Spring used a popular former mayor, Chuck Scholz, in his campaign commercials along with the head of the supposedly non-partisan local economic development arm, the Great River Economic Development Foundation.

Spring won re-election by less than 800 votes over a Republican whose lone political experience consisted of a couple of terms on the Adams County, Illinois Board.

So what did those people get for supporting Spring as heavily as they did?

Well, Durbin, who has funneled Spring with thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and staff support during his elections, got to see one of his protégé’s get a nice little $5,000 a month lobbying fee from the city over the past few years. The firm, Michael Alexander and Associates of Chicago, has been paid the money to lobby…Durbin, and other Washington types.

City officials say Alexander’s fees (which was handed out in a no-bid manner and without a vote of the Quincy City Council) have been well worth it as he helped the city garner about $800,000 in grant money and will provide further assistance in future funds for Quincy’s proposed multi-million dollar plan to put hydroelectric power plants on Locks and Dams along the Mississippi River.

Is that what the founding fathers had in mind? That one governing body should be using the public’s money to buy access to another governing body? That’s really how it’s supposed to work?

No, but it’s The Chicago Way and Quincy is trending more Chicago by the day.

It gets better. The former mayor, Scholz, is actually a lobbyist with Alexander’s Chicago firm, which now has several Quincy clients, many of the not-for-profit ilk. But it is the city government, where Scholz had his salary nearly double during his 12-year mayoral tenure and which will continue to pay him a handsome pension into his golden years, that gets to continue providing him with a backdoor paycheck .

It’s important to note that at no point did anyone in the city administration bring up the former mayor’s connection with this lobbying firm. As a matter of fact, the city administration never publicly admitted to anyone they had been paying Alexander’s firm until Monday.

Quincy’s mayor ran on a platform of having relationships with people in order to make the city a better place to live.

He just didn’t tell the voters they were going to have to pay a little bit more for those relationships.

US Senator Durbin Laughing with the Local Machine About the Spoils

City officials used an RFP process that pretty much guaranteed the company was going to keep doing business as usual with the city.

A committee of appointed city officals and a paid consultant recommended approval with Environmental Management Corporation (EMC), O’Fallon, MO, for the management of the city’s waste water treatment plant and biosolid disposal operations based upon a five-year contract.

EMC’s contract calls for the city to pay management fees of $717,000 in year one, $734,925 in year two, $753,298 in year three, $772,131 in year four and $791,434 in year five. The city’s cost for its own eight employees during that same period is $2,873,019 in salaries and up to $141,921 in overtime for a five-year total of $6,693,727.

A proposal EMC submitted using all of its own employees would have cost the city $7.1 million.

So, yes, the city is paying a private company about $750,000 a year over the next five years to manage public employees.

A contract with EMC running waste water operations and another company, Synagro, handling sludge removal would have cost the city $6,716,505, but the members of the Proposal Review Committee said they preferred having one company handle both operations.

Quincy Director of Administrative Services Gary Sparks, Comptroller Ann Scott, Director of Utilities David Kent and Jeff Conte, a water/wastewater systems consultant who works for Klingner and Associates of Quincy, a private provider with its own city contracts, make up the committee which recommended the proposal.

Sparks says the city has negoiated a lower rate for the services, saving $1 million over the next five years compared to what the city was previously paying EMC. The city had 19 public employees at this facility a few short years ago and now feels it can get by with eight public employees.

So was EMC previously overcharging the city?

According to the city’s request for proposal (RFP), the mayor and the City Council will be the “final authority” on all matters pertaining to the contract.

As part of EMC’s contract proposal, it included a letter of recommendation from Quincy Mayor John Spring as a reference to assist in garnering a new contract with the City of Quincy. Click the link to see the campaign contributions EMC has given to Spring.

Let that sink in. The sitting Mayor, a recipient of campaign donations, was able to provide a “letter of recommendation” to extend the city contract.

EMC’s proposal also included a letter from Conte, a member of the proposal review committee, to EMC regarding a tour of the facility he was given in 2005.

“…the facility is in need of substantial improvements and repairs…,” Conte writes. “I hope that Klingner & Associates, P.C. can work together with EMC and the city to see this through.”

The city is also paying Klingner about $4,000 for Conte’s work on the committee.

Klingner & Associates gets a great deal of no-bid work from the city and is currently cashing large City of Quincy checks for work on a proposed multi-million dollar hydroelectric plant at Lock and Dam 21 on the Mississippi River.

And before you ask, yes, Klingner boss Mike Klingner also ponies up to the Spring campaign fund.

