I always enjoy the first signs of Fall.  It only takes me one day of true summer weather to tire of it.  Sure, I love being able to go to the beach, boat, play outdoors…but if it weren’t for that, the Summer would be completely intolerable.  Instead of doing laundry a reasonable once every week it turns into at least twice every week.  If you wore any article of clothing outdoors, you can be pretty certain it’s sweat-soaked and ready for the washing machine.  The humidity hangs on you like a coat of lead.  For me at least, there’s this overbearing sense of captivity.  So it is with open arms that I welcome the first signs of Fall, when the muggy 90’s are replaced by dry 60’s, the hazy, moisture laden sky is replaced by a clear, blue one, and the first leaves begin their lazy descent to the ground.  Fall competes very closely with Spring as far as being a season for the senses.  There’s nothing quite like the feel of a cool Fall breeze  caressing your face, ruffling your hair, carrying the scent of leaves and the last of the year’s flowers.  And let us not forget the sounds of Fall…dry leaves blowing across the ground like Nature’s wind-chimes, hiking through the woods, each footstep bring a loud but somehow satisfying crunch.

The first real cold spell brings about a whole spectrum of indoor pleasures as well.  It’s the time of year when you truly appreciate the warm comfort of being inside, the smell of that first pot of soup or stew cooking on the stove, or wrapping your hands around a steaming cup of hot chocolate.  Lying under a heavy blanket on the couch, watching a football game.  The anticipation of having that giant, homecooked meal on Thanksgiving with family.  Fall is quite a special season indeed and I’ve just brushed the surface of its pleasures.  If only I could find as many nice things to say about Summer and Winter but I suppose, without those, Spring and Fall wouldn’t be quite as wonderful!

I close with one William M, a Gertantown Academy Fourth Grader’s idea of Autumn

I smell autumn

All the colors of the leaves like rainbows in the trees

Scarecrows, like knights, guard over me

Bright orange pumpkins lay waiting to be picked

The leaves crackling under my feet like fire crackers

The sound of geese flying south for the winter

The crisp cold air as it sweeps the leaves from the trees

The warm fire as it spreads smoke in the air

I taste hot cider; it warms me up like a blanket

I smell autumn

Hard Rock Concrete Cutters

984 Lee Street

Des Plaines, IL 60016

Phone: (847) 699-0010

Fax: (847) 699-0292

Contractor

     Jim Dvoratchek, President

     David Petersen, Sr. Project Manager

     Ken Leazer, General Operations Manager

     Jim Russo, Inside Sales & Estimating

Concrete cutting professionals with expertise in wall sawing, core drilling, exterior slab sawing, interior electric slab sawing, wire sawing, as well as a supplier of concrete cutting products.

Sponsor: Rick Grabowski, Pickus Construction & Equipment

United Rentals, Inc.

3059 Washington Street

Waukegan, IL 60085

Phone: (847) 662-6900

Fax: (847) 662-6969

Supplier

     Robert Hughes, District Sales Manager

     Keith Crawley, Branch Manager

     Jay Buthman, Territory Manager

     Trisha Curtis, Territory Manager

Construction Equipment, sales, rental and service.

Sponsor: Gerry Dumalski, Boller Construction Company

Fred Rodheim, Abbott Laboratories, will receive the 2006 Governors Award during the Annual Meeting November 2 at the Crowne Plaza Mundelein. According to President Micky Day, “Fred deserves LCCA’s highest honor given his long commitment to LCCA’s Safety Program and countless contributions to improving safety among LCCA Members.”

He has chaired the Safety Committee since 1999 and was Co-Chair for several years before that. Fred facilitated the Alliance between LCCA and OSHA bringing about a source of safety help for LCCA members while protecting their privacy. He teaches many classes for LCCA and time and again students leave still laughing at his crazy “safety pictures” – but better informed on what it takes to have a safe worksite and to come home in one piece at the end of the day.

Most recently, Fred was responsible for starting the annual safety seminar for Safety Managers to increase their understanding of critical safety issues on their jobs. For all these, and many other reasons, LCCA owes a great deal to Fred and it is fitting that he is selected to receive the Governors Award.

The award will be presented at the Annual Meeting, November 2, 2006, beginning at 6:00 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Mundelein. Show Fred your support and join us at the meeting. 

At the Annual Meeting next month, LCCA will once again recognize a General Contractor, Sub Contractor, Supplier and Associate of the Year. The award will be based on YOUR votes. Ballots were sent out last month and are due October 18. Be sure and complete your ballot and return to the LCCA Office ASAP.

Unfortunately, the ballot included last year’s winners who are not eligible this year. They were:

General/Prime Contractor – Jos. J. Henderson & Son

Subcontractor – AirCon Refrigeration & Heating

Supplier – Burris Equipment

Associate – H.H. Holmes Testing Laboratories

Please do not vote for any of the members above.  

