Will County Board Democratic Caucus Committee met Aug. 17.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Mr. Bessler led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Majority Leader Meta Mueller called the meeting to order at 6:00 PM
Attendee
Meta Mueller Majority Leader Present
Sherry Newquist Member Present
Amanda Koch Member Absent
Margaret Tyson Majority Whip Present
Saud Gazanfer Member Absent
Jacqueline Traynere Member Present
Joe VanDuyne Member Absent
Herbert Brooks Jr. Member Absent
Denise E. Winfrey Member Absent
Rachel Ventura Member Present
Natalie Coleman Member Present
Tyler Marcum Member Present
Mimi Cowan Speaker Present
Mica Freeman Member Present
Also Present: N. Palmer.
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe.
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Democratic Caucus - Special Meeting - Jun 15, 2022 6:00 PM
RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mica Freeman, Member
SECONDER: Natalie Coleman, Member
AYES: Mueller, Newquist, Tyson, Traynere, Ventura, Coleman, Marcum, Cowan, Freeman
ABSENT: Koch, Gazanfer, VanDuyne, Brooks Jr., Winfrey
2. WC Democratic Caucus - Special Meeting - Jul 19, 2022 6:00 PM
RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Tyler Marcum, Member
SECONDER: Mica Freeman, Member
AYES: Mueller, Newquist, Tyson, Traynere, Ventura, Coleman, Marcum, Cowan, Freeman
ABSENT: Koch, Gazanfer, VanDuyne, Brooks Jr., Winfrey
V. OLD BUSINESS
VI. NEW BUSINESS
1. Discussion of County Board Agenda
Land Use
Mr. Marcum stated the first item for Land Use is a Map Amendment from C-6 to A-1; a Special Use request for an outdoor storage yard and a Special Use Permit for construction sales and services. All of these passed 5-0 through PZC, and 6-0 at the Land Use and Development Committee. The next item is a Zoning Case in Joliet Township at 1601 New Lenox Rd.; in County Board District #8 in Joliet. It is a request to sell package liquor on the premises with three conditions. This is the first step that a business must go through before they can get a liquor license, then they will have to come back and get a liquor license number increased, then the County Executive and Liquor Commission follow up, this passed 6-0. Our next case is in Will Township on South Ridgeland Ave. in Peotone, County Board District #1. This is a map amendment request from A-1 to E-2; this one also passed unanimously through PZC and Land Use. Next is the zoning ordinance for solar farms and Special Use Permits. We changed our screening requirements to bring it more in conformance with agricultural practices for large trees and shrubbery in the middle of a corn field, we updated the upkeep. In the past when we have had solar farms, we have always added conditions. This is cleaning that up, so it is in the ordinance it clarifies who takes care of what the farmer, and what the company must take care of. We have run into a little snag; currently the ordinance requires the company to hire an agricultural specialist to ensure that everything is up to snuff with agricultural practices. The issue is there in no certification as an agricultural specialist; we were requiring something that was not defined anywhere. We changed the verbiage, but we received a letter from the Farm Bureau, which was forwarded to you by Mrs. Adams today. The Farm Bureau would like to see a little more clarity; the Farm Bureau is concerned that people would be evaluating their own work. For instance, if a company has an agricultural specialist, then they would be self-checking themselves. The request is to send it back to committee to see if we can make it clearer. In the letter the Farm Bureau touches on the battery storage facilities, which is not part of the ordinance that is before us tomorrow, we took that out at committee due to needing more clarification. That is its own separate thing that is going to Public Hearing at PZC in September. If we send this back, then the solar ordinance and the battery storage for the solar will be together.
Speaker Cowan stated when we have talked about solar panels there has been some interesting conversations about environmental impacts. We are sending this back to committee.
Mr. Marcum stated I would appreciate it tomorrow if people have some thoughts on this to get them out quickly, the committee already discussed it, and this is what we hammered out. I know at committee Mrs. Ogalla wasn’t thrilled with the verbiage that we came up with. It requires a written plan of who did it, and what their qualifications are. If you have thoughts on it, please let us know tomorrow, it always helps to have opinions. I believe the Republican Caucus will be fine with sending it back because of Mrs. Ogalla’s concerns. This is a valid concern that the Farm Bureau brings up.