But, as Paul Harvey would say…here’s the rest of the story. The Quincy City Council is split evenly between Democrats and the GOP. One of the Democrat councilman was absent on the night of the vote, meaning the GOP members could have killed this corrupt bargain. Instead, they all voted for it. Go along, get along.

No, the GOP still doesn’t get what is happening in America.

Credit: Christopher Woodward

But in the world of big money Democratic Chicago politics, there is a difference between white-collar clout and blue-collar clout.

Chicago real estate developer Thomas Bennett thought he had a deal in hand to purchase the old Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) building at 626 West Jackson, just blocks from Union Station. Bennett thought he was paying a fair price for the property as he had a written commitment from two tenants –SEIU and ACORN- to occupy office space in the building.

Bennett-Accepted Letter of Intent re Purchase of 626 West Jackson –

Bennett was dealing with Chicago Housing Authority Chairman Marty Nesbitt on the attempted purchased and put forth an offer of $9 million for the building.

“Occupancy in leasing or their purchasing a few floors that was the model but they were going to occupy,” Bennett said. “When you go in the market with a client, they know what their growth needs would be for a 10-year period. Absent that commitment, I’m not looking at that building. What made this a pragmatic deal was I had commitment from two credible users (SEIU and ACORN). Those don’t come down the road every day. It allowed me to put together a competitive bid. No way was someone going to compete with my bid.”

But Bennett didn’t put forth the winning bid. A company called Sterling Bay properties had the top bid. Actually, top bid is not the proper description. Sterling Bay won with a $7.7 million bid, $1.3 million less than Bennett’s $9 million offer.

“During my dealings, The CHA explained how important a quick, no-due-diligence close was to them,” Bennett said. “Yet they allowed the winning bidder to control the property for 5+ months before closing.”

You go with the highest bid with a party that has a good chance of closing the bid. As a life-long Chicagoan, this was disappointing. After the meeting, I put it in the rearview mirror and tried to move on.”

But later Bennett discovered Nesbitt also had another role: treasurer of the Obama Victory Fund.

Sterling Bay made a substantial campaign contribution ($28,500) to the Obama Victory Fund within months of the deal closing in late December 07.  This $28,500 donation was after about $16,000 worth of campaign donations by Sterling Bay principals (Scott Goodman, Andrew Gloor and Craig Golden) to various Obama campaign funds going back to his U.S. Senate bid in 2004.

626 W Jackson – Sterling Bay Contributions – Timeline –

“Nesbit was clearly stonewalling, but he eventually got back to me,” Bennett said. “I wanted to meet days around Labor Day 2009…I couldn’t get on his calendar until after Thanksgiving (2009). I asked him ‘What did the building trade for?’ and he said $7.7 million, $1.3 million less than what we offered in the revised bid.  That’s a substantial drop.”

“I went to my final CHA board meeting where Marty Nesbitt called me out in a very disrespectful manner in a room full of taxpayers. He said ‘You’re making a fool of yourself’ and I was amazed at how tolerant people were of this. At CHA they knew what was going on and they didn’t care. The fix was in.”

Credit: Christopher Woodward

Bennett went looking for the sale records for the building at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds Office and the City of Chicago Department of Revenue.

“(In August 2009) two bureaucrats in the office told me there was nothing listed about the sale price,” Bennett said. “I wondered why the property was being traded in such a non-transparent event. That’s when I contacted Marty Nesbit to see what was going on. That went nowhere.  I have every right to know what it traded for.

He didn’t learn of the sale price until he finally tracked down Nesbitt in early September 2009. While Bennett couldn’t find a sale price immediately after the sale, the information was available when QuincyNews.org met with Bennett on a trip to Chicago a few weeks ago in November 2009.

“I just said thank you,” Bennett said. “(Nesbit) clearly doesn’t appear to be a Tom Bennett fan. Clearly there was steering going on. They were using every trick in the book to slant the process in favor of their desired winning bidder.”

Bennett was willing to move on, but something keeps nagging him about the deal.

“I put in the highest bid…a credible deal…and I lost to a party with a track record of contribution to Obama’s campaign and Nesbitt has a track record of being Obama’s money guy,” Bennett said. “Look at how political fundraising has evolved. This appears to be a very corrupt quid pro quo involving campaign contributions.”

“When the fix is in, the fix is in.”

Phone calls to the Chicago Housing Authority were not returned. A CHA spokesman issued a no comment in a 2007 piece in the Chicago Sun-Times on the matter.

