One of the most important issues for the Democratic Caucus of the County Board is the hiring of minority contractors and workers. In looking at the minutes of County Facility Meetings, the topic shows up as early as April 2001. From 2003 on the topic shows up every couple months, including battles between Bob Kirchner and Steve Beckett over diversity studies. The whole topic reached its culmination in April 2005 when the County Board passed Ordinance 744 which called for a prequalified vendor list that would allow the County to more easily seek out minority contractors. The Ordinance was vetted by our attorneys to make sure that it followed all the legal necessities so as to not run afoul of state purchasing statutes.
The issue was so important to the Democrats, that it was one of the ten given reasons to support Beckett and Wysocki for the County Board in the primary last year.
9: Developed a pre-qualified vendor list to promote minority and women owned business contractors on all Champaign County construction projects.
I remembered that list recently as I noted how far behind the County is on various projects with Brookens. In January, RPC was told that they would have the Planning and Zoning space available in April. We are near the end of April and we are a long way from accomplishing that goal. At the last County Facilities meeting it was discussed that we needed to remodel some space for the new Children’s Advocacy Center. This needs to be done by August. It seemed to me that one potential way to get all these projects done on time was to use those prequalified vendors.
So I wrote Denny Inman asking for the list. He didn’t respond. Then, I wrote the purchasing agent. She passed my request on to Inman, who of course didn’t respond again. Finally, I filed a FOIA request.
Inman responded to the request today through Assistant State’s Attorney Susan McGrath. The first laugher is the excuse as to why, in the course of over two years, not one single item has been done to implement Ordinance 744.
As a general response, Mr. Inman has been working on the associated tasks with the prequalified vendor list since the passage of Ordinance 744. His delay in meeting all of the requirements of this ordirsance habe been necessitated by his work for the County on several large projects, including the new County Nursing Home facility, and the new Highway Department Fleet Maintenance building.
It turns out that there is no prequalifed vendor list, there isn’t even an application to be on the list, and no one has been solicited to be on the list. Inman attaches a list to his response which is some preferred vendor list which means pretty much nothing because it's merely a compilation of people he wants to be on a list. It doesn’t comport with the purchasing policy, and if he is using it to select contractors for county projects without going out for bid, he may be running afoul of various state laws. I don’t know how you get to be on Denny Inman’s preferred vendor list. What I can see from the list is that minorities get a mere 7% of the “preferred” work. Almost all of the work seems to be at the nursing home. None of Inman’s preferred vendors have to fill out applications which would provide information to the County Board about their operations. It appears that any company’s presence on the list is basically up to the good graces of Inman.
Basically, Inman dropped the ball on one of the most important issues for the Democratic Caucus. I wonder if any of them care.
Beckett and Wysocki don't care about minority hiring-- and they never did (nor does Inman - but I don't think anyone ever thought he did). Beckett and Wysocki are the ones that killed the disparity study - with the help of the Republican minority. But they were smart enough to know that the disparity study, and the County's miserable hiring of minorities, was of concern to the democrats in District 9. That's why they lied to the public on their website when they were up for election in that primary to pretend like they cared about minority hiring -- and it worked. They got elected, and nothing has been done to improve minority hiring at the County. It's no wonder that the African Americans on the County Board hate Beckett and Wysocki.
Maybe the more important question is why two years has passed and we still have no list. Why are we paying two administrators if so little gets done? We could pay one administrator and get nothing done, and save the cost of one salary.
For anyone that is interested there is a six day feature in the Springfield Journal Register (which started on Sunday) on the Freedom of Information Act in the State of Illinois and the lack of compliance of it . I have discussed the article and have a link to it on my blog, http://kevinjhunt.blogspot.com/
Stories like this give me hope. Think about how horrible things would be if the government didn't just waste money, but instead used it for programs that would hurt us even more.
Of course, I'd rather just not give the government so much money, but since we do, I want them to waste most of it.
Mark,,,,,,,,you're postings sure do not make me feel any better about that property tax bill coming out soon!! What kind of circus are we paying for anyway?? All clowns,,,,,,,where are the animals?
There is no pool of minority contractors in our area. The State Capital Development Board has had no luck on this despite intense pressure from Chicago politicos. The University of Illinois has had the same experience and the same political pressure. Our County Board is looking, no insisting, for something that doesn't exist. If we want to favor a select group of our citizens with favorable treatment then we need to make sure they're properly trained. This would entail some kind of apprenticeship followed by actual experience working in thew trades. That would require the unions to allow more folks to join their unions (presently artificially limited). A pertnership with the schools could produce a crop of youngsters every year that would be ready to serve union apprenticeships. Of course, the schools have no interest in teaching any kind of construction trades since that doesn't fit the NCLB model. The tirades above that hold the County Administrators responsible for finding contracting firms that don't exist here in Champaign County miss the mark by a wide margin
Observer, you may be correct about the pool. However, the direction of the County Board was that an application process be developed and be made available. That hasn't been done yet. Maybe Inman isn't responsible for finding the firms. But couldn't he at least do what he's been asked to do? Maybe just a little effort?