Will public outcry force Joliet Township to cancel asylum grant?

If the three hours of public comment at a Joliet Township board meeting Monday served as a referendum, the $8.6 million grant for asylum-seeker services undoubtedly lost.

While local public opinion may not kill the grant, it doesn’t help, especially as the plan for asylum-seeker services in Joliet faces serious trouble from a growing list of public bodies and private companies saying they were falsely represented by the township in its application for the state funding.

The overflow crowd of at least 350 people at the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park theater definitely was overwhelmingly against the grant, which has sparked a firestorm of controversy since being announced Sept. 29.

What impact the meeting had on the township board, which has not yet decided to follow through on the grant, was not clear.

Joliet resident Mary Beth Gannon had her doubts that the strong public showing against the grant would affect the board.

“If the township board had any intention of withdrawing the grant, it would have already happened,” Gannon said as she added her voice to the dozens of speakers at the meeting. “Nobody would want to sit here and listen to us.”

Indeed, comments were at times harsh, and heckling from the audience was often rude.

But if the township moves ahead with the grant, it would seem to have some explaining to do, especially as to why so much of it the proposed assistance for asylum seekers comes from organizations that say they were never approached by the township and don’t want to be part of its plan.

“We have never had migrants at the hotel. We do not intend to work with the township.”

—  Dan Scott, vice president of operation with Post Hospitality

Posh Hospitality, a Joliet-based hotel company, on Tuesday joined the growing list of public and private entities saying they were falsely represented in the grant application as potential partners with the township.

“You don’t just put names on applications and say say you are going to use them without consulting with them,” Dan Scott, vice president of operation with Post Hospitality, said at the meeting.

But that’s what Joliet Township did in its grant application, which also indicated a Posh Hospitality hotel already is providing Joliet housing for migrants, Scott said.

“We have never had migrants at the hotel,” Scott said. “We do not intend to work with the township.”

An attorney for Posh Hospitality is demanding that its hotel be removed from the grant and that the township issue a statement to correct what was said in the application, Scott said.

The Joliet Park District last week canceled a lease agreement for its Hartman Recreation Center after learning the township included the facility in the grant application as a welcome center.

A Duly Health & Care spokeswoman this week said the medical group never had discussions with the township, which put Duly’s facility at Glenwood and Hammes avenues in the grant as a future welcome clinic for asyum-seekers.

Joliet Mayor Terry D’Arcy has repeatedly said his office was never consulted before being listed in the grant as a supporter.

Joliet Township Supervisor Angel Contreras, however, said at the beginning of the township meeting that it was Joliet’s interim city manager, Rod Tonelli, who first informed him of the grant opportunity in August.

Contreras also said that including the logos of the city of Joliet and the Joliet Fire Department on the grant application suggesting their support “was an oversight,” a comment that drew loud jeers from the audience.

“We have to be welcoming. We have to give people opportunities.”

—  Manuela Botello, Joliet resident who spoke at Tuesday's township meeting

In contrast, D’Arcy received large cheers after brief comments at the township meeting in which he repeated a demand that the township withdraw its grant application.

The grant application did get some support from at least a half-dozen speakers at the meeting, including Manuela Botello.

“We have to be welcoming,” Botello said. “We have to give people opportunities.”

But for the grant to survive, it would have to be amid a groundswell of community opposition and allegations of misrepresentation from most of the organizations listed as allies in the application.

The grant application also has come under fire from people with connections to the Peter Claver Center, whose building was acquired by the township earlier this year and now is listed as a potential welcome center for asylum seekers.

The plan for the building is seen as a betrayal by African Americans, who have longtime connections to the Peter Claver Center and are generally opposed to the diversion of social service spending to people from other countries trying to enter the United States.

“i’m angered by that,” Glenda Wright McCullum, an African-American leader in Joliet, said of the plan for the Peter Claver Center.

“I grew up in that community,” said Wright McCullum, who as a child lived in a housing project in the same neighborhood as the Peter Claver Center. “That was our community center. That was where we went.”