Will County Capital Improvements Committee met May 3.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Ms. Mueller led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Chair Herbert Brooks Jr. called the meeting to order at 10:00 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Herbert Brooks Jr. | Chair | Present | |
| Joe VanDuyne | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Julie Berkowicz | Member | Present | |
| Natalie Coleman | Member | Present | |
| Gretchen Fritz | Member | Present | |
| Donald Gould | Member | Present | |
| Meta Mueller | Member | Present | |
| Annette Parker | Member | Present | |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Member | Present |
Present State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Capital Improvements Committee - Regular Meeting - Feb 1, 2022 10:00 AM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Julie Berkowicz, Member SECONDER: Natalie Coleman, Member AYES: Brooks Jr., VanDuyne, Berkowicz, Coleman, Fritz, Gould, Mueller, Parker, Traynere |
1. RNG Facility Construction Update/Financial Summary
(Christina Snitko)
Reviewed the construction status report, attached.
Ms. Snitko commented the next item is the RNG pipeline. Mobilization began April 11, they began to dig up the soil in the local 150 parcels and the private parcels as well. There has been a little bit of a setback as they found contaminated soils at the parcels next to the RNG Plant. They are currently doing testing to see what the contaminates are in the soil. We should get the results back today, but we will have to dispose of the soils. Keep in mind that may be a change order.
Mr. Dave response, this shouldn’t be a delay. The soil disposal should be able be done at not charge at the Prairie View Land Field as long as it’s not hazardous
Ms. Berkowicz ask, where does the soil go to dispose of it?
Mr. Hartke stated, the soil would go to the Prairie View Landfill as long as it’s tested as nonhazardous soil, if it is tested as hazardous, we will have to go a different route and find a new vendor and have it hauled as hazardous waste properly licensed by and put in a proper disposal location. Most likely it will not be similar to the soil that we found at the RNG plant.
Mr. Van Duyne asked, can you explain the process very briefly on how you get rid of this wastewater that we’re talking about and where are you in the process of hiring a treatment plant close by.
Mr. Hartke respond, wastewater for this facility we call it gas condensate. It’s basically clean, the moisture that’s removed from the landfill gases coming into the plant. We are required by the company to remove all contaminates’ one would be any moisture in that gas, so this is moisture will go into two tanks that we approved through a change order in January. It will be stored in those tanks and then we have our SCS engineers who have been working on wastewater treatment plants getting discharge permits and agreement with them. One is KMRA that’s a Kankakee Metropolitan Reclamation District, I believe. That’s a wastewater treatment plant that’s publicly owned. Prairie View Landfill currently uses that facility for their condensate. We’re finding a couple other locations trying to secure a couple of their agreements because it’s a little more toxic and sometimes can cause them problems. We were also working Diamond in Morris as two other alternates. What’s going to be on your Executive Committee Meeting Agenda is an agreement with SCS Engineers to help us secure pretreatment facilities agreements. There is a facility in Kankakee where we would have, if the condensate was rejected at these wastewater treatment plants it could go to a pretreatment facility and be treated first before it goes into the wastewater treatment plant. We have to secure an agreement for that and do an RFP for that. There’s one in Kankakee that would be most likely our cheapest route because it’s close and there’s another one in Dolton probably going to be too far away there’s one in Fort Wayne. There are several of these, but we have to have backup in case we can’t bring it to the wastewater plant. Thirdly, there’s a risk of this being considered hazardous waste, so we also have to do an RFP for hazardous waste liquids just in case and then also hazardous waste solids. When you’re dealing with hazardous waste you have much higher liability so the insurances higher and you have a lot more regulations, but you have placard that you have to deal with in the disposal site. So, the RFP for the hazardous waste will include hauling and disposal. Most likely we won’t need that option, but we must have it because if we don’t have capacity within our tanks to add more condensate the whole plant shuts down. We must have these agreements in place so they’re going to be working with us to draft those RFPs because they have the expertise to do that and help us in select. All that being said, right now one question you’re probably asking is why don’t we know what the condensate is? We’ve done tests on the condensate that’s generated from the gas to electric plant right now and the condensate coming off the gas header line that comes off landfill all goes into one location. We’ve tested that. That condensate is considered a substitute materials or surrogate so it can use it as an example of what it may look like but since the plant is not actually operating, we don’t know exactly what the condensate is going be yet. When you talk to the engineers it’s like you have other plants in the area or in the country, why don’t you know? Whenever your plant is a little different and the condensate that’s coming out of there could be different from another plant. One thing that we have different here is a lot of these facilities’ condensate drains into a wastewater treatment plant or treatment line direct discharge. We don’t have that option here, so we must put it in a tank and haul it off site. So, we have to get all our I’s dotted and T’s crossed trying to make sure were ready for varies scenarios.