Steve Thelen, Thelen Sand & Gravel, and Dick Day, DK Contractors, have joined MARBA’s Operating Engineers Craft Committee as they prepare for negotiation next year. John Vignocchi, John Keno Construction, is Co-Chair of the Craft Committee and will help lead the negotiations.

The Transportation Summit was held on September 20 at CLC. Many worthy projects were considered but only a few could be selected to be on this year’s Priority Project List. The top three projects in each category were:

Projects Ready for Preliminary Engineering (12 projects considered)

IL Rt. 176 from Rt. 21 to Rt. 131 (15% of vote)

US 45 from Millburn Rd to IL Rt. 132 (13% of vote)

IL Rt. 83 from Rt. 120 to IL Rt. 176 (13% of vote)

Projects Ready for Design Engineering (4 projects considered)

US 45 from IL Rt. 60 to IL Rt. 21 (33% of vote)

IL Rt. 60/83 from Rt. 176 to EJ&E Railroad (26% of vote)

IL Rt. 131 from Wisconsin State Line to Sunset Ave. (25% of vote)

Projects Ready for Construction (5 projects considered)

IL 21 from South of Rt. 120 to IL Rt. 137 (73% of vote)

In addition, the elected officials attending the summit were asked to vote on their support (or lack of support) on some key longer term programs. 76% of the group voted to support the creation of a Rt. 41 Corridor Council to look at ways to improve the corridor from Delany Rd south to Lake-Cook. And 69% are on record supporting the extension of Rt. 53.

The Route 120 Corridor Planning Council got a much-needed boost with the recent announcement by Rep. Melissa Bean (IL-8) of $2 million in federal funds for Phase I engineering of the Route 120 Corridor.  Rep. Bean made the announcement August 15 at the press conference at the Round Lake Public Works Department.

The Route 120 corridor runs from the City of Waukegan in the east to the McHenry County Line in the west.  Phase I engineering will evaluate the alignment and road characteristics of Route 120 and include an assessment of the environmental impact.  “This is a down payment to get us started so that we can work toward relieving congestion,” said Rep. Bean. “This is one of the fastest-growing districts in the country and the infrastructure has not kept pace.”

“This corridor improvement is crucial to economic growth and development in Lake County,” said Bill Gentes, mayor of Round Lake and chairman of Route 120 Corridor Planning Council.  State funding of $340,000 for the Route 120 Corridor feasibility study, which will be conducted in advance of Phase I Engineering, is expected to come through shortly, Gentes said.

The Route 120 Corridor Planning Council (CPC) is a collaborative effort between 10 communities and Lake County to relieve traffic congestion by providing a much-needed east-west corridor across Lake County.  For more information, visit www.120now.com.

The 2006 edition of LCCA’s Holiday Party is scheduled for Friday, December 1, 2006. This year we have changed venues and the party will be held at the Crowne Plaza in Mundelein.  And get ready for some southern partying as we celebrate Mardi Gras with all the trimmings. A parade, beads and, of course, some Dixieland music will highlight the event. But this is a smaller room than in the past so we expect to sell out early.

If you want to attend one of Lake County’s great parties, put your group together and block out the date. Reservation forms are included with the Newsbrief. For those who have never attended, this is the best entertainment value in Lake County. Great food, drink, conversation and entertainment fit for a King (and Queen)!!

This is a great opportunity to entertain employees, clients or other special people while leaving the arrangements (and the headaches) to us! Get your tables together soon.  

All the unions have settled and made distributions for their increases. Here are the unions ranked by their total wage/benefit packages:

                                                          Increase     Total Package
Ironworkers, Local 1                                3.00               $ 59.94
Electricians, Local 150                              2.78               $ 57.56
Operating Engineers, #150 Build               3.00                $56.78
Ironworkers, Local 63                              3.00               $ 55.06
Operating Engineers, #150 HHU               3.00               $ 54.98
Sheet Metal Workers, Local 73                3.05               $ 54.68
Pipefitters, Local 597                                3.20               $ 54.36
Plumber’s, Local 93                                  3.40              $ 54.02
Asbestos Workers, Local 17                     3.25              $ 52.83
Sprinkler Fitters #281                                2.75              $ 52.40
Carpenters, Commercial                            3.00              $ 51.02
Cement Masons, Local 11-362                 3.00               $ 50.81
Glaziers, Local 27                                     3.10               $ 50.62
Bricklayers, Distr. Council                         3.10               $ 50.61
Tile Layers, #67                                        2.50               $ 47.96
Painters District Council #14                     2.30                $ 47.62
Laborers District Council                          2.90                $ 44.27
Roofer’s #11                                            1.05                $ 43.52
Automobile Mechanics #701                     2.00               $ 40.39
Teamsters, Local 301 (Group 1)               1.75                $ 39.78

The average increase this year was $2.76, a 10.2% increase from 2005. Meanwhile, the Total Package, wages and fringes together, increased only 5.8% from 2005. The average wage for 2006 is $35.55, a 4.8% increase over 2005.

