some other sheds or something. He is six feet off.
Ms. Freeman said I feel for that; I truly do and I have thought about that. If he had gotten the permits this wouldn’t even be a conversation. He has so much land out there; and he chose to put it right there; that is part of where I am torn.
Ms. Newquist said I was too; I hear what you are saying. I wish there was some way that we could consider this. In a way I want to take a hard line case and say sorry you have to move it. But on the other hand how practical is that; is it really causing harm to the neighbor?
Speaker Cowan stated he called me too; so I am most interested to hear what
Mrs. Ogalla and Ms. Newquist have to say and what the committee decided. Ms. Mueller said that was kind of my sense too.
Ms. Tyson said I want to ditto what Speaker Cowan just said; he called me we talked several times; his number is in my phone now. Based on what Ms. Newquist said I think I’ll probably vote in alliance with what Ms. Newquist said. Even though he did go over but it is done and people make mistakes. That is how I feel about that.
Ms. Ventura said they have had a couple cases like this in the past; I think what we need to do is implement some type of fee or penalty so that there is an incentive to do it the right way. Obviously tearing down and building or even having to move it six feet. That is a huge cost to a homeowner. That is going to be problematic but there are people like somebody before me said; people make mistakes should they have to shell out now $20,000 to move a garage. Especially if they can get their neighbors on board. He has called me as well; it sounds like he has gotten the approval of all of his neighbors it makes sense. I do think that even if we have to postpone this one so that we can get something in place. It is not the first time this has happened; it is not going to be the last. I think people need to know that there is a process and it is important if you do the process. When you don’t sometimes there are penalties that happen. I don’t know how the rest of the Caucus feels about that; but that is how I feel. Yes, we can approve this but we need to have some type of penalty.
Ms. Mueller stated I do believe we have a penalty; am I correct Mr. Marcum.
Mr. Marcum said they still have to pay for the fees; this gentleman has to pay for the appeal; I will refer to Mrs. Tatroe. Off the top of my head I don’t know exactly what all of the fees entail. I don’t know if she would either because Mr. Guzman is our State’s Attorney for Land Use; so I will defer. If not I can find out; I can have staff send an email out.
Mrs. Tatroe stated I don’t know off of the top of my head. I do think that the fees are pretty substantial; but I could be wrong it has been quite a while since I have looked at them.
Ms. Ventura said the fees are substantial. The appeal fees; is that what you mean?
Mrs. Tatroe said the fees for the special use permit and what not; I could be wrong it has just been a long time since I have looked at them.
Mr. Marcum stated I will send an email to Land Use Staff tonight and see if we can get that sent out to the Board so we can all have that information. I just don’t remember off of the top of my head.
Ms. Ventura said so Mr. Marcum if there is not any additional fees; would you consider pushing this back and waiting until there was a fee. Is there any interest with anyone to (inaudible) some type of penalty or something if people don’t follow the right process?
Mr. Marcum stated I would have to check with the timing. If we don’t vote on it in a certain time frame then the PZC automatically confirmed. We do have a time limit; I just don’t know what exactly it is or where we fall in it.
Mrs. Tatroe said I think it would be too late to penalize this particular property owner. That would be considered and ex post facto law where you are punishing them. You are passing a penalty after they’ve already committed the violation. So they did not have notice of the penalty before they did it. You can’t do that.
Ms. Ventura said can we then put it on for future meetings to discuss that when we don’t have a case that is pending before us.
Ms. Tatroe said the State’s Attorney can look into that if that is the will of the committee.
Ms. Newquist stated I would be completely in favor of some kind of penalty. Another thing that is making me probably vote to overturn the appeal on this. When I was on the Village Board in Steger we were sued from time to time because if you allow one person to do this and not another and they are on to it; it has caused problems in the past. I will also say when I was on the Village Board in Steger we actually did make a guy tear down a building. It was incredibly blatant; he had a permit for one size and he wanted a bigger one; it was turned down and he went ahead and built the bigger structure anyway. Not only did he build it bigger he added bathrooms and made it clearly a commercial space in complete violation. We actually made him tear it down; although we did reach a compromise. He tore half of it down and turned it into a carport. Then the other half was his building; which oddly enough it fit the zoning requirements. I’m usually for looking for some type of compromise on these things. I totally agree there’s got to be some sort of incentive to comply. In unincorporated areas a lot of people think it is their land. They are not in a Village or City they can do what they want. Anything that we can do to encourage compliance with a carrot or a stick; I would be in favor of.
