No Bids, No Notice, No Shame: LaSalle's Dirty Habit of Handing Out Contracts
No Bids, No Notice, No Shame: LaSalle's Dirty Habit of Handing Out Contracts
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Jamie Hicks Investigative Reporter
While the City of Marseilles publicly debated how to strengthen transparency in local government—prompting their city attorney to issue a strong warning about the legal risks of bypassing public bidding laws.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about efficiency. This is about control. This is about keeping contract dollars in the hands of insiders while ignoring the public's right to oversight.
In a recent article published by the Shaw Local News Network, Marseilles city officials were quoted debating how and when public input should be integrated into council meetings. But far more relevant to taxpayers was the statement from Marseilles City Attorney Christina Cantlin, who cautioned against awarding city work without public notice or multiple quotes.
6-23-2025 City of La Salle Finance Committee Meeting
https://www.youtube.com/live/mznHKTLRMKs?si=-2rB0-dyqlUOfwT2
These are the faces behind LaSalle’s contract culture. Mayor Jeff Grove and the LaSalle City Council—elected to serve the public,.
"Cities have a duty to avoid awarding work without public notice or multiple quotes," said Marseilles City Attorney Christina Cantlin.
"Competitive bidding isn’t optional—it’s essential to ensure taxpayer money is spent fairly and within the law."
In LaSalle, there’s no public discussion about transparency or competitive bidding—only silence. In fact, city officials appear to be moving in the opposite direction: instead of publicly announcing projects and inviting bids, they’ve adopted a pattern of calling contracts “continuations” to bypass oversight altogether.
HICKS SAYS :
“When transparency disappears, so does accountability.”
Take the recent $173,000 sewer cleaning and televising job. There was no public notice, no call for bids, no qualifications requested—just a quiet approval behind closed doors. Officials claimed it was merely an extension of previous work. But in Illinois, that justification doesn't hold water.
State procurement law is clear: prior engagement with a contractor doesn’t exempt a municipality from competitive bidding requirements, especially when the dollar amount exceeds statutory thresholds.
This isn’t an isolated slip—it’s part of a recurring pattern. Over the past year, I’ve documented multiple instances where LaSalle awarded contracts without public notice, skipped required bidding, and funneled taxpayer funds to repeat contractors without transparency, evaluation, or justification.
What the city calls “continuation,” others might call favoritism. Either way, the public is locked out of the process, and accountability disappears.
Meanwhile, the very warnings being taken seriously in Marseilles—where citizens are demanding more transparency and proper bidding—are being laughed off in LaSalle. That’s not just irresponsible. It’s dangerous.
When a city consistently avoids competitive bidding, it opens the door to favoritism, inflated costs, backroom deals, and corruption. And when no one asks questions, that door stays wide open.
LaSalle’s residents deserve the same protections taxpayers expect anywhere else: open bidding, honest accounting, and public participation in how their money is spent. Until city officials are forced to comply with basic standards of transparency, this cycle of backroom dealing will continue.
If Marseilles can take the warnings seriously, why can’t LaSalle?
Hicks News will continue exposing these violations—because the truth matters. And the public deserves to know who’s cashing in on their silence.
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