A two-year battle of waste-industry giants for license to manage the most potentially lucrative piece of land ever controlled by Will County shifted Thursday to Circuit Court, where attorneys locked horns over the validity of a multi-million dollar contract to build and operate a landfill at the former Joliet Arsenal.
At issue during more than four hours of legal arguments before Judge William Penn is whether the Will County Board’s awarding of the contract to Waste Management of Illinois Inc. was done fairly or, as attorneys for the losing bidder allege, the transaction has “an odor” about it.
Thursday’s hearing before Penn centered on an attempt by the county to have a lawsuit filed in June by contract runner-up City Environmental Services Inc., of Joliet, dismissed in advance of trial. It also centered on that firm’s request that Waste Management be barred from acting further on its board-approved agreement with the county based on allegations that, among other things, Will officials violated the state’s competitive bidding laws and its own rules along the way.
City Management, the Detroit-based parent of City Environmental, is suing the county over a process it contends was weighted on behalf of Waste Management, which has intervened in the case on the county’s side.
Attorneys for City Management implied Thursday that discovery in the case, which is yet to come, would reveal that the county’s award process smacked of favoritism.
“We said it in our complaint and will say it again–there is an odor emanating from this whole transaction,” said Thomas Fallucca, City Management’s in-house attorney. “There is something wrong here,” he said, noting that it doesn’t appear from the wording of the contract signed by Waste Management of Illinois Inc. that its parent company guarantees its performance in compliance with the county’s request of the bidders.
“We have raised a very fair question about what was going on here,” argued Fallucca’s co-counsel, Cathy Ann Pilkington, of Chicago.
At most, City Management is seeking a court order mandating that Will County Executive Charles Adelman reopen negotiations with the firm. At least, it is asking Penn to temporarily block all further activity in connection with the landfill plans.
Rockford-based attorney Charles Helsten, who represents the county, argued Thursday that the City Management lawsuit amounts to little more than the actions of a sore loser. Helsten is leading the charge for dismissal of the entire lawsuit.
“The rules were we could reject anything. There was no hiding of the ball,” argued Helsten.
“Where in the law does it say we had to negotiate a contract with them?” he said.
Penn, who said he was taking the pretrial motions under advisement, asked all the parties to commit their respective positions in writing on what he should conclude from Thursday’s hearing and submit them by Aug. 18.
The county is targeting the 455-acre landfill site, located at the far southern edge of the 23,500-acre former munitions complex, to be operational within three to four years, when existing landfill capacity in the county is expected to be exhausted. The county’s solid-waste plan calls for the 14 million ton capacity landfill north of South Arsenal Road, near Wilmington, to be privately designed, built and operated and to be available to accept Will County waste for up to 23 years.
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Penn observed Thursday that, assuming an appeal regardless of how he rules, that the pending litigation could take another 18 months to be resolved.
The protracted two-year waste-pact process ended in May with award of a government contract with Waste Management, dubbed the largest ever in the history of Will County government.
From early on the process was marked by allegations of political favoritism, paid lobbying by a state senator on behalf of one of the bidders and by secret meetings between members of a County Board committee assigned to oversee the review and selection process.
The contract is expected to generate nearly $300 million in revenue over the next two decades.
It was disclosed last week and mentioned again in court that Adelman and two members of his family attended the sixth game of the Chicago Bulls basketball finals in June as guests of Waste Management just after he signed the contract.
Adelman defended his decision to attend the game by saying he accepted the firm’s invitation at a point when the contract was already signed.
It was just over a year ago that Adelman, who charged that the selection process had become tainted, vetoed a County Board resolution authorizing him to negotiate a contract first with City Management. He then restarted the review process.