Ms. Mueller stated I agree with a lot of what’s been said about all of this.
Ms. Freeman stated I am sitting here and listening; I have to think back to the conversation that I had with the gentleman; he said he got a permit for the siding and something else. He then just decided to change the entire size of the structure. He knew he had to have a permit; but he didn’t take that extra step to get the permit. There are just a lot of things that make me question this. We do have the rules; and they are there because of this. I live in an unincorporated and when my husband built a shed two years ago and we were told you don’t have to have a permit for unincorporated. But we checked and yes we do. I get that part too; they live out in the county they think this is their property and they can do whatever they want. I don’t blame them for feeling that way. He was telling me the history of the home; but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it is super close to the border and his neighbor’s house is right there too.
Mr. Marcum stated I have one more item; and a lot of the items this month were not as straight forward as it has been so it has been a little more complicated. The last thing takes place in my County Board District for once. It is authorizing a second extension for a special use permit. These folks are on Frontage Road and they couldn’t get their building permits; because there was a delay with IDOT. It wasn’t anything of their fault; it was just that IDOT took longer than their extension. This is pretty straight forward; it is a second extension. That is everything for Land Use.
Ms. Mueller stated next we have Finance Committee.
Mr. Harris stated we didn’t have a committee meeting this month. We do have a few items on the agenda. The first thing is going to be a presentation of the FY2022 Budget. Ms. Howard will be giving that presentation. We do have a new item that we are going to start adding to the agenda for the Finance portion. It is going to be monthly sales tax and cannabis collection. It will be a three page report that will give you a breakdown of different revenues and Sales Tax, Cannabis Tax, RTA Tax, and Motor Fuel Tax; it will be prepared for your information. Also we will be placing on file the Monthly Financial Reports. There are two resolutions that I will bring forward. The first one is authorizing an amendment to the Auditing Contract. This is with Baker Tilly to increase the fee for the FY 2021 Audit; not-to-exceed amount of $145,530.00. Next one is authorizing the County Executive to execute the Delinquent Tax Documents. We also have some Budget Workshops scheduled the first one on August 31st. The next Finance Committee meeting will be scheduled for September 7th with a Special Finance Committee meeting scheduled for September 14th. If there are no other questions this will conclude my report.
Ms. Mueller stated I don’t have any hands up for questions. I just wanted to make sure that everyone who is new; to make sure you get to these budget workshops. They will help you to understand what is going on with the budget and how it all works.
Mr. Harris stated in September we will have a Finance Committee meeting every week. It will be specifically focus on; one we are going to have for revenues. One for expenses and some other items. Definitely concentrate on revenues when you see the presentation and also then the expenses.
Ms. Mueller asked if we vote on the budget in November; correct.
Mr. Harris stated yes, we vote on the Levy, and then we vote on the Budget at the November County Board Meeting.
Ms. Mueller said next we have Public Works; Mr. Van Duyne isn’t here but we have Ms. Newquist who is on the committee.
Ms. Newquist said it was a quick meeting and nothing unusual. There wasn’t any objection to anything on there; it was just very basic stuff.
Ms. Mueller stated next we have Diversity & Inclusion Committee; turning it over to Ms. Tyson.
Ms. Tyson said good evening everyone; on the Diversity & Inclusion Committee we are going to vote on passing the resolution for the service contract with Carmona Strategic Solutions to preform Diversity & Inclusion Consultants, for the dollar amount not-to-exceed $128,240.00. When it passes they can start on September 1, 2021. That concludes my report; are there any questions?
