Will County Executive Committee met Jan. 6.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Mr. Brooks led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Chair Mimi Cowan called the meeting to order at 10:01 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Mimi Cowan | Chair | Present | |
| Meta Mueller | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Herbert Brooks Jr. | Member | Present | |
| Mike Fricilone | Member | Present | |
| Tyler Marcum | Member | Present | |
| Jim Moustis | Member | Present | |
| Judy Ogalla | Member | Present | |
| Annette Parker | Member | Present | |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Member | Present | |
| Margaret Tyson | Member | Present | |
| Joe VanDuyne | Member | Present | |
| Rachel Ventura | Member | Present | |
| Denise E. Winfrey | Member | Present |
County Board Members Present In-Person: Mueller, Brooks, VanDuyne and Ventura. Also Present: N. Palmer and B. Adams.
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: S. Pyles.
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Executive Committee - Assignment Meeting - Nov 4, 2021 10:00 AM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Rachel Ventura, Member AYES: Cowan, Mueller, Brooks Jr., Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Parker, Traynere, Tyson, VanDuyne, Ventura, Winfrey |
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Annette Parker, Member AYES: Cowan, Mueller, Brooks Jr., Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Parker, Traynere, Tyson, VanDuyne, Ventura, Winfrey |
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Jim Moustis, Member AYES: Cowan, Mueller, Brooks Jr., Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Parker, Traynere, Tyson, VanDuyne, Ventura, Winfrey |
(Minutes)
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Jim Moustis, Member AYES: Cowan, Mueller, Brooks Jr., Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Parker, Traynere, Tyson, VanDuyne, Ventura, Winfrey |
1. Authorizing the County Executive to Petition the City of Joliet for Annexation of a Will County Campus Parcel Pursuant to the County’s Intergovernmental Agreement with the City of Joliet (Mitch Schaben)
Speaker Cowan stated we talked about this a little bit before. The City of Joliet has requested this and our IGA requires that we go along with it. It is an official annexation request and that is why we are voting on it.
Mrs. Traynere asked is this the parcel at the Sheriff's Public Safety Complex or some other parcel?
Mr. Schaben replied this is the parcel we spoke about last month at the Sheriff’s Complex. I believe Mr. Chris Regis from the City of Joliet is on the line. I know there were some questions from Board Members at the last meeting and I am hopeful that Mr. Regis can help answer those questions.
Ms. Ventura stated I don’t know if everyone remembers the questions from the last meeting, but I think a lot of the questions dealt with Joliet’s further interests were in developing around the county property and beyond. Perhaps Mr. Regis can give us an overview of what the City is looking at doing in that area.
Mr. Regis stated as is contemplated in the agreement, we are interested in developing neighboring parcels and we are seeking continuity through the Sheriff’s Office complex. The reason we requested it a couple months ago is because we did receive an inquiry from a developer for the parcel on the west side of Route 52 and south of Laraway. That has since fallen through and that developer is no longer interested in that parcel. We currently have no interest in any of those parcels, but we would like the County to fulfill their end of the agreement to give us that option in the future. Right now there are no plans.
Mr. Moustis stated I don’t recall exactly what the IGA said in relation to annexation. Can somebody explain exactly what is in the IGA that facilitates this to have it automatically annexed in at Joliet’s request?
Mr. Schaben replied there is specified language in the IGA, which is in your packet. On page 11 of your packet, in Section 5, where it reads annexation and in subsection (b) of Section 5: “In the future, the CITY may wish to annex non-Will County Campus parcels surrounding the Will County Campus. As such, upon written request of the CITY, the COUNTY agrees to petition the CITY for annexation of all or portion of the Will County Campus parcels” and the PIN numbers for four of the parcels are listed. This is the request the City is making on one of those parcels.
Mr. Moustis stated maybe this is a question for our attorney; does this absolutely require us to annex in. Personally I don’t see any advantages to the County to do this annexation, I actually see it creating some problems for us. If it says there has to be some type of mutual agreement, I am not really crazy about this, but if we are legally committed then I would like to hear that from our attorney.
Speaker Cowan stated I believe Mr. Scott Pyles is with us today. Would you be able to address Mr. Moustis’ question of whether or not we are legally required to request this annexation by Joliet?
Mr. Pyles replied I would like to take a look at the annexation agreements before I can offer something on that. If there is a requirement in the IGA to do this, I would like to take a look at that before I comment. I have not had an opportunity to review it yet.
Speaker Cowan stated according to Mr. Regis, there is not a project on the chopping block at the moment, it would be okay for us to wait until the next meeting for this. Is that okay with you Mr. Regis?
Mr. Regis replied you are correct, we do not have anything pending for that. I sent the agreement to Mr. Pyles this morning.
Mr. Pyles stated I can look at the agreement while the meeting is going on and perhaps preliminarily address that question, when I have an opportunity to look at it.
Speaker Cowan stated we can certainly move this to next week’s Executive Committee meeting and that would give everybody time to look at it, since we may need you for other things as well, Mr. Pyles.
Mr. Moustis asked with annexations, sometimes the zoning authority or the municipality can leap over certain government owned properties and continue their annexation. As an example, I believe the Forest Preserve District did not want to annex in, but they were able to annex in on the other side of the property. My other question would be, does Joliet have the ability to jump over our government owned property for annexation purposes? Can they break the continuous rule and jump over us? Can you see if that is also a possibility with Joliet?
Mr. Pyles replied I am familiar with that concept. With the Forest Preserve District if a village is looking to try to annex property, the Forest Preserve property can be considered as a "jump over". For the purposes of the annexation that would not prevent the contiguity, the continuous part of the city; the city have a contiguous parcel. The Forest Preserve property would suffice to allow for that contiguousness. I will certainly look into that as well.
Mr. Moustis stated if the real purpose of the City annexation is so they can have a continuous property through annexation, then there may be no need for them to annex in our property. That would be information for Joliet, so they know they could continue with their annexations.
Mr. Van Duyne stated as the conversation continued I had an opportunity to look at when this agreement was signed. Correct me if I am wrong, this was back in 2017. It looks to me like the Board was completely different at that time. I wanted to make that note.
Mrs. Traynere stated Mr. Moustis, you were on the Board when we signed this agreement, you may have been the County Board Speaker. I am just wondering what the concerns are? We don't have to pay taxes to the City of Joliet. I am just curious what your concerns are? I don't have an objection to postponing it until next week. You can even tell me your concerns next week, I was just curious.
Mr. Moustis replied there are several things that come into place. For example, if we want to do some additional building, then all the permits have to go through the City of Joliet. Technically, you would have to call Joliet's law enforcement and not Will County deputies for issues on the property. I just do see where there are any advantages. Tell me what is Joliet going to do for us, if we annex it to the City of Joliet? I see no advantages to the County. Quite honestly, I was on the Board and I was the Speaker at the time. Sometimes you may not understand or we thought they would never annex it in. For what purpose does Joliet want to annex it in, outside of getting between parcels. There are no advantages to Joliet, because they just have to provide us services. Of course extending the sewer and water was crucial. We may have been a little over anxious. It was in Joliet's ordinance when you annex in for sewer and water, even though they have allowed other properties since then to annex in without being in the corporate limits of Joliet. They have since allowed other service areas without being incorporated into Joliet. So some of those things have changed on Joliet's side. I see no advantages for us to be in the City of Joliet. I see some potential stumbling blocks to it. I guess those are the reasons. There are no benefits for Will County.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I wanted to ask a question. First we need to know if we are definitely bound to an annexation agreement or not, based on the contract that was signed. Regardless of what the Board was at that time, many things happened years ago when many of us were not here and therefore that was something that was signed. We can obviously change our minds, as we go forward, but if we are bound by the contract we obviously can't. We need to look at that. In addition, I don't know who the property owners are of this property, and I am not sure if they want to be annexed into the City. I would like to know that. I think we should wait until they have a project to do the annexation, because what is the benefit of it. For us, there isn't any benefit. I would be in favor of waiting until and if they ever have a project.
Mr. Palmer stated my memory is good, but it is not perfect. I am going to offer a few things, because I was involved with this project. Number one, this was prior to us building the current facilities at the Public Safety Campus. The County explored getting sewer and water, because by doing that we opened up some of the land for building because we did not have to have septic fields. This was an IGA we signed with Joliet to achieve that. My understanding is that normally if you were a public citizen or a private entity you would be required to annex into the City of Joliet. However, because since we were a governmental entity they allowed us not the annex in at the time, but allowed us to connect to their water and sewer. I am looking at the agreement and it says we were required to pay tap-on fees, but I thought we had not paid the tap-on fees and I thought that was part of the agreement also. I will ask Mr. Schaben to research that with the City of Joliet and determine if we paid tap-on fees. The other thing we were required, just like anyone else, to run the sewer and water lines from their existing location, at the time, to the site. We came up Route 52 and the City Manager at the time did a recapture agreement that allowed us to recapture funds. Since that time, there has been at least one business that located, paid their tap-on fees and the County received a portion of that back. We wanted the sewer and water at our site and we had to pay for it, but now the cost is being spread among other developments that occur and that was a positive. I think this is kind of an agreement we did all of those things and put in place in this agreement. I don't know that we are absolutely required, but clearly there was an intent to do that at some point in the future, that is why it is in the agreement. When we talked about this last month, the reason they are coming back and asking for a vote is because it is an annexation and we have to vote on annexations. We can investigate all the questions people have asked and have them for next week. I wanted to give a little history that we asked for the sewer and water service, we passed the IGA and we did the recapture agreement, which is a benefit to the County, so we did not have to pay the full cost of getting the lines to our site.
Mr. Van Duyne stated I wanted to be a little clearer on my statement. This agreement was signed in 2017, with the Board being different back then. There was a clear intent by the Board at that time to work with the City of Joliet. We are required, according to the State's Attorney, to sign this, then I see no issue with that and I think this Board should follow through on what the intent was back in 2017. I wanted to be a little bit more clear.
