Lake County Gazette

Sen. Pamela Althoff (R-McHenry) made it clear appearances are not always what they seem during a Senate Transportation Committee hearing on Illinois Toll Highway Authority’s procurement process.

The meeting, which was called to discuss recently alleged discrepancies in the tollway procurement process, had committee members and state officials voicing their opinions straight from the hip.

Chief Procurement Officer for Illinois Jan Morrow said the tollway conducts its business based on procurement codes and the Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS) Act.

“QBS differs from other competitive procurement methods in that the award is not to the low price or best value offer,” Morrow said.

Morrow added that QBS offers contracts to the best-qualified vendor as outlined in the Brooks Act, which calls for the selection of engineers and architects according to competency.

Tollway Authority Executive Director Liz Gorman and Chief of Procurement John Donato also addressed the committee, saying they were there to “set the record straight” on accusations and unfounded reports regarding the tollway procurement process.

“We appreciate the previous remarks by Chief Procurement Officer Jan Morrow making clarifications and highlighting procedures for several recently noted procurements,” Gorman said.

As far as transparency, Gorman said the user-financed tollway follows all procurement regulations.

“We go above and beyond in our transparency efforts, listing all of our contracts and subsequent payments online,” Gorman said.

When discussing the transparency of Morelli Communications, Althoff came to the defense of the business in question.

“Maybe I have a little bit of a different perspective in all honesty and foretelling,” Althoff said. “I worked with Morelli Communications on a tollway project for almost four years, which was the intersection of 47 and I-90.”

Althoff said one of her communities actually hired that firm to continue the communications because “we found it extraordinarily valuable as we went forward with the project,” she said. 

“I just want to make it abundantly clear that when that entity came forward to not only the village but in front of all of the public comments, they disclosed their potential conflict of interest and they had done all of the background communications with all of the state’s appropriate entities to assure there was (no) wrongdoing or illegal actions,” Althoff added.

That is when Althoff addressed Sen. David Koehler (D-Peoria), who earlier  in the meeting brought up how even the appearance of a conflict of interest “in the public’s eyes equally undermines  the credibility of the state and how legislators do business.”

She said there are numerous officials in state government who have spouses who serve on advisory commissions and serve as board members of entities who have all done their due diligence in ensuring there isn’t a potential conflict of interest.

“I tell people ‘you don’t know how many people are married to each other because they met as staffers,’” Althoff said.

She even used herself as an example.

“When I was mayor, my husband owned the largest electrical contracting firm and did tons of work for the city, and we continually disclosed there was no conflict of interest,” Althoff said. “Sometimes there is always going to be somebody who sees a hidden agenda, and tries to make a bigger deal out if then there is.”