* WTTW…
According to his campaign website, GOP gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin has vowed to “fight tooth and nail to bring honest and good government back to Illinois.” But his own record as Aurora mayor raises questions about how political donations flowed from companies that were awarded municipal contracts and benefits.
A review of state campaign filings and Aurora public records shows that a company that donated more than $135,000 to political funds connected to Irvin also received millions in city contracts. That same company was also the beneficiary of legislation pushed by Irvin that could prove lucrative. It follows a pattern of Aurora businesses donating to Irvin and receiving tens of millions in public aid and tax incentives, as first outlined in a 2018 story from the Aurora Beacon-News.
Scientel Solutions is an Aurora-based telecommunications company that bills itself as a “technology integrator,” and has contracted with municipal governments to specialize “in networking, drone defense, security and smart city solutions.”
One of those municipal governments is the city of Aurora itself, which has awarded more than $3.2 million in tech and security contracts to Scientel during Irvin’s tenure, according to Aurora public records. One of the contracts was for “Network Infrastructure Managed Services of city-wide network infrastructure,” at a cost of $1.8 million. The other was a three-year, $1.3 million contract to maintain city security cameras.
An examination of state campaign filings shows that Irvin’s mayoral political committee has received at least $67,000 in combined contributions from Scientel, the company’s CEO Nelson Santos, his wife, and from company employees. […]
Scientel’s communications tower has drawn intrigue in the financial world because of its reported use in the lucrative and murky world of high frequency trading. That’s where big trading companies rely on computer algorithms to conduct a large volume of transactions in fractions of a second, and benefit from technology that allows them to do it faster than other traders. […]
“All of Scientel’s contracts went through a competitive bid process managed by a third party in which third party made the recommendations to City Staff who then selected Scientel as the prime. These decisions are generally made on the basis of the applicant’s experience and pricing,” the statement reads. […]
When asked to confirm or deny the company’s use of Scientel’s tower, a Citadel spokesperson declined comment to WTTW News. After this story’s publication, a Citadel spokesperson amended their initial response and said, “We don’t use the Scientel tower.”
* A few important points from that 2018 Beacon News story…
Three months after receiving the OK to come to Aurora, the company, Scientel, donated $10,000 to Irvin’s campaign fund, records show. The April donation was one of the three largest single donations the fund had ever received from anyone other than Irvin himself and followed a smaller $500 donation in January 2017 [before the project was approved].
Campaign donors have other ties to the city as well. In 2017 — Irvin’s first year in office, and the most recent year for which the city’s treasurer’s report listing vendors is available — more than $12 million of the city’s over $80 million in payments to vendors went to companies that had donated, would soon donate or were affiliated with donors to Irvin’s campaign fund, city and election records show. Most of those companies had also done business with Aurora the year before Irvin became mayor, according to records. […]
Irvin stressed that donations he receives are legal and controlled by the state board of elections, and that no project is approved without a city council vote. […]
“If they’re legal, they’re legal,” Ald. Judd Lofchie, 10th Ward, said [of the campaign contributions]. “But I do think we need to be careful of the…perception that donations can create.”
Ald. Lofchie voted for the Scientel project, went on to run a losing campaign for mayor against Irvin and was quoted bashing Irvin in the WTTW story.
* Meanwhile, Dan Proft’s new Super PAC is supporting Darren Bailey for governor, but that hasn’t kept him from commenting on the other candidates, including Irvin…
Well, the same goes for one mayor of Aurora, recently minted Republican, Richard Irvin, who is the Republican part of the Combine’s choice for the Republican candidate for governor. You know, because they want to keep the situation we’ve had, as long as I’ve been on the planet, which is, as Bill Cellini said, memorialized in a John Kass column, ‘When we’re in we’re in and when they’re in we’re in, we’re always in.’
‘Richard Irvin is going to fight tooth and nail to bring honest and good government back to Illinois.’ You’ve probably seen his commercials, you’ve heard him on our airwaves. But according to this WTTW report … [Reads aloud part of WTTW story.]