Mr. Pyles stated I had an opportunity to look at the agreement Mr. Regis has sent me. There is a paragraph within the agreement, in Section 5, this is an IGA and it states in Section 5 (b): "In the future, the CITY may wish to annex non-Will County Campus parcels surrounding the Will County Campus. As such, upon written request of CITY, the COUNTY agrees to petition the CITY for annexation of all or portion of Will County Campus parcels", the PIN numbers are listed. It continues: "and any other parcels that may be created in the future arising therefrom, at no cost to COUNTY, so that non-Will County Campus parcels annexed to the CITY will be contiguous to CITY's borders". That is what the agreement reads, if that is any help.
Speaker Cowan stated the agreement is in our packet, so everyone has had the opportunity to read that. I think we are just asking for your interpretation of whether or not this is an absolute. It has been presented to us that if the City petitions us for this, we have to petition them back for the annexation. I think the question is whether or not we are obligated, based on the IGA, to follow through with this process.
Mr. Pyles stated I would like some additional time to consider it, if I could.
Mr. Moustis stated I wanted to ask Mr. Pyles one more question. Mr. Pyles, the agreement says we will petition the City. What happens if the Board votes no, not to annex in? You request it and the Board said no, what happens? I am asking so I am prepared for next week. It does not say the Board has to say yes, it says it has to petition. I don't know exactly what that means in the sense of the Board has to vote yes to the petition. If we vote no to the petition, have we fulfilled our obligation to the IGA and can we, potentially create a smaller portion or even if we created some additional PIN numbers to allow them to continue without out annexing in the whole property. One is do we have that option? Second if we vote no, does that fulfill our agreement? Those are questions you will probably want to answer for us next week.
| RESULT: POSTPONED [UNANIMOUS] Next: 1/13/2022 10:00 AM
TO: Will County Executive Committee MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Rachel Ventura, Member AYES: Cowan, Mueller, Brooks Jr., Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Parker, Traynere, Tyson, VanDuyne, Ventura, Winfrey |
2. American Rescue Plan (Mimi Cowan)
Speaker Cowan stated I just wanted to bring everyone’s attention to fact that we are having a special meeting at 2:00 p.m. to bring forward the contract for approval for our ARPA consultant. Their name is Anser, that is the company we are moving forward with. There were a couple of changes distributed last night. These changes were the result of we got this a couple of days before the December meeting and with the holidays and what not some of you had a chance to look at it and some of the changes we asked for in the contract were just clarifying that the Board would have some communication with Anser, especially on the whole development of the allocation part. I wanted to give Mr. Schaben a chance to give a high level, anything in particular that you would like to point out and the high level points of the contract right now. Then if we have any questions about it at Committee and of course, we will have more opportunities to discuss this in the full Board meeting at 2:00 p.m. We want to say this has been through the Committee process and we had a chance to review it at the Executive Committee. Mr. Schaben do you want to give us a high level on the contract?
Mr. Schaben stated I apologize, in advance, you will probably hear this twice today since we are going to meet again later today. I am going to quickly rewind the clock and talk about this from start to finish and where we are today. On October 15th the County completed an RFQ seeking qualifications from firms to assist the County in developing a comprehensive plan to align funding opportunities for short-term and long-term investments using federally provided funds from the American Rescue Plan. Further the firm will be assisting in the implementation of the ARPA plan. A selection committee was created that included members of the County Board, the County Executive and the County Auditor. The selection committee interviewed six firms and narrowed their list to three and received pricing proposals and ranked the three firms based on those pricing proposals submitted. The firm ranked first on that list was Anser Advisory and the contract before you today is from that entity. The contract is a result of the negotiations with Anser. This contract is similar in nature to the contract that was used for the CARES funds the County had with the Bronner Group. It is a defined, two-year term with a maximum price of $1.5 million, which is 1.3% of the total ARPA allocation of $133 million. The fees are dependent on the level of involvement from Anser. In other words, we are billed for the hours that request of Anser. The weighted hourly rate is approximately $200 per hour, which means the County has roughly 7,500 billable hours available under the terms of the contract. As the Speaker indicated the draft contract was submitted to the County Board on December 15th. We also submitted to the State’s Attorney’s Office on December 13th for review. We have not yet received the feedback from the State’s Attorney’s Office, as of yet. As the Speaker mentioned, requested changes came from the County Board and those are reflected in the draft contract in the agenda packet. As the Speaker summarized, they are to clarify some of the actual items in the scope of work to be done in collaboration with Anser and the County Board and County staff. There will be representatives from Anser Advisory at today’s special meeting. So if there are additional questions about the contract, they will be available to answer any questions. I am going to quickly read off the headings for the scope of service, because I think it gives a pretty good summary of what type of work will be expected of Anser. The scope work of provides the work as: financial advisory, County reporting services, project management services, auditing and grant management consulting. This is in the contract, but some of the scope of work for the delivery they will be providing a biweekly status report. Again, as the Speaker mentioned, that will be going to both the County Board and County staff. A biweekly update on the inventory of federal grants available in the County. They will be supporting any ARPA working groups that are created. They will conduct a multistate research and analysis to look at what our county’s desires are and compare that what our peers are currently doing for their ARPA plans. They will also be assisting the County reporting to the U.S. Treasury under their reporting requirements. As the Speaker noted, the first portion of the work from Anser will be spent in development of a strategic and implementation plan. That plan will be revised throughout the duration of this contract. They will also help develop a high-level County ARPA operating model, which that will also be done in concert with the County Board. They will help develop an administrative plan for documentation reporting. Again, that is related to the federal guidelines of what we have to submit. Obviously, any programs that are created under this ARPA plan will be adopted by the County Board and Anser will be expected to help with the implementation of those programs. That is a high-level summary. I apologize as you will probably be hearing that again later today as well. I am happy to answer any questions.
Mrs. Traynere asked is there a minimum of money we are required to pay them in this contract? I heard the max and the hourly rate, I just wondered if there was a minimum?
Mr. Schaben replied there is no, there is no minimum. I wanted to point out and I forgot to mention this, there is a clause we added that after 120 days we will do an internal review of our work with Anser and there is an exit clause if we the relationship is not working, we can exit the contract after 120 days.
Mrs. Traynere stated I was just asking the percentage if they worked the maximum hours. I think you said it was 1.3% of the total and that is reasonable to me. I wondered if there was a minimum number, because that might not be reasonable to me.
Mrs. Ogalla asked when would we expect money to actually be flowing out of the funds we have received so far to any of the groups or programs we are going to set up? When would we expect the first outlay of money to happen, based on conversations?
Mr. Schaben replied I would say at this point it is sort of undetermined. I think it will probably depend on the type of requests and the status of the project requests. It will also depend on how long it takes for us to develop the long-range plan that will accompany the allocation. I can’t personally give you a timeline. I don’t know if Speaker Cowan has a timeline in mind. It will depend on the length of the review process and collaboration process, not only internal with the County but also external with stakeholders.
Mrs. Ogalla stated it seems like we have a lot of work to do beforehand to get to that point, from what you described as the different services, going out and finding out what other groups have done or are doing. I wish we had done this so much sooner. We have had this money since sometime last year and we are not giving it out. The longer this drags on the longer anyone we maybe able to help will have to wait the help.
Speaker Cowan stated Mrs. Ogalla, I share your concerns about wanting to get things moving. I think it is going to probably be different stages. I think with some of the water and sewer projects we have been presented with and we are starting to consider that those will probably be easier to start moving along right away. The same with the Health Department. We are going to hear from Ms. Olenek later today, but shortly we are going to have to move on some Health Department expenditures. As far as more specific programs, we are going to have to take the time to set those up. I think also investigating what other areas have done, I don’t think that investigation will take months or anything like that. It will be basically collecting some information from other areas. NACo has a lot of it, quite frankly and compiling that, moving forward and making some final decisions. I definitely share your concerns and I appreciate you brining that up.
Mr. Moustis stated if you think my questions might be better suited for the special County Board meeting, I will wait. My questions were probably more not so much about scope but about the language in the contract itself. For example, it is not an easy read because there are a lot of legalese and I am not an attorney and I am not sure I always understand when they write a contract with a lot of legal language in it, I rely on the State’s Attorney’s Office for that. I don’t know if they are signing off on the contract or not. For example, the language like they make reference to FOIAs in the contract. I am not exactly sure why that is in there. I don’t have the contract in front of me, I have a copy, but it is difficult to get to right now. I have questions about the actual language in the contract and the implications of that what that language is. I don’t know if it is better addressed at the County Board meeting or if we should address them here. I think it is better to do at the County Board meeting where everybody is present.
Speaker Cowan stated Mr. Moustis, if you want to pose the question and then maybe that will Mr. Schaben or Mr. Palmer time to investigate and make sure they have an answer for the 2:00 p.m. meeting.
Mr. Moustis stated there is language at the beginning of the contract about the ability to have the contractor decide whether to answer FOIA requests or not and they have to give their reasoning for saying it is not a FOIA issue. That is one that puzzles me a little bit. I can’t recall ever seeing that in a contract. If something is foiable, it is foiable, our FOIA officers or our State’s Attorney’s Office decides that, not necessarily them. That would probably be, right now, my primary question. My other question would be, has the State’s Attorney’s Office totally reviewed this contract and signed off on this contract? That would be another question, did they thoroughly go through it? There does seem to be a lot of legalese in there. Those questions are what I will probably be asking at the full County Board meeting.
Speaker Cowan stated Mr. Schaben, just an acknowledgment that you heard both of Mr. Moustis’ questions about the inclusion of the paragraph about FOIA and the State’s Attorney’s ability to oversee the contract.
Mr. Schaben stated that is not reflected in the document you see before you, that was what we submitted to the State’s Attorney’s Office. We took language we have used in past contracts that basically says that we are subject to FOIA as a local unit of government and we have to follow that rule regardless of whether we make the request or they make the request. That language is not reflected in the draft you before, it was sent over as part of our contract that we sent to the State’s Attorney’s Office for review, assuming they would make that change.
Mr. Moustis asked is the State’s Attorney’s Office going to be prepared to give us a synopsis on the contract?
Mr. Meyers replied I will certainly look into that before the meeting.