Finance Committee
Ms. Tyson stated the monthly Financial Report was placed on file. We also authorized a contribution of $50,000 to the Heritage Corridor Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Mr. Palmer stated it was a request by HCCBD; there were no questions, just a motion and a second. We have funded them in the past this was just a higher amount than before.
Ms. Tyson stated it is a non-for-profit organization, and it is for promoting convention and tourism for Will County.
Mr. Palmer added with that donation they can get matched State funding dollar for dollar.
Ms. Tyson said we also appropriated Grant Funds in the Coroner’s FY2022 Budget, and we voted to transfer appropriations within the County Budget; there is a spreadsheet attached to the agenda with the departments and amounts.
Diversity & Inclusion
Ms. Tyson stated she is meeting with HR and the Executive Committee to talk about what they are going forward. They are gathering data; we will have something to report next month at the meeting.
Legislative & Judicial
Ms. Coleman stated we are starting to discuss the State & Federal Agenda and getting that in. I know our peeps were here talking to the staff, I don’t know if Mr. Palmer has anything to add. I have asked the committee to review last year’s State & Federal Agenda.
Speaker Cowan stated I would anticipate there are going to be some questions about the Pre Trial-Fairness Act, and the SAFE-T Act in the conversation in the next few months on the agendas. I would suggest that everyone get information and know their stuff so you can have an opinion about what if anything you want to see on our State Agenda.
Capital Improvement
Ms. Coleman stated I am on that committee, but I would like to say there was a lot of conversation about who creates policy. Being a sophomore on the team I asked how we do that. I was told that we have had workshops in the past, the Board makes policy. I don’t know who calls this meeting to work on policy, do we work on this at home in our free time, I don’t know. If the Executive’s Office presents something I hope that everyone can look over to bring some feedback so we are not fighting each other and can put this plan out. The second piece is the old Courthouse, and what are we going to do. I know there were bids put out to get rid of the asbestos. I don’t know if we are going out to bid to knock it down, I don’t know who makes that decision. Those are two things that I would like to know what is it that we are doing, especially the 5-Year Plan.
Speaker Cowan stated I heard bits and pieces of this conversation about the 5 Year-Plan. Well, it is true that the County Board sets policy, we are the legislative branch, we set policy. It is not as separate as the three branches of State or Federal Government from my prospective. In that the County Executive’s Office is the one that drives the process on the 5-Year-Plan. I think it is appropriate for the County Executive’s Office to say this is our proposal; the County Board then looks at it and then prioritize this, or bump that. If we get into a position where the County Board is making the plan without the Executive’s Office telling us what is possible, you could quickly get into a position where the County Board is dictating things that are not doable. There will always be some tension there, and there is room for that. For the County Executive’s Office to say this is what we want and how we want it; then for the County Board to say what about this, and there may be times when the County Executive’s Office says no. There is going to be that conflict in a positive way, from my prospective, and I don’t believe it is shared by every single one of the other twenty-five board members. From my prospective it is not efficient, or functional, or maybe even doable, to have the County Board from scratch make that plan. Now do I think perhaps leadership, an Ad-Hoc Committee, or a couple of people be involved in the creation of that 5-Year- Plan; yes. The Chair does have the ability to put this on the agenda, to have the Executive’s Office representative come and answer questions about this plan.
Executive Bertino Tarrant stated our goal was just to set a meeting; we have a lot going on. Sometimes you make decisions you go in this direction and something else gets ignored or can’t be done, because we have a finite stack of money. Our goal was to set up the framework and turn it over to the County Board to say these are our priorities. Here is how we want the year run, this is until you start budgeting, then we start budgeting for those allocations. You have a Capital Improvements Committee now and if that changes, it will be somewhere down the line.
Ms. Mueller stated I agree I don’t see why the Capital Improvements Committee can set priorities on these projects.
Speaker Cowan said on the courthouse, we have gotten the asbestos bid done, we will be getting information on that bid soon. As a reminder in 2019 we did vote to proceed with the teardown of the courthouse. I am still unclear if we can still change our mind on that.
Mrs. Tatroe stated you can; you can usually repeal an ordinance if you aren’t already moving forward with it, there might be situations with it where someone has already acted on reliance of what you have done, and then you can’t.
Speaker Cowan replied I thought you can’t bring the same thing more than once.
