I see the whole thing with CC as a little more nefarious:
1. At the time the contract was awarded to CC, the only ones who knew that the lease certificate money was not enough to cover the cost of putting up the building were CC and Horton and crew.
Had someone else been brought in to manage the project, I would like to believe that one of the first things that they would have said would have been along the lines of, "Hey, you have $40 million to build this, where is the rest of the dough coming from?" The new construction manager would never want to be left holding the bag on a half completed project with no money left to finish it.
Of course, having someone say that would have screwed up Horton and crew polishing their resumes on their way to bigger, better, higher paying jobs.
2. There is some unknown cost difference between what the District has paid CC versus what they would have paid the low responsible bidder. That is money that should have been available for other uses, whether it is paying to build Foster School or educate our kids. Instead it has gone to line the pockets of people who kept their mouths shut about the problems with this project.
There are probably some good reasons to have not shown CC the door when the problems with this project came to light, but they richly deserved it.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the CFO was interviewing the 8 construction manager firms. Like, in what way was *he* qualified to evaluate their skills?
Meanwhile teachers are waiting for the other shoe to drop, between contract negotiations and the coming school closures and RIF’s for 25-26 after the referendum $$$ runs out. And we will still not have a functioning fifth ward school.
This lack of adequate planning and transparent financial commitments for funding projects, as well as questionable construction contracts, is endemic in the City of Evanston too. It's not unusual to have change orders and increased costs in projects; however, Evanston's large projects often have cost increases of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in change orders. The taxpayers are left with the financial burden, which can amount to millions of dollars per project each year.This needs to stop.
The most recent example of this was committing Evanston taxpayers to a 15-year lease for millions of dollars a year to move operations from 2100 Ridge, our current Civic Center, to 909 Davis, a privately owned building. We should not have moved out of the current Civic Center until we, as a community, had open and transparent discussions and reached a consensus on where we want the Civic Center to be. No one moves out of their house if they are weighing options of renovating or selling until the decision is made, but the City of Evanston did just that.
Then there's the Robert Crown project, which started with taxpayers bonding $10,000,000 when the project had a $30,000,000 price tag. By the time the project and borrowing were done, taxpayers increased the debt limit significanlty to fund the project. Many cities have most of the movney in the bank before embarking on a project of this magnitude, or have referendum but we are "home rule " and the City of Evanston Council had no obligation to hold a referendum for the $53,000,000 project. . Council Member Fleming was the one who voiced concern of this decision. "Though not in attendance, Fleming released a statement about the bond issues and debt limit, which was read at the meeting. She said she had "many concerns" over the request for $50 million in bonds to fund the Robert Crown project"
Bottom line, residents we need to ask more questions and demand clear answers. With elections coming up, we need elected officials who are willing to ask the tough questions and encourage, not discourage, residents, boards and commission from seeking answers.
I'm about to publish a story on the 909 Davis thing. The way they configured the build-out is of very dubious legality. I sometimes wonder why we even bother having elections when most of the elected officials just let staff do whatever they want anyway, rules be damned.
This story here is a prime example - CFO says "Yeah we took 20 bids for this work and I narrowed it all down to 1. Definitely nothing to see here." and the finance committee is like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sounds good
909 Davis story is going to go out later in the week, if I publish today nobody will read it :)
Thank you, so many people are totally unaware of the impact of that decision and the faulty process which leaves taxpayers carrying the financial burden.
I found the Evanston Now article kind of silly - a 1% cost savings should not be news. What should be news is why we are still talking about a project 3 years later that has not started. This is because of incompetence and not having the funds to sufficiently complete the construction. The idea that the district would move forward with this project given the massive financial problems is utterly reprehensible.
Yeah I'm a little wary that they have enough money right now. I would've said so before the recent round of deficits but I'm not so sure now. It's entirely plausible we finish the school but don't have money to put stuff inside of it.
This is not the only school construction that has been going on in Skokie; East Prairie District 73 built a new K-8 school that also included demolition of an existing structure. There was also a major addition added to Niles North HS that was just completed last year. Amazing, people make jokes about Skokie having five districts plus the HS but not one is in any kind of financial difficulty. Also, when we find that there is a corrupt admin as happened a few years back in District 219, they get broomed, not given extensions and “awards”.
New Trier just hired Nanciann Gatta’s company to do their Superintendent search, so I FOIA’ed all the old investigation documents. Going to take you all on a trip down memory lane
I've been trying to figure this out myself, I don't know the answer to this. I believe that Zions Bancorp is the one who technically issues the lease certificates and cuts the check to the District (and issues the certificates to the holders), along with managing the cap table. I don't know if they provide information on who the actual holders are to the District, though.
I see the whole thing with CC as a little more nefarious:
1. At the time the contract was awarded to CC, the only ones who knew that the lease certificate money was not enough to cover the cost of putting up the building were CC and Horton and crew.
