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Records show $533,089SchoolwithtietomemberpactrecipientBy TOM TOZERMore than $500,000 in contracts from the Will county Private Industry council (PIC) were awarded last year to a Romeoville job training school headed by a PIC board member, a review of PIC records by The Star has revealed.To fund Job Training and Partnership act (JTPA) programs it administers in the county, PIC has awarded a total of $1.38 million in contracts to area agencies, among them private, not-for-profit companies and educational institutions.Roger Claar, PIC vice chairman, member of the newly created Will county Center for Community Concerns and mayor of Bolingbrook, is director of the Wilco Area Career center in Romeoville, which received the $533,089 in PIC contracts to fund various training programs. PIC executive director Mark McCormicktighway feesWill countycounty, such as Frankfort, and claims that heavy construction equipment is ruining roads there.There is an ordinance that can force a developer to improve the roadway in front of his development, Dunn said, but more is needed.“When the developer starts he comes in with all types of ... equipment to cut up the property, building roads to start their construction. Then water and sewer lines are placed with more heavy equipment.“Even well and septic systems create much traffic. Our roads are deteriorating,” Dunn’s letter reads.DUNN SUGGESTS the county require housing developers to lend “a helping hand” in township road main-(Please turn to Page A-2)said the career center also receives state funding.MCCORMICK SAID Friday Claar was on the 31-member PIC board when the contracts with Wilco were approved, but that Claar abstained from votes on contracts awarded to the center he directs.Claar could not be reached for comment Friday.PIC has been under fire in recent months because of its contract practices. The local agency first came under scrutiny after disclosures that it signed a lease to pay $106,000 annually to rent offices in a Joliet building that was sold a year and a half ago for $85,000. The revelation prompted a state Senate resolution, sponsored by by state Sen. George Sangmeister (D-Mokena), directing Illinois Auditor Gen. Robert G. Cron-son to review the agency’s financial records.Citing irregularities surrounding PIC activities and questions of political favoritism in the agency’s practices, Sangmeister called for the audit early last month. But the auditor general decided against the review, contending his office has no jurisdiction to conduct a financial audit ofthe quasi-governmental agency.Sangmeister said he was told the auditor general views PIC as a not-for-profit agency over which he has no authority.ALSO AMONG the contracts is a $76,000 pact awarded to a consulting company headed by Republican county board member Glenn Coburn, of Frankfort. For that amount, Lucien B. Johnson and Associates is collecting data from local Chambers of Commerce for an industrial retention program.Coburn’s company has put together a 10-page questionnaire for use in compiling data from area companies,(Please turn to Page A-2)
Newspaper Details
Orland Park Star
Orland Park, Illinois, US
Sun, Jan 04, 1987
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
AZ, USA 30 Jan 2020
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