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U.S. Bank, which has a representative on the board, pays $1,500 a month to operate the only bank branch on campus, a noncompetitive deal approved by trustees in October 2012. The bank's Chicago market president, Marsha Cruzan, has served on the school's foundation since July 2010.
St. Charles-based Bison Gear & Engineering also has done a small amount of business with the college, selling $7,550 worth of equipment in the past year. A foundation official said Bison Chairman Ronald Bullock — a foundation member who donated $275,000 for student scholarships last year — would not have been aware of such a minor transaction at his company.
The companies and their foundation-connected representatives either did not return calls seeking comment or deferred most questions to the college.
Amid the Tribune's reporting, college attorneys Kenneth Florey, of Robbins Schwartz, and Steven Ruffalo, of Fuchs & Roselli, stepped down from the foundation board, citing personal and business reasons. Payments to their firms are included in the Tribune's analysis because they were sitting board members until earlier this month.
The college declined to provide contracts signed before July 2010 and didn't release any records until a Tribune attorney intervened. Officials also would not provide records showing proposals from those companies, though the officials contend all went through a competitive process before their first deal with the school. The vast majority of the payments were for construction work as the college has built or significantly renovated a number of buildings since Breuder became president in 2009.
A review of more than 900 pages of invoices, contracts and board minutes shows that the college has paid more than $192 million in the past five years to Mortenson Construction and Power Construction. The two companies have spearheaded projects funded by a successful referendum in fall 2010, when voters approved a $168 million measure to expand the campus' homeland security education center and renovate other buildings.
College officials say the $192 million figure is misleading because it includes payments that passed through the construction companies to other contractors. They also said the amount includes both construction management fees — which were not competitively awarded — as well as construction work for which the companies submitted bids.
School officials declined a Tribune request to provide an itemized accounting of the payments made to Mortenson and Power. Both companies deferred questions to the college, which argued that no quid pro quo existed because neither firm had a seat on the foundation board until last year.
Though the foundation does not provide detailed information about contributions, records show the foundation-connected construction companies are among the largest lifetime donors to the group. Both Mortenson and Power have donated at least $50,000 each over the years, according to the organization's annual report. Mortenson — which served as construction manager for the McAninch Arts Center renovations — also donated $50,000 last year to be the "platinum sponsor" of the building's re-opening celebration.
The firms also have contributed financially in other ways.
In 2010, the two contributed to a political action committee started by college administrators to help promote the building referendum. Mortenson gave $5,000, and Power employees contributed $10,000 of the $65,000 raised in total, according to state campaign records.
Eight months after the referendum's passage, school trustees awarded both companies construction management contracts.
"You have this culture of pinstripe patronage," said Chicago attorney Mark Stern, who raised questions about the political action committee during the referendum campaign. "People are contributing money to the people making the decisions."
There have been signs that trustees and law enforcement officials have begun to recognize potential problems with the procurement system. Before the federal investigation, DuPage County prosecutors began looking into no-bid contracts awarded to Herricane owner Carla Burkhart, who joined the foundation board in June 2012.
The Tribune recently reported that Burkhart has billed more than $630,000 to design and install signs for the school over the past four years without submitting a single competitive bid, including a new project awarded in 2014. Much of the work was made possible through a contract that references her experience as an architect, though she is not one.
McGuire — who is spearheading a board review of foundation-connected contracts — said in the interview Monday that she now feels comfortable with the existing deals after the college recently compiled statistics showing the fees were within industry standards. She also applauded a recent decision to bid an architectural contract for a new Naperville facility.
A new vendor won that job.
She said she intends to recommend that the college seek proposals from several companies before agreeing to professional service contracts in the future.
"I don't want to make it a mandatory process," she said. "I think we want to leave some flexibility in place, but definitely encourage that."
Although McGuire had been rebuffed by Breuder in December 2013, emails last fall show she continued to push for an open and competitive contracting process.
"If a foundation board member is also a vendor of the college, then the board of trustees must be assured that any contracts they receive must be shown to be competitive with other similar service providers," she wrote in an October 2014 email to Breuder. "(O)therwise, it has the appearance of pay to play ... we must be able to defend that contract if questioned."
Breuder replied that the college had no legal obligation to bid contracts awarded to foundation members.
When McGuire asked what harm could be done by a competitive process, Breuder ended the discussion.
"I am comfortable where we are," he wrote. "That said, we can always look at another step at times. We will rely on our good judgment."
Two months later — at McGuire's urging — the college board approved a new competitive contract for lobbying services. Foundation member Scott Marquardt had handled the college's lobbying efforts since 2010, and had joined the foundation board in July 2012.
The college had been paying him $5,000 per month under several non-competitive contracts.
