It’s been awhile since we last checked in on what the Park Ridge Park District has been doing with its approximately $25 million annual budget.
As we’ve written previously, the Park District has done an exceptional job of generating non-tax (i.e., user fee-based) revenues to the point that they now exceed tax revenues. And that deserves kudos, because the path of least resistance is to underprice fees to keep the users happy while letting the all-too-silent taxpayers subsidize those users.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the District stumbled a bit in its contracting for the retrofitting of the buildings on the former Park Ridge Youth Campus – now known as “Prospect Park” – to accommodate a modern computer network and integrate it into the District’s existing system. Fortunately, it sounds as if the Park Board is taking reasonable measures to square that away.
The District’s administration apparently tried to steamroll a “bundled” contract for the purchase of IT services with the purchase of the hardware for the project. And that’s where the Board balked.
At its meeting on October 15, the Board – with president Jim O’Brien absent – deadlocked 3-3 on a vote to approve the integrated service/hardware contract. Commissioners Joan Bende, Jim Phillips and Cindy Grau voted for approval while Commissioners Rick Biagi, Mel Thillens and Richard Brandt voted against it.
Biagi and Thillens expressed their belief that the District might be able to get a better price than the approximately $80,000 quoted by IT consultants Sikitch LLP for the “equipment” (hardware and software) – along with its $30,000 of actual IT services – if the District went out to bid.
We don’t know if that’s true or not. But allowing consultants (like Sikitch) to bundle their professional services with a much larger dollar amount of products that customarily require such bidding is a common scam by government contractors, consultants and bureaucrats that often bamboozle the folks we elect to look out for the taxpayers’ interests.
That’s because the bureaucrats love it: it reduces their workload and greatly reduces the likelihood that they will be held accountable should something go wrong. But it improperly mixes the contracting for professional services that can legally be done (although it doesn’t have to be) on a no-bid basis with the purchases of commodities (hardware and software) that should be competitively bid.
According to the Park Ridge Journal article (“Park’s Computer Needs Concern Park Ridge Commissioners,” Nov. 11), a Sikitch rep and the District’s IT manager, Mark Somera, claimed that Sikitch could get reduced prices on the hardware/software from manufacturers like Hewlett-Pcckard through volume buying for Sikitch clients.
Not necessarily the best prices, mind you. Just “reduced” prices.
But when Board members asked why the District couldn’t just take Sikitch’s list of components and shop around for the best deal, the Sikitch rep in attendance pled ignorance, claiming that wasn’t his area of expertise. Apparently Sikitch was so confident its no-bid deal had already been cooked to the right degree of doneness that it didn’t to send someone capable of answering what sounds like a pretty basic question.
Hence, the 3-3 tie that prevented the contract’s approval.
That reportedly torqued Exec. Director Gayle Mountcastle, who responded with a litany of delays and woes that would ensue from any type of competitive bidding on the computer hardware – including a further delay in the opening of Prospect Park.
Which, reportedly, already is a year behind the original target date.
And already hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget.
And already having cut some of those features the District used to sell the project to the voters in the April 2013 referendum.
Of course, any additional delay related to the IT contract might have been avoided if District staff didn’t try to play it too cute by half in the first place.
Or, actually, the 73% of the total contract price that the $80,000 of hardware represents.
But at the Board’s November 5, 2015 meeting, staff – primarily Finance Supt. Sandra DeAngelus, with a little help from Somera – came up with what sure sounded like a half-baked (at most) attempt at backfilling the omitted due diligence to justify the District’s original decision to give the whole deal to Sikitch, without bidding the approximately $80,000 hardware/software portion.
You can watch and listen to it starting at around the 10 minute mark of the meeting video, and continuing through the vote at the 17:43 mark.
