A Knight in Dragonland

Dean Bacon, District 108 school board member and self-anointed champion of the Pekin taxpayer, is up to his usual shenanigans, although this time he’s really seeking out the spotlight of public attention. Now that Jim Mangan is off the District 303 school board and the school consolidation issue is dead, it seems that Mr. Bacon has taken up the torch of local blowhard contrarian and conspiracy theorist.

While Bacon did not feel that voting yay or nay on selecting a new District 108 superintendent or approving the fiscal 2008 budget was worth his time (he abstained from both votes), Sir Bacon, Lord Champion of the People’s Pocketbook, has been thrown into a tizzy by a recent board vote regarding the renovation of HVAC systems at Starke school.

The 108 school board, 6-1 with Bacon the lone dissenter, voted earlier this month to grant the contract for said renovations to Commercial Mechanical, Inc. with subcontract services provided by Johnson Control Systems. The accepted bid was well under the $1.3 million budgeted for this work, but a bid from an alternative subcontractor (Technical Solutions & Services [website not found]) would have cost the district $40,350 less … at least in the short run.

Based on this article in the Times and personal communications, Johnson Control Systems services HVAC control systems at multiple District 108 schools, and District 108 administrators have been quite pleased with their services. It does seem silly to have multiple service contracts for different schools in the district, especially if the quality of the services provided has been satisfactory to date. Sometimes the cheapest isn’t always the best in the long run.

Dean Bacon’s train of thought doesn’t run along the same tracks as mine, however. Cheapest must be best, in his view, and he’s taking this matter to the Tazewell County States Attorney’s office.

District 108 attorneys certainly reviewed this contract before it was submitted to the board and found no cause for alarm. Bacon’s feeble attempt at a witch hunt is a complete waste of time for the State’s Attorney and for District 108 administrators and board members.

In fact anyone can simply look up the portion of the Illinois School Code governing such contracts and see for themselves that the District 108 board and district administrators are clearly operating within accepted parameters. While the code states that a school board should accept the lowest bid on such contracts, it also states the following (emphasis mine):

The accepted bid does not have to be the lowest bid in terms of contract price, where the award is made in the public interest, in the exercise of discretionary power granted under the laws, without fraud, unfair dealing, or favoritism, and where there is a sound and reasonable basis for the award as made.

Mr. Bacon, by taking this to the State’s Attorney, is implying that there is “fraud, unfair dealing, or favoritism” in play here. That’s clearly the gestalt behind statements such as this one by Bacon quoted in the Times:

If they (school officials) were going to go with Johnson Control Systems then why would they allow other companies to bid for the job? Deals like this lead people to wonder what’s really going on.

Of course, as far as I can tell, Bacon has not a single shred of evidence to back up his innuendo of fraud and favoritism.

This is quite simply a publicity stunt. Mr. Bacon is seeking to call attention to himself by playing the “Champion of the Taxpayer” card … but this Bacon is really bologna. He’s wasting the time of District 108 and Tazewell County officials, and since time is money, Mr. Bacon is the one uselessly throwing away taxpayer dollars for his own self-aggrandizement.