Family feud: Rosemont mayor’s brother says cleaning contracts wiped out after TIF lawsuit

Mark Stephens — a longtime Triton College board chair and cleaning company owner — said Wednesday he believes his firm lost two longstanding contracts for Rosemont public venues because of the school’s legal dispute with the village.

Stephens, the older brother of Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens, learned this week that his Bomark Cleaning lost the deal to clean the Allstate Arena and manage its parking lots.

Rosemont-based Bomark has had janitorial contracts for a number of municipal-owned venues since the 1980s, when the siblings’ father Donald E. Stephens was mayor.

Mark Stephens said his contract to clean the Rosemont Theatre was abruptly canceled by the village in February 2025, just days after the River Grove-based community college went to court to challenge the creation of a tax increment financing district for the theater property and the expansion of a neighboring TIF. The college argued the special taxing districts would siphon property taxes from education.

Stephens — an elected member of the Triton board since 1991 and whose firm had cleaned the theater since its opening in 1995 — said the village attorney cited his conflict as Triton chair, in scrapping the janitorial contract.

“When I get the letter from the village attorney and they say basically, ‘You’re out, get your (stuff) and you’re outta there,’ I knew what was going on, obviously,” Stephens said during a lengthy interview Wednesday afternoon.

But village spokesman Gary Mack denied the litigation had anything to do with Bomark not getting contracts for cleaning and parking management at the Allstate Arena.

“Totally unrelated whatsoever,” Mack said. “The village decided to change the way that contracts were awarded for these services, and instead of having what one might describe as more lump sum kind of inclusive contracts, the village decided to go with the supervisory and labor rate formula, which is a more common way that it’s done frankly in the cleaning business.”

The Daily Herald reported earlier this week that Bomark was the high bidder — out of four companies that bid — to clean the 18,500-seat arena and nearby box office.

For the parking contract, Bomark was either third or fourth highest, depending on supervisory or nonsupervisory rates, according to the bid tabulation results released Tuesday following a Freedom of Information Act request.

The village board Monday awarded new contracts, set to take effect May 1, to Elgin-based BAC Restoration.

Despite Rosemont’s long history of no-bid deals and working with favored contractors, Bomark had gone through village bid processes a couple other times over the years, according to Mark Stephens. But village officials had never used an hourly wage rate before, so Stephens said he was unsure if his bid numbers were high or low when he submitted them.

“I don’t bill that way. I don’t bill that way since I started,” Stephens said. “I bill the way it was designed originally by the people that ran the facility through the village.

“I told the village attorney in the bid submission, I will match any low number you have and I will do a better job than anybody else will do,” he added. “And, we didn’t get the bid.”

Triton meeting minutes confirm Mark Stephens recused himself from voting to approve the litigation against Rosemont. But on Wednesday he defended the college’s decision to challenge the TIF.

“When you think about a TIF, what do you think about? Busted up factories, old rubble buildings, right? Not a beautiful performance center that thousands of people flock to every year to watch shows,” he said.

Shortly after filing suit, the college board voluntarily dismissed the litigation to entertain talks with village officials over a cost reimbursement deal.

Mark Stephens is now waiting to hear if his firm will win the new cleaning contract for the 840,000-square-foot Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. It is Bomark’s largest account.

He said he tried to speak with Brad Stephens about the Allstate Arena contracts to ask him for “fair consideration.” But he’s mainly been talking to the village attorney.

Mark Stephens also said he invited his younger brother, who has been mayor of the tiny Northwest suburb since the elder Stephens died in 2007, to his family Christmas party. The brothers are next-door neighbors in a gated community south of Higgins Road, where most of the town’s population of 4,200 lives.

“He didn’t show,” Mark Stephens said. “He didn’t respond.”