BLOOMINGTON — Advocating for federal grant money to support essential Bloomington projects may rest solely on the city's congressional representatives city council members rejected a federal lobbying contract.
While city officials argued hiring Thorn Run Partners would improve the city's profile in Washington, D.C., critics disagreed with using taxpayer money for additional advocacy that others should already be doing.
In October, the city of Bloomington submitted a request for proposals to retain the services of a lobbyist consultant that could advocate for federal funding. Of the five firms that submitted proposals, the city chose to move forward with bipartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Thorn Run, which was ranked as a top lobbying firm by Politico and the Washington Post.
The agreement would have been for three years at an annual cost of $90,000.
Bloomington Deputy City Manager Billy Tyus said the agreement represented an intentional effort by the city to secure funding for priority projects like infrastructure. Getting on the radar of Congress as lawmakers decide how to allocate federal funding is critical and not something that can be done internally, he added.
"There are thousands of pieces of legislation that are filed regularly and those aren't things that we have the expertise to be able to track," Tyus told the council members during Monday night's meeting. "This company has proven that they have a track record of being able to secure funding for things like road infrastructure, which is a need here, for things like electric vehicle infrastructure, which is obviously a need here (and) safe water, which is obviously a need here."
Katherine Murphy, external affairs and communications manager for Bloomington, said the city has worked with a federal lobbying firm on some specific projects but they weren’t hired for a consistent run of lobbying for the city.
The city's previous lobbyist, Julie Curry, had worked statewide for the city, Murphy added.
Normal, meanwhile, has used Cardinal Infrastructure for more than 18 years to help raise federal funding for projects.
Alderman Grant Walch said Bloomington's elected officials in Springfield and Washington, D.C., should be fighting for the city, and council members should be able to call up their legislators to let them know which projects are priorities.
"I don't think we should be paying someone to do what we should be doing and our elected officials should be doing," Walch said.
U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen of the 17th Congressional District, which covers most of Bloomington-Normal, could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
Alderman Nick Becker said it was ludicrous for the city to spend more money to possibly get a better share of federal grant opportunities. He also asked Tyus if he could guarantee that the city could collect more than $90,000 in grants each year to recoup the consultant's expenses.
Tyus said he couldn't guarantee how much money the city could collect but the services and the advocacy being provided is well worth the cost.
"It isn't simply about securing funding," Tyus said. "It's also about advocacy (and) it's also about making sure that priorities, as laws are being made, are before both our legislators, our own delegation, but also folks who are perhaps aren't our direct representatives and senators who are part of the decision-making process."
Aldermen Walch, Becker, Sheila Montney, De Urban and Tom Crumpler voted no.
Other business
As part of its consent agenda, the council also approved a utility agreement between the city and TKnTK LLC for the extension of water and sewer mains as a part of a redevelopment plan at South Bunn Street and Tri-Lakes Road.
TKnTK LLC's plan is to add a solid waste transfer station to the property. But because the property currently sits outside city limits, it will need water and sewer service from the city. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency ultimately has to issue the permit to operate the transfer station.