Is that a problem? Or is it only a problem when Democrats do it? Which has basically been the Illinois Republican Party’s position also since as long as I’ve been on the planet. Which is why the Illinois Republican Party is generally a legal fiction. And which is why I so enjoy, I so, so enjoy being lectured by Combine Republicans about what it takes to win elections. ‘Proft doesn’t know how to win elections.’ Do you know how to win elections? You do? And how are we in the super-super minority in the Illinois House and Senate and have been for the better part of a decade? How did the crime boss there, Mike Madigan, from the Southwest Side, rule the roost for the last four decades? We know how to win elections and to what ends in the rare occasion you do with a Rauner? How did that advance the flag for Illinois’ future those four years? Not to mention going back to … George Ryan, Edgar and Thompson. Anything to avoid conservative reform, that should be the Illinois Republican Party’s motto. They’re fraudsters. They have been, they continue to be and Richard Irvin is their latest frontman.
Please pardon all transcription errors.
- well... - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 10:14 am:
Is that the same Dan Proft who got $578,000 in no-bid contracts from Cicero?
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-09-25-0809242317-story.html
- Just Another Anon - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 10:28 am:
Are “Combine” Republicans made by John Deere, New Holland, Massey, or International Harvester?
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 10:31 am:
===And how are we in the super-super minority in the Illinois House and Senate and have been for the better part of a decade?===
Thanks for asking, Dan. I’d say you’re in the minority because you, Dan Proft, helped convince a significant segment of Illinois Republicans that opposing abortion at all costs would win elections. And then opposing civil rights for human beings who identify as LGBQT and demonizing them because it wasn’t enough to deny them rights.
You’re a culture warrior Dan, and you lost. And you took an entire state political party down with you. You might not have invented the term RINO, but you weaponized it as never before.
Illinoisans aren’t interested in the constant culture wars. They want honest, efficient government. They want good schools and decent infrastructure, they want a climate in which to grow a small business. Republicans used to offer this stuff. Thanks to you, they don’t anymore.
Republicans also used to win statewide. Thanks to you, they don’t anymore.
- Baloneymous - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 10:42 am:
“All of Scientel’s contracts went through a competitive bid process managed by a third party in which third party made the recommendations to City Staff who then selected Scientel as the prime.”
- Ok fine, but then who was the third party?
“If they’re legal, they’re legal,” Ald. Judd Lofchie, 10th Ward, said [of the campaign contributions]. “But I do think we need to be careful of the…perception that donations can create.”
- no one forced him to take the money, he could have refused to take the campaign contributions based on bad perception.
- Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 10:42 am:
There goes the anti-insider/corruption message, receiving campaign donations and issuing contracts. Then again, Rauner was an “outsider” who received public benefits and “donated” generously, like getting pension business and his daughter clouted into school. Irvin was more “Democratic” than even thought.
Maybe Griffin was in such a rage over another billionaire who supports unions and a healthy state budget that he didn’t get Griffin properly?
- TheInvisibleMan - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 10:47 am:
Those microwave communication towers in Aurora have been an interesting story for years. Bloomberg ran an excellent story on it back in 2019.
The amount of money that is at stake is almost unfathomable.
Scientel is just one of them. The one showing up in campaign disclosures. There are many more of them out there. I doubt all of them took the same public money route. Scientel is probably the least worrisome one in the group.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-08/the-gazillion-dollar-standoff-over-two-high-frequency-trading-towers
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 10:59 am:
===A review of state campaign filings and Aurora public records shows that a company that donated more than $135,000 to political funds connected to Irvin also received millions in city contracts.===
Since we have the Edgar Ramp can we also have the term Edgar Contributions?
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:03 am:
===can we also have the term Edgar Contributions?===
(Sigh)
Most “non multi-millionaire” incumbent types have donors who may have connections to business in the roles of governing.