Had someone else been brought in to manage the project, I would like to believe that one of the first things that they would have said would have been along the lines of, "Hey, you have $40 million to build this, where is the rest of the dough coming from?" The new construction manager would never want to be left holding the bag on a half completed project with no money left to finish it.
Of course, having someone say that would have screwed up Horton and crew polishing their resumes on their way to bigger, better, higher paying jobs.
2. There is some unknown cost difference between what the District has paid CC versus what they would have paid the low responsible bidder. That is money that should have been available for other uses, whether it is paying to build Foster School or educate our kids. Instead it has gone to line the pockets of people who kept their mouths shut about the problems with this project.
There are probably some good reasons to have not shown CC the door when the problems with this project came to light, but they richly deserved it.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the CFO was interviewing the 8 construction manager firms. Like, in what way was *he* qualified to evaluate their skills?
People say you can’t build things in America anymore. They’re wrong. You can build them in Skokie.
Meanwhile teachers are waiting for the other shoe to drop, between contract negotiations and the coming school closures and RIF’s for 25-26 after the referendum $$$ runs out. And we will still not have a functioning fifth ward school.
This lack of adequate planning and transparent financial commitments for funding projects, as well as questionable construction contracts, is endemic in the City of Evanston too. It's not unusual to have change orders and increased costs in projects; however, Evanston's large projects often have cost increases of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in change orders. The taxpayers are left with the financial burden, which can amount to millions of dollars per project each year.This needs to stop.
The most recent example of this was committing Evanston taxpayers to a 15-year lease for millions of dollars a year to move operations from 2100 Ridge, our current Civic Center, to 909 Davis, a privately owned building. We should not have moved out of the current Civic Center until we, as a community, had open and transparent discussions and reached a consensus on where we want the Civic Center to be. No one moves out of their house if they are weighing options of renovating or selling until the decision is made, but the City of Evanston did just that.
Then there's the Robert Crown project, which started with taxpayers bonding $10,000,000 when the project had a $30,000,000 price tag. By the time the project and borrowing were done, taxpayers increased the debt limit significanlty to fund the project. Many cities have most of the movney in the bank before embarking on a project of this magnitude, or have referendum but we are "home rule " and the City of Evanston Council had no obligation to hold a referendum for the $53,000,000 project. . Council Member Fleming was the one who voiced concern of this decision. "Though not in attendance, Fleming released a statement about the bond issues and debt limit, which was read at the meeting. She said she had "many concerns" over the request for $50 million in bonds to fund the Robert Crown project"
Bottom line, residents we need to ask more questions and demand clear answers. With elections coming up, we need elected officials who are willing to ask the tough questions and encourage, not discourage, residents, boards and commission from seeking answers.
I'm about to publish a story on the 909 Davis thing. The way they configured the build-out is of very dubious legality. I sometimes wonder why we even bother having elections when most of the elected officials just let staff do whatever they want anyway, rules be damned.
This story here is a prime example - CFO says "Yeah we took 20 bids for this work and I narrowed it all down to 1. Definitely nothing to see here." and the finance committee is like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sounds good
909 Davis story is going to go out later in the week, if I publish today nobody will read it :)
Thank you, so many people are totally unaware of the impact of that decision and the faulty process which leaves taxpayers carrying the financial burden.
You forgot to include “our fountain”. Where oh where is our fountain?
Currently draining into the soil below the plaza
I found the Evanston Now article kind of silly - a 1% cost savings should not be news. What should be news is why we are still talking about a project 3 years later that has not started. This is because of incompetence and not having the funds to sufficiently complete the construction. The idea that the district would move forward with this project given the massive financial problems is utterly reprehensible.
Yeah I'm a little wary that they have enough money right now. I would've said so before the recent round of deficits but I'm not so sure now. It's entirely plausible we finish the school but don't have money to put stuff inside of it.
That’s what bake sales are for…
Thats a lot of fruit cakes
This is not the only school construction that has been going on in Skokie; East Prairie District 73 built a new K-8 school that also included demolition of an existing structure. There was also a major addition added to Niles North HS that was just completed last year. Amazing, people make jokes about Skokie having five districts plus the HS but not one is in any kind of financial difficulty. Also, when we find that there is a corrupt admin as happened a few years back in District 219, they get broomed, not given extensions and “awards”.
I got an fun story coming down the pipe on D219 mess from that era. Stay tuned
It was quite a scene; people diving out of windows to avoid being arrested, fun times!
New Trier just hired Nanciann Gatta’s company to do their Superintendent search, so I FOIA’ed all the old investigation documents. Going to take you all on a trip down memory lane
Looking forward to it!
Is it possible to find out who purchased the Evanston Lease Certificates?
I've been trying to figure this out myself, I don't know the answer to this. I believe that Zions Bancorp is the one who technically issues the lease certificates and cuts the check to the District (and issues the certificates to the holders), along with managing the cap table. I don't know if they provide information on who the actual holders are to the District, though.