Mayor D'Arcy Intends On Improving Joliet's Entrance Gateways

JOLIET, IL — During Monday's Pre-City Council meeting, Joliet Mayor Terry D'Arcy brought up a topic that came up during his successful run for mayor in April, but it's an issue that has not been addressed by city staff since D'Arcy took office.

Joliet's entrance gateways. They are not beautiful.

"I've got a question," D'Arcy announced. Councilman Joe Clement "brings it up a lot, the gateways, the entrances to our city. They're not all always pristine. And do we do that in-house, or do we have that contracted out?"

"A little bit of both," responded Joliet Public Works Director Greg Ruddy. "The minor maintenance we do in house. We've had a request in, over a number of years, to sort of get funding to refresh those beds. I don't think we had that request in for this year's budget, but they're looking a little tattered, I would agree. But I would say the major maintenance is done externally."

"What do we have to do to get something in the budget?" D'Arcy said, asking a follow-up question to his city's department heads seated in the Council Chambers for Monday night's meeting. "I mean, third-largest city in the state of Illinois, and quite frankly, I don't think that we portray that when someone comes into our community."

"Sure, I guess that's the will of the Council if would want to add an item in the budget," Ruddy responded. Moments later, Ruddy clarified that Joliet Finance Director Kevin Sing just let him know there is $100,000 in the proposed city of Joliet budget.

"So there is some funding in there for this year's budget. I was mistaken, or rather, the '24 budget," Ruddy clarified.

"Does anybody know how far that's going to get us?" Councilman Clement inquired. "Doesn't seem like a lot."

"I don't know that answer, until we go out to bid," Ruddy replied. "I guess we could see what it gets us, and again, at the will of the Council, or with a budget amendment later, you could."

"I wonder if it would be possible that with some of our staff around here, that we could get pictures of all of our entrances," D'Arcy suggested. "I'd like us all to see, what do they look like because I've had people make comments to me that are from out of town, and I don't use all the different entrances myself, but I'm certain that at some point, we could get a pretty good array of how we look to those first time visitors to our community and understand what kind of investment we need to make to really look our best.

"You get one chance at a first impression," D'Arcy emphasized. "So I'm just wondering if we could do that."

"Yeah, we can look at doing that," Ruddy answered the mayor.