The month of April was a very busy month for our Association from a political perspective. We started out with the elections at the beginning of the month and unfortunately saw the traffic improvement referendum defeated. It seems that the voting public is more comfortable with sitting stuck in traffic with their engines idling at $2+ per gallon than with paying a few additional dollars a year in sales tax to address the traffic issues.

On April 11 a small delegation consisting of Gary Dowty, Lyle Ehlers, Steve Dalbec, and I traveled to Springfield to attend the ICIC meeting. After the meeting we visited both the Senate and House offices and dropped in on some of our local politicians. We also had the opportunity to watch the activity on the Senate floor as they were hard at work. ICIC hosted an evening reception which was well attended by both contractors and politicians. We were able to chat with JoAnn Osmond, Mark Beaubien, Ed Sullivan Jr., Sid Mathias, and Bill Peterson just to name a few. We expressed our concerns regarding transportation, workers comp, and other matters that affect all of our businesses.

At the end of the month at our regular monthly meeting we held our second PAC auction. It’s doubtful that we’ll ever have enough funds to compete at the same level as the unions and trial lawyers, but we need to continue to work as hard as we can with the resources we have. The issues that are in play in Springfield and Washington affect all of our businesses in very tangible ways on a daily basis.

The work that LCCA does through our Government Affairs Committee and our involvement in ICIC is important work. I thank everyone who is involved in these efforts. Your gifts of time and financial resources are very much appreciated.

MARTIN PETERSEN COMPANY, INC.

9800 55th St.

Kenosha, WI 53144

Phone: (262) 65801326

Fax: (262) 658-1048

CONTRACTOR

   Mike Anderson, Project Manager

   John Donnell, President

   Dan Ashburn, Vice President

   Kevin Louis, Vice President

   Rob Jossart, VP/CFO

HVAC, Piping & Plumbing

SPONSOR: Mike Henderson, Joseph J. Henderson & Son

We are pleased to announce that Terry Skarbalus has joined the staff as our new Administrative Assistant. Terry has been working part-time (and more hours recently) since September. She will be a great addition to the staff and brings a pleasant personality and a gift for attention to detail. She will be the voice on the phone calling about meetings, etc.

Terry is a Warren High School grad with an Associate Degree from CLC and a BA from Columbia College. She is married to Greg and has two children: Eleanor (6) and Owen (4).

LCCA’s Annual Golf Outing will take the course on Friday, August 5 at Countryside Golf Course. Reservation Forms have been mailed and hole sponsors are already coming in. While we can accommodate 288 golfers in the afternoon thanks to Countryside’s 36 holes, the afternoon will sell out quickly. And if you want a more leisurely round, ask for the morning shotgun.

According to Golf Outing Chair Scott Nelson, H.H. Holmes Testing, the tournament will once again be a scramble to ensure that everybody finishes quickly. The food is excellent and great prizes await the winners. Don’t miss out.

You can register on the LCCA website at www.lcca-il.org/events.

Over half the tickets are gone and we are getting more calls to attend the summer outing to Miller Park in Milwaukee to see the Cubs play the Brewers. The outing is scheduled for Thursday, June 23, and will include bus transportation from Lake County, food or drink tickets which can be used at the stadium’s exclusive club level and infield box seat tickets along the first base line. All this for just $75 per ticket.

We only have about 80 tickets left. So if you think you will be interested, call Terry at the LCCA Office. Tickets will be distributed first come, first served. Employees, family and friends are welcomed.

• 30 percent of all workers compensation premiums in Illinois are paid by the construction industry.
• 23 percent are paid by the goods and services industry.  
• 21 percent are paid by manufacturers.
• 15 percent are paid by miscellaneous industries.
• 10 percent are paid by office/clerical employers.
  Source: NCCI
  

Teamsters Agreement Mailed – The Teamsters Agreement approved last year has been received and mailed to LCCA Members who employ Teamsters. If you did not get a copy and wish to have one, just call the LCCA Office.

Operators Landscape Agreement – The Agreement between MARBA and the Operating Engineers to include Landscaping in their jurisdiction has been mailed to all Contractor Members. In a cover letter, LCCA urges contractors to read the agreement carefully and understand the ramifications to your company before signing.

