Pat Mudron Blasts Jan Quillman, Prompting Applause From Joliet City Council Audience

JOLIET, IL — Moments after City Councilwoman Jan Quillman finished scolding Joliet Catholic director of institutional advancement Ryan Quigley for not listening to her and for interrupting her during Tuesday night's controversial football stadium project vote, Councilman Pat Mudron spoke up. And what Mudron had to say drew a roar of laughter and clapping from the Joliet Catholic Academy audience at the meeting to support the new football stadium project.

"So, I see this as a whole different view," Mudron said.

"Of course you do!" Quillman reacted loudly.

"We saw our presentation," Mudron started to say. Then he stopped and turned to Quillman.

"You just said, don't talk when another person was talking," Mudron admonished Quillman.

And before Mudron could say anything else, the audience went wild.

The City Council audience erupted with cheers and several seconds of clapping.

Quillman began laughing and stopped interrupting Mudron at that point.

"We had a presentation earlier from Ann Sylvester, showing everything that she, and we, the city of Joliet, are trying to do," Mudron continued. "We have a new City Center that will be opened. We will be doing more at Bi Park and having other activities downtown. Obviously, we have (NASCAR) race coming back here. The Slammers stadium added a number of different activities that weren't exactly baseball, the hot dog drop, just bringing more people to Joliet.

"I look at this as an asset to that and to the city and to the neighborhood," Mudron said. "That it will increase the home values, I feel. In Joliet, in general, I believe in options. We the city need educational options. Both private versus public. As Mr. Quigley said, it raised almost $13 million, seven of it going to land acquisitions and almost six of it going to tuition assistance.

"We need this educational option to help attract new people, new homes, new options here to the city, that they could have private as well as public education. I have family teaching in the public education. I think it's very good here. But people want private and they should have it.

"As we all know, we've lost one hospital (Silver Cross) and a private golf course (Joliet Country Club) over the last few years that we can't afford to lose any other large operation like JCA. BiPark is already mentioned, and the tuition, yes, we up here all represent the whole city. And we're voting on helping 150,000 plus people on what would be best in the future here. I'm for the project."