Mrs. Tatroe stated you can’t within one or two meetings, that is bring things forward repeatedly. That was under a different County Board, if this County Board has a different viewpoint, this County Board can repeal that ordinance and do something different.
Speaker Cowan stated we need to get a complete vision of what the options are if we want to move forward. We need to understand what teardown means and what those costs are going to be. We may not have a plan right now for that space; my personal feeling is that having an empty building with nothing in it is destructive to Downtown Joliet. Whether we pursue redevelopment in some way or tear it down I think we need to make moves in that direction, but it is going to cost money anyway, and it is money that I am not sure we have readily available.
Ms. Coleman said I have one question, if the building is knocked down can the property be sold to a private entity?
Mrs. Tatroe said no.
Executive Bertino Tarrant stated we have decided; we are moving forward. You would have to decide to stop it, you could do nothing, and we would continue to move forward with the process.
Speaker Cowan added in absence of some new decision we are tearing it down.
Executive Committee
Speaker Cowan said I was absent last week and appreciate Ms. Mueller being in charge. We had a Public Hearing at our first Executive Meeting this month, it is clarifying procedures and deadlines for renewable applications, updates to reflect the amendments to the new Illinois Law. The next couple of items Ms. Mueller and I met with our staff and Anser Advisory as well as the Executive’s Office about some of the ARPA items. We are moving forward with item #2; authorizing the obligation and expenditure of ARPA Funds for the unmet needs pillar; that is basically confirming the decision that we previously made. Item #3 allocating ARPA Funds for Anser Advisory we are going to remove it and start fresh. Mostly because we want to clarify exactly how the funds for administration of the program versus the funds, we haven’t specifically allocated for a purpose, but we have floating around that we might want to use later.
Mr. Palmer said the Board in February approved the pillars, it was just an outline and not set in stone. That was sent out with $50 million for Infrastructure, $30 million for Health, $25 million for Economic Development, $10 million for Local Partnerships. But we didn’t specify what we mean by admin, we need to define what we mean by admin. Is that just Anser, or other consultants, is it other work, is it putting in staff time or whatever. There was no objection but now we have brought this resolution forward. Then the suggestion was that we should define how much we are setting aside. Which then leads to the question do we need to re-visit the pillars in general so that we have a clean and current list of what we’re allocating for the different pillars and for admin. Today we saw what a projected number was for admin, which may go up, down, or stay the same. The suggestion before we start creating new resolutions that specify admin costs; let’s set the number and draw from that number.
Speaker Cowan stated on item #4 we had an in-depth conversation about this too. There is this Grant Management Software; it will be partially used as we are allocating these funds, as we are writing these checks to people from ARPA. It is a complex tracking system; with CARES, with the small business checks we handed them a check. With this it is set up with a little bit more back and forth with requirements and guidelines. There is a lot of tracking and management that goes into this process in getting this money out. Rather than having this on an Excel Spreadsheet by hand, I think the Executive’s Office has made the case for having a technology solution to this; the bonus going forward this Grant Management Software will also help the County apply for and maintain grant applications. The ones that we are applying for and getting money from.
Ms. Coleman asked what the JAG Grant was.
Mr. Palmer stated it is an annual grant, it is a formula grant not a completive grant. The City of Joliet and the County get an allotment of money based on a complex set of formulas. The County and the City of Joliet split the total 50%; it can be used for anything criminal justice related. We have used it for drug kits, and for Drug Court, for Sheriff’s equipment, it used to be a much larger number, now our allotment is $25,000 which is about 50%. This is for housing related items like the substance use program, this is basically us ratifying it now.
Speaker Cowan stated items 7, 8, and 9 are all insurance related; HR or Mr. Schaben will be available to answer any questions. Next is declaring Will County Sesquicentennial Commemorative Coins as Surplus and Authorizing Disposal.
Ms. Mueller stated we have these coins and to be able to sell them to the public we must declare them as surplus.
Speaker Cowan stated that item #13 is another change order for the RNG Plant, but there was no discussion about it.
Ms. Freeman said what is the position for Mail Clerk.
Ms. Mueller stated it is a position for a part time mail clerk.
Mrs. Tatroe stated the mail room sorts through the mail to get the discounted bulk rate.
Ms. Freeman asked has there been a part worker before now.