Mr. Moustis asked, why wouldn’t we build our own waste plant? Long term it may be the less expensive route. You would have to start talking to the IEPA and you will have to find were we would locate it. I’m thinking hey we’re in this far we’re in this deep. I guess what I’m saying is I think it should be considered.
Mr. Dave responded, that would be a capital expense, we were told it’s around $2 to $4 million to build that and the time would be about 2 to 3 years to get that built out. The plan is to do what we’re doing now and work towards that. We are exploring the options for something like that and hopefully pay for that under operating revenue once we’re up and going.
Mr. Moustis commented, going to the private sector that treats water. They would have the capital expense and then of course we would have to pay them to operate it but if it’s on site we don’t have all that hauling and that stuff. So, I would also look at the private sector to see if they have an interest in which a private water company that utility companies. I think that’s also an option that we should look at.
Mr. Van Duyne stated, you mentioned Grundy County and Morris and Kankakee County, and we do know that Wilmington is very close to the landfill. Would they be able to accept this water?
Mr. Hartke answered, we’re still working through our technical engineers who’s been communicating with them to try to determine that for sure. I haven’t touched bases with him in the last few days to see what the results of that communication with Wilmington.
Mr. Fricilone asked, at this point is SCS our consultant or do we have a separate consultant? Who do we have that we go to and say tell us every possible thing that we need to look in too?
Mr. Hartke replied, Eco Engineers is one of our primary consultants and has been. They all tell us that this is very common to come across things like this as you build these facilities, they’re very complicated. There’s so many different loose ends and parts to this that we need to come together for operations, and I understand your frustrations. We have the same frustrations.
Ms. Snitko commented, to elaborate Dave’s point so many land field gas plants have a wastewater treatment facility that they automatically take gas condensate to. We just don’t have those options, so we have to explore other methods to do that. Also, we have one easement we’re hoping to tie up with ComEd. They’re currently reviewing our permanent easement language. Once that gets finalized, we can execute that easement and approve it. For the RNG inner connect; tentative mobilization is set for May 23, and we’re currently going through amendment language because there was some language that wasn’t properly stated in the beginning, so we’re tying that up. For the O & M agreement the County is communicating with SCS Energy we are tying things up, we have it as a placeholder on the Executive Committee Meeting. We’re hoping to put that forth but we’re still working on it. I also attached the RNG budget to show where we’re at currently with invoices.
Ms. Traynere asked, there was on the budget that was attached to our agenda for finance over on the right-hand side the $400,000 dollars for UST tank removal I thought we had determined that was $700,000.
Ms. Snitko responded, you are correct. We had to estimate what we thought UST tank removal would be and we thought it was going to be $400,000, but you are correct it is $736,000.00.
