JOLIET —Less than nine months after Joliet officials signed a contract with Tinley Park-based Liberty Creative Services to print and mail the city of Joliet’s newsletter four times a year, the Joliet City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to end that contract before the publication of the next city newsletter is set to print this Fall.
Prior to Tuesday night’s vote, Joliet City Manager Beth Beatty provided the Council with a memo outlining the history of the contract and why she was recommending the contract be terminated.
According to her memo, on Dec. 5, 2023, Mayor Terry D’Arcy and the City Council approved an agreement with Liberty Creative Solutions for the design, print and delivery of the city newsletter. The contract consisted of eight quarterly newsletters in 2024 and 2025 with four pages of content in both English and Spanish at a cost to the Joliet taxpayers of $201,528.
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The agreement contained a clause indicating the mayor and Council may vote to discontinue publication of these newsletters at any time.
On May 20, Beatty announced the hiring of City Hall’s new media engagement and communications director position Rosemaria DiBenedetto, a public relations executive who was handling communication matters for Mayor Terry D’Arcy. In her new role at City Hall, DiBenedetto makes a salary of $159,900.
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“Since entering into this agreement, the city has hired a full-time communications director and assigned another individual to that department to handle social media and the website,” Beatty’s memo to the City Council explained. “Since then, the city has seen a marked increase in the amount of press coverage helping to create a more positive image of the city. Improving the city’s image and reputation will lead to additional investment in Joliet by existing businesses, new businesses, and residential growth which will bring more revenue and sales taxes to the city.
“Many communities are moving to an electronic newsletter to reach more demographics, to be more environmentally friendly by using less paper, and to save printing, postage, and delivery costs,” Beatty’s memo to the Council continued. “It is the intent of the city to move toward an electronic version of a newsletter to perhaps be distributed through the process used for water billing. To address the concerns of those who may have limited computer access, which is estimated to be 4800 households, a printed version of a newsletter may be mailed providing a significant cost savings over the current agreement.”
Prior to Tuesday night’s vote, City Councilwoman Jan Quillman told everyone that she supported ending the contract with Liberty Creative Services.
“I’ll say it, it was $201,000 to get this thing out and it was only quarterly,” Quillman remarked. “The cost was becoming outrageous. And it was brought to us to our new public person for advertising and getting it out there for us. She’s here tonight. Ms. DiBenedtto, would you like to give a brief summary of what we talked about?”
DiBenedetto responded to Quillman’s question by saying, “We are hoping to begin to do something on a monthly basis in the water billing. We will be able to do an insert monthly with timely information that we’ll be able to know, that will get to residents.
“Right now we hear complaints from residents that the information is outdated. Sometimes, they don’t get it in the mail. Sometimes, they get too many copies so we would just like to be able to have some control over the entire operation, so I hope the Council will support it.”
According to the agreement between Liberty Creative Services and Joliet, the proposal called for a total of eight quarterly newsletters distributed to households in the city of Joliet on March 1, June 1, Sept. 1 and Dec. 1, 2024, and March 1, June 1, Sept. 1 and Dec. 1 in 2025.
Under the agreement, the contractor would print 56,500 newsletters with a minimum of 1, 000 of those to be delivered to Joliet City Hall; 1,000 to the Spanish Community Center; 500 to the Joliet Public Library- Ottawa Street Branch; 500 to the Joliet Public Library-Black Road Branch; and 100 to the Joliet Police Department West Sub Station.
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