Executive Bertino Tarrant stated we have three workers, one stays in the main room, one who drives around, and another one if we need something in the Court Rooms. We need a part-timer because they call in sick; we also have a temp too.
VII. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
VIII. COMMITTEE REPORTS
1. Land Use & Development
2. Finance
3. Public Works & Transportation
4. Diversity & Inclusion
5. Public Health & Safety
6. Legislative & Judicial
7. Capital Improvements
8. Executive
IX. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
Ms. Mueller stated I just want to let you know we are going to be down 4 or 5 members tomorrow.
1. Speakers Update
Speaker Cowan stated I know the Executive Committee meetings have been long, but this is what we expected when we said that the Executive Committee was going to handle this. It is going to take some work and effort. When you get $250 million extra dollars in the in the span of 4 years it is going to take some time to figure out what to do with it. I appreciate everyone’s being on time and their attendance. I do think it is better to have at the Executive Committee meetings, it effects and touch every single committee, and every single part of this County; it may be messy and slow but that is what democracy is, and it takes hard work. If you are not on the Executive Committee, we always welcome you to come and stay and voice your opinions. We are going to change some things with Executive Committee; Mrs. Adams suggested that we should move all regular business to the front of the agenda, that way staff can be there for the regular committee work and get back to their own positions in a timely manner instead of sitting through all of ARPA. We are limping along the process for allocating the Cannabis Funds, it is something that we would like to move forward with in the next couple of months. I know we have had two presentations about some possibilities, and neither was received really resounding support. If you think those programs are something that you could vote for and support, with or without some changes please let us know. One of the presentations was from the Center for Economic Development (CED) to do something like a Revolving Loan Program. It would be targeting small businesses; in my mind my first proposal was let’s get business owners who live in R-3 Districts or are going to open in an R-3 District. Just to refresh everybody’s memory the R-3 Districts are the census tract areas designated by the State as disproportionally impacted by the criminalization of marijuana. Those are the districts that the State is targeting. Some people suggested if we only did that in R-3 zones it is a little too tight; so, we may want to broaden our scope a bit, and we would probably do it by the census track and the economic levels of the census tracks. A classic revolving loan structure is you put a batch of money in the bank. In a typical bank when they are giving out business loans, they are going to do it in interest, so they make money. With a revolving loan the goal is not to make money, the goal is keeping the loan fund steady. So, we can loan to people with higher risk with less capital and at lower rates. It would probably be the situation where it would be part of a funding stack, not somebodies entire funding stack. There are a lot of details in setting up that type of program, it is not something that I feel that we have the staff to do internally at the County. But the CED (Center for Economic Development) is an organization that could help us to do that kind of thing. There are also small business grants with the same kind of idea, if we give out grants then the money is gone. If we keep putting funds into it, we can do some grants, because it doesn’t have to be currently revolving, it doesn’t have to sustain itself, because we are going to getting money every year and can create a hybrid grant revolving loan program. Of the couple of things that we have talked about, I don’t favor doing just one thing, I was thinking about maybe four different programs. The second we talked about was housing support, that was putting more money into the Rental Assistance and Mortgage Assistance Programs that the County has had going. We have other funding sources for that, or we could expand it or modify what we are looking at. I think both things targeted something we saw repeatably when we asked people how they wanted to spend cannabis money, supporting small business development, minority woman owned business, and some sort of housing support system. Again, we don’t necessarily have all these programs ready to launch in the County; so, we are looking for programs that already exist that we can dove tail on. One of the other things I have reached out to the Community Foundation, who might be able to run scholarship programs, and we could set the parameters on that. We could do it for anybody that wants to go to a Will County school, we could set the parameters.
At this juncture Ms. Ventura joined the meeting.
Ms. Mueller stated we will be having these presentations at Executive Committee, so there probably is items attached to the agenda about the presentations that we have had if you want to look at those.
Speaker Cowan said for the CED presentation they asked Doug Prior many questions on how it would work. Mr. Moustis said we did this in the nineties, and it didn’t work so Mr. Prior was going to come back at some point with data on how and why it could work. We are still waiting for some more supportive data for that sort of program.
X. PUBLIC COMMENT
At this juncture Ms. Traynere joined the meeting.
