Journal Editor

An anticipated report on the city's relationship with Premere Outdoor, Inc. billboard company, due to be unveiled and discussed on Oct. 27, probably won't be enough to satisfy most of the city's eight aldermen, according to one leading member of City Council.

In that case, said Legal & Licensing Committee chairman Ald. Don Smith (7th), he will push for a more comprehensive review.

"I want this and that's what I think Laura wants," said Smith Monday night following the regular City Council meeting in City Hall. Laura is Ald. Laura Murphy (3d) who said she wants the city staff to conduct an independent review of the billboard issue.

Smith also reiterated comments he made in early September about his strong concerns involving the billboard matter. In those comments, Smith raised the possibility of billboard business being steered to a specific company by one or more city representatives. If that occurred, he said, something would have to be done.

The billboard issue involves a decision by Des Plaines aldermen in May of 2003 to grant a connected company the right to erect 10 billboards in the city. Not long after that approval was given, the company was sold to a major outdoor advertising firm. With that sale went the right to erect at least five of the billboards which regularly fetch large sums of money in the form of advertising placement. There is speculation that the company that secured the city's approval sold each billboard for approximately $1 million.

As revealed by the Journal in a number of recent articles, two convicted felons were officers of the billboard company. One of those officers of Premere Outdoor, Inc., James Dvorak, has been a close friend of Bill Schneider, who at the time was the city employee most responsible for handling land use, zoning and redevelopment matters. Schneider resigned from his city job earlier this year after it was learned that he, too, was a convicted felon. He was convicted of mail fraud in the mid-1990s. Joseph P. Nicosia, Jr., the other former officer of Premere, is awaiting sentencing in an Oak Brook insurance fraud scheme.

At Monday night's City Council meeting, Ald. Smith announced that his committee will meet on Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 9 a.m. to discuss the billboard matter. Specifically, members will focus on City Attorney Dave Wiltse's report on the circumstances that led to the decision to award Premere the right to install 10 billboards along the Northwest and Tri-State tollways.

After Monday night's meeting, Smith questioned whether Wiltse's report will be detailed enough to satisfy most aldermen. He explained that he believes the expected report will be limited in its scope as outlined in early September by committee members. At an early September meeting, aldermen agreed to hold off issuing any more permits for billboards until Wiltse's review is completed.

Said Smith, "I'd like to see who profited and to what extent and why. I don't know if Dave (Wiltse) will have those answers."

In early September, a concerned Smith called for an investigation into how the billboard matter unfolded in the wake of discovering Dvorak's involvement. That discovery was the third time Dvorak's name has been linked to city-related projects. The other two were the development project of the Mannheim-Higgins area, and the possible development of the Fisherman's Dude Ranch property on Golf Road.

"If business has been steered to anyone by anyone in the city that's wrong and something's got to be done about it," said Smith.