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Farnsworth Group, the engineering and architecture firm appointed by Calumet City Mayor Thaddeus Jones to be the city engineer, plays an integral role in helping the city select what firms should win publicly funded construction contracts.
But a monthslong investigation into Calumet City’s spending habits shows the firm also wins a large portion of engineering and architecture contracts, leading to questions of a possible conflict of interest.
Farnsworth was selected by Jones, who is also a state representative, to take over the role of city engineer from Robinson Engineering, the firm used by his predecessor, Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush.
Since May 1, 2021, part of Farnsworth’s duties include assisting the bid selection process for construction projects in Calumet City.
“(For) the construction contracts, we would help the city put it out for bid and then we would help vet the bids and then we would say this is the qualified lowest bidder,” Farnsworth senior manager Ken Chastain said during an Aug. 17 interview.
Farnsworth also submits bids for engineering and architecture work that their firm specializes in, though it does not bid on construction projects.
“We help the staff with the technical information so that they can go out and solicit qualifications from professional firms like Farnsworth Group,” Chastain said. “But not necessarily us.”
Chastain confirmed Farnsworth is in the running for some of the contracts for which they provide technical information.
“We have to compete,” he said.
The Daily Southtown obtained records that show from May 2021, when Farnsworth was appointed, until late August 2023, when the documents were requested, the city has spent $2.64 million on engineering and architecture work.
Of this sum, $2.06 million, or 78%, has gone to Farnsworth. This figure appears to include both the bid consulting and the professional services work, although the split between the two roles is unclear in the figures. Chastain and the city’s spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment and clarification on this point.
Five other firms have shared the remaining 22% of the architecture and engineering spending. The second highest earning firm — which received $306,618 or 11.6% of the total — is Mott McDonald. Matt Buerger, now a senior engineering manager at Farnsworth, was a senior project manager at Mott McDonald until January 2022, according to a 2020 presentation and his LinkedIn.
Of the 144 items of architectural and engineering spending on work conducted by Farnsworth, 32 items were for more than $25,000. Illinois law requires municipalities with fewer than 500,000 people to have an open advertising process before a City Council selects the lowest viable bid for work more than $25,000, unless the council votes to waive the advertising process.
In the August interview, Chastain said the bid selection process of contracts for which Farnsworth competes is very transparent.
“We have no contract to do projects without the City Council, you know, deliberating and voting on it,” he said. “(City Council has) a committee that reviews those professional firms and then the city staff reviews it. They give a recommendation to the City Council and the City Council chooses.”
But First Ward Ald. Michael Navarrete, 2nd Ward Ald. Monet Wilson, 6th Ward Ald. James Patton and City Clerk Nyota Figgs say a transparent bid process is not taking place.
“The first time that we find out about a lot of things is when it appears on a City Council agenda,” Patton said.
Some contracts do go out to bid through a formal process. For other contracts, the bid process is waived for a good reason, although Navarrete said the bid waiving process will sometimes occur without City Council’s knowledge.
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For some other contracts, aldermen say City Council learns who received the bid when it appears on the monthly list of bills to vote on, after the contractor has already been selected.
“Our city engineers, who are appointed, they do a lot of things that we don’t hear about until after the fact when we see the bills,” Navarrete said. “We should know what our engineering firm is doing and we should be on the same path.”
This process is different from when Robinson Engineering was the city engineer, said Patton, who worked for the city during the previous administration under a variety of titles including director of purchasing and personnel. He said when bids were sought for contracts or the city sought a certain service, the bids would be advertised in the newspaper.
“The bids would have to be submitted to the city clerk’s office by a certain time on a certain day and then there would be a public bid opening,” Patton said.
The department head for whatever services were needed would recommend a bid to the mayor and explain the recommendation. City Council, informed of the process each step of the way, would then make the final vote, he said.
“In this administration none of that happens, as far as I know,” Patton said. “Certainly, the council is never informed of who the lowest bidder is or any of the information relating to the bid process at all.”
Figgs, who was the city clerk under the previous mayor and city engineer, said Robinson would at times be hired to do some jobs as well as consult. But she said they were not winning contracts at the same frequency and it was stated more explicitly when Robinson received bids.
She also described that when the city sought bids from other firms, sealed bids were opened publicly and then discussed by City Council. Robinson did not manage the process in the same way that Farnsworth does now, she explained.