Mr. Moustis continued there are more questions I had in my mind in looking through it. When I see a lot of legalese and things I don’t readily understand, I personally rely on the State’s Attorney’s Office to give us a layman’s interpretation of what it means. If you can do that, I think it is a great use for the County Board. I have one other question that deals with funding and how we fund. Perhaps it is something for another day, but I don’t know when the appropriate time to bring that up would be.
Speaker Cowan stated you can do it now if you want.
Mr. Moustis stated the County Board, as everyone is aware, our authority is that of the purse or the funding. How we fund this, I think is important and I think it should be funding incrementally. In other words, we don’t just say here is $120 million and we fund it all at one time. Madam Speaker, as you know, in the CARES program, we had changes, we reallocated funds depending on where we felt the money could best be used. Sometimes it was a demand in a certain area or certain silos, we reallocated the funding. I think it would be most useful for the County Board to incrementally fund the program. For example the sewer and water programs we have a good estimate of that because we have funding (inaudible). As the demand and as things change that we allocate funds as they are needed and not do a lump sum on funding. Certainly that keeps the County Board totally in the loop. It is a separate discussion, but how we fund is important for the County Board to be kept in the loop and perhaps have the ability to change priorities as the program is rolled out.
Speaker Cowan stated Mr. Moustis I appreciate those comments and I think you have done it at the right time. I think having those thoughts out there and circulating before we actually sit down and start digging in more makes sense. The agenda item today was just American Rescue Plan, so I think that fits perfectly and it is absolutely something we will keep in mind.
Mrs. Ogalla stated while we were talking I got to thinking back about the ERP project that we had. With the ERP program we had a contract that got signed and it was for so much money and not to exceed. Then we got to the point where for various reasons, basically this is a different type of situation, but they claimed they could do the implementation within one year and that was a total fail from the beginning, in my mind, yet we paid the contract and now the consultant company has come back several times to get more money because they were not able to do it in the timeframe they specified. I know we don’t really have a timeframe on this, but I want to ensure that we have listed out the scope we expect them to do within the timeframe we have and the dollars we allocated so we can minimize if there would be any additional time from them. I want to make sure that is clear in this contract. I know it is a completely different type of project than the ERP was, but I want to make sure we are clear on that.
Mr. Brooks stated I am looking in my inbox and Mrs. Adams sent out a scope for the ARPA consultant. As I see it on the agenda, this is not an action item, but more of an FYI of what is coming at 2:00 p.m. Madam Speaker did I hear your or Mr. Schaben say the consultant will be present either on-line or in-person at 2:00 p.m. and we can go directly to them to ask questions as well.
Speaker Cowan stated to answer your first question; yes this is just discussion in this Committee right now. We don’t need to take a vote. This was just an opportunity to get some questions out there, especially things that might need investigation before they are posed at the 2:00 p.m. meeting. At the 2:00 p.m. meeting we will be taking a vote on whether or not to authorize the contract. I don’t believe the consultant was going to be on at 2:00 p.m. Mr. Schaben, do you know differently?
Mr. Schaben replied one representative from the team should be on that call at 2:00 p.m.
Ms. Ventura stated I apologize if Mr. Schaben mentioned this at the beginning and I missed it; but we sent out the survey and I know it was not official, but will the consultant be reviewing some of those requests and using that in their delivery? Will they be going back to those entities, once we have decided some processes and encouraging them to officially apply or is that in the contract at all?
Speaker Cowan replied that is not specifically in the contract, I don’t think the contract gets that nitty-gritty about it, but we absolutely will be sitting down with the consultant right away and providing all of the resources we have including the results of that survey. I think that is a really good point, it is a good place for them to start with their outreach. We will be looking forward to addressing this more and answering more questions at 2:00 p.m. and taking a vote.
VI. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VII. NEW BUSINESS
1. Monthly Update from Will County Health Dept. (Sue Olenek)
Speaker Cowan stated the Public Health & Safety Committee did not meet this month, but I wanted Ms. Olenek to give her monthly updated to this Committee. As we all know there has been a spike in COVID cases around the community and also within government operations. At this point, I want to turn this over to Ms. Olenek to give us an update.
Ms. Olenek reviewed the attached PowerPoint presentation.
Ms. Olenek stated let me give you some up to the minute information, in addition to the presentation. Right now, in our department we have about ten that are out with positive COVID. We have a number of other people out as close contacts. Our agency is on mostly remote. I made that decision at the end of the week before last and asked everybody who could work remotely to do so as we needed to limit the interaction amongst our staff. We need to limited the interaction with the public. We are stilling doing all of our other programs. We are still doing telehealth, we are still doing everything we do, but the staff who can work remotely and do that are working remotely at this time. We are still maintaining our mass vaccination clinic here with the regular schedule. As I said, at the Bolingbrook office we are in constant contact with the schools. I was on the phone with Dr. Shawn Walsh of the Regional Office of Education yesterday. We have a number of outbreaks within our community. As of yesterday we had 23 outbreaks within our schools. We had 37 licensed, long-term care facilities in outbreak mode; nine group homes and 14 daycare centers. Our contact tracers are very busy. Our CD staff is still very busy, as they have been for two years. It is really a dire situation. Hospitals, as I said, are maxed out. In Region #7, the EMS hospital region of which Will County is a part of, the other day, I think it was Tuesday around noon there were three ICU beds available in six or seven hospitals, that was it; three ICU beds. The schools are looking at remote learning again. I don’t know if you heard, but Lincoln-Way schools are on full remote. There are a couple of others looking at full remote. I know the push is to try and keep the kids in school, but some of these schools are really experiencing high positive cases, not only with kids, but also their faculty and their staff and they don’t feel it is safe or a good idea to be operating with just the minimum level of staff that they need. Many are doing to adaptive pause and either putting specific classrooms or grades on remote or considering putting the whole school on remote. We are trying to work with IDPH to get some testing sites in Will County. I made the request to IDPH and I have not heard anything. I reached out to them again this morning asking for a response. There simply are not enough testing sites in our County and so I have asked for them to place at least one or two IDPH testing sites in our County and to provide us with a larger allotment of the rapid tests. We have been doing the rapid tests, Binyx Now program for over a year, proving thousands of these repaid tests to entities throughout the County, hospitals, schools, fire houses, police department, other congregant settings, daycare centers and we are not getting a good supply. We are not getting enough to meet the demand, so we have made that request as well. Our alternative housing situation is going through the roof. Just within the last two weeks my staff has had to place 25 people in alternative housing. That is no easy feat. Every one person that we are trying to get housed takes hours and hours of leg work to find the right place to place them. These are typically homeless people or they are people who are maybe in a residential situation that they can no longer be in and so we are having to find a place for them to stay. We have to find a way for them to get toiletries and food and retested and all of those kinds of resources. So that is a program that is being maxed out. We added another full-time staff member to that a couple of weeks ago. They are holding their own, but they are very busy. I am not sure if you are keeping up with the CMS mandate that is on pause right now. The CMS mandate for 100% vaccination is on hold, from what I understand the Supreme Court is supposed to hear oral arguments regarding the lawfulness of this mandate starting tomorrow. This affects the Health Department, the Health Center and Sunny Hill Nursing Home. Hopefully we will have an answer soon as to whether or not this is something they can legally require. Of course, we would then move to do whatever we need to do. In the meantime we are bargaining with AFSCME over the effect of this mandate and how it would affect staff. We met again yesterday and gave them a counterproposal and they are looking at that. We are meeting again next week. I am not sure if that will end up being a moot point or not, but we still need to move forward to get it done. We are sending out two press releases today. One is in regard to the changes in isolation and quarantine that the CDC put out earlier this week. There seems to be some confusion and there has been clarification that this was for the general population, it is not for healthcare workers or workers in congruent sites like long-term facilities or like our facility, it is for the general public. The other press release is going to talk about the changes in contact tracing that IDPH put forth last week. For the contract tracing, there are just too many cases. The locals, including us, can’t keep up with them. Initially they were going to put this program in place because there was such an ebb and flow to the number of cases. The case numbers would be high and then they would be low and then it would be now and recently it has stayed high. IDPH put together a surge center a couple of months ago and the surge center was to be used for overflow, whatever we could not handle. Since then they have changed it so the local health departments will only be doing local outbreaks, congregant care sites like schools, daycare centers and long-term care facilities and the State Health Department surge center will do the one and done person on the street that gets COVID. The important thing we want to put out is every person who this affects, who gets a positive test, will receive a text message from IDPH and we want to get the word out because we don’t want people to think it is a sham or scam and if they want to opt-in and go through the interview process and have that discussion with a contact tracer they need to know that is a legitimate number. So, we are putting that information out. There are a lot of other things going on in our regular programs as well. It is just an extremely busy time. Perhaps it is best if you had some specific questions, I would be happy to answer them.
Speaker Cowan stated thank you Ms. Olenek. I think this is really important information and I know you guys are just trying to keep up and get ahead as much as you can, but with the onslaught I know it is tough. Right now there are more people I know right now than ever in this whole process. I got my booster last Thursday, got sick that night. I expected it was from the booster and by three days later when I was still sick I suspected it was not the booster and tested positive on Sunday. In the last two weeks I have been in close contact with maybe a dozen people, all of whom had their booster shots and none of whom who have been sick. So I literally have no clue where I got this from. I have been careful too, so all that says to me is one that it is very contagious and two that the booster shot works because people with whom I had very close contact with when I was having symptoms I thought were from the booster but were actually probably COVID they have not gotten sick yet. I think the booster is way, way important.
Ms. Olenek stated if I could say one more thing about the booster. I hear everything from family, friends and everywhere and some people are annoyed at this booster thing. But they have to understand that is how vaccinations work. We have been getting boosters for tetanus, MMR, you get a booster to boost your immune system. This vaccine was put out very quickly, it is safe, but they were putting it out very quickly and they were not sure how long the immunity was going to happen. Now they have been able to study it and they are saying you need a booster, so get your booster. You are right Speaker Cowan it is all over. It is everywhere. Wear your masks, it is important. If you get the booster and you have the other two doses of the two dose series or the one dose J&J, you could get COVID, sure you can. But it is like the flu shot. I get a flu shot every year and that does not mean I am not going to get the flu, but I am not going to get the flu to the extent where I am going to end up in the hospital. It is the same thing with COVID. Get your shots, get your booster and you might still get it, but you are going to get it to a very much lesser degree. That is what our hospital are seeing. The people on the ventilators and the people in the dire situations are unvaccinated.