2. Morgue Project Update/Financial Summary
(County Executive's Office)
Mr. Tkac stated, bid package 1 came in and were opened on April 27, the results were favorable and will be presented in the very near future. Also worth mentioning is bid package 2 which includes structural steel, misc. metals, and building concrete and the roof the bid documents will be available on May 11, and the bids will be due for bid package 2 on May 25. We have reached a point of 100% design development however, that should not be confused with the availability of the construction documents. There’s more detailing that need to go into that. We’re still on track to do a construction start late July early August of the summer. We’ve got excellent participation by the Coroner’s office and morgue staff. I think the design is very compatible with the needs but also includes an eye on the future without going overboard. There are 3 autopsy stations, 2 will be non-isolated and 1 will be an isolation room in case there is a communicable disease involved. The facility itself is one story, 11,450 sq. ft. roughly. We are narrowing down the final details in way of equipment FFE selections. The Coroner had asked me to make sure that this committees know that we are repurposing everything that we possibly can from her administrative space on Scott St and that’s being worked into the furniture design for the balance of the facility. I think we ae in very good shape, but I also wanted to mention that we have a challenge to get the materials we need to start the project in the summer and then continue without running into a stoppage due to the lack of materials. I think we have a good plan for the strategy for the bidding and I think we’re on track to begin the project without a pause due to materials shortages.
Ms. Traynere commented, I just want to say how excited I am to hear that the Coroner is willing to reuse some of her equipment. After touring the Courthouse and seeing all the belongings left behind and the waste, this is very encouraging to hear that our Coroner has been respectful enough to repurpose. Congratulations to her.
Ms. Ventura stated, thank you for breaking the bids down into smaller packages. Are we helping people to apply for some of those bids or walk through the process at all?
Mr. Tkac replied, absolutely and we’re going to do everything we can in the way of our outreach efforts to attract as many MBE WBE and locally based firms to the bid opportunities. Most of the opportunities are going to be in bid package 3. We’ll double up on our efforts to attract these types of bidders. The construction manager has contacted everybody that has been on bidders lists with the County and a lot of them are local. Not as many M & WBE firms local and WBE firms as we would like to see. However, we’ve contacted everyone who submitted bids before on past projects i.e. Public Safety Complex i.e. Health. We personally invite various firms too and we try to maximize the participation that way, but again I think that we can always improve on that and we’re looking to do so with bid package 3.
Ms. Ventura commented, our Communication Specialist maybe can put some stuff on our social media.
3. Disc Re: Status of Old Courthouse, 14 W. Jefferson St.
(Discussion)
Mr. Tkac stated the bid documents for full building abatement are prepared and should be available later this month. What we are planning to do is bid that work out with a planned schedule start for later this fall after the public schools are back in session and there’s a reason for that. We get better pricing because a lot of the abatement contractors are busy with summer work in the public school system. We continue to work with ComEd and our dialogue for location an alternate location for their equipment and that’s about as far as we’ve gotten them.
Mr. Brooks asked, are they communicating at all with the Executive Office of where they are I understand that they were looking for some property around the downtown area because so many businesses depend on that facility underneath that courthouse. Any conversation or communication on where they are?
Mr. Tkac answered, we’ve offered up several options for them, none of which seem to appeal to ComEd. They would like to maintain the location for this equipment near the intersection or as close to Ottawa and W. Jefferson St. as they possibly can. We’ve offered them a couple of options that would not interfere with our current or future plans for that site. They weren’t received with great enthusiasm. Alternatively, we put them in touch with the City of Joliet. This is the ComEd engineers who I’ve been working with to find a suitable location. We facilitated a meeting between ComEd and the electrical engineering department with the City and they offered up a few alternatives for locating equipment which were not even as good as those that they didn’t like that the County was putting forward. That’s about a far as it’s gone right now and it continues to go on this track of, we don’t like this, we don’t like that, but they are going to have to make a decision and live with it. I say, we want to cooperate with them, but this isn’t our burden. We want to try to do everything that we can.
Mr. Brooks commented, I know that they want to maintain a footprint downtown and there’s been some offers to them.