Two-thirds of registered voters who responded to a recent survey say the federal stimulus packages has not resulted in the improvement of the Western Illinois economy

The poll, commissioned by QuincyNews.org, was conducted by We Ask America on November 22 between 4:30 PM – 6:30.  In all, 15,000 random residential phone numbers of registered voters in the 17th Congressional District were dialed, resulting in 1,278 people taking the poll. The numbers dialed were randomly selected.

The results have a margin of error of ± 2.74 %.

Of those who responded, 66.7 % say the stimulus package hasn’t improved the economy. Just under 22 percent said there had been an improvement while 11.5 percent were not sure.

The poll also showed a skepticism toward health care reform and also a dissatisfaction with the incumbent 17th District congressman, Democrat Phil Hare of Rock Island.

Pollster Gregg Durham said the data tells him a ‘throw the bums out’ mentality is emerging for 2010.

“This is happening in the rest of the country,” Durham said. “It’s a little stronger in Illinois…this dissatisfaction with politicians with one governor in prison and the last one impeached and in legal trouble. The meter is being pegged in this state.”

“What is very telling is the independents are very strongly against the incumbent. There is a tendency to look for something else. There is a dissatisfaction with an incumbent.

“While even the democrats said they really don’t see the impact of stimulus spending, the real surprise is that the independents broke most closely to the Republican view points,” said Gregg Durham, who conducted the poll.”There’s some programs that we call eyerollers. Health care reform is one of them.”

“The pendulum swings both ways.  When you combine the major economic woes, plus the emotionally charged programs that are being discussed…health care, cap and trade, card check…there is a hastening of that pendulum swing and party affiliation doesn’t matter. “

Durham said the frustration is mounting.

“People are becoming weary,” he said. “They are holding their hands up and asking how we’re going to pay for this, couple that with a bad economy and not enough jobs you have the potential for a quantum shift. “

Click here to go to QuincyNews.org and read the polling information.

Jonathon Schonekase can’t seem to escape his past. 

He changed his name hoping people would forget about his setting fire to an abandoned school when he was a juvenile. He then went to prison as an adult, where he lost his eye in a fight. 

Jonathon said the loss of a friend in a drunk driving accident gave him the idea to start a service where, maybe, he could give people an option to avoid drinking and driving. 

Jonathon started “Courtesy Rides” on New Year’s 2008. He posted his number in bars, people called him and he picked them up. Didn’t cost them a thing. If they wanted to leave a tip, so be it. 

Now more than a year and a half after starting the service, the town where he started it has decided Jonathon needs to be regulated. 

The City Council of Quincy, Illinois (pop. 40,000 and change) passed an ordinance by an 8-5 vote to tweak the taxicab ordinance in the city code to classify his volunteer service as a “for hire” business if he accepts donations.

 Jonathon became a victim of his own success. He did stray from the original mission of picking up people from bars when he gave rides to other places, including the Quincy Airport and when he added more vehicles and volunteer drivers.  This drew the attention of the local cab company and shuttle services.

 All of the charity he provided is now government regulated.

 The simple answer should be for Jonathon to apply to become a taxi. But the city taxi licensing process has a “good citizen” provision and his conviction probably stands in the way.

 But the irony is Quincy’s Mayor, John Spring, has talked publicly about the perils of drinking and driving. During his latest mayoral campaign, he even offered to pick up some young adults from the bars if they needed him.

 This group of young professionals, YP Quincy, made the lack of local late night cab service in Quincy a cause celeb for a moment. This group, which has been lauded by local bureaucrats and the mainstream media for its formation, was absent during the “Courtesy Rides” debate, which lasted for about a month.

 But a man who was making a difference, a man who was keeping hundreds of drunks out from behind the wheel each weekend, was told red tape was more important than saving lives.

 A newly-elected alderman, Republican Dan Brink, was decided to take up this issue and ask the city’s legal and police department to consider amending the city’s code. Brink, who previously worked as a probation officer, was uncomfortable with Jonathon’s past, although he said the main reason he was doing this was to determine if he was a business.

 Jonathon started “Courtesy Rides” because the cab company wouldn’t run pick up anyone after 1 a.m., which is when the taverns close, and people who went to the late night clubs were certainly out of luck as they are open for another two hours on weekends.

 City Attorney Tony Cameron said when “Courtesy Rides” was one man and one car, it was his opinion in February it wasn’t a ‘for hire’ business. But Cameron also said that with more advertising and adding a van and a bus, “Courtesy Rides” comes “perilously close to a smell test as for hire.”

