Jan Quillman Slams Joliet Catholic Academy's New Football Stadium Project: What She Said

JOLIET, IL — Joliet City Councilwoman Jan Quillman revealed during Tuesday night's meeting that the Joliet Catholic Academy new football stadium was already a done deal, suggesting that the votes were secured before the meeting to ensure the passage of the $20 million athletic stadium project that aims to reverse JCA's negative enrollment trends.

But that did not stop Quillman from putting Ryan Quigley, director of institutional advancement at JCA, and JCA's football stadium project attorney David Silverman of Mahoney, Silverman and Cross, on the spot during the build-up to the City Council's vote.

Here are some of the highlights of Quillman's remarks she made during the meeting. She was ultimately on the losing side of the 6 to 3 vote. Within the next couple of years, Joliet Catholic Academy will stop playing its home football games at the Joliet Park District's Memorial Stadium on West Jefferson Street. A new football stadium will now be built near Ingalls Avenue near the property where the Our Lady of Angels retirement home once stood.

Quillman: "Well, I would think with all the money that you're raising for the stadium, you could certainly raise a lot more money to help these kids be able to go to JCA. OK. You keep saying it's only going to be six or seven games played at the stadium, so six or seven games, maybe eight if they're going to playoffs. Now what other teams are going to be playing there? How about the University of St. Francis and other places that might ... will you quit interrupting me and listen to what I have to say, and I will listen to you politely like I have all night?" Quillman admonished Quigley.

"So, my question is, other teams may want to play there because they don't have a stadium, will you be renting that stadium out to other schools?"

Quigley: "We will be renting that stadium out to other youth organizations. Not other schools. Like the Joliet Titans, the Joliet Steelers."

Quillman: "OK, so my next question is, when were the parking studies done?"

Quigley: "The parking studies were done in June and September."

Quillman: "In June, when the school is out. And there is no traffic."

Quigley: "So we did them June 6th and June 7th while the athletics were still going on. Because they were after school, and we did them again on September 19th and September 20th after meeting with the neighbors."

Quillman: "And did you discuss this traffic issue with the Joliet Police Department?"

Quigley: "Yes we did."

Quillman: "What other entertainment events will you be doing there, to help pay for the stadium? Like are you going to be having musical bands or things like that?"

Quigley: "No."

Quillman: "Not at all?"

Quigley: "No."

Quillman: "No events, other than football?"

Quigley: "We'll have football, soccer. We're not planning on any other events. Our high school soccer games, yes."

Quillman: "So that's more. How many games will they play?"

Quigley: "Thirty per year. Which they currently play on campus, the majority of them. There will be 30 total home games per year, they each play 30, so girls soccer and boys soccer. Playoffs are minimal, two to three games."

Quillman: "Well, what about football? There's a lot of playoffs."

Quigley: "There's four to seven games total, so we play four to five home games during the regular season, and then we'll play an additional two to three playoff games depending on how the playoffs shake out with the brackets and the seeding."

Quillman: "And it will just keep adding up, adding up over the years. More and more."

Quigley: "What we're currently hosting on campus, we will only be adding four to seven events on campus. We are already hosting soccer games on campus. They're just going to have a stadium to play."

Quillman: "OK. I'm very concerned about the neighbors that live there. I would like to see in this agreement, in writing, that it would be residential parking only, but not at any cost to the residents that live there. These people have lived there for years. It's an established neighborhood, and they don't have driveways, their sidewalks are terrible, they don't have many alleys, there's no garages and they have to park on the street."

Quigley: "It's free parking on the streets for neighbors."

Quillman: "Where do you live, Mr. Quigley?"

Quigley: "I live in Shorewood."

Quillman: "Aha. Aha. Where do you live?" pointing in the direction of JCA's attorney David Silverman of Joliet's Mahoney, Silverman and Cross law firm.

Silverman stepped up to the podium and answered, "I live in Channahon."

Quillman: "Aha. OK, very good."

Silverman: "My family has been in business in the city of Joliet for 100 years in different businesses here so I feel I'm attached here. I grew up here, and I have a business here that employs about 20 people. So I am invested in this community in a number of ways."

Quillman: "But you don't live there. You don't live in that little, tiny neighborhood. You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole, and you're disrupting these people that don't make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. There's a lot of people that have invested in those homes.

"They bought them in the '50s and '60s when they were built and now the housing value's going to go down because people don't want to live by a stadium and I know it was said earlier by Sister Jeanne, with all due respect, that the schools are there in the residential areas, but you're trying to put this here at this established residence that's been here for 50 to 60 years. These are people's homes, and they're going to disrupt everything. There's going to be coming and going and noise and lights and everything ... but still, the overflow is going to go into that established little neighborhood."

Silverman: "We look forward to working with the Joliet Police Department on parking and traffic. We're adding a large number of parking spaces. We're working with Habitat (for Humanity) and others for off-site parking if we need that and kind of the beauty of this whole thing, you saw the attendance numbers, they're not that great. Hopefully, they will be better."

Quillman: "But they will be. It will grow because you want it to."

Silverman: "Well, hopefully they will grow ... the tickets are presales. They know ahead of the game how many people are going to be attending the game almost to the head, right? They can go down to your traffic division, and they can work on a plan that's specific for that game ... We know that your police department is very good at handling special events and we're confident that they will come up with a good plan for that, and I hope that you would have confidence in your police department also."

Quillman: "Oh, I have a lot of confidence in our police department. I want to know who's going to pay for all those extra policemen that are going to be out there? That will be on the taxpayers to pay the extra overtime. It will be a nightmare. I've talked to some police officers. It's going to be nightmare trying to get people in and out of there. However, you're going to have to put more police on there which will be a cost to the taxpayers that not only live in that area but all of us. It's going to cost us more."

Silverman: "I guess we have a difference of opinion on that."

Quillman: "Of course we do. Of course we do. A couple more questions. So you're telling me you're not going to rent it out to any entertainment venue or are you going to do that eventually?"

Silverman: "No concerts. There will be school-related things there. You know the band might be playing out there. The school band. This is not going to be the site of the Taste of Joliet or a Styx concert or anything like that. This is an educational facility, and it's being made for our students, for their benefit and for the benefit of everyone together."

Quillman: "So can you put that in writing as well?"

Silverman: "I mean, sure. We can tell you that there's not going to be concerts there."

Quillman: "And you can tell me, but I want to see that in writing. It doesn't count unless it's in writing. Verbal agreements are not any good, it has to be in writing."

Silverman: "You asked me if I could put that in writing and I said sure, that was my response. We can put it in writing that we will only have educational institution events within the stadium. I mean, that's our intent. If that were to change in the future, obviously, we could come back to the city of Joliet and ask if you wanted to change that, but we have no intent to do anything like that. I'm not even sure how those rumors got started. We can drop a letter to your city staff tomorrow tell them there will only be educational institution events held there."