Speaker Cowan stated thank you Ms. Olenek for that message. Since I took an at home test, I figured that was good enough for me and it came up positive and I was done. Also, I did not report that to anyone. Should I be reporting that somewhere if I am testing positive at home?
Ms. Olenek replied you can report it to us, but honestly the State Health Department has indicated that because we don’t know if it was performed properly, like it would be in a medical facility, they are saying that they really don’t want those reported into the sales force system, the system that is tracking all of this.
Speaker Cowan stated I was not sure if it was like we really need people to report if they are finding they are negative. I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing.
Ms. Olenek stated I am glad you touched on that. There are a lot of people who are doing the rapid home tests and they are not being reported. When you look at the number of cases, you could probably add on a large number of additional positives for those that are not being reported because they are at-home tests. So our numbers really are larger.
Speaker Cowan continued my other question was about public testing availability. When I started to think this might not be sick from the booster and I need to test, I went on to the Health Department website and they have the different testing locations and I was frustrated, not with our Health Department, frankly with the State apparatus and Federal apparatus. I had to go to six different websites and on some of them you have to fill out tons of information before you can even find out if there are tests available, only to be able to not find a testing site within a week. I though this is great, I am sick now. Maybe I need to test in a week, but I need to test now. Fortunately, a friend had an at-home test and I was able to take it. Is there anything in the works to standardize that infrastructure you are aware of so it is easier to find a test?
Ms. Olenek replied the State Health Department is trying to ramp up testing because the demand very much outweighs the supply in terms of both rapid tests you can purchase, and in terms of a facility to do a PCR. There are times where a PCR is still the gold standard and still is really the confirmatory test. That is why I have requested that the IDPH set up some sites in Will County. We need one or two and I don’t know why they have not done that yet. I also asked for more of the rapid test kits. We are getting 144 test kits a week. We need about 300 test kits a week. If we don’t have the ability to go to a site and get tested, then at least we could hand out more of these rapid tests. I got an e-mail from our Regional Health Officer just before I got on this meeting and she said she was on a call about this to follow up for me, because I was not getting a response and of course, I had to go back to them. It is my goal to get at least one or two testing sites here, in Will County. Our Community Health Center is set up to test, however they are experiencing such a horrible amount of positive cases, they have had to regroup, just so they could stay open and provide primary OB, dental and medical care to our patients. They are not able to ramp up to do testing for the community. We are in the process of requesting, through the State Health Department some additional staffing for them to see if we could, separate from their staff, do the testing. We are still in the process of doing that. I know it gets frustrating because there is always a lot we are waiting, but there is a lot of need for a lot of things everywhere and there is just not enough resources. I can’t believe we are still in this situation. We are in a worse situation than we were a year ago.
Speaker Cowan stated you provided me a perfect seg way to my last question. As you know, we have this ARPA money and I know, like you just said there are so many things you need and so many different angles. I hope we can have a conversation soon and certainly there is something where you are like we could do this if we only had money to do it; we have the money and we want to help in this way.
Ms. Olenek stated I appreciate that and depending on what the answer is from the State Health Department is about a testing site, I may come back and say the State Health Department is not going to fund and they are not going to finance it or staff it, but we need to get this done. I may be coming back to the County Board for that kind of funding. I think that is truly a need we have to fulfill now. I agree, people should not have to be frustrated to find out whether or not they have COVID. They may have to wait a day or two, but they should be able to make an appointment and know they are going to get tested and not spend three days on line looking for a place to test.
Speaker Cowan stated let’s stay in communication and definitely let us know how we can help and we will be ready to jump in.
Mr. Brooks stated Ms. Olenek thanks for all the information. All of the Will County employees, i.e. the morgue employees, the Sheriff’s Department employees and ADF, do their initiate their own mandate for masks and vaccinations or do they follow your directive from the Health Department?
Ms. Olenek replied no, I don’t provide them a directive. I provide an update to the County Executive’s Office regarding what we are doing. I don’t direct their operations at all. If they call me, and I have gotten calls over the course of this pandemic for consultation or asking what we are doing and I certainly share that information, but I don’t provide them with a direction.
Mr. Brooks continued so they have the power and ability to mandate or not to mandate masks or vaccinations and it is up to the department head.
Ms. Olenek stated no. The masking mandate right now is a state thing. They should be masking. In terms of how they are running their operation and where they have their signs and PPE and all that kind of stuff, that is up to them.
Mr. Brooks asked if I wanted to know what they are doing at the ADF, I would contact the warden or the Sheriff to find out specifically.
Ms. Olenek replied yes.
Ms. Ventura stated I wanted to say first thank you Ms. Olenek for bringing this to this meeting. I apologize for having to cancel our Public Health & Safety Committee meeting, but I am grateful I was able to get back into the state. Several airlines are shutting down due to staffing reasons. Even the local Joliet Animal Control is closed to the public because they don’t have enough staff, and the staff they have needs to focus on the animals they have to take care of. As you said earlier, we are seeing this across the board and in every industry. I wanted to say thank you again Ms. Olenek for your hard work, but more importantly all of the words you have said today to encourage people to get vaccinated and to make sure they understand that this is about our health, our public health, our community and not just individual choices and definitely not political anything. Thank you so much for your hard work and continuing to work with the FOURCE on the advertising and getting accurate information to people so it can save their lives or more importantly open up a bed for someone who does not have COVID, someone who might be having a heart attack and need that care too. I can’t say thank you enough.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I have three questions. One is testing results. A friend of mine had a home test and took it and it was positive, but because of work she gets a regular test so she went to take that and that showed she was negative. Recently I have seen things to say the PCR tests are not giving good information and they are going to be stopping them. Can you give us a feel on the testing? There is conversation that it does not discriminate so it doesn’t know. What is valid or not valid with that? Are they going to stop the PCR tests from being used?
Ms. Olenek replied the PCR is the gold standard. I have not heard at all from anywhere that they are looking to stop the PCR. That is the swab test that gets sent to the laboratory and you get your results. I am not sure where that is coming from. Maybe they are confused and they are saying it is the rapid antigen test that is not accurate. That is the home test, but those are accurate. Those are accurate, but not as accurate as the PCR but if you have got symptoms or no symptoms and you take a test, you take the Binex test and you test positive have COVID. You can say it is not accurate, but if it is positive, you have COVID. I don’t know if this is Facebook stuff.
Mrs. Olenek stated that is what I have seen out there and I have read it and I heard it on TV. My girlfriend took the at-home test and it said she was positive. Then she went and got a test at the facility she always goes to get her test for work at and it was negative.
Ms. Olenek asked was it one right after the other?
Mrs. Ogalla replied yes. She did the at-home on Sunday and her school testing is on Monday.
Ms. Olenek stated that is odd, I have not heard that.
Mrs. Ogalla stated here is something I want to know; when people get a positive test and they say you are positive, what are we directing them to do? Do they go home with these are the medications you should take or these are the things you should do if this happens then you should do this? When people are told they are positive, they go home; what is the next step? What do they do? Is there a protocol that is in place that people could use? Do we prescribe any type of medications?
Ms. Olenek replied there are no specific medications available, unless you are in the hospital and you are getting Remdesivir or something like that, there are no medications at this point we say go home and take them. Even the two that were put out by Merck and Pfizer, the Paxlovid and the other one, those are not even available yet. The instructions people are given are to go home and isolate. You still need to isolate and I think that is one reason we are seeing the high numbers we are. I think a lot of people are testing positive and they are just “whatever” and they say “I’m COVID positive, but I feel fine” and they continue their life, and they are infecting everyone else. I think that is what is happening in a lot of the cases. There were a lot of gatherings over the holidays and whether people were positive or negative they gathered and they were probably not masked and that is why we are seeing the high numbers. If you are positive you are supposed to isolate for five days. If you are symptomatic you should after those five days wear a mask for an additional five days, just in case you may still be shedding the virus. If you are asymptomatic, no symptoms whatsoever, you should wear a mask for ten days just to be sure you don’t shed anything or just to be on the safe side, wear the mask for an additional ten days. It is not like it was in the beginning where you have to isolate for seven days or quarantine for 14 days. They are given specific instructions whether they are vaccinated, unvaccinated, symptomatic or asymptomatic. That is why it is important when people get a positive test and they get a phone call from a contact tracer that they have that discussion. If they get a positive test back from their doctor, they need to talk to their doctor about what am I supposed to do now.
Mrs. Ogalla continued if they go to a testing site and they get a positive test and they get a call, wouldn’t we want to tell them it is a good idea to take any kind of medication? Should they take anything? If they have a fever is there something they should take? Some people just don’t know what to do. People are looking for the proper protocol.
Ms. Olenek asked are you saying someone does not know they should take ibuprofen for a fever?
Ms. Ogalla stated yes.
Ms. Olenek stated I can’t help them. If they need that kind of assistance, they need to find a doctor, a provider and see a doctor and get that kind of instruction.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I am asking because these are the kind of things I am hearing.
Ms. Olenek stated there are all kinds of apps on phones. There are all kinds of resources for people to find.
Mrs. Ogalla stated obviously they are not all doing it. I can’t explain. One last question and perhaps this is for Speaker Cowan or Mr. Schaben or someone to find out. As Ms. Olenek has indicated and everybody I know in their brother has it as well, Ms. Olenek has indicated she has put as much of her staff as possible on remote, so she can keep the transmission rate down and we get through, hopefully, get through this hump and out of this craziness is that going to be something that each individual department head could do or is that something each elected official can do? Is there any guidance for that at this time?
Speaker Cowan stated I will let Mr. Schaben talk about the County Executive’s Office. I have told our staff, our staff is obviously small and has the ability to stay pretty spread out, but I have told them if they feel more comfortable working from home that they should take that opportunity and our staff is very careful with each other so I appreciate that. I will let Mr. Schaben address the other departments.