Quincy Police Chief Rob Copley also said the addition of more vehicles and making shuttle runs besides those late-hour bar calls changed things.

“I don’t think we’d be standing here if (Schoenakase’s) mission hadn’t changed,” Copley said.

 But his ingenuity, his providing a service to those in need, was met with resistance. A Democratic alderman, Steve Duesterhaus, said “Courtesy Rides” needed to be regulated for “public safety” reasons with the licensing of his vehicles and background checks for volunteer drivers. The irony is, the regulation of this enterprise causes an even greater harm.

 Did the city ask the lone cab company or the other shuttle services which it licenses to step up? Were they told to stay open to handle the weekend rush of people leaving the bars and instead of fumbling for their keys they fumble for their cell phones and call someone for a ride? No. Not a word.

 The Quincy Police Department even conducted stings against “Courtesy Rides” to make sure he was indeed a voluntary service. QPD didn’t find any time where Jonathon or one of his volunteers asked for payment.

 The need to regulate outweighing the city’s public safety. Bureaucracy in action.

 Now some local conspiracy theorists will say that is because the city likes the revenues it gets from DUI’s. Copley takes great offense to this theory. He says he doesn’t want “drunks” on the streets.

 Another disturbing result of this action is that the law now casts a wide net over other enterprises, including some courier services. What is disturbing is city officials say they will not go after them. They will only go after the “renegade cab companies”.  Spot zoning for law enforcement.

 Jonathon and his young attorney, Ryan Schnack, plowed into the bureaucracy head-on. The new ordinance proposed by the city’s attorney, Andrew Staff, took an overbroad stance on the legal term “consideration”. They claim that Jonathon’s service will now fall under their definition of “for hire” and thusly after the vote be enforceable to fines of an ordinance violation or attempt to prove his “good character” and become a taxi service and regulated under the City and State’s Taxi statutes.

 On September 21^st , during the ordinance’s second reading, the agenda heated up to force the vote on Jonathon’s fate. During this debate, the City hung its hat on the newly defined and refined city ordinance and ignored impassioned pleas to allow Jonathon to continue to operate.

 One woman, Amy Zornes, lost her teenage daughter in a double-fatal alcohol-related crash just outside Quincy in April. She spoke from the heart about how she wished her daughter had called Jonathon.

 “Nobody wants to be in my position,” Zornes said. “But kids won’t call their parents because they don’t want to get in trouble. They can call Jonathon.”

 When Zornes finished her impassioned plea before the City Council, complete with blown up pictures of her daughter’s crash scene, she was publicly brushed off by the mayor.

 “You really didn’t address the ordinance change,” was all Mayor Spring said.

 The lead of the local Mothers Against Drunk Drivers chapter then said she wished every town had a “Courtesy Rides”.  She wasn’t treated quite as rudely. Maybe because she was in a wheelchair.

 The young attorney was asked by the City Council to provide documentation of conversations he had with various state agencies who Schnack claimed had told him they didn’t see a problem with “Courtesy Rides”. But the state agencies wouldn’t provide Schnack with any documentation, probably because no bureaucrat in Springfield wanted to stick their neck out for this.

 Schnack asked Staff, the city’s attorney, to join in on a conference call with one of the state agencies to discuss the matter and Staff told Schnack he “didn’t have time to mess with” the matter.

 Jonathon also didn’t provide documentation of proper insurance to the City Council. He said he went through GEICO and didn’t have a local agent who could appear with him at the Council meeting. I guess the gecko or the cavemen wouldn’t do.

 So Quincy, Illinois has an ordinance changed that could put more drunk drivers on the street and expands the tentacles of government. This ordinance is now so broad that a person who takes money for carpooling kids to school on a regular basis could be breaking the law.

 One of Quincy’s quirky qualities is that “Main Street” is spelled “Maine Street” as several streets in the center of town bear the names of states. Quincy’s city hall is located on Maine Street and while the street name is unique, what is happening in its city hall is all too common.

 A man finds a niche. He provides a service. He is succeeding. He has come a long way from prison and his past.

 Or so he thought.

 The big government crowd will tell you this is a case where regulation is needed. But this is a classic example of government overreach. It’s the nanny state in full effect.

 If a Quincyan doesn’t think Jonathon is safe, if they don’t like his record or his ride, they don’t have to call him.

 But now it doesn’t look like they’ll have that option. Let’s hope they have someone else’s number handy.

 The mayor’s office is 217-228-4545. After all, he offered.