Ms. Mueller said I want to know if we know for sure that those items that we just discussed editing on the contract were taken care of. That might be something to touch on a little bit at the meeting. I assume those were made; do you know? Or is there somebody from the Executive’s Office staff here; who might know.
Mrs. Adams stated the changes were made; I did give Ms. Tyson a copy of it when she was in last week.
Ms. Tyson stated yes, thank you Mrs. Adams. The changes were made. Are there any other questions.
Ms. Freeman stated I am sorry I was going to ask the same thing that Ms. Mueller asked; I know there was a large discussion about the wording. I agree with Ms. Mueller; something should be said just to help clarify that.
Ms. Tyson said it shall be done.
Ms. Mueller said I just like to tell folks what they want to know before they ask; so we don’t have to spend too much time in what’s already going to be a really long meeting.
Ms. Tyson stated we will get ahead of it.
Ms. Mueller stated we are going to move along to Public Health & Safety.
Ms. Ventura stated we had one thing on the agenda and I don’t have that in front of me and it is like a renewal.
Ms. Mueller said next we have Legislative & Judicial Committee.
Ms. Winfrey stated we don’t have any resolutions that we are bringing forward. We just had discussions and updates from Mr. Hassert as per usual.
Ms. Ventura stated I think that you were going to talk about the warehouse and the tracking of what is in it. Was there any discussion about that; or will you be continuing that in a different meeting.
Ms. Winfrey stated Mr. Damron reported on that.
Ms. Ventura asked if the County is going to change any policies on that or not.
Ms. Winfrey stated no, we already have a policy and they already do per the State guidelines; they have a report about that. I will ask Mr. Damron to send that around.
Ms. Ventura replied thank you.
Ms. Mueller stated yes, he did come and report on that and I listened intently. Next is Capital Improvements.
Mrs. Adams said I think we lost Mr. Brooks; I do not see him on the meeting.
Ms. Mueller stated I am on that committee; obviously we had a report on the projects that are going on. Then we had the votes on the Morgue Design and Construction Management and both went through. Are there any questions. Next it is Executive Committee.
Speaker Cowan stated we will be voting on the Group Health Benifits and the Health Plan that was presented at Executive Committee last week. And the Insurance Plan; there will be some presentation and explanation on that. We’ll be voting on the Vote by Mail Automation Program for the County Clerk’s Office. We talked about having some of those funds coming out of ARP but we still have a balance in County Board Contingency that covers it; so that is where that’s going to come from for now. We have the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police; you will get more details on that. We will be establishing the maxim price for the Morgue; which I believe we discussed at least at Executive Committee. That being $7 million and that is an all in number. I don’t think that there is anything that is going to be contentious in this part of the agenda. Does anyone have any questions?
Ms. Newquist stated item #2 amending the Liquor Ordinance for the Bar and Vineyard LLC in Beecher. I don’t know if you are expecting any opposition to that. I’ve gone out and toured the place; and it is absolutely gorgeous. He has made a great facility out there. He has got vineyards and two wedding venues. Up till now he has been using catering companies that have liquor licenses that have the ability to bring liquor in. He is not actually doing anything new there; he just wants his own liquor license so he can branch out. They are also opening their own kitchen so he won’t always be bring in catered food. I strongly recommend approval. I don’t think he has any oppisition from any of the neighbors; he barely has any neighbors. I just wanted to point that out to you.
Speaker Cowan said thank you Ms. Newquist; and Mrs. Ogalla also expressed similar sentiment at the Executive meeting.
Ms. Newquist stated I actually went out there with Mrs. Ogalla. I have a question about the maximum cost of the Morgue. What happens if it exceeds that; do we have to vote on an increase. What if we get 90% of that done and due to some unforeseen thing it is going to be $7.5 million.
Speaker Cowan stated I think there’s two answers to your question. The long and short answer is yes. If it is going to exceed $7 million we will need to author a new resolution that is extending the budget. I think this is also part of making sure that the Capital Improvements Committee is getting a better tally sheet as we are going along. It kind of forces the Construction Management team to say we are still on track for the $7 million. Or we might not be on track for that $7 million. Instead of doing it four weeks out from turning the key over. It is a more careful process.