Mr. Schaben stated thank you Speaker Cowan. To your question we have received several requests from departments to look into a remote option for some employees. That is something we would have to negotiate with the union on as many of our departments have union employees. That is where we are at this point, we are still in discussions internally. Countywide officials would have their own oversight of their employees and that would be a determination from the countywide officials for their own department.
Mr. Moustis stated Frankfort Township has a potential to be a sight and I want to make you aware of it. We have what used to be the Lincoln-Way communication portion of our building, which is basically separate from the rest of the building. It has a separate entrance. It is on Route 30. You or one of your staff people, if you want to come over and look at the space, I think it could be an ideal vaccination or testing site. I would suggest you take a look at it. We have certain areas in Frankfort Township and the Lincoln-Way area where the vaccination rates are a little low. So I think there could be some real benefit and it could potentially be very convenient for people. Because it is a separate part of the building, you could also be there on Saturday or Sunday if you chose.
Ms. Olenek stated I appreciate the resource. Because there are couple of things that are really a good way to do this. One is that it is in a separate part of the building. You don’t want people coming in for testing that may be positive for COVID trapsing through part of another operation or into a general building, you really want to keep it separate. If I remember correctly you have another building, the orange brick building just to the west of your building. I think between the two of them they have some pretty decent parking.
Mr. Moustis stated there is parking. That building is not being used at all. That is another building you could use. I am just wanting to make you aware there are some resources in Frankfort Township that you potentially might want to take advantage of. Recently I had an acquaintance who got COVID, he was 70 years old, but he waited quite a while before he went for help. He was very sick by the time he went to the doctor. Of course, when he went to the ER within 12 hours he was on a respirator and three weeks later he passed away. How do we get that word out? What do you do? It seems to be more of an affliction amongst men. At some point, when do you encourage people that you have to go to see a medical provider if you continue to get sicker, don’t stay home, go see someone. I think that is another area where we need to communicate that to folks. If you are getting sicker, please see a medical provider, go to the emergency room or whatever it takes. Don’t just sit at home and think you are going to get better when you are getting worse.
Ms. Olenek stated one of the things that we are afraid of at this point is there is a lot of white noise out there. We have been telling people for two years; wash your hand, wear your mask. We have been telling them for a year to get vaccinated. We are really afraid that it is all white noise and that people are tired of hearing it. That is where each one of us, personally, you, me, your collogues, your family, your friends that is where it is important for us to take that next step and say you need to go get tested, you need to get vaccinated. It took me two weeks to get my husband to get in and get a booster. You are right, Mr. Moustis, men are typically bad patients. I kept telling him to get his booster. I was texting him every single day for two weeks, and finally he came in and got his booster. It is going to take that extra effort from all of us to connect with that person or those people that either have not had a vaccine at all or have not gotten their booster or are ill and not getting tested or are ill and not going to the doctor that is kind of where we are at. It is because we have been working through this for so, so long. People are tired of it. That is why we all have to do our part in making sure that we take that extra step with the people we are around and get these messages out there. I was on WJOL yesterday afternoon and I said some of these same things. That is a tiny, tiny portion of the population listening to that broadcast. That is nothing against WJOL. I am talking about the fact that we have a large population out there. It is incumbent upon each one of us to go that extra step. So I ask you to do that.
Mr. Moustis stated along those same lines and this may also apply to the Executive’s Office and that is public information campaigns. Do we have any additional public information campaigns in the works?
Ms. Olenek replied yes. We have a media campaign. That was one of the slides I put up. This started in mid-January. We are working with the FOURCE and they are coming out here on January 12th and 13th and we are going to start shooting film and testimonials for the next wave of public information messaging. We are continuing to do that.
Mr. Moustis stated one final follow up question on testing. The federal government has now said they are going to produce 500 million home tests. When it is up, you can go to their website and you can order these home tests. Are you going to be involved with that at all or is that strictly a federal government initiative? Are we going to try, as public information, try to encourage people to get the home tests? I think it is going to take more than just the federal government promoting this. Do you have any plan in those areas when they become available?
Ms. Olenek replied I don’t think we are going to be logistically part of anything. Certainly we will have the information at our call center, because we are going to get calls and they will be informed of what steps need to happen. If there is a particular website they will be trained on how to get to the website and we will actually test it ahead of time so we can provide accurate guidance. We can put information out through our marketing and we can do all of that and we will. We have not been notified yet, but that does not mean we won’t get a phone call the day before, but I don’t think we will be involved in the logistics at all, but we will see. We will help spread that word.
Ms. Tyson stated my question is; at the BOH meeting last month you mentioned that there was some fraudulent testing sites out there and that some places were charging people. Is the Will County BOH posting that information on their website and telling people not to go to those fraudulent testing sites?
Ms. Olenek replied we don’t have any real information yet. All of the information we gather on the sites that we were informed of, we sent that to the IDPH and the governor has assured us that not only have they received our information, but they did receive similar information from other health departments and other entities and they have a filed a lawsuit with the AG’s Office regarding the appropriate sites. I am letting them handle that. I think it would be a real liability issue for us to post on our website don’t go to these places without any valid proven information that they are in fact fraudulent. The fact that somebody does not get a test result for a week or somebody gets charged, that is not good and that is not how we are doing things, but I think we would place the County in a bad situation if we were to start putting that information out to the public. We did our due diligence. We gave it to the legal authorities for them to follow up on in that way.
Mrs. Berkowicz stated I get really concerned and uncomfortable when I hear anyone associated with the County criticize or issue negative comments about those who don’t get vaccinated or those who are struggling to know how to handle the ill effects from COVID. We really should refrain from that, particularly regarding someone’s vaccination status. I have seen this occur in the hospital as well. Family dynamics can be complicated and so can health concerns and that often goes into a person’s decision of whether or not to get vaccinated. I chose to get vaccinated to protect my parents. Many people I know who are vaccinated and boosted are getting COVID and I know people who had COVID once who are getting it again. As you all know, my father passed away right before Christmas and it was a horrible event, because he died from COVID and I don’t wish this heartbreak and anguish for any family. Dad had recently been vaccinated. While managing his care this previous year, during 2021 I have realized that there is a serious gap in our process to provide vaccinations and I would like to talk about this. I found that in our hospitals and perhaps in some of our medical centers a patient who requests a vaccination cannot receive one. For the life of me I don’t understand that. Why can a patient enter a hospital but then be told that we can do anything for you, except give you a COVID vaccination. That problem needs to be solved, because we are missing the opportunity to provide this to a portion of the population. I believe I tried to reach out to you Ms. Olenek to talk about this and I don’t think we ever got connected. I am bringing this forward because I believe this problem needs to be solved by figuring out how to provide the COVID vaccination to anybody in the hospital who wants it. This in turn will reduce the strain on the hospitals and medical centers by hopefully preventing future COVID cases and possibly saving lives. If we can drive a mobile unit to a community park and provide these vaccinations, we need to find out how to provide this vaccination to patients who are in a hospital or in a clinic who would like to get vaccinated but are being told it is impossible. If people get COVID and need treatment, and I am speaking from personal experience now, we need to allocate more resources to help people get early treatment. I can tell you from personal experience from within my own family the medical profession is not following up to see if somebody needs treatment. The practice of sending people home to quarantine and monitor their own care and determine if they need additional care is unacceptable. Patients who are quarantined and sick at home are being criticized for not acting appropriately when the real responsibility falls on the inadequacies within the medical community. For example, I had pneumonia in November and I can tell you when I get sick I push myself and I don’t realize how ill I am and I often rely on my family to step in and make me alert and aware. This can be human nature when we send people home to quarantine we take away their voice and their support system. It is the responsibility of medical community to understand this and figure out a proactive solution. The other thing that the County is not involved in, but people need to have an opportunity for other treatments and early treatment options and other treatment options rather than the drug Remdesivir. When you wind up in many local hospitals your loved one may wind up with only one and it is not even a choice, one treatment and if it doesn’t work you are out of luck. This is unacceptable. We should not condemn or criticize people who are not vaccinated because of the things I shared before. One final thing I wanted to share is I would like to see if the County can if we have somebody who winds up at any medical facility in our County and they ask for the vaccine I would like to see if we can figure out how to provide them with that vaccine whether they are in a hospital, medical clinic or any type of medical environment. I hope that we could eliminate that gap in vaccine accessibility. The last thing I wanted to share is there is a place in Bolingbrook and I am going to post this as well, you can walk in for free PCR testing at any time. We have been going there for months. It is called the Center for COVID Control. It is located at 1709 W. Boughton Road, Bolingbrook. You can walk in and get tested. You can do the rapid test and you can also do the long-term test, I typically do both. It takes ten minutes, you go home and an hour later you can go on-line and get your results. It is out there and it is available. Please share it with others. Thanks for letting me share my comments and this information, I really appreciate it.
Speaker Cowan stated I appreciate the information about the testing, since that is near me as well, I definitely took a note of that.
Ms. Olenek stated to respond to Ms. Berkowicz because I don’t want her to think I was not listening or that I am not sensitive to her discussion. I am sorry about what has happened with her family. I am guessing and I don’t run a hospital and I don’t have authority over hospitals. The local hospitals are licensed and operated separately from us. I don’t have the authority to tell them what to do. What I am guessing is that they don’t offer the vaccine to people who are in the hospital because typically vaccines are not given to people who are not well, whether it is COVID or the flu shot or any other vaccine. When we give our immunizations here any release form you fill out for an immunization no matter what it is says “are you feeling well today?”. If you are already in the hospital, you are not well, so that is probably one of the reasons, I am guessing, why they don’t provide the COVID shot. I don’t think they provide any vaccines in a hospital setting. That would be my guess, but again I am not a hospital administrator and I don’t have authority over the hospitals, but that would be my educated guess.
Speaker Cowan stated Ms. Olenek we appreciate your time. Again you have provided us with an amazing update and really important information in this critical period in this on-going struggle and we appreciate the time you have take to spend with us today and help us see the picture more clearly.