As best as we can tell from that discussion, Somera got an incomplete (or inadequately detailed) product list from Sikitch and made some attempt to contact three suppliers, only one of which appears to have responded in whatever time frame was set. That alternate supplier’s bid was $20,000 higher than Sikitch’s, although it does not sound like an apples-to-apples situation because, among other things, Sikitch proposed a hardware-based firewall while the other vendor chose a software-based one.
Not surprisingly, only one Board member questioned that apples-to-oranges choice: Rick Biagi.
But by that point the charade was convincing enough for the other six Board members to approve the pre-cooked deal with “best boy” Sikitch by a vote of 6-1.
And the no-bid scams continue.
To read or post comments, click on title.
12 comments so far
Gee. Funny how Mel did not post the part you reference on his facebook page. He stated:
“We’ve all seen the dangers in no-bid contracts. I am happy we made sure to properly vet this bid”.
It would appear that you disagree, right PD??
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes.
So you’re saying that the Park District spent $80 Gs on no-bid hardware and software purchases that should have been competitively bid but weren’t because the Board allowed Sikitch to roll those purchases into its no-bid consulting deal?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yep.
Wow!! I know you will endorse him anyway (the Madigan defense) but all one has to do is look at this whole Prospect Part deal to make a campaign ad against Mel.
From the beginning where he led the charge (referendum) to spend the taxpayers money, to the delays, to the “promised” components of the park that have been cut to the over budget and now voting for what is essentially a no bid deal . What a mess!! So now let’s all promote him…..Yippeee!!!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: This very well may be a first for you, but you appear to be correct on all counts. Even if it’s just further proof of blind-squirrel theory: Huzzah!
But to re-emphasize the point, we almost certainly will endorse ANYTHING and ANYONE that/who can deprive Madigan and Cullerton of their malignant veto-proof majorities in Springfield, because 30+ years of insanity and corruption are far more than enough.
11.29.15 10:17 AM is right. Thillens owns the Prospect Park project and will do whatever it takes to get it done ASAP regardless of what it costs because its already over-budget so that no longer is a consideration. He’s just another politician.
Anon 1:17, Mel may not always walk the walk, but at least he talks the talk. That’s better than not talking the talk at all.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yep.
10:39:
My god! So this is the level we have reached?!?
Look, while I do not know Mel personally, I appreciate the time he continues to put into PR (as I do with all elected officials as well as the many who volunteer their time on boards, groups, funds etc.) and I am sure he is a genuinely decent man but come on!
The Repubs should have won the last election he was in. Marty is far from a superstar and the state was just a screwed as it is now. It should have been outside the margin of error but the Repub candidate has a record that does not even match his own words, campaign material or facebook page.
That is your defense?? He does not (always) walk the walk but at least he talks the talk?? Put that on a bumper sticker….”Vote Mel, he won’t do what he said he would he would do”.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “10:39” can speak for him/herself. From our perspective, however, this post is about the Park District, not Mel Thillens’ state senate campaign – notwithstanding your attempt to make it the latter, starting with your comment of 11/28 at 4:44 pm and continuing with those on 11/29 at 9:02 and 10:17 am.
But if it’s a bumper sticker you want, you should try: “Vote Democratic…because 30 years of screwing this State isn’t nearly enough.”
Prospect Park is so Park Ridge.
Over priced, and really not that nice, with no amenities to give more opportunity for activities needed, like a new gym, lit baseball fields, or even correctly spent technology infrastructure.
But hey, can’t wait to see what’s in the open air theater.
EDITOR’S NOTE: So where were you with your “Just Vote ‘NO’!” campaign back in the Spring of 2013?
A total of 5,118 voters – a 56% majority of the 9,372 voters (33% of the total registered voters) who cared enough to vote in the April 2013 election – approved the project, which is the way referendums work. If you’ve got a beef, it should be limited to cost over-runs and whatever “bait and switch” the Park District may be pulling on those voters.
