Council members on Barber-Colman: Process, no. Project, yes
The job of an effective alderperson isn’t to be a habitual contrarian, nor a careless rubber-stamper.
Good alderpersons ask questions and make decisions they deem to be in the best interest of the broad mix of taxpayers they represent, even when loud zealots cloud the public debate.
Unfortunately, the controversy engulfing the Rockford City Council over redevelopment of the Barber-Colman campus devolved into an unpleasant war of words and subterfuge when some chose to advance personal agendas and hurl baseless accusations.
Three legitimate issues were before the City Council: 1) whether to require a Project Labor Agreement in return for investing nearly $18 million in taxpayer funds, 2) questions about the developer’s capacity to complete the project and 3) concerns over bad process that resulted in a development “deal” with little to no room for council members to have input.
Bad process gave rise to the gross distortion that council members who were merely doing their jobs were trying to “kill” the project. As evidenced by the ultimate 14-0 vote in favor of the project, nothing could be further from the truth.
The only party threatening to kill the project was the developer, should the City Council dare to ask for something — a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) — that would reduce taxpayer risk and help guarantee that jobs stay local, corners aren’t cut and the project is delivered on time and on budget.
In Illinois, PLAs are not novel. They are employed widely across the state to safeguard taxpayer investment by preventing strikes and work slowdowns and by increasing worker safety. Council members who supported a PLA made no requirements for what the PLA might contain, only that there be one.
These are valid viewpoints. So are some of the arguments made against a PLA, including the philosophy that government should not be in the business of dictating how private developers chose workers for a project, that developers should be free to determine a labor contract’s value and hire whomever they wish.
What’s invalid and weak-minded is the argument that “we’ve never done this before.” If that were a legitimate consideration, we’d still be using candles to illuminate City Council chambers, not electric light bulbs.
J. Jeffers & Co. LLC of Milwaukee complained about the project’s “paper-thin” profit margin but never defined “paper-thin” in dollars and cents. We think that’s a fair question, especially when Jeffers professed to being unable to afford a presumed hike in interest rates that would occur if the capital stack had to be rebuilt to accommodate continued talks with organized labor.
We also question the developer’s wherewithal to complete the project, given that a smaller but similar taxpayer-supported Jeffers LLC project in Kankakee was halted late last year because of a financing gap.
Likewise, Jeffers’ abrupt switch to a general contractor with no discernible track record and a website still under construction at that time was another red flag. The swap in general contractors resulted in a pile of unreturned phone calls to building trades unions, which added to their growing lack of trust in Jeffers LLC and prompted them to sound an alarm about the need for a PLA.
This isn’t how things typically work.
An article by Jeff Kolkey in the Register Star quoting Embassy Suites developer Gary Gorman described the difference. “We just talked to the guys,” Gorman said of labor unions that worked on the recent conversion of the Amerock industrial site. “We had a great relationship both before the project and during it.”
Jeffers’ refusal to grant Kolkey an interview only underscores the problem. A developer should be prepared to answer — and should expect — questions from those financing a project, whether those questions come from banks and other private investors or from a municipality and its taxpayers.
This process is not insulting and did not warrant the puzzling apology letter read by Ald. Gabrielle Torina on the City Council floor; she and others seemed convinced that no more suitors would come along and that Jeffers LLC represented their last chance to walk down the wedding aisle.
Yes, the abandoned manufacturing complex has sat empty for decades and failed redevelopment proposals of the past — especially the Rock Valley College decision to build its Advanced Technology Center in Belvidere — have disappointed. But the site has become substantially more attractive since a news conference by state officials in early July signaled the high probability of passenger rail service returning to Rockford, with a depot in one of two locations near the Colman campus.
Ald. Torina’s suggestion that racism played a part in the City Council’s deliberations was divisive and deplorable but, sadly, not unpredictable. In her two years in public office, Ald. Torina has made a practice of injecting racism into our deliberations.
We saw a disturbing display of council member intimidation when Gary Anderson, a local architect with a financial interest in redeveloping Barber-Colman, threatened in the news media to point out a council members’s address during an upcoming neighborhood tour.
In the current social climate, crowds can get carried away and situations can become dangerous. Anderson should have known that. Because of his reckless behavior, taxpayers were forced to provide police protection for the council member’s wife and young daughter while he was out of state for the weekend.
The bad process that drove so much of this turmoil isn’t a new phenomenon; it’s happened before and will happen again — until and unless better efforts are made to involve aldermen earlier on significant matters.
During the past year, alderpersons voted on zoning requests and other isolated elements of the project. Only Ald. Torina, however, was privy to overall details before early June, when we were called into small private briefings designed to avoid having to make the meetings public under Illinois law.
Even then, we only were given an overview and slide show. The complete 366-page development agreement wasn’t released until June 15, five days ahead of a fast-tracked agenda that called for dual committee and full City Council approvals on the same night.
Our ability for a thorough review would have been limited, and this suspicious attempt to rush around the standard, two-week approval process was later dropped.
Some argued “process” shouldn’t matter when weighed against a redevelopment project with the potential to transform the long-neglected southwest side.
In 2017, however, when amendments to the development agreement with Embassy Suites were before City Council, then-Ald. Tom McNamara argued bad process in trying to delay a vote until after the mayoral election.
Process doesn’t make for snappy sound bites, but better process might have avoided some of the conflict.
With the Jeffers LCC deal now signed, we hope for the best. We hope Jeffers honors its word about not opposing a PLA, only opposing the timing of the PLA ahead of finalizing its financial commitments. Reaching a unanimous decision in favor of the project proved unnecessarily arduous.
One of us (Ald. Durkee) opposed mandating the PLA. Another of us (Ald. Bonne) was the only member of the prevailing side willing to offer a motion to reconsider, which allowed for an absent council member to weigh in and for the mayor to reverse the initial proPLA vote. Still another of us (Ald. Logemann) became the lone opponent of the motion to reconsider.
These are hardly the markings of a dysfunctional City Council, as one speaker screamed during public comment. Despite our differences, we are united in our desire for more meaningful inclusion of council members’ viewpoints moving forward.
The unanimous final yes vote speaks for itself. The clamor over Colman Yards had nothing to do with some hidden desire to undermine progress on the southwest side and everything to do with a desire to protect taxpayer investment, employ the maximum number of local skilled tradespeople and see a safe and conflict-free job site.
We’re heartened Jeffers LLC chose to invest in Rockford, and we’ll strive to do our part to ensure a successful venture.
Mark Bonne, D-14th Ward, Jonathan Logemann, D-2nd Ward, Chad Tuneberg, R-3rd Ward, Timothy Durkee, R-1st Ward, Frank Beach, R-10th Ward, Karen Hoffman, D-8th Ward, Isidro Barrios, D-11th Ward, are members of the Rockford City Council.