A commentary by Mike Quigley/Retired
Dugan to spend even more dues money on a 911 center for the City of Wilmington. And without your permission.
What was reported as a $50 million dollar facility seems to have been pared down to around $300,000 which will be paid for with your dues money.
At the Dist 2 meeting on Thursday Treasurer Marshall Douglas new nothing when asked. The new Training Site genius Mike Rorex didn't seemed to know even less about what was happening
with the new plans. So what's new? He denied knowing the costs and said that there were more participants than just local 150, he declined to name them or as usual just
didn't seem to know. Have you noticed lately at the union meetings that most of this new regime doesn't know a hell of a lot about what's going on in the local?
When you ask a question that's relevant to the membership, no one can give you a straight answer.
In exchange for your dues money to build this facility, the use of a crane was promised, and a zoning ordinance was changed to allow a caretaker to live on the facility? To do what?
I guess 5th amendment Faulk needs a new home. Oh and by the way, what happened to the security system that costs the members millions to protect our assets? When asked at the
district 2 meeting who the caretaker would be Rorex said he was, so I guess among whatever else the boy genius does he cuts grass too! Members deserve direct,
truthful answers, not smartass remarks. Talk about classless leadership.
What a shame that dues money gets spent and questions never get answered, what the heck is going on in this local?
Building plans still unfinished
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
May 14, 2008
By KIM SMITH KSMITH@SCN1.COM
WILMINGTON -- Plans to add a caretaker residence for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 training facility are still on the drawing board.
Exact costs are not yet in for the new facility that will also include a new dispatch center. The union spent about $50 million to construct the new training facility on the grounds.
Costs for the new addition are expected to come in substantially less.
"The building is still in the design/bid stage and I don't expect to have a firm number soon," said Mike Brennan, a representative of Local 150. "It will not be that big of a building."
Brennan described the new building as a single story building of 40-by-80 with a garage. The new dispatch center is a 40-by-40 portion of the new facility with the union using the garage.
The caretakers would share the building with the 911 dispatchers.
The union is picking up the tab for the exterior of the new dispatch center. Funds from the 911 center would be used to pay for the needed furnishings and equipment needed to transform the building into the southern Will County dispatch center.
Opposition to plans
Plans for the new center met with some officials publicly speaking out against allowing someone to live in an area zoned for industrial use.
To construct the facility, a special use permit was needed due to the fact that the targeted property along South Arsenal Road is zoned only for industrial use.
During the discussion, City Administrator Sheryl Puracchio said 150 officials told her they would not be moving a family into the facility. A $50 million price tag for the new addition was discussed during the meeting and later turned out to be incorrect. While there was some opposition to granting the needed special use permit, the request was passed.
Moving dispatchers out of the current police station would help alleviate the space crunch the department currently faces in their building. The building that houses the police station was originally designed to serve as a bank. The building is well below state standards and the state could opt to close the station at any time.
New facility
Last summer, there was a grand opening for the Local 150 brand new, state-of-the-art facility that was constructed on former arsenal property at 19800 S. Arsenal Road in Wilmington South.
Arsenal Road comes in east off of Illinois 53 near the Midewin Tallgrass Prairie supervisor's center.
There are more than 21,000 members of the local with membership spanning from Northern Illinois through most of Northern Indiana on the east and seven Iowa counties to the west along the Mississippi River.
The new center boasts one of the largest indoor earth-moving arenas in the country. This allows the engineers to offer training in winter weather.
The building sits on 300 acres with the training center taking up more than 330,000 square feet. Apprentices are trained in operating heavy equipment, maintenance, earth moving, soil drilling and other construction related work.
The training center attracts about 200 people a day to the community.