Ms. Newquist said thank you, which makes sense.
Ms. Mueller stated I also think that part of this is putting a dollar amount on what we want them to design; and what we are expecting to spend on this project. I have been hearing a lot from the folks on the other side saying what if they come back will a building that is $25 million to build. It is good for the guidance of that as well; so we are all on the same page.
Speaker Cowan said you are absolute right thank you Ms. Mueller. Unless anyone else has any questions that is it for Executive Committee.
Ms. Freeman said I was looking at the agenda and item # 9; the authorizing for the Will County Executive lease agreement. Of course I want our County Veterans Assistant commission to have a place. It is $7,320.50 per month; that is crazy high. I am assuming that they have a whole floor or something. I know we were just working on the Silver Cross purchase. Is there plans to move that so it is not $7,000 per month?
Speaker Cowan stated Mr. Palmer might want to jump in a little more on this. We already own the Silver Cross Building. We would need to set millions of dollars to renovate the Silver Cross Building. So to be honest $7,000 a month for renting an office space that is up keep for us is actually not that much in the scheme of things. Yes, they have an extensive office area. But in order to rehab the Silver Cross Building this is something that we are going to have to have talks about. Frankly it will cost us more to rehab the Silver Cross Building than it would be to build a new building. I think that is something we are going to have to have some serious conversations about here very soon.
Mr. Palmer said I think you have said it pretty well; the reality is the VAC is in a lease now and they don’t have anywhere to go at the moment. There was a plan to move them to the Copperfield location but we’ve not seen a budget projection. That conversation is going to be coming; but right now they have to have somewhere to be and that is where they are at. We will either move them to Copperfield or move them to a new location.
Ms. Freeman stated my other question is can someone help me with the re erecting of the Emergency Radio Communications Tower. Did it fall; or what happen to it that we have to re-erect it.
Mr. Palmer stated the tower that we are re-erecting was at the Laraway Rd. location. When we constructed the new Public Safety Complex we have a new tower and all of the pieces that went with it. Rather than just scrap the old tower; we took it down and stored it temporary. This is now going to be re-erected down in Wilmington at our Department of Highways Storage Facility. This will improve the radio coverage down in the Southwestern part of the county by putting it up there. It is also repurposing an asset. It is ultimately a good thing.
Ms. Mueller stated next we will move on to committee reports.
VII. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
VIII. COMMITTEE REPORTS
1. Land Use & Development-No Discussion
2. Finance-No Discussion
3. Public Works & Transportation-No Discussion
4. Diversity & Inclusion-No Discussion
5. Public Health & Safety
Ms. Ventura stated I brought up at my committee there was a NACo Award for Health. I asked the County to maybe look into it and have it on their future meeting. It basically prescribes healthy foods and vegetables. It has some type of professional track people; it is a volunteer program. I don’t know if that is something that our County wants to try to implement. But obviously we would want to work with something like Will County and Grundy County Medical. They have worked with us in the past; they did a map collaborative as well as our local farmers to maybe contract that food. I asked the committee; so I have asked staff to pull something together using the County that won that NACo award. We will be presenting that whenever staff has that ready for us on Public Health and Safety.
Ms. Mueller said great I am looking forward to hearing about it.
6. Legislative & Judicial-No Discussion
7. Capital Improvements-No Discussion
8. Executive-No Discussion
IX. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
Ms. Mueller said we are looking forward to soon having our Caucus meetings in person. What we have been thinking about is trying to be more centrally located. To give you a heads up we are working on that. Make sure you are sharing the ARPA Survey; does anyone have any questions about that? Mr. Palmer could you tell us how many responses we have had?
Mr. Palmer stated we are currently at 711 of the English; and 9 of the Spanish. We could use more Spanish replies. I have shared it with some of our partners in the Spanish speaking community. Although we have had a lot of English speaking respondents identify that they are connected to the Spanish Community Center. So we are getting into the Spanish Community. We could always use more in every area of the County.