But, when it came time to renew the deal last year, the school solicited proposals from 33 lobbying firms.
In the end, Marquardt submitted the only proposal, but he lowered his price to $4,500 a month — saving the college $6,000 a year.
Tribune reporter Christy Gutowski contributed.
This is a fast, easy, and oh so yummy way to make crispy bun homemade pizza, or even have a pizza party for family and friends, where everyone can make a one of their own wishes and taste.
You can make all alike, or you can have several different kinds of topping ready, and let the imagination set the guidelines. It is great for a lunch, dinner, midnight or any time snack. I think the only meal I haven't made these for, is breakfast. But now that it's mentioned, why not!
Set the fajitas on a cookie sheet.
Serve with garlic sauce on the side if you so desire.
A large, brand-new movie studio in Palm Beach County already has a potential box-office hit.
Twentieth Century Fox will film interior scenes for Speed II, sequel to the popular 1994 action movie, in the 20,000-square-foot sound stage at Palm Beach Ocean Studios in West Palm Beach, the studio's chief executive said on Thursday.
"I said when we opened in April we'd be lucky to get something in here by September," said Thorpe Shuttleworth, president and developer of the 42,000-square-foot studio at the Vista Center on Okeechobee Boulevard, west of Florida's Turnpike.
"And now we've got a high-budget action-adventure feature. Yes, that's a coup," he said.
Speed II will star Sandra Bullock, making a return appearance in the sequel, and Jason Patric, who is taking over the role played by Keanu Reeves in the original, according to Variety, the movie industry's trade publication.
Speed II will help get the studio's name out among film producers, said Chuck Eldred, executive director of the county's Film and Television Commission.
Eldred pushed for the county to give Shuttleworth $208,000 in job growth incentives.
"This is exactly what we needed to attract this kind of attention here," Eldred said.
And the studio is benefiting from the increased attention being paid to South Florida by Hollywood producers after recent films such as The Birdcage and Striptease, Shuttleworth said.
The film's producers will hire extra cast members in Florida, and other technical support workers may be hired locally as well.
Film industry publications estimate the cost of making Speed II at $40 million to $70 million.
The movie's producers toured the studio in April and have been working there since Monday. Sets are under construction in preparation for filming later this year.
All photographic prints are available in three sizes: 8.5 x 11, 13 x 19, 24 x 36. All images are unframed, archival, signed, dated and captioned. In addition to the prints below, all photographs from the book are available for purchase.
There is a great diversity of inequalities in our world.
But let's focus on inequalities among states at this international global level.
among states which are less or more powerful.
social inequalities, natural inequalities and so on.
These inequalities can be considered trough the concept of human security.
cultural security, economic security, individual security.
And these securities are more or less achieved.
Let's give the priority to the food security, why?
causing also political, social and economic instability.
which are also working for the other insecurities.
About food security, let's first forget some commonplaces.
is able to feed these 7 billion of people which are composing humanity.
But it does it badly and this is the problem, it can, but it does it badly.
multiplied by 2.4 in 40 years.
That is probably something really efficient.
900 million starving people in the world.
however, the global population is increasing.
That is apparently the evidence that the situation has improved.
In proportion, starvation is fortunately decreasing.
by now currently 6,000,000 people die of starvation per year.
with very severe nutritive deficiencies.
And last point, starvation changes, formerly it was rural.
Now it's more and more urban.
that starvation in rural societies didn't have.
And starvation is more and more centered on one continent.
That's to say, on Africa.
three remarks, very important remarks, to make.
First of all, starvation, hunger, are economic problems.
That's to say the main factor of starvation is to be found in poverty.
70%, 90% of the family budget for food.
If the price of food is increasing they have just to reduce their own consumption.
but it's also as my second point, a poverty problem.
to the misconception of global public policies.
But it's also a systematic problem.
in the ways of consuming in northern, developed countries.
Let's now focus on these factors of hunger in our present world.
why our global world is not working well.
The first one is, as I mentioned, overconsumption in northern countries.
That's to say inequality ladies and gentlemen.
In his life, a Frenchman like me, will eat seven [INAUDIBLE].
9 sheep, 60 rabbits, 1,300 chickens.
in our developed countries which is taken away from the southern consumption.
area of farmland multiplied by 1.6.
China needs Its own farmland multiplied by 2.5.
multiplied by 7.1 and US by 1.9.
That explains this process of land grabbing.
vital parts of their own agricultural resources.
agriculture in thousand and developing countries.
developing countries than for developed countries.
It creates new areas of farmland in Canada or in Russia.
as you know, one of the main factors of starvation in this part of the world.
a regression of farmlands in developing countries.
which is pushing away farmlands out of the main places of urbanization.
which take every year about 100 million tons of cereals.