The City Council occasionally pushes back on the lack of transparency. In one recent instance, after publishing a request for proposal to construct a bike path, Navarrete says he was struck to see that on May 12, Farnsworth was awarded the contract to build the path despite the City Council not being engaged in the firm selection process. He asked about the decision making that went into choosing Farnsworth.
What he found was Farnsworth received credit for being the firm that best knew how the city infrastructure was set up because they are the city engineers. This caused two minority owned firms to lose out on what figures show was $62,692.68 over two payments, according to Navarrete and public records.
“To do an asphalt bike path, you don’t need to know Calumet City’s infrastructure,” he said. “How is any other firm ever going to win?”
Navarrete disclosed he worked for one of these two minority firms until 2020. He asked to keep their names anonymous.
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The three aldermen who most frequently question the contract award process do have a say on whether these contracts get awarded. But there are seven people on council which sometimes puts them in the minority.
And there are other reasons why sometimes there is a hesitancy to question the process including the fear there will be retaliation from the administration.
Patton says his business suffered when, in 2021, he lodged a complaint against a city attorney and Jones emailed colleagues in the state house warning them not to use Patton’s consulting business. Patton says this email caused him to lose three clients.
“Every time I try to do something, it’s impacted my personal life. It’s impacted my professional life,” he said. “There are seven of us there that are elected to do a job.”
Patton, Wilson and Figgs have other personal, legal and political issues with the Jones administration and the city. Patton lost an effort to challenge Jones’ viability to be both state representative and mayor. Jones is under federal investigation involving use of campaign funds, in part because Patton and others filed complaints.
Wilson has voiced her opposition to his administration and lost to Jones in the 2022 Democratic primary for state representative in a landslide, according to Illinois State Board of Elections. Patton supported Wilson in that race.
Figgs has filed lawsuits against Jones including one accusing him of removing some of her duties. The city has sued Figgs for allegedly destroying public records.
Chastain, Buerger, Jones, 3rd Ward Ald. DeAndre Tillman, 7th Ward Ald. Anthony Smith and representatives for Mott McDonald and Robinson Engineering also did not respond to multiple attempts to seek comment on the spending, and 5th Ward Ald. Dejaun Gardner referred questions to spokesman Sean Howard. Howard did not respond to requests for comment.
4th Ward Ald. Ramonde Williams said he was not as familiar about the process that went into awarding contracts.
“I have life outside of City Council so I don’t read absolutely everything ... as far as contracts,” Williams said. He said his expertise is in public safety, given his job as chief of police for South Suburban College.
He said the bid envelopes are opened publicly as they were when Robinson was the city engineer. But he declined to provide any evidence of this, saying “I have a day job.”
The Daily Southtown attempted to receive evidence of the bid and advertising processes being followed. Calumet City responded Monday to a Sept. 28 Freedom of Information Act request for the bid process of three of Farnsworth’s most lucrative jobs, saying there were no records of other firms bidding for the work or a reason the bid process was waived for the projects, which were all worth more than $25,000.
“They shouldn’t be running the process,” Patton said of Farnsworth. “Nobody outside of the city administration should be running the process.”
Daily Southtown
Navarrete also said Farnsworth’s work itself is not the issue, calling them a “very capable firm.” But the main issue is how the contracts get awarded.
John Jackson, a visiting professor at the Paul Simon Institute at Southern Illinois University, reviewed the described process and said he believes the relationship between Farnsworth and the city government is “problematic.”
“I think the average citizen would see this as something of a conflict of interest because this company, Farnsworth, seems to be playing two roles,” Jackson said. “It seems to me you play either one or the other role but you can’t play both without there being at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
Jackson also said the City Council should have a more hands-on say in which bids to select instead of voting on whether to pay a predetermined dollar amount.
“There could be benefits to having a trusted partner who knows the city well taking on certain projects as well as consulting,” said Alisa Kaplan, the executive director of Reform Illinois, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization that tracks political behavior. “But the fact that Farnsworth is taking such a huge chunk of the city’s project funds and the apparent lack of transparency around the whole process raise serious questions.”
hsanders@chicagotribune.com
Editor’s note: This story was updated at noon Nov. 20, after Calumet City responded to a Sept. 28, 2023, request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act.