Alma Montero and her neighbors went to the Joliet City Council this week looking for answers about a disc golf project that they say has been a mystery that has come with dumping and fires in the woods behind their homes.

A big pile of construction debris has piled up behind Montero’s home, which is on the edge of a vast wooded area that was part of the Joliet Correctional Center.

“All of a sudden I started seeing concrete with rebar,” Montero said Friday as she showed a reporter the debris that also includes roofing shingles and an old sandal. “I said, ‘Would you want this behind your house?’”

Montero said she posed that question to Mark Grabavoy, who has been working on a disc golf project in the wooded area that altogether takes up 135 acres in an open land area east of the Old Joliet Prison. The prison was so named by the city and Joliet Area Historical Museum after it acquired a lease from the state, which still owns the property, so the city could lead an effort to clean up, restore, and open the prison and surrounding area for tours and events.

The disc golf project is intended to be one more stage in what generally has been a successful transformation of the prison, which had been subject to trespassing and vandalism since being vacated by the state in 2002.

Grabavoy could not be reached for comment Friday.

But the neighbors said they know Grabavoy, having talked with him several times over the years since he showed up in the summer of 2019.

“He starting coming here with some (hedge) clippers. He said he was going to put in a disc golf course,” said Shirley Smith. “We weren’t concerned until the garbage started showing up.”

City officials at the council meeting defended Grabavoy’s volunteer efforts on the site, saying they did not believe he had anything to do with dumping.

But the city has called a meeting of the council’s Prison Committee for Tuesday with the main item on the agenda being a use agreement for the disc golf project.

The agreement would formalize what basically has been an informal arrangement for Grabavoy to go onto the site and clear land for a future disc golf course.

“There’s going to be a written memo put in place so everyone knows what’s going on, and the dos and don’ts,” said Greg Peerbolte, executive director for the Joliet Area Historical Museum, which oversees projects at the prison site.

Grabavoy discussed his idea of disc golf course with the Prison Committee in April 2019, but there was never any formal approval of a project. Peerbolte said that may have been due to the volunteer nature of the venture.

Peerbolte said he doubted Grabavoy would dump on the site but added, “Whoever’s doing it, it needs to stop and it’s clearly illegal. We agree with the residents on that.”

Montero said she’s not against the disc golf project. But she and her neighbors want a better idea of what’s going on and what’s being allowed.

Pallets have been brought to the site and set on fire, she said. Fires have been left smoldering, and gas cans have been left laying around.

A forest fire “could be a disaster,” Montero said, noting that there are homes on the edge of the woods.

Montero said there needs to be a public acknowledgement of what’s happening and some ground rules for how it’s done.

“I would like to see some transparency from the city not just with the neighbors but with the community,” Montero said.

And, It appears that’s starting to happen.