It’s when it’s framed as a quid pro quo that it gets sticky, that includes labor or social service type industries with benefactors.
- anon2 - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:28 am:
== It’s when it’s framed a quid pro quo that it gets sticky. ==
Most are smart enough not to say that part out loud.
- PublicServant - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:28 am:
Take it back…and put it in a shoebox maybe?
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:31 am:
===‘Proft doesn’t know how to win elections.’ Do you know how to win elections? You do? And how are we in the super-super minority in the Illinois House and Senate and have been for the better part of a decade?===
I do appreciate Proft’s self own here, that he (Proft) doesn’t know how to win elections. I appreciate it very much. lol
This turn of his thought and premise only works by wholly admitting he (Proft) doesn’t know how to win elections.
Maybe Uihlein should listen to Proft’s own admission.
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:32 am:
===Most are smart enough===
That list is shrinking by the indictment it seems, maybe “some” might be the better word choice?
- Arsenal - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:50 am:
So we can maybe add “pay to play” to the list of things Irvin was for before he was against.
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:52 am:
==I do appreciate Proft’s self own here, that he (Proft) doesn’t know how to win elections. I appreciate it very much. lol==
Indeed. I think Proft’s message is something like “If we’re going to lose, let’s lose my way. It makes me feel good to hear myself talk, and I like that money in my pocket.”
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:56 am:
=== Indeed. I think Proft’s message is something like “If we’re going to lose, let’s lose my way. It makes me feel good to hear myself talk, and I like that money in my pocket.”===
Proft agrees with you…
===They’re fraudsters===
… projection is real.
:)
- Thomas Paine - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 11:56 am:
Rich -
I think the bigger story around the donations is not the city contracts, but the zoning changes that brought Scientel Solutions HQ to aurora in the first place:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct-abn-aurora-scientel-st-1020-20171020-story.html
The first attempt to get their zoning approve failed. Mayor Irvin pushed to reverse that decision and personally lobbied members of the city council to approve it.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct-abn-aurora-scientel-st-0111-20180110-story.html
He pulled an Ed Burke.
- Roadrager - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 12:01 pm:
==”Is that a problem? Or is it only a problem when Democrats do it?”–
Well Danny, I believe that for you, it’s only a problem when the checks aren’t on offer or don’t clear.
Proft, Kass, and Bailey. I can hardly think of three who deserve each other more. I just wish they’d do it all somewhere else.
- Lincoln Lad - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 12:11 pm:
Ken Griffin should keep his money, maybe put it toward his Chelsea bid with the Ricketts. Irvin is a bad investment… the investment guru has to realize that already.
- Demoralized - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 12:30 pm:
Dan Proft is from the purity wing of the Republican Party where it is better to lose and get nothing than to win and be able to get some of your policies passed. It’s an all or nothing proposition for them. If they don’t get their way they’ll take their ball and go home.
- well... - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 12:43 pm:
==Dan Proft is from the purity wing of the Republican Party where it is better to lose and get nothing than to win and be able to get some of your policies passed. It’s an all or nothing proposition for them. If they don’t get their way they’ll take their ball and go home.==
He’s not though. He’s a grubby little operative who is *pretending* to be the purity wing so he can line his own pockets. An actual purity wing Republican, like Jeanne Ives, would not be taking $578,000 in no-bid contracts from CICERO.
- Long time Independent - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 1:08 pm:
Proft needs to look at all the questionable donations and no bid contracts his Congressional Candidate Keith Pekau has taken over the last five years. This guy makes Irvin look like a poster child for Good Government.
Dan correct the problem you made in Orland Park before you preach to the state about about Mayor Irvin
- ElTacoBandito - Tuesday, Mar 29, 22 @ 3:12 pm:
@TheInvisibleMan Great article, thanks for the read.
@47th Ward Summed it up perfectly. I wonder if his brain is broken to think this has nothing to do with him, or if he really is just a void of a person who takes rich people’s money.