Crystal Thomas
The State Journal-Register
Three Springfield City Council members on Friday called a special council meeting to vote on a contract to a Mokena-based company to fill the city’s cracked roads.
The meeting is 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, 15 minutes before the regularly scheduled Committee of the Whole meeting. The haste comes down to getting the roads repaired before Nov. 15. To effectively seal the roads, the air temperature needs to be 40 degrees and rising, according to city officials.
Council members have delayed several times a decision to award the contract to Denler Inc. after they found out the company didn’t use any local workers on a road repair job last year.
The city has a local labor ordinance that fines companies that don’t use local workers. Denler last year paid the maximum $14,000 fine.
This year, the city rebid the contract twice, using the second time to make consequences more stringent if the company didn’t use local workers. It stated that if a company didn’t try to use local workers it could be barred from bidding on future city projects.
The rules eventually became an ordinance passed Tuesday for projects worth more than $100,000.
In its bid, Denler promised to use local employment agency PeopleReady, which has an apprenticeship program, to find local workers. That prompted questions about the quality of PeopleReady’s apprenticeship program and why owner David Denler didn’t use workers from Lincoln Land Community College’s apprenticeship program or from the local union hall.
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Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin said Tuesday that council members were prioritizing local union halls over fixing roads. He said if the work didn’t get completed this year, members who voted to delay should be held “accountable.”
“It’s really important the city move forward on this crack-filling contract,” McMenamin said Friday. “We have short time period to perform the work.”
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 