Minority contractors concerned they’ll get passed over for work on new Cahokia High School

A group of local minority contractors gathered outside the Cahokia District 187 superintendent’s office Thursday morning to voice their concern over what they say is a lack of minority participation in the new high school that is being built.

“It is the largest project in the history of Cahokia Heights – an $80 million construction project to build the new school – and they don’t to have any legitimate local business diversity participation,” said Don Johnson, owner of SRM Construction Material & Supply in Cahokia Heights.

During a special meeting on Oct. 2, the District 187 board awarded the building contract to Poettker Construction Co., which had the lowest base bid at $81,525,000.

Ed Hightower, a retired Edwardsville Superintendent and educational consultant working with the district on the project, says the protesters’ claim “is not true.”

“Poettker Construction, the general contractor on the project has worked with me and the Board of Education in minority participation,” Hightower said. “Currently, we set as a benchmark 12% minority participation – 5% women – and we expect to exceed 15%.”

The state of Illinois defines minority-owned businesses as any that have at least 51% ownership by a minority, woman, or person with a disability. Federal regulations establish diversity goals for contractor participation in public projects.

Johnson said white-owned businesses that have bid on the project have offered minority contractors incentives to work as brokers, but not as better-paid workers on the project.

“We can place orders for materials, schedule when trucks go out, but we don’t do anything else. We’re not physically out there,” Johnson said. “We’re not part of the manufacturing process of the materials. We’re not shipping concrete or fabricating rebar. We are brought in as a broker, a middle man. A broker gets 1,2, or 3 percent. On a million dollars this is like $10,000.

“They (white contractors) are attempting to use our business name and business certification by offering us a brokering fee or bribing us to make it look like we are participating on a project when we are not. They’re saying we’re doing millions and we are not,” he added.

Hightower said Poettker Construction, a Breese company, is currently vetting the various subcontractors to make sure they can do the job and putting those jobs out for bid. They’ll also make sure they those contracts meet the minority hiring regulations.

“We gave Poettker a list of the various minority contractors across this area. They are finishing up the vetting. There will be minority participation. Right now, they are issuing contracts to sub contractors as they vet them. They have not completed their process yet,” Hightower said.

Johnson’s name is on the list to be vetted by Poettker, he said.

Thursday at the high school campus, Johnson led other minority contractors through a megaphone: “hey hey! Ho ho! Ed Hightower’s got to go!” they chanted.

“They said they employed a 30 percent minority population,” Johnson said, “which is fine for Edwardsville, but in Cahokia? Where 90 percent of the population is Black?”

The new educational facility will be located at one 815 Camp Jackson road/Illinois Route 157, southeast from the former Parks Air College and current Cahokia Heights fitness& Community Center. The whole campus will sit on 48 acre of land donated to the school district by the city of Cahokia Heights.

The current Cahokia High School is approximately 73 years old.

The districts most recent safety survey in 2012, the school had about $26.47 million in health midlife safety repairs between the four buildings. District officials estimate the building needs more than $30 million in repairs.

“The goal is to bring a new high school to the citizens, to the students and to the Cahokia community. I applaud the mayor, board of education and superintendent for making life better for the students,” Hightower said.

The new school is being financed with $72.54 million in lease certificates the district issued in March in addition to about $20 million in funds that was built o up in the district’s budget by supplanting some of the expenses with Covid-19 relief funds from the federal government.

Lease certificates, like bonds, are a municipal security, school districts can issue to finance capital projects. Lease certificates can be paid back with pledged revenues from a district;s operating funds rather than by increasing local proper taxes although the tax levy can act as a backup if the pledged revenue don’t pan out.

District 187 did not have to have voter approval on a referendum because of an exception provided by the state legislature when it passed the budget for fiscal year 2024. The final design for the school was approved at a special school board meeting held June 25.

The project is slated for completion by June 30, 2026.

A ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony was held Friday. Work begins in about two weeks.

A representative of Poettker Construction could be reached for comment. Cahokia Heights Mayor Curtis McCall Sr. and District 187 Superintendent Curtis McCall Jr., could not be reached for comment for this story.