New Kane County lobbying deal worth nearly $500K
Editor's note: The spelling of Dan Shomon's last name has been corrected.
Defying the wishes of Kane County Board Chair Corinne Pierog, Democrats and Republicans on the board locked in a multiyear investment this week with eyes on bringing home big dollars from the state and federal government.
The contract of $10,000 per month for McGuireWoods Consulting might be the most the county has spent on professional lobbying, an expense previous county boards shunned for at least the past decade.
The agreement also dumps the lobbyist the county hired last year, Dan Shomon, on a cheaper, short-term deal to pull in money from the state to pay off the bond debt on the Longmeadow Parkway. Those efforts yielded $17.5 million from the state last year and the promise of $12.5 million more in the pending state budget.
Before this week's vote, it became clear there were larger political forces at play when Pierog pushed to keep Shomon at an executive committee meeting. She told committee members she opposed the plan to hire McGuireWoods because the cost was "an extreme amount of money for this county to pay a lobbying firm."
But she also disclosed that she received a call from Marc Poulos of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 150. The trade union is a financier of local Democratic candidates. And several of its members are involved in the current construction of the Longmeadow Parkway.
"He wants to know why we are turning our back on his efforts," Pierog said. "He is representing the people who are working on that bridge today. We are telling them the man they chose (Shomon), that his firm is not good enough for Kane County. I cannot support this."
Poulos is also part of an organization pushing a so-called responsible bidder ordinance proposal to the county. Republican-led county boards rejected such plans in the past, viewing them as a way to give more government contracts to union members.
Committee members, including Legislative Committee Co-Chair Mike Linder, told Pierog he didn't like her having private conversations with people looking to secure financial contracts with the county.
"I am troubled very much by how the process has been handled," Linder said. "Madame chair, you've been doing a lot of dealing with the candidate whom you prefer. I'm uncomfortable."
During the final vote this week, Pierog avoided any mention of the union or promotion of Shomon. However, she did say she wants specific wording in the contract with McGuireWoods about what would be an acceptable return on the county's investment.
The deal is for two years with the possibility of two one-year extensions. That means the county could spend nearly $500,000 on lobbying over the next four years.
Board members agreed there must be some objective way to measure if the county gets what it expects from the deal. But beyond that, most of the board members said it's way past time for Kane County to have a full-time presence in Chicago, Springfield and Washington, D.C.
"Our legislators are begging us to have a lobbyist in place to help understand our priorities, our needs," said county board member Mavis Bates.
According to the firm's proposal, the county's contact with McGuireWoods will be Greg Bales. He is a former staff member of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. Before that, Bales was a policy adviser for IDOT and a former staffer for former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson. Bales also worked on U.S. Rep. Sean Casten's first campaign and served as the Illinois state director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential bid.
The 24-member county board approved the deal with only seven votes against the plan. Dale Berman, Mo Iqbal, Myrna Molina, Cliff Surges, Vern Tepe, Rick Williams and David Young voted "no."