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New City of Evanston Patronage Program at the taxpayers expense?
After attending the two budget hearings – It is clear to me the council is not exercising the Leadership to limit an excessive tax increase on the citizens of Evanston during the next budget. It appears the council will allow a 10% plus tax increase on residents which during these economic times is outrageous.
During the last Administrative and Public Works (APW) committee meeting of the council it became clear to me the council members have no understanding of what is going on with capital projects or what they are approving.
The presentation of an ordinance to employ Evanston residents (Local Employment Program – Ordinance 89-0-08) which is base on assigning hours in city contracts is truly waste of taxpayer money and creates nothing but trouble for the staff members that actually have to get the work done. The ordinance lacks a basis in reality of the construction industry and the bidding process, is very likely to be a complete waste with likely legal problems. It appears the number of hours went up from 5% to 15% creating even more problems since certain council members who support this believe more waste is better.
Why a contractor bidding, city work should be required to hire Evanston residents, versus those he may already have on his payroll or used on other jobs? Do council members understand we have a competitive bid situation here, with the idea we are getting best value for taxpayer versus a new social program? What if the contractor is the prime contractor and he is hiring all subcontractors how is he going to get the subcontractors to hire Evanston residents?
There is no way the city can determine the hours to employ an Evanston resident, and evaluate the bids based on those criteria. Is the city going to eliminate the low bidder, based on the bid hours of say 300 hours versus 500 hours – that is six weeks of employment versus eight weeks? .
The city’s current minority contractor program also appears to be a flop – it is not saving money it appears to be costing us money. It is my understanding the city did not take the low bidder on the fountain square job, since the bidder did not meet the minority participation, thus it cost the tax payers a $50,000 extra.
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Some on this web - site keep asking me to point to an example of patronage. This new ordinance is clearly that. ( go to city web site an look up packet for Mondays meeting Dec 8 )
On page 5 , it states " In order to satisfy the work hours and/or new hire requirements of the local Employment Program, contractors working in absence of collective bargaining agreement shall contact the Business Development Coordinator or his or her designee to request an available Evanston resident from the local Resident Database. The business Development Coordinator ar his or her designee will provide the name of a resident matching the qualifications identified by the contractor within three (3)business days"
Anyone think this is a standard practice? Someone calls and gives someone a job, without an interview?
While the contractor may refuse the city "hack" the contract will have all types of clauses to make the contractors life difficult.
My intial response to this was it was a waste of money - it has a bigger issue - a city of Evanston patronage program. I bet they will not be willing to give me the list of all those on the Data base under freedom of information - claiming some type of legal nonsense.
This has lawsuit written all over it.more taxpayer money wasted.
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