* WCIA…
Even during an unprecedented 23-month long budget impasse, the state of Illinois is somehow managing to make millionaires out of first-time commercial real estate buyers.
Michael Grazi, a 49-year-old Brooklyn native, is cautiously optimistic that he’s on the verge of striking it rich — if the state ever gets around to paying its bills.
Grazi bought an empty Springfield warehouse at a tax auction in 2014 for $760,000. After three years of failing to find a tenant for what Grazi claims is his first-ever real estate deal, the Bruce Rauner administration accepted his offer and signed a 5-year lease worth $2.04 million. The deal goes into effect on June 1st, 2017. […]
CMS claims between 80 and 100 DoIT staff will eventually occupy the building next to Harbor Freight after renovations are completed. Currently, those staff are working out of Building 30 at the State Fairgrounds. The DHS warehouse staff moved in from a former Department of Corrections property in Dwight, Illinois. The IDOT pole barn contains documents previously stored in various government agencies. None of the three properties are fully occupied, although CMS Director Michael Hoffman has insisted they will reach capacity later this summer. […]
Grazi claimed he was in line to win the DHS lease, but says he lost out to the Cellini family at the last second. CMS records show Grazi did apply for the IDOT deal, but he is not listed in the DHS paperwork.
Yikes.
And why the heck are we spending money to move employees from a government-owned building to a leased building?
*** UPDATE *** Gov. Rauner was on Tom Miller’s radio program today and was asked about the lease. Rauner blamed the procurement process. I kid you not…
It’s because of our procurement system. We’re blocked on what we can buy and how we can do. Our procurement system is broken. That’s why the procurement reforms we were able to get through the Senate will help make that better. We can save money. Our bureaucratic purchasing process with all the restrictions in it, costs, wastes taxpayer money about a half a billion dollars a year.
So, less hoops to clear will mean fewer needless and potentially shady leases?
Right.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* The Senate held a hearing on this issue today and our buddies at BlueRoomStream.com provided us an embed…
- Anonymous - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:07 am:
If the procurement process wasn’t so screwed up
I’d sell them oceanfront property in Dixon.
- Norseman - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:08 am:
Big league sad situation for our leaderless state government.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:09 am:
Governor Turnaround seems to havd not made enough of an impression within his own administration regarding how government should avoid wasting taxpayer’s money.
You’d think Rauner was a status quo kind of leader, instead of a guy “shaking up Illinois”.
This is not news. It has been festering since Spring, yet Governor Rauner has done nothing to address this. No governing, no CK press release to fix this embarrassment, nothing to show that his campaign statements were legit.
If one of his political enemies allowed this to have gotten this far, Bruce and Kenny would have sunk a few million on television ads by now.
Rauner is a failure.
- Louis Capricious - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:09 am:
=== Rauner blamed the procurement process. ===
Aside from the Exelon bill, Gov. “I’ll Take the Arrows” has taken responsibility for precisely nothing.
=== And why the heck are we spending money to move employees from a government-owned building to a leased building? ===
C’mon, Rich: So Cellini and/or his ilk can make some money!
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:09 am:
===Our bureaucratic purchasing process with all the restrictions in it, costs, wastes taxpayer money about a half a billion dollars a year.===
“Because… my agency!”
Rauner can’t have his own agency look at “the numbers” and determine if it seems a “bit” high or inconsistent with reasonable business practices, practices that also include value and price and market?
Rauner’s a businessman. Am I now suppose to believe Rauner isn’t that great at business too?
Oh boy…
- Ahoy! - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:09 am:
–So, less hoops to clear will mean fewer needless and potentially shady leases?–
Well removing the hoops obviously makes it easier for corruption, but keeping the hoops in place means less competition because those who know how to jump through the hoops (usually most best connected people) are the only ones able to get the deals. Seems like the best fix is plain old good management.
Illinois needs a plan and a system in place to deal with it’s buildings and leases because obviously what we have is leading to large scale financial waste.
The state is paying huge amounts over market value while keeping some of their employees in dumps of a building.
It might be time to look at completely gutting and fixing CMS.
- Commonsense in Illinois - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:10 am:
Um sir, it’s your agency…your director…meaning you’re accountable.
- Nick Name - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:16 am:
I wonder if Gov. Gaslight’s index finger ever gets tired from him always pointing it in every direction except at himself.
- NoGifts - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:17 am:
If he’d have done the state budget he could have spent the last two years straightening out the state’s procurement system. That’s a reform most people could get behind.
- poke - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:21 am:
The procurement process is broken but not so broken that we can trust him to handle a $30 BILLION RFP to privatize Medicaid?
- VanillaMan - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:21 am:
Rauner’s only alternative will be to run against the incumbent governor next year.
Rauner. SAD!
- poke - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:22 am:
Doesn’t accept responsibility, doesn’t assign accountability.
So Republicans like individual responsibility for poor people, but that talking point does not apply to themselves?