But if “[o]ver priced, and really not that nice, with no amenities to give more opportunity for activities needed” is what bothers you, then you should look no further than the Centennial water park, an $8 million boondoggle that not only was over-budget and built without the single most-desirable feature (per the District’s mojo “survey”) – a lazy river – but also was steamrolled through without even giving the voters a chance to weigh in on the project via advisory referendum.
“….look no further than the Centennial water park, an $8 million boondoggle that not only was over-budget and built without the single most-desirable feature (per the District’s mojo “survey”) – a lazy river – but also was steamrolled through without even giving the voters a chance to weigh in on the project via advisory referendum”.
………..and Mel had his hands all over that one too!! Sorry, there I go again!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yeah, but you finally got one right.
Sounds like somebody’s got an (un)natural fixation on Mr. Thillens when they should be fixated on no-bid contracts that create too many opportunities for graft and corruption by the bureaucrats and elected officials who favor them.
That’s the Illinois way, you know.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For people ill-equipped to attack an idea, attacking a person is much easier.
Lol. Somebody who “talks the talk” even if he doesn’t “walk the walk” is ok with you as long as he’s a Republican. Or not a public employee. Or not an appointed official you disagree with. That’s pub dog, setting the bar for integrity wherever it suits his political agenda best.
EDITOR’S NOTE: You must not read this blog much – or maybe you just look at all the pictures – otherwise you would know that walking the walk is better than just talking the talk; but that even talking the talk is better than just acquiescing to the freeloader and parasite contingents.
We also regularly indict, berate and ridicule the likes of the RINO former governors of Illinois, the RINO local public officials who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, and any other Republicans who can’t seem to accept simple facts like Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land since 1973; and who would rather spend their time beefing about abortion and school prayer than battling the corrupt and profligate Democrats who have bankrupted this state over the past 30 years.
We’re fine with public employees, but we intend to keep reminding folks that while ALL taxpayers pay for public employee raises, only those employees receive more – much more – than they pay in. And they are basically bullet-proof when it comes to performance and accountability.
As for any “appointed official [we] disagree with” – and any elected one, too – if they can’t stick up for themselves, what good are they?
And how ironic that the anonymous coward criticizes others’ “integrity.”
7:57:
I am every bit as “fixated” on no bid contracts as you. Where we differ is I think Mel is a big part of that issue and you seem to have a problem with him being brought up.
PD points out that the vote for this deal was 6-1 with Biagi being the only no. That means that Mel voted yes. Hw is on the PD board and voted for charade/pre-cooked deal. Why on earth are you offended by me bringing him up?? I should be asking why aren’t you more fixated on a very visible board member whose actions do not seem to match his words.
He also at the very least avoided the whole truth while pubbing himself on his FB page
EDITOR’S NOTE: 7:57 can speak for him/herself, or not.
But you ackowledge that the vote was 6-1, which means that Thillens voted with O’Brien, Brandt, Philips, Bende and Grau. Which means they are every bit as “big [a] part of that issue” as Thillens. Yet only Thillens seems to have earned your wrath.
Sounds like a bit of fixation to us.
I agree that all six votes are at fault but the others you mention have not, as yet, thrown their hats in the ring for re-election or for any other office. Mel is running for State Senate. The others also did not tell half truths on a FB page to attempt to spin the issue.
If any of the other six were asking for my vote and spinning my reaction and focus would be the same.
By the way, you stated…..”but that even talking the talk (and not walking the walk) is better than just acquiescing to the freeloader and parasite contingents”. Essentially what you are saying is that a liar is better than someone you disagree with. That is a hell of a choice.
EDITOR’S NOTE: No, what we’re saying is that some people can talk the talk, honestly and sincerely, but aren’t capable of walking the walk. It doesn’t necessarily make them a liar, just a disappointment.
On the other hand, in this case (and in others) O’Brien, Philips, Brandt, Bende and Grau couldn’t/wouldn’t even talk the talk – presumably because the concept of no-bid contracts doesn’t even register with them.
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