CHATHAM — Business owners in Chatham who met with Gov. Bruce Rauner on Friday welcomed his visit and efforts to make it easier for them to do business but said they were waiting to see if he delivers on his promises.
Andrea Townson, co-owner of Dat Donut at 82nd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, said she was glad that the new governor made an effort to come to the Chatham Business Association roundtable, but said that only time will tell if his actions match his words.
“I think it was good of him to come into the community,” she said, “[but] I’m not sure that I heard anything from him that I haven’t heard before, so we’re looking just for the delivery."
She also said that she hopes that Rauner keeps his promise to eliminate some of the bureaucracy that many African-American small businesses have to deal with.
Raune, who was joined by Sen. Donne Trotter (D-Chicago), said he needed the community's help in his efforts.
“I need your help, because as you know, bureaucracy is tough; these departments are split up, they’re closed in; they kind of do their own thing, “ he said. “We have to take the power away from the insiders and get it out into the community to get real results, and I need your help and partnership on that."
Rauner said he wants to boost state contracting opportunities for minority business owners and plans to address the lack of diversity in training programs.
“We have two immediate things I can do to be helpful to you. One is to make sure that the state government, when we’re doing contracting, that we are making sure that African-American business owners are a part of the contracting process and have every equal access to contracts of the state because we talk about it a lot as a state but we don’t deliver results on that,” he said.
“Number two, many of the organizations that contract with the state do not have proper representation of the community in their apprentice programs, in their training programs, and when we build and do construction projects around the state, those construction groups do not look like the community where the construction is going on," he said. "We have to fix it, [but] it’s not going to be easy; it won’t be super fast."
He said he plans to restructure the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to “make it more effective” and more of a partnership between the business community and state.
“Right now, it’s ran by bureaucrats who really don’t know that much about business,” the governor said.
Rauner also discussed education with the business leaders, adding that he wants to bring more vocational training back into the schools.
Trotter said he agreed with expanding vocational education.
“There were some good points that he brought up that I’m sure is an immediate concern to our community, especially vocational training, when he talks about cradle to career, that is certainly a good pathway. We need to build on that,” Trotter said.
Glen Fulton, the Greater Englewood Community Development Corporation’s president, said that Rauner made the right move to sit down with the Chatham business community.
“There are communities that have issues that need to be resolved, just like the state, but the communities are what is most important, so if he can [support] some of the communities, the Englewoods, the Chathams, the Roselands, then I think that we’re going to be good,” Fulton said.
The Chatham Business Association's executive director, Melinda Kelly, said that she wanted to create an environment where business leaders and entrepreneurs could feel safe asking Rauner questions that directly effect them.
Rauner did not take questions from the media at the event.
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