Nov 20, 2009 10:08 pm US/Central
Chamber Of Commerce CEO: McCormick Place 'Broken'
Jerry Roper, Veteran Booster Of The City, Faults Management And Labor For Trade-Show Exodus
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Jerry Roper, president and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, offered his concerns about the management of McCormick Place.
CBS
For the third time in two weeks, the high cost of doing business with McCormick Place
has cost the city another important trade show.
Now Jerry Roper, one of the most respected convention veterans in Chicago, is not pulling any punches as he offers advice to halt the exodus.
"It's broken at McCormick Place and we have to fix it," Roper told CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine.
In a blunt, top-to-bottom indictment of the nation's largest convention center, Roper said McCormick Place is failing to change with the times. There is plenty of blame to spread around, he said.
They were setting up the big muscle car show at Rosemont's Stephens convention center Friday night, just hours after getting the word that another car show was pulling up 40 years' worth of stakes in Chicago and moving there instead.
"I can't lay it 100 percent on labor, but I can say to labor: You've got to stop gaming the system," Roper, president and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, said. "If it takes an hour, do it in 59 minutes, don't do it in an hour and a half or 2 hours."
Roper may be the biggest Chicago booster there is. He used to run the city's convention and tourism bureau. Earlier this week, he listened as McPier managers and union and industry formed a task force and heard McPier CEO Juan Ochoa complain about Chicago's competitive disadvantage.
"We are at a competitive disadvantage," Ochoa said. "We get absolutely no subsidy."
In fact, McCormick Place benefits from hotel and restaurant tax revenues of $119 million.
"Yeah, it is a subsidy," Roper said.
Ochoa, who declined a request for an interview, was appointed by ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich, despite having no convention or trade show experience.
"There's no doubt in my mind that that should not have taken place," Roper said. "You have union issues, and you have shows leaving, and you've got pressure from either legislators (saying) 'Do this for me, do that for me. I want to get one of my friends or relatives a job there.'"
Six-figure-salary jobs. Combing McPier's $300 million budget, we found 45 of 500 McPier employees have annual salaries of more than $100,000. That's nearly 1 in 10, compared to 1 of every 30 city of Chicago employees earning more than $100,000.
McPier jobs are tough to turn down. They come with generous pensions currently being collected by 112 people, receiving $2 million a year. The total annual payroll for McPier is $68 million.
"That screams for privatization, in my mind," Roper said. "It means that this is not that hard to do. For some strange reason, over the years, we've made this a very difficult task in this city."
Perhaps because it's become a haven for political insiders, their relatives, and favored contractors gouging exhibitors like there's no tomorrow.
Unless they really do something, Chicago's title of Convention Capital may go the same way as Hog Butcher to the World.
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