Deals keep sewage boss flush

For 21 years, Terrence J. O'Brien has been on the board of Cook County's sewage-treatment operation, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

During that time, O'Brien and his friends have started more than a dozen companies, including two engineering firms that have landed at least $3 million in contracts over the past decade from governments including the state of Illinois, the City of Chicago and the town of Cicero. Click to enlarge image Terrence O'Brien, who is president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, is involved in companies that have landed big government jobs. (Keith Hale/Sun-Times)

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The Chicago Democrat, now running for Cook County Board president, has regularly reported his ownership of those companies, as required. But he has never disclosed all of the government contracts those companies have gotten.

Asked to make public that information, his campaign staff provided the Chicago Sun-Times a list of government contracts for only two of O'Brien's companies.

O'Brien says his companies "never have" done work for the Water Reclamation District, where he has been president since 1997, a part-time job that pays $80,000.

That contradicts a statement he signed and filed with the Cook County clerk in December 2005 in which he reported that the district had paid one of his companies -- K-Plus Engineering Ltd. -- "in excess of $1,200" the previous year.

"That was an error on Terry's part," O'Brien campaign manager DeShana Forney says.

She says O'Brien was mistaken when he reported that his company had done work for the Water Reclamation District.

Officials of the district -- which treats sewage and wastewater for most of Cook County -- "did an exhaustive search" but could find no records showing O'Brien's companies did any work for the government agency he oversees, spokeswoman Jill Horist says. She says it was "possible but remote" that a district contractor might have hired an O'Brien company as a subcontractor.

O'Brien was among five shareholders in K-Plus Engineering when the company got a contract two years ago with Cook County, under the administration of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, the man O'Brien wants to replace.

At a meeting on June 19, 2007, the county board agreed to pay K-Plus Engineering $369,916 for construction engineering for work on 127th Street in Lemont. Six days later, the company's top shareholder, John Cichzewski, agreed to buy out his four partners, including O'Brien. O'Brien got $208,250, according to records from his campaign.

During O'Brien's four years as a shareholder, K-Plus Engineering got contracts from the state of Illinois, the City of Chicago and DuPage County totaling $1.3 million, records show. According to his campaign staff, K-Plus also did work for other governmental agencies, but it wouldn't provide details.

O'Brien is a shareholder in five other companies -- all with K-Plus in their names -- that do environmental engineering, pipefitting and industrial cleanup, his staff says.

His biggest stake is in K-Plus Environmental Services, which pays him $100,000 a year plus a cut of profits, Forney says. O'Brien, who has a bachelor's degree in sociology, owns 50 percent of the company. The other half is owned by Daniel Caplice, a former engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Caplice -- pronounced K-Plus -- is a younger brother of O'Brien's college friend Thomas Caplice, who's chairman of O'Brien's campaign fund-raising committee.

O'Brien's campaign provided records showing K-Plus Environmental has gotten another $1.3 million in contracts since 1998 from governments including the Public Building Commission of Chicago, the town of Cicero, the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and the Glenview Public Library.

The list didn't include $133,667 in work the company got from the City of Chicago.

K-Plus Environmental customers also include some companies whose wastewater discharges are regulated by the Water Reclamation District. On Friday, Crain's Chicago Business reported that O'Brien personally has done work for four of those companies: Nalco Corp., Borg Warner Automotive, ITW/Signode and S & C Electric. O'Brien told Crain's the work he did for those companies didn't involve his agency.

O'Brien went into business with Caplice's brothers Daniel and Jack in 1992. At the time, Daniel Caplice, who was no longer working for the EPA, was fighting federal criminal charges that accused him of illegally using a restricted parking garage used by FBI agents and other federal employees in the South Loop. Caplice was caught entering the garage with a federal access badge in 1991, more than three years after he left the EPA, court records show. He pleaded guilty in 1994 to a misdemeanor charge of computer fraud and was sentenced to 90 days of probation.

O'Brien says he has little to do with most of the companies.

"I'm just a shareholder," O'Brien says, "with the exception of [K-Plus] Environmental. I deal with chemical-waste disposal for clients. I'm a salesman, project-manager type of deal, helping people fill out their paperwork to get their waste transported."

O'Brien says he hasn't thought about whether he'll stay with the companies if he's elected president of the Cook County Board next year.

"I've got to discuss that with my partners to see how we're going to work that out," O'Brien says. "What we're going to do is talk about me leaving those particular companies. It's probably something I won't think about until after the primary."

02/11/09