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:23 am:
===Our procurement system is broken. That’s why the procurement reforms we were able to get through the Senate will help make that better.===
I dunno, I can’t recall any procurement policy that states you pay far more in leases than you can buy a facility or looking for leased space is a priority over staying in a state owned building.
Now, granted, I’m not the governor and those pesky procedures are, according to Governor Rauner, more powerful that common sense or math or… oversight… I’m just confused about one thing… When these leases got approved, the governor’s office was cool with them then, or when was it that these leases became… not so cool?
- VanillaMan - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:24 am:
Too focused on what he could do to hurt everyone else, he forgot to govern!
- Juice - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:28 am:
Procurements would probably also run more smoothly if the state were say, I dunno, paying its bills.
But that’s just a hunch.
- Michelle Flaherty - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:40 am:
Poor poor governor. Reduced to a powerless bureaucrat victimized by the process he oversees.
- DuPage Bard - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:49 am:
Why fix anything? Seems the fix is already in. Sweetheart deal that he’s been hit on for over a month and now he says it’s procurement reform?
https://realgopillinois.com/2017/05/01/rauner-pressure-fire-appointee-frank-vala/
- Keyrock - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:52 am:
One can only admire the way Rauner takes arrows. /snark
- Dance Band on the Titanic - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 11:55 am:
Let me get this straight. The Governor is claiming the procurement process is broken. Okay.
Yet his agency director follows the broken procurement process to unnecessarily move storage operations to the most costly option (which just happens to, by coincidence, benefit a heavy GOP hitter) instead of just holding everything in place until the system is fixed?
Something ain’t kosher.
- Pundent - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 12:03 pm:
I thought we elected a business leader? Since when is a CEO allowed to say, “don’t blame me, blame the people that work for me”?
- RNUG - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 12:04 pm:
== The state is paying huge amounts over market value while keeping some of their employees in dumps of a building. ==
And the State is paying a premium because the property owners can’t be sure when they will actually get paid.
Gee, do you think a budget might help fix that?
- Jocko - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 12:05 pm:
Michael Grazi is either the luckiest guy in Illinois or someone in his social circle knows something/someone.
- RNUG - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 12:06 pm:
== Since when is a CEO allowed to say, “don’t blame me, blame the people that work for me”? ==
Didn’t Rauner use that line in the nursing home lawsuit?
- Cubs in '16 - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 12:08 pm:
When asked why he’s done no actual governing since taking office Rauner responded “It’s the governing system. It’s broken. I’m, we’re blocked on what we can do by these co-equal branches of government. We need to reform this broken system.”–fake Governor
- Anonymous - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 12:15 pm:
DHS purchased a scanner for digitizing documents, awarded via public bid to a sole bidder- the other bid was lost.
The sole award was 133k.
This cost it was purchased at is double the actual product cost as the winning vendor charged the state 100% mark up.
- Anonymous - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 12:16 pm:
DHS just bought a scanner at double it’s actual cost by a vendor who charged 100% mark up, To the tune of 133k
- Anonymous - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 12:21 pm:
The real story may be who they are moving into the building at the Fairgrounds.
- Demoralized - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 1:07 pm:
The procurement process made us sign that lease!
- Highspeed - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 1:28 pm:
So apparently ISP is using all the space in the Franklin Building?
- wordslinger - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 2:56 pm:
== Since when is a CEO allowed to say, “don’t blame me, blame the people that work for me”? ==
Didn’t Rauner use that line in the nursing home lawsuit?–
The Sgt. Schultz defense, every time.
But the key thing in Florida was to lay off all the liability on a sick old man in a wheelchair, without his knowledge.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-bruce-rauner-nursing-home-0928-20140928-story.html
- Arthur Andersen - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 3:45 pm:
Highspeed, you have got to be kidding. After assuring CMS that they would not do this, ISP moved in, glommed on to all the good space,( including the best office in Springfield, the old Franklin Life President’s Office, tie closet included,for a Director who was never in town) the State Police slammed down the security card and effectively closed down the building to non-ISP tenants. The best CMS could do was ridiculous countermeasures like moving the local District 9 HQ into a floor of Franklin, aggravating, not reducing security problems and creating inconvenience for the public and the Troopers of the District who have to drive almost square into the center of town instead of just off the highway. As an aside, ISP has not commented on the shooting which occurred in their parking lot aka 1000 S. Eighth last Friday.
- Chicago 20 - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 4:41 pm:
The man who was going to “Shake up Springfield” has us shaking our heads.
The Governor is broken and makin’ Illinois broke.
- Last Bull Moose - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 4:44 pm:
AA. Sounds like the State Police don’t work for the Governor. /s
- Former State Employee - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 7:15 pm:
I’ve been there. Been through it. Take my word for this if you want, these leases are Dirty/Dirty/Dirty.
- Arthur Andersen - Thursday, May 25, 17 @ 9:55 pm:
Moose, they never have and most are proud of it.
There are retired mid-level sworn officers in the ISP who will tell you they were instructed at the Academy during a Criminal Law class that CMS has no jurisdiction over the State Police and that bureaucrats who “refuse a lawful order” are subject to arrest.