Executive Bertino Tarrant advised I want to share with you to give you an idea, tomorrow we have combined the State of the County as well as the Budget conversation. It will be all in one instead of two separate conversations. I will tell you this; for some of you who are one year into this and others a few more, we talk about the separation of the two branches. I present the Budget; it is your job to finalize it. I’m going to be presenting things and you may look at it and say nope we aren’t doing any of this, or you may say it is great; some of you were there last year and can remember that when we went to vote on it, and I think there were a couple of additions the Mr. Fricilone made at the last minute. I will say in this I do propose funding for the Cannabis Fund. I have taken some of the ideas that you have had, I don’t go into elaborate conversation on them, but I do start the conversation that we do have this Cannabis Funding, here are some of the ideas that we think fit, they are things that we have had the two meetings on already. That is just so people know we are moving forward. We have a $731 million budget, $246 million for operations in our Corporate Fund, $485 million that is in our Special Revenue Fund, that is our road fund, ARPA, Cannabis, and things we must spend for a very specific reason. We basically have about $246 million that we are working with. Obviously, a balanced Budget with includes the 25% that we have put into Reserve. Again, the Tax Rate is going down a little bit as we know that doesn’t always equate to our Property Taxes because I think we are seeing our assessments go high, high, high. Forty percent of our Budget will be in Public Safety; I’m proposing an increase in base salary for our Public Defenders Office so that those dollars can align with our industry standards. Just so you are aware, our Public Defenders make $51,900 per year, we are suggesting an increase there. We are asking for a new position in both the Finance Department and the Land Use Department; these are things that I think have been budgeted in the past, we just never followed through on these; everyone knows it is tough to find people to work. Again, the Cannabis Sales Tax, we are doing a recommendation after listening to discussions. Recommending several of the priorities that we have heard in our committees, outside in the public. One is we put in there, the development of a revolving loan program administered by the CED (Center for Economic Development). Funding for the Court Recovery Resource Center to address substance abuse. We talk about housing as well, the Diversion Program that keeps women in their homes. I do start talking about the Renewable Natural Gas Plant, we are going to be generating money with that, and I think it is going to be great. The projection is $14.5 million in revenue next year. I talk about the Capital Improvement planning and am proposing $1.2 million in Capital expenditures. You are going to learn about some of the things, you know we have the Court House, we have the Morgue, we have some failing facilities here, including an ADF Roof that needs attention. I talk about encouraging the 5-Year Plan; I believe those are the highlights of it, we will talk about the revenue numbers that we have, what money we put into the OPEB Trust Funds, IMRF Pension Funds, this is just an overview. You will get your Budget Books tomorrow, and then Ms. Howard will have Budget Workshops set up so you can ask your questions and break things down. That is just the quick highlight; we have a lot that we have accomplished, and I will be excited to recap what we have done in the past year. I think sometimes that we do things early on and you forget that we have done them, it is a nice way to recap that.
Ms. Ventura asked will you email us, or will it be on the agenda those job descriptions for the new positions.
Executive Bertino Tarrant asked what new position that is.
Ms. Ventura stated you said that there is a Land Use and a Finance position.
Executive Bertino Tarrant replied I will ask them to do that.
Speaker Cowan said just to reiterate what the Executive said, last year at the final Board Meeting where we were approving the Budget there were four amendments made. That is not best practices; we want people to attend the Budget Workshops, and the Finance Committee Meetings. Make amendments the County Board can and should when they want to make changes to the Budget. It would be great if it happens at the Finance Committee, and then it works through the committee process and when we are coming to the Full County Board Meeting, we have an idea to what that finalized budget is.
Ms. Mueller asked about the Budget Workshops and the dates that they will be held. There was a discussion explaining what will be discussed at those meetings, as well as some dates that will be options for those meeting.
Mrs. Adams stated in September you will have two meetings, and then in October you will have two meetings. There will be other opportunities to get into the revenue and the expenses.
Ms. Mueller stated since Ms. Traynere and Ms. Ventura have arrived, we now have a quorum to vote on our minutes, I would like to go back to that and get then approved.
XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XII. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn @ 7:10 PM
RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Tyler Marcum, Member
SECONDER: Margaret Tyson, Majority Whip
AYES: Mueller, Newquist, Tyson, Traynere, Ventura, Coleman, Marcum, Cowan, Freeman
ABSENT: Koch, Gazanfer, VanDuyne, Brooks Jr., Winfrey
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