Much Ado About Nothing In Englewood Flyover Minority Deal

Congressman Bobby Rush wouldn’t give the press a look at the “memorandum of understanding” he says he negotiated with IHC Construction/Illinois Constructors Joint Venture, the successful bidder on METRA’s $93 million Englewood Flyover rail overpass construction contract to boost minority employment on the project, probably because the deal is essentially meaningless for increasing employment in the Englewood neighborhood. The project is intended to untangle one of the most congested rail bottlenecks in the United States, and reduce freight train interference with commuter rail service on Chicago’s south side.

Ballyhooed last week as a boosting employment for Englewood residents, the deal really does little or nothing for jobs in the neighborhood. According to METRA officials, the deal sets up a community liaison to facilitate contacts between contractors on the project and minority businesses and workers, and provides mentoring for African American owned companies. What it doesn’t do is require the general contractor to hire companies not included in its bid to METRA. If it did, that would violate state bid shopping laws. While IHC President David Rock says “It’s my goal to get some local folks jobs,” he quickly adds “They still have to be able to do the work.” Given the high rate of gang related shootings in Englewood, what happens when skilled construction tradespeople in Englewood get work, is that they move out of the neighborhood.

The contractors and subcontractors on this project will be required to submit certified payrolls including the ZIP Codes of each worker on the site. It would be an interesting academic exercise for some local Ph.D. social science student to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain them, and do an analysis of the worker migration out of Englewood during the course of the construction work. However, it’s doubtful anyone will go to such lengths to test whether Congressman Rush has actually done anything at all to improve overall employment of Englewood residents by this headline grabbing, legally unenforceable “memorandum of understanding.”

METRA Approves $141 Million Flyover Contract With Increased MBE Quota

METRA’s board yesterday approved award of the construction contract for the $141 million Englewood flyover project to reduce freight train conflicts with commuter rail operations on Chicago’s south side, after three Congressmen withdrew their objections to limited minority employment in connection with the construction. The Congressmen, led by First District Democrat Bobby Rush, pulled back their resistance based on agreement by IHC Construction/Illinois Constructors, the winning bidder, to increase MBE participation from the contractually required 25% up to 40%.

Though details of the MBE increase remain undisclosed, it is unclear how more MBE subcontracting can significantly increase the number of jobs for workers living in the predominantly black Englewood neighborhood. There is no way to guarantee that the black owned businesses in the neighborhood can find the increased number of skilled minority tradespeople the Congressmen want, living in Englewood. As construction on this project proceeds, it will be very interesting to learn whether the certified payrolls of the participating MBE subcontractors actually include increased numbers of workers with Englewood ZIP codes.

Minority Set Asides Delay Nine Figure Chicago METRA Project

Objections to low levels of minority participation by three African American Congressmen from Illinois have delayed the award, and the completion, of construction of a $141 million railroad bridge in the Englewood neighborhood designed to relieve freight and commuter rail conflicts and delays. Representatives Bobby Rush, Danny Davis, and Jesse Jackson Jr. succeeded in delaying the award of the contract from the May 11 METRA board meeting until at least June 15. The delay in awarding the contract could set back completion from June 2014 until the fall of that year.

Despite two years and $300,000.00 of community outreach by METRA in Englewood, the apparent low bidder on the Rail bridge project, dubbed the “Englewood Flyover,” pledged less than 1% of the subcontract work to an African American firm, and less than 3% to DBE businesses.  The letter from the three Congressmen to the METRA board decries the lack of black business participation in this major public construction project in a high crime black neighborhood: “It is unacceptable that a public procurement process wherein millions of taxpayer dollars are expended could have at its very core the systemic disenfranchisement of a community of people,” the letter scolds.

Maybe the three Congressmen ought to walk over to Chicago’s federal courthouse and examine the charging papers in recent federal indictments for minority set aside fraud in the city, and look into the possibility that past “successful” public contracts touting subcontracting levels of 10% MBE and 5% WBE participation were based on seriously dishonest calculations of those numbers.