Ms. Mueller that was really all I had today; was to make sure you are sending out the ARPA Survey so that we can get that going. Next we have the Speakers Update.
1. Speakers Update
Speaker Cowan said there are a couple of things I wanted to let everyone know. Mr. Palmer has been putting together visits for the Congressional Delegation to the Intermodal area in Joliet and Elwood. Today we had the first one with Congresswoman Marie Newman, myself, Ms. Winfrey, and Ms. Mueller were there. The purpose of that especially with Congresswoman Newman; she sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to really impress upon people that we need funding and planning for modern and safe transportation routes in the County. We were able to tour the BNSF Intermodal facility; we saw the Union Pacific Global IV and went to one distribution center and then had a ground tour. We have another one coming up with Congresswoman Underwood. I don’t think we need to bring Bill Foster out; he has done this a number of times as has Adam Kinzinger; but I think we were also probably trying to get Congresswoman Kelly out as well. Of course, all of their districts are changing so who knows what is happening with that. Just wanted to let everyone know that these things are happening and we think it is a positive thing to keep those relationships up and doing that outreach for our community. Along with the ARPA stuff, Mr. Palmer and I continue to have meetings with community partners and orginizations and what we can do for them and the people that they represent. Joliet and Naperville Chamber offered a joint survey to their members to ask them what the needs of the business community are in terms of the ARPA funding. We should be getting the results of that hopefully in the next week or two. Ms. Ventura would like to talk about the broadband stuff. I’ve been diving into this a little over the last few weeks. I have explained some of this to Ms. Ventura. We do have a State Commission for broadband service and I have been reaching out to our state partners; and that folks at the State who handle the State Passport on broadband. There is this huge pot of money that Governor Pritzker put into the budget in 2019 to increase broadband access for communities. We are trying to get on the radar for that and how we get a piece of it and is there a way we can partner with that. If they are not looking at Will County what can we do with our local funds to maybe attract some of that investment. I think that is one of the big things that we are looking at with the ARPA Funds right? Is there a Federal Grant for it; is there a State Grant for it. Maybe that won’t cover the whole expenses for it but then maybe we can leverage our dollars to complete something that otherwise wouldn’t be completed. The broadband stuff is underway; of course if the County constructed it, it would only be in unincorporated areas which would be a start. I think if we can partner with communities and the State we might be able to do something substantial. They also have the maps of where access is lacking. Apparently some of those maps in some places are considered industry propriety information. There are States surrounding us like Indiana that have created laws to bypass that propriety status; because we need to know where the problems are so we can address it and fix it. We are looking at that from a couple of different angles and working on that. With ARPA step 2; I know some people are raring to go as we all are; this is just a massive project with a massive amount of information that we need to get in before we start making firm decisions on how we are going to spend stuff. Like I’ve said in some of the Executive Meetings; what is probably going to happen is that we are going to have some short term projects that we can decide quickly; before the end of this calendar year. We will start disbursing funds to those shorter term projects. They might be like a small business program again; or funding expenses in the County itself. Things that we have already identified are clear and what we want to do; we can do those right away. Bigger projects like sewer and water, broadband, infrastructure items; we have to get a lot of ducks in a row before we officially embark upon that. It might be some time before we actually know what we are doing and how we are getting there with some of these funds. I just ask for everybody’s patience and I know that we are working on it consistently. It is a huge project and I appreciate everyone’s help and support so far. It is really important; hopefully in the next month we will be able to come to you with a little more flushed out program. One of the things I am excited about is we have been working with our University partners. We have had some really productive meetings and we are trying to get everybody to the same table to see what we can do with Lewis University, Joliet Junior College, University of St. Francis, and Governor’s State University. To increase workforce training development and those kind of things. So it is not just Governor’s State doing one thing and JJC doing another; but everyone is rowing in the same direction. Those are some of the things that we have been working on. If you have any specific questions about ARPA I am happy to try and answer them. As you know there are about 90 billion ways we could go with this.It is daunting and scary and also really a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something like this. I hope you are all as excited about that as I am. I think that is about it for now.
