MWRD Board Honors Memory of Former Commissioner Terrence J. O'Brien

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Board Meeting
March 4, 2021
                           All Commissioners present

Board Action:
All agenda items were approved, except for Agenda Item #19 (21-0181), authority to advertise a contract for testing and repairing underground storage tanks, which was deleted by the Executive Director.  

​Only a few items were pulled out for discussion, and most of the discussion related to remembering former MWRD Commissioner and President Terrence J. O’Brien who recently died and celebrating 14-year old Dorothy Jean Tillman from the Chicago south side who received her Masters degree in environmental science in 2020.  Ms. Tillman has created the Dorothy Jeanius STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) Educational Leadership Institute to create an environment where adolescents can pair arts with technology.  During the pandemic she has created at home STEAM kits for adolescents, and has also reached out to South African youth.

​Following are a few items noted from the agenda and meeting:

• Executive Director Brian Perkovich announced that the district is making plans to “go back to ‘normal’” with the roll-out of the vaccine.   However, he expects that there will be changes in how the district does things based on what they have learned over the past year.  Management is now reviewing a draft of a new remote working policy.
• Finance:  Agenda Item 9 was a report to the Board on comparison of investment income in 2020 vs. 2019:  down by $10 M, from almost $18 M in 2019 to not quite $8 M in 2020.  Item 10 showed a continuation of that trend for January 2021 vs. 2020:  down 60% from $1 M in Jan. 2020 vs. $0.47 M in 2021.  Given the Federal Reserve Board’s announced plans to maintain low interest rates, the forecast is for the district to continue to have low returns.  However, Agenda Item 11 reported that the district’s investments are out-performing the benchmark 90-day Treasury bill:  0.43% vs. 0.10% in the 4th quarter of 2020.
• Web site:  Agenda Item 23 was a request to advertise a contract for enhancements to the new web site, particularly with regard to video content.  Commissioner Garcia asked what languages would be included (vs. translation capability), which the Executive Director was still being looked at.
• Commissioner McGowan and others expressed their gratitude to the employees for all that they have done during the past year of the pandemic.  Commissioner Shore suggested that consideration be given to allowing employees to take time off to get vaccinated since a number of vaccination sites are not open on the weekend.

Observer -  Priscilla Mims                     Length of meeting:  1 hour and 20 minutes