Neighbor keeps up fight to stop Joliet truck stop, says Love’s tried to buy her support

It was 2018 when the Rev. Warren Dorris, a former Joliet City Council member, told the City Council that Love’s offered him $100,000 to stay silent about the truck stop planned for his neighborhood.

Last week, Diane Matter, another neighbor of the truck stop expected to open in 2026, told the council that she got the same offer.

“We were required to keep our mouths shut,” Matter said at the council meeting on July 1. “It was a gag order plain and simple.”

Both Matter and Dorris said they did not take the money, and Dorris became the leading opponent to the project before it was approved.

Nearly seven years later, Matter’s comments may offer little more than another behind-the-scenes glimpse into the wheeling and dealing behind the controversial Love’s project.

But Matter in recent months has regularly come to council meetings to voice continued opposition to the Love’s truck stop and urge the city to take actions to protect the neighborhood from the impact of increased truck traffic and late-night business operations.

Matter’s appearances at City Council meetings have coincided with the start of infrastructure construction for a project that had been delayed for years by a lawsuit brought by neighbors contesting the annexation of the Love’s site into the city of Joliet.

Love’s expects to open at the Briggs Street intersection with Interstate 80 sometime in the first half of 2026.

“The project is going ahead,” said Michael Hansen, a retired Joliet attorney who in 2018 represented Love’s and met with both Matter and Dorris.

“What’s most important is that the Illinois Supreme Court upheld what the city and Love’s did,” Hansen said.

The state Supreme Court has upheld the annexation agreement that made the Love’s project possible.

Dorris has since moved from the neighborhood.

Diane Matter and her husband, Steve, still live on the property that they say Love’s wanted to be annexed into Joliet so badly that the company was willing to pay them $100,000.

Their house on New Lenox Road is kitty-corner from the edge of the future Love’s operation and across the street from the site of a future detention pond that will handle stormwater from the truck stop property.

Hansen said the $100,000 offer to the Matters was made to buy their property for the Love’s project.

“No it wasn’t,” Diane Matter said. “That money was to annex into the city.”

Matter said Love’s wanted her and her husband to quietly annex into the city to facilitate a complicated annexation and avoid the lengthy court challenge that delayed the project for seven years.

“They were trying to buy us off,” she said.

Hansen in 2018 described the offer made to Dorris as a proposal to buy his services as an agent for Love’s in the annexation process. Dorris, at that time, was no longer a council member, having left office in 2011 after serving six terms.

Love’s needed to connect the site to the city of Joliet to get access to city water and sewer services.

“The bottom line is that this has gone to the courts,” Hansen said. “It has gone all the way to the [Illinois] Supreme Court. And, the Supreme Court upheld what the city and Love’s did.”

Steve Matter said he and Diane will continue to come regularly to City Council meetings to make a case against the Love’s project.

“It’s a done deal, but can we modify it?” Steve Matter said.

Diane Matter at one council meeting called for 13-foot fences around the Love’s property to shield neighbors from semitrailers.

Love’s in a statement issued Tuesday noted that the eight-foot fence that will be installed around the property is higher than the six feet required by Joliet city code.

The company did not address specifics about the offers made to the Matters and Dorris.

The Love’s statement said, “Love’s prides itself on operating with the highest ethical standards and best business practices. While we do not disclose specifics details of the building process, we often partner with residents and local jurisdictions if there is a need related to real estate, such as annexations, utilities, or easements, and proactively address questions throughout the process.”