Council probes stall in MJ’s Fish & Chicken opening; unions say compliance and PLA steps are underway

Council members pressed staff about why a restaurant (MJ’s Fish & Chicken) that closed on the property on Jan. 31 had not opened by late April. The chair (speaker 2) said he’d been getting constituent complaints and asked the director (speaker 12) for a timeline.

Staff (speaker 12) and the council described a mix of administrative and procurement issues, including what staff called a misunderstanding about entries into ePrism (the city’s contractor reporting system) that delayed reimbursement and compliance tracking. The director said OPAD had developed checklists and client folders to guide small business owners through the process.

Council members and union representatives discussed a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) threshold that required union participation for certain work exceeding a funding threshold. The director said $200,000 had been used for acquisition and roughly $100,000 remained subject to PLA rules; that remaining amount, the director said, would trigger PLA compliance for construction work in the scope of the project.

Rich Mancat (speaker 7), business manager of local sheet-metal workers, said union signatory contractors were brought in to ensure critical grease-duct welding was done to code. “This specific project … the grease duct is an extreme fire hazard,” Mancat said, explaining why a signatory subcontractor was appropriate. Mancat said Henson Robinson Company agreed to perform necessary shop welding and that an apprentice from the local program would perform welding tasks in Springfield as part of the compliance plan.

Council members said they want a firm timeline to get the restaurant open; staff said they had recently resolved documentation gaps and would follow up with the contractor and owner to confirm dates.

Next steps: staff to follow up with the contractor for a timeline and to coordinate inspections and any remaining PLA compliance steps.