The LCCPAC Auction had great items to bid on. Vacations, restaurant gift certificates, a part in a film, sports stuff, golf, baseball tickets, you name it. Unfortunately, this newsletter went to press before the auction so you will need to wait till next month for the results. But we can report the following members contributed more than $30,000 in items for the auction.

Meyer Material

Ley & Associates

Wunderlich-Malec Services

Blue Boy Portable Toilets

Mechanical, Inc.

H.H Holmes

Jos. J. Henderson & Son

Drydon Equipment

LCCA

Peterson & Matz, Inc.

Lintech Engineering LLC

Flow-Technics

Maddock Industries

Prairie Group

Lake Forest Travel

Dam, Snell & Taveirne Ltd

Morse Electric

John Sakash Co.

P&S Painting

Thelen Sand & Gravel

Columbia Pipe & Supply

Circle Concrete Construction

Northern Illinois Mack

The Blue Book

Thermodyne Mechanical

Stellmach Electric Inc.

J. Pease, Inc.

Palatine Oil Co., Inc

Moonwatcher Inc.

Terra Cotta Truck Service

Rockenbach Chevrolet

Air Con

Campanella & Sons, Inc.

Landscape Concepts Construction

Althoff Industries

K & A Graphics

C L Graphics

Layne Western

Law Offices of Louis W. Brydges

Tonyan Bros., Inc

Lake County Grading

Cingular Wireless

DK Contractors

ITG

Vulcan Materials

Burris Equipment

Lite Technology

Special thanks go to Steve Dalbec, Jos. J. Henderson & Son, Auction Chairman and his committee: Mike Ryan, Meyer Material Company;  Scott and Todd Nelson, H.H. Holmes Testing Laboratories; Skip McCann, Dam, Snell & Taveirne, LTD. and Mike Temple, Mechanical, Inc.

ICIC’s Design/Build and Construction Management bills have passed out of Senate committees.  Both are now awaiting action in the House.

Design/Build (Senate Bill 766), sponsored by Sen. Terry Link and co-sponsored by Sen. James Clayborne, may need an additional amendment to expressly state that existing procurement and employment goals for minority and women-owned businesses will apply also to Design/Build projects.  ICIC expects to work with our Senate sponsors to address this issue over the next couple weeks.  

The current version of the bill applies only to projects managed by the Capital Development Board.  It includes the same language as last year’s Design/Build bill which was unopposed.

ICIC’s construction management bill (SB 518) seeks to establish a procurement and prequalification process for construction management services.  The bill is being sponsored for us by Sen. Don Harmon and co-sponsored by Sen. Dale Risinger.  The bill was approved by Senate committee and now must be approved by the full Senate.

In addition to moving ICIC initiatives forward, we have stalled several bills of concern to the construction industry.  Of particular note:

• A series of bills that sought to greatly expand prevailing wage failed to receive a committee hearing.
• Two bills that sought to establish a reverse auction for state procurement were amended to exclude construction.
• A general contractor licensing bill will likely not be heard this year.
• A resident bidder preference law also will not be heard this year.

 Other legislation that ICIC continues to work on includes a Project Labor Agreement proposal (HB 915) that seeks to codify the governor’s executive order on PLAs.  ICIC is seeking an amendment to include contractors in any PLA.   ICIC also continues to oppose House Bill 188 which requires contractors to provide monthly payroll reports of owners of all state construction projects.

In what has become almost like a “rite of spring”, tech education programs are under attack again at area schools. It is, after all, that time of year when planning for next year’s budget.

There are several causes for this. First and foremost, schools continue to rate themselves on the number of graduates who go on to college, refusing to recognize that going into a certified apprenticeship program is the equivalent. The convenient “enter college” calculation totally ignores the roughly 50% who don’t complete college and the roughly half of the graduates who are employed in jobs one year after graduation that do not require their college degrees. Shop classes are just not “glamorous”, but apprenticeship graduation rates are far higher than college graduation rates.

The second issue is that schools are always looking for ways to cut expenses and tech-ed classes are perceived as too expensive to operate. It is possible that eliminating some of the more exotic projects, like building a house, do offer cost savings to a school district. Too often the districts cut off the entire program. If the tech-ed program is a basic program, like the “shop classes” of two decades ago, where basic skills were taught, this a false sense of gain. In these cases with the facility already in place, it is a sum zero game since the students displaced by the elimination of the tech-ed classes will have to attend other classes. It is a case of squeezing the budget in one place to have it bulge out somewhere else.  Those students have to go somewhere – why not let it be where the jobs are.