New Laborers Contracts for Lake County were mailed last month to LCCA Members who are signatory to the Laborers Agreement through MARBA. They are also available on the LCCA website in the Members Only section. According to MARBA, the Laborers District Council Agreements are still not completely reviewed and not available for distribution yet.

In addition to the Laborers Agreements, current copies of the Painters and Drywall agreements for Painters District Council 14 are also available on the website.

If you forgot your user name and password, call Terry at the LCCA Office. 

Dave Buckman, Core Construction, was appointed by the Governor to the newly created Illinois Workers’ Compensation Advisory Board representing construction. This Board will oversee the new Workers Comp reform measures passed by the Illinois General Assembly. The following is his report.

The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Advisory Board and the Illinois Medical Fee Schedule Advisory Board held a joint meeting in June. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the issues related to the fee schedule which have developed since its inception and to have the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) present their initial findings regarding the impact of the fee schedule.

The Chairman indicated that they were in the process of gathering the necessary data to add outpatient surgery centers and emergency treatment to the fee schedule.  Currently, those services are part of the “76% of charges” portion of the fee schedule.  There was some talk of the timeline and the two will likely not be added simultaneously as the data gathering for one is going more smoothly than the other.  At some point, there will likely need to be rule changes created for the fee schedule because of these and other issues.  So the Chairman is clearly open to making the fee schedule a success.  But needless to say it is a long way from that point.

The NCCI made their presentation which indicates an overall system savings of 0.2% since passage of the new reforms.  Not quite the 7% we were gunning for during negotiations.  The Chairman and many others at the table seemed somewhat amazed that the NCCI isn’t really using any current workers’ compensation data to make its assumptions.  They don’t have the data to use because the data they collect is typically more than 1 year old.  Their data lags because the reserves carrier’s statistics are too new when they are less then one year old.  So they used data from other sources that aren’t necessarily similar to WC fees.  The Chairman and many of the labor folks felt like the report was not accurate and felt that the insurance buying public should be reaping the benefits of the great savings offered by the fee schedule.  It was apparent, however, that the NCCI doesn’t feel that there will likely be any significant savings from the fee schedule as it stands today because of the uncertainty created by the large number of geo-zip bases (29) and the numerous areas of service that are outside the fee schedule.  The management representatives feel at this point that this fee schedule will need substantial changes if there is any hope of ever reaching a 7% savings point.

Over the summer, Governor Rod Blagojevich signed two measures of interest to contractors.

HB 5260 – The Prompt Payment Act - This bill, that was written and pushed by AHEAD (a coalition of construction associations in Chicago including LCCA), requires:

• State agencies to tell contractors why a payment request is deficient within 30 days.
• Permits contractors to stop work if not paid.
• Require owners to pay undisputed portions of a bill
• Interest paid by an agency to a general contractor under this Act must be shared proportionally with subcontractors whose payments were delayed.

The Local Government Prompt Payment was also amended to require:

• Require owners to pay undisputed portions of a bill
• Interest paid by an agency to a general contractor under this Act must be shared proportionally with subcontractors whose payments were delayed.

Once again we need to thank Sen. Terry Link for his efforts to get this legislation passed.

SB 2399 - Prevailing Wage Start/Stop Times – SB 2399 was introduced to correct a problem created by the passage of a Prevailing Wage reform bill in the last session. This bill was introduced in the Veto Session last fall to eliminate the requirement that prevailing wage reports “include the starting and ending times for each employee.” The Governor’s signature now removes this requirement from the law.

Under recent amendments to the Illinois Income Tax Act (35 ILCS 5/1 et seq.), employers can receive a tax credit for hiring veterans.  The credit is equal to five percent of the gross annual wages, up to a maximum of $600, paid to an Illinois veteran.  To qualify for the tax credit, the veteran must have been a member of the U.S. armed forces of the Illinois National Guard and have served on active duty in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom, or Operation Iraqi Freedom.  The credit is only available, however, for wages paid to veterans hired on or after January 1, 2007.

2nd Annual Antique Tractor Show October 14-15 - Tractors for Charity have scheduled its Second Annual Antique Tractor, Truck & Construction Equipment Show.  The show will be held on Saturday and Sunday, October 14th and 15th from 9am to 5pm and will raise money for the McHenry FISH Food Pantry.  The show, for all ages, will be held at the historic Petersen Farm on McCullom Lake Road in McHenry, Illinois.  FISH is a local organization that provides needy families in the McHenry area with food, necessities and support.  The proceeds will aid in “stocking” the pantry with items for the fall and winter months – the time of the year when resources begin to run low.

The show will feature antique tractors, trucks and construction equipment from collectors all over the northern Illinois area and Wisconsin.  Many of these pieces were used in past years either on the farm or building roads in the area.  Admission will be $3.00 for adults and children under 10 will be free.  The show will include a raffle of a live pig, petting zoo, hay rides, garden tractor pull and much, much more!

If you would like to show off your vintage piece of equipment at this show please contact Darick Franzen at 815-653-0959 ext. 14 or dfranzen@tractorforcharity.com.  In addition visit our website at www.tractorsforcharity.com