Ms. Olenek stated many of you are getting our newsletter that is being put out each week. If you are not or if you know of somebody else you can share this with, you can go on our website, willcountyhealth.org and there is a link there if you want to sign up for the newsletter. They are getting more and more comprehensive as time goes by. The newsletter we are putting out this week will contain a lot of great information. If you don’t get it, I would ask that you go to the link and sign up to get it. Anyone else you think would be interested they can sign up as well. A lot of good information on what is going on and what is new, different locations and different initiatives that is what you could do to keep current.
Mrs. Ogalla stated so Ms. Olenek just based on what Mrs. Berkowicz had said and unfortunately she had a family situation that left her in a predicament with her father and stuff like that. What she said is so true and people are positive COVID and they are told to go home and isolate themselves and I know you said about having to tell people to take an aspirin, but people do not know what should I do if I have tested positive and I am asymptomatic I will wear my mask. If I test positive and have symptoms at the time, but if I am not feeling well and I know my dear friend Mrs. Berkowicz was sick with pneumonia, like she said and she was tested a million times thinking she must have COVID and she never did have COVID.
Ms. Olenek stated there are plenty of other bugs out there.
Mrs. Ogalla continued what is the protocol for someone who tests negative? Should they try to get another test? I honestly think if someone tests positive they should get some medicine, something that says you have tested positive for COVID, you need to do this, you stay home and you isolate yourself and you are in the house and a lot of people are doing that, not going by each other and wearing masks I know that. It would be nice to have a little piece of paper that we give out at the testing center or sent via text to them if you have a temperature and your temperature exceeds a certain number do this, otherwise do this. If you have a cough is there some sort of medication they should take so the cough doesn’t get worse? There needs to be something that people follow as a guideline. If you have done all of this and in three days you are still hacking up a lung, and your fever is high, do this? I know it seems impossible to understand, but people really need the guidance, they really do.
Ms. Olenek replied then they need to find a doctor or they need to call Physician’s Immediate Care. They need to talk with a medical person. You don’t understand there are people with high blood pressure that should not be taking over the counter decongestants. There are people with diabetes that should not be taking x, y and z. It is not a one-size fits all, Mrs. Ogalla. If they are sick and they don’t know what to do, then they need to call a doctor and go over their medical history with a doctor or nurse practitioner or a physician’s assistance. There are a lot of medical issues that need to be addressed differently.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I understand that. Maybe we could simply make that statement. If you test positive for COVID it is very important for you to contact your doctor.
Ms. Olenek stated that is already on the instructions.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I did not know that. I have not gotten the instructions, because I have not had a positive test.
Ms. Olenek stated it was on the instructions I got. I can’t remember if it is in the Binex box or the rapid test box, I can’t remember that. I know when I got my PCR at an outside test site that was on my instructions. The other thing is if you get a PCR test you are going to get a call or if you are outside at a test sight you are going to get a call from a contact tracer or now you are going to get a text. Pick up the phone and have a conversation that is the opportunity to know what to do.
Mrs. Ogalla stated okay, I am just saying what I heard. Thank you.
Speaker Cowan thanked Ms. Olenek for her time and stated throughout this whole time, anytime I have e-mailed you with even the slightest question, you have responded with such quickness that I can’t believe it given all of the other things you have to do. Thank you very much for your continued attention and help. We all appreciate it.
Ms. Olenek stated if I ever don’t get back to you, whoever you are, please just e mail me again or give me a quick call. It is absolutely crazy again. Sometimes I will read the e-mail and think I have to get back to them, but it gets buried, so I apologize for that. It is never intention, follow up with another e-mail or call and I will be happy to get you the information or get you to the right person.
2. Update on Administrative Adjudication Program (County Executive's Office)
Speaker Cowan stated just for folks who have less awareness of what the Administrative Adjudication is, it is an alternative method of resolving Ordinance violations. Instead of going through the court system and putting thing into the court system for Ordinance violations. We have had this program active for a number of years. A number of Board Members, I know Mrs. Parker has been asking for the last couple of months about an update and overview. I know the Executive’s Office said they had some ideas about the program and we are here to hear them today. I don’t think we need to take any action today, but Mr. Schaben I will turn it over to you at this point.
Mr. Schaben stated I will try to be as succinct as possible. As the Speaker indicated under Illinois law, certain Ordinance violations can be adjudicated through an Administrative Adjudication process. This is done as opposed to going through the County’s judicial system. The Administrative Adjudication process includes Ordinance violations by the Land Use Department, Health and Animal Control departments as well as those enforced by the Sheriff's Department. Our Administrative Adjudication process those hearings are conducted twice a month, on the second Monday of the month and the second Tuesday of the month. To date our office has been engaged in some informal discussions with departments that have enforcement Ordinances to discuss the Administrative Adjudication process and brainstorm some ideas for updates to the process. We have also had a brief meeting with the State’s Attorney’s Office to discuss the process from their perspective and to help identify some changes that could be made to the Administrative Adjudication process. The feedback we are hearing from departments is often times it is bit difficult to get residents to come into compliance which is the ultimate goal of that process is to get residents to come into compliance. That is a particular issue for Animal Control and Land Use. For example, if the Sheriff impounds a vehicle for a code violation, there is an incentive to rectify the code violation. If Land Use receives a complaint for tall weeds and levies a code violation that is a violation that can be harder to get into compliance. What we are finding is once a case has made its way to the Administrative Adjudication process and a fine has been levied, there is no mechanism to actually collect the levied fine. There is an option for Ordinance violations to be sent to the State’s Attorney’s Office to have a hearing at OV Court, but that required the State’s Attorney’s Office to positively determine that the case would been deemed a case that is right for the court to hear in OV Court. As I stated the underlying intent is for the Administrative Adjudication process to keep Ordinance violations out of our County judicial system, but what we are hearing is that the County could potentially use a different enforcement mechanism to get code violators into compliance. Our ultimate goal is in working with our departments and the State’s Attorney’s Office is to identify potential amendments to the workflow process and the enforcement mechanisms. Just to date we had some informal conversations and obviously any proposed changes would be brought before the County Board.
Speaker Cowan asked does anyone have any specific questions or maybe wants to lay out for Mr. Schaben what they might like to see in a run down of how we think it is working and comments on the money spent for the program versus how much it would cost to run it in court? Maybe that kind of stuff?
Mrs. Parker stated this has been going on for a few months. We have different violations whether it is with the Sheriff’s Department or Land Use. So I wanted just to get an update on a review of the process. How successful is the process? Are people coming into compliance? Are we collecting? I think I recall a few years back when the Sheriff’s Department came in they wanted to hire a third party company to do the collections. I believe we voted it down. I wanted an update to see how successful the entire program is. I know the idea is to keep it out of the judicial system and that is a good thing, but is it working?
Mr. Schaben stated that is a great question. I will say two things, just in the past year within our Administrative Adjudication process we had two different software programs we were using one was to track the code violations and one to actually operate the Administrative Adjudication hearing. We were able to consolidate that into just one to just using one vendor as opposed to two. It will have some savings for the County. They are very nominal, there is not a lot of savings. What we are hopeful for is that we will get some additional data from that now that we have merged that into one software. Antidotally dating back to 2012 if you look at the code violations what I don’t have I have numbers on what we have collected each year just dating back to 2012 there is almost $700,000 worth of fines that have never been collected. These are coded based on the department that submitted them and just sort of a preliminary review of these a majority are coming from either Animal Control or Land Use. Again, it is just because of the nature of those code violations.
Mrs. Parker stated when you said you were looking at other mechanisms what are those mechanisms? Can you go a little further into what those mechanisms are?
Mr. Schaben replied one of the things we are discussing is if there is a potential for pushing these code violations, especially the ones that have sort of a health and safety component to them, moving them to the OV Court sooner. Then the other one, as you mentioned before, is looking into a collection agency to help with those and get compliance, especially again, those code violations that we don’t have an incentive to actually get the violator into compliance. I have a flowchart I would like to show from Land Use that shows how their process works. It might be helpful for people to view this. This is a very rudimentary breakdown of sort of how the violation begins and works its way through the system. This is just specific to Land Use. The Land Use Department receives a complaint, it is then logged into their system called e-court. Then their code enforcement inspectors investigate the complaint. Then a notice of violation letter is sent, typically it is sent within 21 days to get compliance. If there is not compliance at that point, then it is sent to the Administrative Adjudication process. At that point a hearing is conducted and the violator may or may not show up to the hearing. The hearing officer will review the notes from the inspector and make a determination of whether there is cause to levy a code violation and a fine. Then there is usually a determined time after that point which the person who received the complaint and the violation is allowed to come into compliance. If the time period lapses and there is not compliance, then there is an option to send that to the State’s Attorney’s Office for review to bring it before the OV Court. As I discussed, one of the things we are looking at with Land Use is potentially sending more of our complaints that deal with health and safety do we bypass the Administrative Adjudication process to try to get compliance sooner and send it directly to OV Court. But again, as I said, these are just preliminary discussions we have had with the departments. No changes have been made. We would obviously bring any sort of changes that we feel have been vetted properly we would bring them to the County Board for review as well.
Mrs. Parker asked if it goes to the State’s Attorney’s Office for review and they don’t take it; then what happens?
Mr. Schaben replied I think the State’s Attorney’s Office can explain this better, but they are not going to bring a case to OV Court if they don’t feel there is a potential there to either get compliance or to have a successful outcome in court. It just sort of lingers there if it does not go to OV Court because again we just don’t have an enforcement mechanism.
Ms. Winfrey asked does that include the levying of fines? I am thinking especially of cases where we have a property where the people multiple cars, broken down and stacked in the yard and high weeds and that type of thing. We get a lot of those.
Mr. Schaben stated that is a good example, especially all of those Land Use code violations. It is really hard, especially for weed violations to go through this process, you have to convince the State’s Attorney’s that yes you should take this to court and then have somebody go out and look to see if the weeds are cut down. It is a very cumbersome process to get a minor code violation addressed. Again, if we have code violations we don’t have that sort of teeth at the back end to get compliance, which is our ultimate goal. We certainly don’t want to be levying fines and collecting those fines, but there has to be some teeth behind it or a lot of these just languish without a resolution to take place.
Mrs. Ogalla asked what does OV Court stand for?