The third issue is lack of understanding of the opportunities in the construction industry by those making the decisions in area schools. Construction is thought of as dead-end with no future. While many work their entire lives practicing their chosen craft, many others advance to supervisory and then management positions. A significant number start their own business and others rise through the ranks to company ownership. We in the industry need to tell our story of opportunity.

If your community schools want to cut out shop classes, you need to take a proactive approach to protect the future of construction. Go to the public meetings and tell them to keep the tech-ed program and give us a call for support. Once these programs are gone, they will be gone forever. (Source: Associated Construction Employers Association, Milwaukee, WI)

The Construction Quality Management Course for Contractors was developed to familiarize contractor personnel with military quality management concepts and procedures. The instructor for the course will be Jim Baldwin, TranSystems Corp.  Please note that this CQM course is required of General Contractors on any Navy or Corp project. It is also recommended for subcontractors who would like to know just what steps will be required of them and their general to get paid! The certificate presented upon successful completion of this course is good for five years. Students will be required to pass a written test at the end of the seminar to receive the certification.

WHEN:  Wednesday, May 25, 2005

WHERE:  Crown Plaza Chicago North Shore, 510 E. Rt. 83, Mundelein, IL  60060 - (847) 949-5100

TIME:  7:30 a.m. - Registration (Continental Breakfast)

     8:00 a.m. - Seminar begins

     5:00 p.m. - Conclusion

COST: $250 per person - Price Includes a Continental Breakfast, Lunch, Breaks & Manual

Register on-line at www.lcca-il.org/events or call the LCCA Office at (847) 623-2345. We can only accommodate 25 students in the course so make your plans early.

LCCA and CISCO will host the 4th annual Career Expo for 8^th graders from many Lake County schools on May 3rd and 4^th at the Lake County Fairgrounds. Over 600 students are registered to attend this year’s expo.

The expo provides kids the opportunity to “experience” many building trades. In the past, students have operated jackhammers, assembled toolboxes, hung wallpaper, laid bricks, bent pipe, wired lights and much more.

Schools participating include:

• Sally Potter School – Mundelein
• Gavin School – Ingleside
• Jack Benny Middle School – Waukegan
• North Prairie Jr. High School – Winthrop Harbor
• Abbott Middle School – Waukegan
• Neal Math & Science Academy – North Chicago
• North Shore Academy – Highland Park
• Viking School – Gurnee
• Emmons School - Antioch

The Lake County High School Tech Building Trades Program and other area high schools are looking for summer jobs for high school juniors and seniors in construction to provide a practical application for what they are learning in school. Waukegan High School is looking for summer employment for 5 junior and senior students who have been learning drafting and construction computer applications.  If we are going to attract good students into the industry, we need to support them when they are making a choice of careers.  If you can help, call Gary at the LCCA Office.

We fought the good battle, but in the end, the voters decided they would rather wait for someone else to pay for the improvements rather than bite the bullet and kick start congestion relief with the sales tax increase.

The final vote was 46,901 YES and 53,518 NO. Interesting enough, the YES votes increased from the 2004 referendum by 6,000 votes! Unfortunately the NO votes increased also but the margin of loss was narrower. It is also interesting to note that 6,200 voters did not vote on the issue!

Why did we lose? Probably the same reason so many school and fire district issues lose - there is a basic disconnect between the problem (gridlock) and who will pay to fix it (the voters). Where do we go from here? There will be many meetings in the future to see what other options are available. But for the foreseeable future, just plan to spend more time on the roads.

Many Lake County taxing districts had referendums on the ballot. Most of the school referendums are for the operating budget. Two are for buildings but only one passed – by just 5 votes! Who says that YOUR vote does not count? The results:

Wauconda School District #118 - $60,000,000 – Tax rate increase to build a Middle School and add on to the High School. Passed 1,900 YES – 1,895 NO

Gavin School District #37 - $2,000,000 - Bonding authority for Gavin Central School Building. Defeated 1,033 NO - 683 YES