Mr. Fricilone stated, regards to the abatement, I don’t know what’s taking so long to put a bid together. I think that bid needs to get out ASAP. We can put in their work to start no sooner than September 8, because the problem is going to be that the longer, we wait to get that out they’re going to start filling their through. They are busy with schools right now but after Labor Day that’s when the schoolwork is done and going to be filling already, so the sooner we get it out the better. How much longer can it take than the end of the month? We talked about this 3 months ago, so we need to get this out in the next week if so. In regard to the ComEd stuff we need to get the demo bid package put together as well. I think we need to say something to ComEd in regard to just so you know were planning on starting demo October 30, or whatever date we want to act. Put a little pressure on them. If, we give them some kind of deadline to this is when we are going to start, and I understand we could do demo around what they have right now maybe that will get them moving a little faster. I think we have to put some pressure. We’re not being jerks about it we’re just saying we have to start demoing this before the winter and get this done
Mr. Moustis asked Ms. Tatroe, what their term was.
Ms. Tatroe answered, I don’t know. I will look into it.
Ms. Ventura stated, we need more housing here especially transitional housing. We have an issue with the way the city is blocking homeless shelters, beds, etc., right now. So, while this building is sitting there and we have not torn it down I would like us to look at transitional temporary housing in the courthouse, so if that means putting up a partition walls or beds or whatever it is. I don’t work in that line of business, but I think an RFP would be appropriate if we don’t get this torn down in the next 8 months that by next year we start looking at or even before then that we start having this available for people to transitionally for housing. It wouldn’t be for long-term it would be long enough for them to get into permanent housing.
Mr. Brooks asked Ms. Tatroe, if that’s possible or not for us to do that?
All replied, first thing to do is contact the architect to find out of the changes. You have to have showers, bathing facilities and all of that available.
Ms. Traynere commented, if we could use this temporarily to help shelter some people, I think this would be a good thing. They keep talking about the flight from Illinois and all these people that are leaving but I can tell you as a realtor, there’s not enough housing, so people don’t have a choice because there’s nowhere for them to go. If we can provide some temporary assistance and I’m sure there are some organizations that have a lot more expertise that can figure out if that building was usable for a short-term.
Ms. Coleman asked, is there a plan for what was left behind.
Mr. Tkac replied, some of it is very usable. We had asked all the various departments and allowed them to select whatever they wanted to utilize in their current spaces. A lot of the various departments took advantage of that. As far as the community-based organizations and getting them through there we haven’t done that we haven’t gone down that road yet. The bottom-line is it’s challenging.
Mr. Moustis stated, we have a process that we’ve used for years for the reutilizing equipment and surplus. We have to declare that it has no value basically before we can give it away. In the past we offered to other units of government first. They may come and take some stuff. Then we offer it to nonprofit and that’s not the way we have to do it, but we can do it however. So, there is a process in place for getting rid of the stuff.
Ms. Tatroe replied, yes.
Mr. Fricilone asked Mr. Palmer, if we can get a Resolution on that second Executive. That gives you a couple of weeks to do an inventory. Send a couple of people in there just to count desks and chairs. Then we should be able to declare surplus at the end of this month.
Mr. Palmer indicated, in order to do a surplus resolution, we have to list all the items so we have to get all that done pretty quickly.
Ms. Tatroe commented, I would say typically we have a sticker on every single item with a property number. I believe when we do a surplus we list that number, that way it can be identified that yes in fact that piece of property was surplused.
Mr. Lynn advised the committee; we do have all the electronics tagged and stacked and ready to go. They have surplus numbers, and we are ready to surplus them. We were looking to repurpose them at first but there was some miscommunication on how they were handled so a lot of them are damaged and not reusable. We are ready to go with that. Usually with furniture we do not give numbers we would just create a list of what it is. It’s not as labor intense as you think.
Mr. Fricilone said, so we can do a resolution already for surplusing the electronics; for sure we can get on it this month. We can get inventory done in time we can put the rest of it.
4. Discussion of 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan
(County Executive's Office)
Mr. Brooks comment, last but not least Lez, Mitch you have an update on the Five Year Capital Improvement Plan.
Mr. Schaben response, I don’t have anything additional from the last meeting. Everything is still out and no updates.
Mr. Brooks comment, thank you Mitch.
VI. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VII. NEW BUSINESS
VIII. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
IX. PUBLIC COMMENT
https://willcountyil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=12&ID=4321&Inline=True
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