Mr. Schaben replied it is Ordinance Violation Court.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I was wondering can we get an itemized list of the issues that come up as to what they are not compliant with so we can kind of know what we are looking at and determine if we want to change our Ordinances because they are outdated kind of things? I don’t know exactly because I don’t know what they all are. If we could have a list of those so we can say we have three of these and 87 of those and things like that. I would like that list please. The other thing is I do remember us having the conversation, I don’t remember when it was, about the fact that we are not able to collect the fines and we were going to go and look for a third party. I don’t remember if we voted for it or if we didn’t vote for it. My recollection is we made the statement we were going to go and look for a third party vendor for collecting and then I don’t remember any feedback coming back from that. We do need a collection process. I know we don’t have that in place and that makes it difficult for everybody to understand. Could we get those two documents you showed sent to us; the two flowcharts? I know that sometimes these cases, from conversations over the years, I have been on the Board sometimes these cases languish in Administrative Adjudication court and they never seem to get out of there. So I know that is an issue and I am glad we are looking at the process and we can direct some of this and also let’s look at the timeline of how long it takes to get everywhere so we can understand that and decide for maybe for these type of cases we should bump the timeline faster and something else could be a little slower. If we could get that information and get those two documents that would be great.
Mr. Schaben stated I want to make sure I am clear on what you are requesting. The first one you said a breakdown of code violations. Do you want a breakdown of all code violations in the past or do you want a list of the ordinances that are enforceable through this process?
Mrs. Ogalla replied I want to find out what are the common code violation that get to the point where we end up going to Administrative Adjudication. What are those that we seem to be unable to get compliance with? I want to see the types that they are so we can determine is this something that we want continue. A lot of Ordinances are in place, but we were not here at the time they were put in place and we are not aware of them and sometimes they were maybe like an Ordinance that does not make sense to have. If we could understand what the Ordinances are that are going to Administrative Adjudication, that would be very helpful for us.
Mr. Schaben stated on the third question you asked can you repeat the third request? It was what?
Mrs. Ogalla replied I really wanted those flowcharts and then the third thing is to look at the timeline for these and determine that certain violations should be pushed through faster than others.
Mr. Schaben stated the timeline and I can talk to the hearing officer but I think the timeline might be a little bit difficult. Only because they review these on a case by case basis. My quick review of our Ordinances there are some that have timelines built into them for when they have to come into compliance, when the fine can be levied and when the fine is compounded. As far as start to finish for a violation I think you are going to find there is not one standard timeline for this, it will be all over the place, depending on what kind of violation it was. We can look at the data and see if that is something we can provide. I just want to make that clear.
Mrs. Ogalla stated I understand that very well could be because of the situation as it is. I think getting an understanding of the itemized number of the violations and the type of violations that are out there would be helpful for us. Maybe there are situations where we should change the Ordinance or maybe we could do something else to help make the Ordinance more clear or provide more teeth or something like that, whatever we could do, we need to understand what we are looking at.
Mr. Schaben stated in state statute it does allow for the State’s Attorney’s Office to collect on Administrative Adjudication fines. It is not clear that there needs to be authority given for that process. I am happy to send that language out as well so everyone can read it and see it.
Ms. Ventura stated my question is along the lines of what Mr. Schaben was just discussing. I don’t know what the initial letter say. Does it say here is your date to appeal it or here is your fine if you wish to not. Does the state allow for or are we able to then also communicate by sending a second letter out? The second letter could say if you don’t pay this fine or go through the Administrative Adjudication process you will fined these potential amounts for your Administrative Adjudication fines, filing or whatever the wording is. So then it might be to the person you just have to cut your weeds and show us a picture and be done otherwise here are the potential fines and they will continue to increase. Is that something we currently do? Is it something we can do?
Mr. Schaben replied that is a really great question. I would say that Land Use uses the e-court system and it is really useful for tracking sort of start to finish as they work through this process. What I don’t know is if Animal Control uses that same e-court system for their process. The state statute from my cursory review of it, it does not speak to how you have to communicate to residents. I think that would be more incumbent on the County to be very clear in communication on when you get a violation how to come into compliance and making sure you are clear on the fine and how you can rectify it so you don’t receive the fines. That is more of a communications process on our end. I think that is going to be part of this review process is how we are communicating these violations to residents to ensure we are giving folks proper notification.
Ms. Ventura stated to the Board, I would definitely recommend to set that policy then and the language, if that is what we need to do or just give the Executive’s Office the permission to set up the policy and the tracking and if there is a system or software out there that can do that then we should encourage all of the departments to get under that. If not we need to be able to send them the initial response this is a complaint and then follow up 30, 60 or 90 days. I am sure Mrs. Parker can tell you there have been multiple complaints in our area in our district and we go round and round. We have talked with Land Use. We have talked to the Sheriff’s Office. We talk about who is enforcing this and what the process is. It is very frustrating both as an elected official. I am sure staff is frustrated. I am sure homeowners are frustrate. Some homeowners feel that nothing is being done. Others ride the system out knowing that if they don’t pay the fine nothing will ever happen. If we are going to have these policies I think it is important to have some mechanisms to enforce them, otherwise what is the point of having this policy? I would hope that as a County Board we can decide on what that might look like. I definitely think some type of follow up letter that says “hey look, you have to be a responsible taxpayer too and do your part for the community, if not there is a consequence and here is what it is”. Obviously, I want people to come into compliance and do what is best for their neighbors. At the end of the day if people are unwilling to do that, there needs to be some type of incentive to make sure they are going along with the law. That is my two cents and I look forward to working with anyone to move that policy forward.
Mr. Schaben stated that is a very good point, Ms. Ventura. I think one of the things as we review this we are considering is the Ordinance at times will dictate the timeline of events. What you don’t want to do is be so restrictive in your timeline that you don’t allow for people to come into compliance. It is a balancing act; how specific are you in your timeline versus ensuring that you allow some wiggle room for folks that may have a myriad of complications and they are just not able to follow a strict timeline that is set out in our Ordinances. It is going to take some time to do a deep dive into each one of these Ordinances and review them through that lens.
Mr. Moustis stated these type of violations are more complex than you might think. I can tell you that when we strictly used the judicial system it was very slow moving, didn’t really work, and quite frankly sometimes fines don’t work. You have situations that people don’t have the resources sometimes to address the violation. I would like to talk more about how to mitigate the problems and what resources might be available to us. I can tell you that although it is very lengthy to run its course, there have been times when the County has actually gone in and cleaned up the code violation, especially if there were a lot of junk cars. Even though it is a very lengthy process but we would eventually go in and the County would clean it up and we would then lien the property. I can tell you there may be cases where people don’t have the resources especially when it comes to older people or people at poverty level income. What are we doing to help them? Are we putting them in touch with the Center for Community Concerns, who may have some resources available to help. I personally have referred people to them, seniors especially and they have helped mitigate the problem. Or should we take some of this fine money to have a pool of money that we can help people if they are financially unable to mitigate the problem. I can tell you in Frankfort Township we enforce the weed cutting ordinance and of course, we are restricted to basically vacant properties, even though we encourage people to take care of the situation. We may not get an immediate payment, but we will lien the property and eventually we get paid, with interest when they go to sell the property. We should be looking for additional alternatives for people on how to mitigate the problem. Mr. Schaben I don’t know if that is something you could include on how we might be able to help people that don’t have resources. Very often these violations are people who don’t have the resources to fix the property or take care of the violation. I would like us to not just talk about fines and collecting, but what may be available to us to help mitigate violations when it is warranted.
Ms. Ventura stated Mr. Moustis I think that is a great idea.
Mr. Moustis continued I think there may be more to it than people may think. You can fine people who have violations on their property, but if they don’t have the resources what good is it to fine them? If they don’t have the money to fix it, what makes you think they can pay a fine? Those are my comments; we should be looking at ways to broaden it out a little bit and how we help people address the violations.
Mr. Schaben stated Mr. Moustis that is an excellent point and that is something that has come up in conversations on this topic. For example if we levy a fine against someone who has a roof that is not in compliance for safety reasons they may not have the money to fix the roof, much less pay the fine. That is an example of could the County have some sort of program to help those people come into compliance. Again, we don’t want to be levying fines against people who can’t pay it, but there has to be a mechanism to get it into compliance. I know I only discussed the penalty side of it, but I think there is encouragement from the County we should explore.
Speaker Cowan stated it sounds like we are talking about lot bigger questions and more information about this. Can we put this on next month’s Executive Committee agenda for a little more detail on some of these questions?
Mr. Schaben replied what I would ask is if we could spell some specific topics to talk about whether it is in a small working group or in this Committee, we could use any and all assistance in this process. From a staffing perspective we are working on a lot of projects and so I don’t know how you would like to determine that but we would be open to continuing this conversation in whatever form you would like.
Speaker Cowan stated we will keep in on the agenda and then we can maybe you, me, Mr. Palmer and some of the Board Members can figure what exactly that looks like next month.
Mrs. Parker stated first of all on Ms. Ventura’s follow up I had very similar comments so I am glad she addressed them. Ms. Ventura and I have multiple complaints in our district. It is almost like a cycle, you get the complaint, it goes to Administrative Adjudication whether they come into compliance or not it goes to the State’s Attorney’s Office and they probably don’t take it and then it sits there and then the complaint comes I again and it is a cycle that repeats. I am also glad you said we also need to be mindful of people’s resources and every situation is different. I know a couple of people had fires in our district and the complaint came in because they wanted them to get a new roof right away. As Mr. Moustis and Mr. Schaben said, there are different situations and you can’t just look at an Ordinance and say things will be taken care of in 21 days. I am glad that was brought up and it definitely needs to be taken into consideration.
