CHICAGO (CBS) - May 12, 2010 - Jay Levine
It was supposed to change everything. Lure new trade shows. Keep the ones we have. Even bring back the ones we've lost. But CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine says Gov. Pat Quinn is thinking twice before signing the new McCormick Place bill -- because of a sneaky maneuver.
Mostly because of the trustee lawmakers want to put in charge. A longtime political insider: Jim Reilly. And how it all went down.
James Reilly, a former McPier CEO, was paid big money to recommend changes. Among them, a new trustee to oversee all operations.
He writes the set of recommendations calling for a trustee and the recommendations just happen to fit him to a tee. Doesn't that sound suspicious?
"I don't think he wrote the recommendations to suit him, I think after listening to all the testimony, particularly from the people who sign the business that employ the people in the city of Chicago, we tried to write the recommendations to suit them," said Ill. State Rep. Greg Harris.
Those recommendations hit big labor hard: changing work rules, reducing overtime, allowing exhibitors to do more things themselves. But they left virtually unchanged the role of the contractors who put the shows together.
Greg Hinz, in Crain's, broke the story that Reilly had recently served as a consultant for those contractors in their negotiations with the unions.
One reason Gov. Quinn said today he'd be scrutinizing the bill very carefully.
"We don't want conflicts of interest when it comes to something as important as having conventions," said Quinn.
Rep. Greg Harris was on the committee that wrote the bill, based on Reilly's report.
Labor got hit hard, the contractors were virtually untouched and Reilly consulted for the contractors.
"The criticisms we heard in the testimony about contractors were the markups that they put on services like labor, and this is why we have the audit requirement," said Harris.
So what about the drayage costs, and how it costs more to move from dock to floor than Europe to Chicago?
"That's why we have the audit in there, to be sure that the savings are passed on to the customers," said Harris.
Reilly actually presided over McCormick Place in its heyday, when the center was teeming with the biggest shows, not yet seriously challenged by Vegas and Orlando.
But the way Reilly worked his way into the proposed rebirth of McPier still troubles people, including the governor.
"I'll look at it very quickly, thoroughly to make sure the public comes first and nobody on the inside gets some special advantage," said Quinn.
Reilly is the consummate insider. Though associates say he's no friend of labor, and will make them toe the line, enforcing the new work rules.
But his ties to the contractors and having the final say on those audits make you wonder if they've just assigned the fox to guard the henhouse.
CBS 2 Political Producer Ed Marshall contributed to this report.
