Journal Editor

Three Des Plaines residents Wednesday night presented a long list of concerns and complaints about the way the City of Des Plaines conducts public business, focusing primarily on the awarding of billboard rights in 2003 to a company that was partly-owned by a convicted felon.

Members of a blue ribbon panel of the Illinois Crime Commission conducted a public hearing Wednesday night at a Des Plaines hotel. The purpose of the hearing was to give local residents an opportunity to express their concerns about the billboard issue and any other city government matters. The committee is headed by former state senator and Republican gubernatorial candidate Patrick O'Malley and Art Hannus, a former Chicago police officer. State Rep. John Millner of St. Charles is also on the committee.

The panel was formed after questions surfaced over the city's awarding of lucrative billboard rights to Premere Outdoor, Inc. and after a number of citizens called to register their complaints.

In late August, city officials learned that James Dvorak, former Cook County undersheriff and Republican Party chairman who served time in prison in the 1990s, was a shareholder of Premere Outdoor. Earlier this year, it was discovered that Dvorak was employed by a company that had been hired by the city in 2001 to help market and sell property in the Mannheim-Higgins area of Des Plaines earmarked for redevelopment. At about the same time, it became publicly known that Dvorak and Des Plaines Economic Development director, Community Development director and previously acting city manager Bill Schneider were close friends.

In late August, City Attorney Dave Wiltse, who was looking into the Dvorak connection to Premere, discovered that Lamar Outdoor Advertising paid Premere $10.5 million for the billboard rights it had secured from the city in 2003. Premere's agreement with the city allowed it to erect 10 billboards along the Northwest and Tri-State tollways near O'Hare Airport. Those signs can generate as much as $10,000 to $20,000 per month for one side. Premere sold those rights to Lamar on July 1, 2003, just 42 days after it gained the city approval.

After Lamar purchased the rights to erect 10 billboards, it sold back five of those rights to Premere Media, Inc., another company connected to Dvorak. Not long after that, media giant Viacom bought those five sign rights from Premere Media for an undisclosed price.

At Wednesday night's hearing, local residents John Leone, Marty Moylan and Brian Burkross spoke. Leone, who in June was the first to register a complaint about billboards, told committee members about his frustration over a huge sign that looms over his back yard near Touhy Avenue and River Road. He explained that in the early 1980s he and neighbors successfully fought off an attempt to erect a similar sign in the same area. So when he noticed the current sign being installed earlier this year, he became enraged, in part, because he was not previously informed.

"The value of my house has gone down $18,000," said Leone explaining that a realtor recently told his neighbor that property values in the area have decreased by that amount of money.

Moylan, former deputy director of the city's Building Department, and an electrical inspector, raised several questions about the "curious relationship" between the city, Economic Development Commission, Schneider, a few aldermen, and "dubious characters."

"Commissions were paid and fees for introducing one party to another," said Moylan. "There were altered documents and documents that were mysteriously stamped. Moylan also called into question Schneider's employment application which was discovered by the city at about the time Schneider resigned from his city job. When Schneider was hired as the city's Economic Development director in 2000, then City Manager Wally Douthwaite did not require high level job seekers to fill out application forms. Schneider's application listed that he had been convicted of mail fraud in the 1990s, a fact that apparently was unknown by anyone with the city.

Moylan also told of his concerns about the hiring of Rolling Meadows-based Prime Site Group, LLC by the city in 2001. City officials have said that five proposals to perform the sales and marketing work for the Mannheim-Higgins area were received and that Prime Site was chosen from that group. However, it's believed that the city has only been able to find two of the five proposals, one of which is Prime Site's.

Burkross, a frequent attendee of regular City Council meetings, expressed his concern and frustration with city government on a number of issues including the proposal to build a new fire headquarters at Prospect Lane and Lee Street to a plan to permit Plote Construction Co. to operate an asphalt plant on Touhy Avenue next to a mobile home park.

Approximately 30 people attended he hearing at the Double Tree hotel Wednesday night. In attendance were Ald. Carla Brookman (5th), Assistant City Manager Ray Bartel, and Des Plaines Park Dist. Executive Director John Hecker. None of the three spoke. Earlier this year, the park district had submitted a request to the city to allow the building of a billboard in Seminole Park next to the Northwest Tollway. That proposal was pulled from the City Council agenda at the last minute and has not surfaced since then. Park officials were hoping that by allowing the billboard, it would be paid approximately $50,000 a year for 20 years.

Brookman declined an invitation from O'Malley to speak at the hearing, but she agreed to meet with him privately sometime in the future.

According to Hannus, committee members will soon meet to discuss what they learned and then make plans on how to investigate those concerns.

"There are some unhappy people in Des Plaines who feel the city's let them down in a few ways," said Hannus. "Sometimes where there's smoke there's fire. City officials should have been answerable to citizens. If they had been they may have been able to avoid a lot of trouble."

Hannus, who owns a private investigative company, said, "I will soon meet with a number of my own investigators and devise a strategy."

A report of the committee's findings may be completed after the first of the year. Those findings may be forwarded to law enforcement authorities.