On a Wednesday morning in May, Metra staff and board members gathered at the LaSalle Street Station outside the Chicago Stock Exchange building.
Ordinarily, they would have met at the commuter rail service’s headquarters blocks away for their regularly scheduled monthly meeting. But this morning, they were boarding a train for a trip along the Rock Island line to Will County, where they would view construction projects planned and underway before holding a board meeting in Joliet.
Board members and Metra executives made the journey in an observation car lent by BNSF Railway. Attendees had coffee and breakfast available during the train ride, and lunch after the board meeting. Shuttle vans were provided to take the board members from the Joliet train station to the meeting at the Will County Office Building.
All told, records show the outing cost Metra at least $10,836.
Metra spokesman Michael Gillis said board members were going to meet in Joliet anyway, so the agency took the opportunity to create an educational train trip along the way and try to drum up board members’ support for projects for which they might eventually need to approve funding.
“We think the costs were reasonable and appropriate,” he said.
But Jackson Paller, a community lawyer at the Elmhurst-based organization Citizen Advocacy Center, said the cost of the outing seemed unusually high. Such an outing can make sense for a transit agency whose board members come from communities across the region and might not be familiar with projects in one area, but he questioned whether Metra could have accomplished its goal at a lower expense.
“If I was on that board, I would feel uneasy about spending $10,000 on one meeting where it doesn’t seem to me that the public benefit reaches that level,” he said.
During the roughly 40-mile trip, board members saw work at a crossing between Metra and freight rail tracks. They learned of ideas for upgrades, including adding a third track along part of the route and the potential repair and use of a section of old track that crosses the Dan Ryan Expressway.
Board members passed the site of a planned train yard expansion, and the site of planned work to unsnarl Metra and freight train traffic that is also intended to create a connection between Metra’s SouthWest Service and Rock Island lines. They passed the future site of the new Auburn Park station and saw construction at Metra’s Blue Island-Vermont St. station.
They saw the work from a special observation car lent by BNSF that Gillis said allowed for better views of the projects and planned sites than a typical Metra car. Use of the BNSF car didn’t cost Metra extra money, but it did lead to the single largest expense associated with the board meeting: $5,208 for security at two Metra train yards, according to information obtained by the Chicago Tribune through an open records request.
Gillis said the payment went to an outside security firm the agency sometimes uses for special events or construction projects, which was tasked with guarding the BNSF train car while it was on Metra property for three days. Metra has an in-house police department, but using the outside firm for security for the car was cheaper than paying Metra police for the work, and kept officers free for their regular duties, he said.
Fuel and labor to run the train cost Metra $1,552, the records show. Metra would have paid fuel and labor costs to operate its own trains, Gillis said.
Metra spent more than $2,000 on food for the outing, receipts show. That included an order for dozens of sweet rolls and fry cakes from a Chicago bakery intended for breakfast for board members, executives and employees making the journey, as well as coffee, iced tea, juice and other drinks. Metra paid for more than four dozen bagels from Panera, boxed breakfast sandwiches, parfaits, brownies and other supplies.
For lunch, Metra paid for 40 boxed lunches from Jimmy John’s, and for a party of 24 people to eat lunch at Crest Hill restaurant Merichka’s, the receipts show.
Gillis said Metra felt the food expenses were appropriate, and said many Metra staff attended the meeting.
“Some of the food was kind of a thank you to them for contributing to the event and traveling to the off-site meeting,” he said.
Metra also spent more than $2,000 on fuel and labor to operate shuttle vans between the Joliet train station and the board meeting roughly a mile away.
Don Orseno, a former Metra executive director who is now vice chair of the board and comes from Will County, said he hadn’t been aware of the expense associated with the meeting. But once told of the dollar amount, he said it wasn’t surprising given the nature of the outing.
The meeting was “absolutely” helpful and worthwhile, he said. Holding a meeting outside of Metra’s Chicago office helps engage residents who cannot make it to the downtown meeting.
He found the train trip educational and, while he is familiar with many of the projects in Will County, other members hailing from other counties might not be, he said. The trip allowed members to see firsthand how some of the projects can reduce delays between the freight and commuter railroads and otherwise benefit Metra, he said.
“It gets the board members out, it’s educational for them,” he said. “It allows our constituents, our customers, the people of various counties to actually see what’s going on.”
Metra wants to hold other board meetings outside of the Chicago office, in the suburban counties the agency serves. None have yet been scheduled.
sfreishtat@chicagotribune.com