Mr. Palmer stated we have been talking about this for awhile and I can talk with Mr. Schaben off-line, but I wanted to say, on the collection side, one is what Mr. Moustis said and people’s ability to pay, but the other historical problem and maybe some of this has changed and I didn’t hear Mr. Schaben say this, but the regular court system with the Chief Judge, Circuit Clerk and State’s Attorney, years ago the county hired Harris & Harris to do collections. In the regular court system they had tens of millions of dollars in uncollected fines and there were different means to go after them. There was a state law that allowed the county to collect the fine, plus the fee to pay for the fine. I remember when we started Administrative Adjudication that was not the case with Administrative Adjudication. If someone was fined $10 we might collect $8.75, which is fine if that is what you want to do. That would be a policy decision or we have to change the law. Maybe we don’t want to focus on fines and perhaps the conversation is more about the mitigation. As far as the review of the program I would recommend an accounting of what we are paying to run this system. We had this discussion when we rehired the Administrative Adjudicators there is a cost to that and there is a cost to the software. There are other costs and what is the success of resolving these Ordinance violations. If you are spending $300,000 a year and we are getting a small percentage of resolution, then it probably is not working and we either have to put more resources from a different direction to get the resolution. As Mr. Schaben said the goal was to resolve these and resolve them quicker put also in a compassionate way to some of these folks. I have been involved in a few cases where people had some hard luck stories where they just could not resolve it and the Administrative Adjudicator was very compassionate and gave them time to resolve it. If they resolved the issue they did not get fined because at the end of the day it was resolved. There is more to talk about and we can talk off-line. The fine issue was a legislative matter as much as a policy decision too.
Ms. Ventura stated I wanted formally say that Mr. Moustis’ idea is very important and I did not want to undermine that. I think that should be part of the policy and letter. Mrs. Parker and I have walked letters in our area describing some of the resources we have. Of course, if someone is specifically being asked to do something we were trying to provide information from the township, Will County Center for Community Concerns, other nonprofits or agencies in the area that could help and I think that is very important. Of course, that would put the onus on us to have some type of database for those type of resources, which of course would be a good idea anyway because we could put that information online and continue to get that information to people who may need it when they are not in violation. The last think I want to say is I really want to give a shout out to Mrs. Parker. There have been some issues in our area and Mrs. Parker has gone way above and beyond as a County Board Member to organize clean up efforts and to bring in resources to families that don’t have it and to make sure that the people can come into compliance that don’t have those resources. I think a lot of that went under the radar and people don’t know about the efforts she put in to do that. That is what I would like to see in all of our elected officials that we are going above and beyond providing policies and the resources but also the individual attention that sometimes solves all of these problems. I just wanted everyone to know that Mrs. Parker has done those things. Thank you Mr. Moustis for bringing that up. Sometimes I focus too much on the punishment and not on the reward and the ways to get there, so thank you for that.
Mrs. Ogalla stated one other thing is people may not even be aware that they have violated something because they don’t even know that ordinance exists for whatever reasons. I know that the letters that go out from Land Use can be very threatening. Land Use will argue that they are not threatening, but they are not the receivers. I can tell you of the time when they did not have any software to track open issues or open permits. My family and myself received a letter saying we were in violation because we did not have our final inspection for new windows. Our windows had been in for over a year at that point and we assumed that the person installing the windows would be responsible for that, not us and we did not know it. There was a group of them, a whole big group of them and there were lots of letters that went out and what was disturbing to me was I was not aware that it was not closed and it would have been nice to get a letter that said “hey we never received a final inspection from you for this”, instead of a threatening letter. I think sometimes we look at what approach we are using to warn these people that they have a violation. When you get something like that you are often taken back and they will argue that if we don’t have teeth in the letter people don’t respond. Sometimes a County Board Member is aware of it and they could talk to the resident because we have more one on one with them. I think that what approach are we using to contact these people so that they don’t go into the defensive mode if they really don’t need to, we just need to work through the problem. Either the letter should change and say this is what you can do, so please call or something like that. I think that would be helpful. Having been the receiver of a letter like that, I was really upset about it because I thought it was too negative for something we were not aware had not been done. I know that has been rectified since, they have new software for that now that they are using, but I think that is something else we should look at as well.
Speaker Cowan stated it sounds like we will be talking about this again soon. This has been a good start to the conversation. Thank you everyone.
VIII. COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENT REQUESTS
A. Land Use & Development Committee
T. Marcum, Chair
B. Finance Committee
J. Traynere, Chair
1. Transferring Appropriations within Various County Budgets (ReShawn Howard)
2. Authorizing County Executive to Execute Necessary Documents for Delinquent Tax Program (Julie Shetina / Jen Alberico)
C. Public Works & Transportation Committee
J. VanDuyne, Chair
1. 2021 CRISI Federal Funding Application Summary (Elaine Bottomley)
2. Confirming Award of Contract to "D" Construction, Inc. ($721,325.90), Let on December 15, 2021, Crete Road District - South Kings Road over Deer Creek, County Board District #1 (Jeff Ronaldson)
3. Authorizing Approval of Professional Services Agreement for Construction Engineering Services (Phase III) with Alfred Benesch and Company for the Reconstruction and Widening of 80th Avenue (CH 83) from 191st Street (CH 84) to 183rd Street, County Board Districts #2 and #12 (Jeff Ronaldson)
4. Improvement by County under the IL Highway Code for 80th Avenue (CH 83) Reconstruction and Widening from 191st Street (CH 84) to 183rd Street, Using MFT Funds, County Board Districts #2 and #12 (Jeff Ronaldson)
5. Authorizing an Intergovernmental Agreement between the Village of Beecher and the County of Will for Placement of License Plate Reading Cameras Located on County Highways in the County of Will (Jeff Ronaldson)
6. Authorizing Approval of Professional Services Agreement for Engineering Services for the 2022 Will County Bridge Inspections with Willett, Hofmann & Associates, County Board Districts #1 through #13 (Jeff Ronaldson)
7. Providing Title Commitment Reports for Use by County from Wheatland Title Guaranty Company for Laraway Road (CH 74) from Cedar Road (CH 4) east to Wolf Road, Section 14-00138-40-LA, County Board Districts #2, #12 (Jeff Ronaldson)
8. Providing Title Commitment Reports for Use by County from Wheatland Title Guaranty Company for Gougar Road (CH 52) over the CN Railroad, Section 21-00154-19-LA, County Board District #12 (Jeff Ronaldson)
9. Authorizing Approval of Professional Services Agreement for Design Engineering Services (Phase II) with Hutchison Engineering, Inc. on Weber Road (CH 88) and Knapp Drive, Section 21-00170-48-CH, County Board District #9 (Jeff Ronaldson)
10. Authorizing Approval of Professional Services Agreement for Design Engineering Services (Phase II) with Crawford, Murphy & Tilly, Inc. on Laraway Road (CH 74) from Cedar Road (CH 4) to Wolf Road, Section 14- 00138-40-PV, County Board Districts #2 and #12 (Jeff Ronaldsom)
11. Improvement by County under the IL Highway Code for Laraway Road (CH 74) from Cedar Road (CH 4) to Wolf Road, Using MFT Funds, County Board Districts #2 and #12 (Jeff Ronaldson)
D. Diversity & Inclusion Committee
M. Tyson, Chair
E. Public Health & Safety Committee
R. Ventura, Chair
F. Legislative & Judicial Committee
D. Winfrey, Chair
G. Capital Improvements Committee
H. Brooks, Jr., Chair
1. Development of Timetable for Demolition of Former Will County Courthouse at 14 W. Jefferson St., Joliet, IL (Discussion)
2. Discussion of 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan (County Executive's Office)
H. Executive Committee
M. Cowan, Chair
1. Renewing Contract for Electronics Recycling One Day Collection Events (Marte Keane)
2. Authorizing Approval of Professional Services Agreement for Engineering Services for Determination of Gas Condensate Management Solutions in Support of the RNG Plant Operations (Dave Hartke/Christina Snitko)
3. Authorizing Approval of Professional Services Agreement for Permitting Services with SCS Engineers to Support the Operations of the RNG Plant (Dave Hartke/Christina Snitko)
4. Authorizing Change Order from SCS Energy / Harbour Contractors for the Installation of a Temporary Storage Tank System for Gas Condensate Generated by RNG Plant Currently Under Construction at the Prairie View Landfill (Dave Hartke/Christina Snitko)
5. Authorizing the Acquisition of Land Easements for Parcels Needed for the Construction of the RNG Pipeline(Dave Hartke/Christina Snitko)
IX. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
X. REQUEST FOR STATE'S ATTORNEY'S OPINION
XI. ACCEPT COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENT REQUESTS
Mrs. Adams stated I was not sure if you were placing the cannabis tax revenues on an agenda and also the MOU with Sunny HIll was discussed.
Speaker Cowan stated the MOU with Sunny Hill we need to extend, is that what we decided?
Mrs. Adams replied yes.
1. Motion to Add to the Executive Committee Agenda an Extension of the MOU with Sunny Hill Nursing Home
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Rachel Ventura, Member SECONDER: Meta Mueller, Vice Chair AYES: Cowan, Mueller, Brooks Jr., Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Parker, Traynere, Tyson, VanDuyne, Ventura, Winfrey |
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Meta Mueller, Vice Chair AYES: Cowan, Mueller, Brooks Jr., Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Parker, Traynere, Tyson, VanDuyne, Ventura, Winfrey |
Mrs. Adams read the following comment from Kyle Clare, which had been posted during Ms. Olenek's presentation that was just asking are these ads targeting African Americans?
Speaker Cowan stated in a future update I am sure we could have Ms. Olenek elaborate on where there ads are going out and how they are being targeted.
XIII. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Speaker Cowan stated anticipate having the RNG budget setting coming to the full County Board this month. The County Executive's Office is still working on a couple item on that, but we should be expecting that at the full Board meeting this month. You will see on Public Works the CRISI grant application was heard at the Public Works & Transportation Committee meeting, but we may have a brief presentation at the January 13th Executive Committee. It is an important project because it will enable us to get federal dollars. This is building on a lot of our previous efforts with our federal lobbyist, Smith Dawson and our transportation studies and whatnot. We will be happy to give an update on that next week for a broader segment of the Board.
XIV. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XV. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn at 12:35 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, Member SECONDER: Judy Ogalla, Member AYES: Cowan, Mueller, Brooks Jr., Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla, Parker, Traynere, Tyson, VanDuyne, Ventura, Winfrey |
XVI. NEXT MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR JANUARY 13, 2022
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