Ms. Freeman asked with ARPA is it possible to give out vouchers for tutoring for senior or juniors that are lagging behind and are not financially able to get tutoring to get caught up due to COVID with the ARPA Funds.
Speaker Cowan said it is certainly possible; if you are talking in the realm of legal possibilities. What we would need is possibly for someone to bring us a proposal. Because the administration of a program like that would be probably pretty sizeable. I am just thinking off of the cuff. If we had a community partner who wanted to implement something like that. Mr. Palmer is that something that we could maybe ask JJC about?
Mr. Palmer said yes definitely JJC or maybe the High Schools are doing something like that. We do have funding for that already so that’s something we should check it out to see.
Ms. Freeman stated I didn’t put that in my list when you asked for email for ideas. It came to me later; it was something that I heard at NACo and I thought it was something to revisit. Thank you.
Ms. Ventura stated I understand that this is very new to the County and this is (inaudible) what I am talking about is a public offer for broadband. I do think we need to go after every dollar that we can. It is going to be in the new Infrastructure Bill that just passed the Senate; the Congress has not passed it yet. If they do, there will be dollars there for broadband. There are dollars in ARPA obviously and then if the State has access for increasing access; I think those dollars are tied to existing companies like your Comcast, or AT&T. if we can go after those dollars that is great; I think we need to. What I am suggesting is that we are like a public utility offering internet; much like the postal service offers shipping in comparison to UPS and FedEx. This is something that every business can apply for; we would create competition amongst private entities. We would run it; we would have to have our own department; we would have to work with the Executive’s Office. She would have to implement it; but we would set the policy. Then we would have to have a knowledgeable team handle this. Obviously they would have to set the cost but the idea is we are not profiting off of the internet. The beauty of that is keeping prices low and then the competition, the private entities they would have to offer better services or better access in order to really compete with those dollars. This is a way to make our tax dollars work directly for us. We all pay in to the cost if we want that service and it helps fund that. There is going to be a lot of bumps in the road there is going to be a lot of finding out how to do this. It is not going to be simple which is why I think it is important that we are all on board; us and the Republicans on board. I think that this creates economic development and growth; to the point of it just being unincorporated that’s definitely the easiest place to start and we should. Some of our rural areas do not have good access. Ultimately I foresee working intergovernmental agreements with townships and cities; so that we can offer Will County Internet to everybody in our County including areas and cities. I think that cities and townships will be very excited about this. it does offer growth and it offers low prices; this is the wave of the future. We have a moment to do something very unique and very forward thinking for every resident, every future resident as we see techknowlgy grow more and more stuff is moving on line. If we can be a forefront runner in Will County; we will attract businesses across the board. This is something that I think bipartisan we can all get on board with but it is going to take a lot of working some of these different issues. I am just encouraging everyone to think about it. Let sit with you; read some articles. There is going to be some ups and downs it is not a forward path that’s going to be easy. But I think it is going to be rewarding if we can all make it happen.
Speaker Cowan said I just wanted to respond to what Ms. Ventura said. I love the idea and I think it is awesome; but as you said we would have to create a whole department and the Executive would have to basically implement this whole thing. What we need as the County Board; is the Executive to create a proposal that is flushed out. ARPA would be able to fund the creation of the infrastructure for something like this. But it wouldn’t fund the long term maintenance of it. This is only money that we have for three for four years.
Ms. Ventura stated I disagree because it is we that sets the policy; not the Executive, she implements it. We should work with her. It is not coming from her; this is something that the County Board would have to decide on.
Speaker Cowan said that is all I have to say.
X. PUBLIC COMMENT
XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XII. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn @ 7:40 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mica Freeman, Member SECONDER: Margaret Tyson, Majority Whip AYES: Mueller, Newquist, Koch, Tyson, Harris, Brooks Jr., Winfrey, Ventura, Marcum, Cowan, Freeman ABSENT: Traynere, VanDuyne, Coleman |
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