By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — A grassroots group of historic preservationists and advocates for southwest Rockford are pressuring aldermen to reconsider their vote and approve plans for the $420 million redevelopment of the vacant Barber-Colman factory on South Main Street.
In order for that to happen, one of the seven aldermen who voted in favor of requiring a project labor agreement — Jonathan Logemann, Chad Tuneberg, Karen Hoffman, Mark Bonne, Kevin Frost, Frank Beach and Isidro Barrios — has to make a motion to reconsider at the next City Council meeting on Monday. Rules of procedure state that a motion to reconsider must come at the same meeting or the next regular meeting, but no time after.
“The issue is not the next election but the next generation,” said K. Edward Copeland, pastor of New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Rockford. “The next generation needs to look back at this generation and thank God that we had the foresight to recognize that this project is more than just $420 million, because you can’t put a price tag on hope.”
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Bonne said earlier this week that he would make a motion to reconsider the vote if Alderwoman Janessa Wilkins, who was absent from Monday’s meeting because of a family emergency, was present in order to give all council members a chance to vote. Bonne said Friday he still plans to make that motion if all aldermen are present.
“Please call him and make sure that he is going to do that. We cannot take anything for granted here,” said Gary Anderson, a historic preservationist whose Rockford-based architecture firm Studio GWA was contracted to design some of the aspects of the development.
Copeland, Anderson, members of the Friends of Ziock historic preservation group, Alderwomen Gabrielle Torina and Gina Meeks, members of the Coalition of Latino Leaders, SWIFTT and other supporters rallied Friday at a press event at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Rockford Riverfront Hotel, another former factory that was long vacant before a divided City Council vote moved redevelopment forward in 2017.
They say City Council members can’t squander this opportunity to inject economic activity into southwest Rockford, which they feel will spur more business and development growth in the future once hundreds of new residents live there.
“Let’s be honest here: There has never been, nor will there ever be, a long line of developers vying for a chance to redevelop the Barber-Colman campus,” Anderson said. “It’s a complicated, challenging project. It’s a huge magnitude. The size, the scale, the building conditions, the remediation needed, are a massive undertaking, and if it were easy it would’ve been done by now.”
At issue is a requirement for a project labor agreement to be attached to the city’s deal with Milwaukee-based J. Jeffers & Co. to redevelop the 26-acre site.
Supporters of mandating a project labor agreement, which is a form of collective bargaining between unions and developers, say it provides for greater worker safety, ensures skilled laborers handle the job and guarantees no work stoppages so that the project can be delivered on time and on budget.
Opponents of the mandate note that the redevelopment agreement already requires J. Jeffers to maximize the utilization of local workers, local businesses and minority- and women-owned contractors, as well as veteran-owned businesses. City Hall has stated the expected split was 70% union labor.
“In a perfect world we would have 100% union participation, but we as a community need to make concessions and support for all forms of labor,” Anderson said. “The Jeffers team was doing all it could to get that participation on its own, hence the 70-30 split that includes minority business participation and utilization.”
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Opponents of requiring the labor deal also argue it would strip developers of negotiating power, and the project labor agreement is best to be worked out by both sides without a mandate.
“This amendment says that you write a PLA and it has to be agreed to by the Northwest Illinois Building Trades, and if not you can’t proceed,” said Rudy Valdez, president of SWIFTT, an economic advocacy group for southwest Rockford. “By approving this amendment the City Council, or those who voted for the amendment, relinquished control of this development to the Northwest Building Trades Union.”
Union groups have argued that they’re capable of meeting the requirements for minority and women workers, and said that their proposed project labor agreement would hold developers accountable to meeting those goals.
“Part of this project labor agreement has got actual language with teeth in it that actually includes minorities, not just the contractors but the workforce,” Brad Long, business representative for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 792, said in an interview Wednesday. “If you look at the development agreement the city has with J. Jeffers, quite frankly, it has no teeth whatsoever, and if they achieve nothing as far as minority contractors or workforce, no one is held liable.”
Union organizations have also stressed strides they’ve taken strides for years to improve minority representation in their ranks.
“Since 2007 we started our program and initiative to build a diverse workforce,” Long said. “We’ve done that through outreach and partnerships through our community.
“Whether it be (Rockford Public Schools), our annual career fair, reaching out to schools individually throughout the year, work with groups like Goodwill, YouthBuild, (Education Design Development and Research Corporation) — all programs to ready people to get into the trades.”
Long said there is still much work to be done, but they’re proud of the progress so far.
“We’re proud of our efforts and what we’ve achieved so far,” Long said. “We’ve got a long way to go and we all know that.”
Pastor William Martin of Providence Missionary Baptist Church, which is in the 5th Ward where the Barber-Colman factory sits, said the project is a chance to finally improve an area of town where Black and Latino people predominantly live.
“For many of us we know that river that we take pride in is a symbol of division. It separates prosperity from poor, beautiful from blight, and this was an opportunity for the Black and brown community to see change and impact, and ultimately change the trajectory of our city,” Martin said. “This was an opportunity that our City Council had to change that mindset of many years of false promises, of stagnation.”
But, he said this issue goes beyond race.
“This was the first time I’ve seen the community of Black, brown, white – the makeup of Rockford – come together in solidarity,” he said.
Torina, a Democrat who represents the 5th Ward and has championed efforts to redevelop Barber-Colman, echoed Martin’s sentiments.
“This movement has become bigger than building Barber-Colman,” she said “As a community we’re building new relationships, colorblind alliances, citywide unity and finally working together to fight the status quo. Rockford has demonstrated what I have always known, that we can accomplish nothing divided, but everything together.”
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas