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[Note to the humor-impaired: This post is all tongue-in-cheek.]
We just got the official District 150 school calendar. Now I know we haven’t had “Christmas Vacation” for a long time now. I understand the religious sensitivities that led to changing it to “Winter Vacation.”
Nevertheless, the calendar has nearly every conceivable religious and non-religious observance listed on it. There’s “Islamic Ramadan” (Aug. 11), “Jewish Rosh Hashanah” (Sept. 9), “Patriot Day” (Sept. 11), “Leif Erickson Day” (Oct. 9), “All Saints’ Day” (Nov. 1), “Groundhog Day” (Feb. 2), “Chinese New Year” (Feb. 3), and even “Dr. Suess Birthday” (Mar. 2). “Palm Sunday” and “Easter” (Apr. 17 & 24) are listed, as well as “Jewish Pesach” (Apr. 19-25).
But what holiday is printed on December 25? “National Children’s Day.”
National Children’s Day?
What’s even more strange is that this particular holiday is printed twice on the calendar — once on Dec. 25, and once on Oct. 8. Any holiday that’s celebrated twice a year must be something special. So I Googled “National Children’s Day” to find out more about it. It has its own official site, naturally: http://www.nationalchildrensday.us/. It even has an official song (“I Love Being a Kid” by a guy who calls himself “Mr. Nicky”). However, the site says it’s celebrated on the second Sunday in June. (I checked the school calendar to see if perhaps “Christmas” got printed on June 12. Nope.) So, District 150 put this holiday on their calendar twice and were wrong both times?
I had to investigate further, so I checked out Wikipedia. (I know Wikipedia is reliable because I looked up “Reliability of Wikipedia” on Wikipedia, and it said it was reliable.) The Children’s Day entry explained that this holiday “is celebrated on various days in many places around the world, in particular to honor children.” I’m glad they added that last part, because I was wondering who, in particular, was being honored on Children’s Day. It appears the holiday was aptly named. “Major global variants include an International Children’s Day on June 1 as adopted in the former Communist bloc, and a Universal Children’s Day on November 20, by United Nations recommendation.” (This was established during the height of the Cold War, so the adjectival escalation should come as no shock; I’m surprised Khrushchev didn’t counter with a Multiversal Children’s Day.) So far, still no Oct. 8 or Dec. 25. But wait: “Many nations declare days for children on other dates.”
Next, all the countries are listed with their various dates for celebrating Children’s Day. Searching through them, I did discover that Children’s Day is celebrated on Oct. 8 in one country: Iran. Well, the U.S. did celebrate Children’s Day on Oct. 8 one year. “Children’s Day was proclaimed by President Bill Clinton to be held on October 8, 2000.” However the next year, in a show of partisan eye-poking, newly-elected President Bush officially moved it to the first Sunday in June. My guess is he thought the kids would have more fun if the could celebrate their day at the beginning of summer vacation. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, ever the non-conformist, “issued a proclamation proclaiming the second Sunday in June as Children’s Day…” [emphasis added]. Well, that will show the federal government they can’t push our state around! We’ll just have our Children’s Day on the second Sunday of June and see if Obama tries to stop us.
Getting back to Christmas, there are some countries that celebrate Children’s Day on December 25, according to Wikipedia. They’re all in central Africa: “In Congo, Congo DR, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Chad, Central African Republic, São Tomé and Príncipe Children’s Day is celebrated on December 25 to honour all the children there.” But how many countries celebrate Christmas on December 25? Just about all of them. Even Orthodox churches that celebrate Christmas in January by the Gregorian calendar are actually celebrating on December 25 on the Julian calendar.
Finally, I decided to get an authoritative answer instead of all this Wikipedia stuff. I asked District 150 board member Laura Petelle why District 150 didn’t print Christmas on their calendar. Her answer: “I am forced to assume typo.”
Oh, sure, give the obvious answer! 
From the recent “Issues Update”:
The Building Division of the Inspections Department continues to see strong growth in new construction projects in the City of Peoria. With four months remaining in 2010, permit revenue has already surpassed the total amount collected in 2009.
Illustrated in the table below is a comparison of Building Permits/Permit Revenue through August of the last five years. Permit revenue is up 62% in 2010 compared to this time last year. In addition, new construction is up 27% in 2010 compared to this time last year.
| YTD |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
New Residential
Total Residential
New Commercial
Total Commercial |
238
578
44
202 |
216
601
44
189 |
167
556
29
172 |
86
409
14
151 |
100
430
27
170 |
Residential Fees
Commercial Fees
Other – Mechanical Fees |
$229,954
$153,842
$134,738 |
$351,436
$1,150,629
$175,594 |
$260,492
$584,426
$227,855 |
$131,827
$213,419
$150,430 |
$162,416
$514,342
$127,870 |
| Total Fees |
$518,535 |
$1,677,659 |
$1,072,773 |
$495,676 |
$804,628 |
Last week’s “Issues Update” from the City Manager’s office has the latest on how things are progressing with the Firefly bankruptcy:
The Bankruptcy Court has set a hearing on the City’s and County’s settlement with the Bankruptcy Trustee for September 9, 2010. Negotiations continue with Electrotherm, the company from India who has expressed interest in acquiring Firefly’s assets. In order to move that negotiation forward, the City Manager and the County Administrator have executed an agreement that the City and County will not market the assets of Firefly to any other party than Electrotherm until September 14, 2010. It is anticipated that a purchase agreement will be on the City Council Agenda on September 14, 2010.
In related news, one market for the batteries in India would be to power two-wheeled scooters:
The electric two-wheeler industry in the country is struggling for survival, as manufacturers are making huge losses. …[T]he fledgling e-scooter segment has failed to join the bandwagon of the Indian automobile industry, which is on a high growth trajectory. From 60 players in the electric two-wheeler business, including small time assemblers, only 10 remain in contention now….
The dependence on imports for key components such as battery, motor and charger also pose a challenge for the industry. Major players such as Hero Electric and Electrotherm are looking at developing local battery manufacturing capabilities. [emphasis added]
How’s Electrotherm doing these days? Here’s a recent report:
Electrotherm (India) disclosed a steep drop in standalone net profit for the quarter ended June 2010. During the quarter, the profit of the company declined 27.28% to Rs 123.43 million [US$2,633,460] from Rs 169.74 million [US$3,621,514] in the same quarter previous year.
The City and County of Peoria guaranteed a bank loan of $6.6 million for Firefly Energy in 2007; the company went bankrupt in March of this year. The municipalities have been trying to mitigate their losses by selling the company’s assets.
Actually, WCBU has had a new website for a little while now, but I’m just getting around to blogging about it. WCBU is, of course, the public radio station in Peoria (89.9 FM) with studios at Bradley University. If you haven’t checked it out their new site, take a look: http://www.wcbufm.org/.
The local news is posted in a blog-like form. Shorter stories are text-only. Longer stories are posted as an audio clip. Each story has a permatag, so if I want to refer to a specific WCBU story, I can link directly to the post on it. For instance, if I want to talk about the big District 150 meeting yesterday, here’s what WCBU had to say about it. There’s also a section devoted to their Outside the Horseshoe program, which airs just before the Peoria City Council meetings.
The old site was largely static and hard to navigate. The new site is much improved, with lots of dynamic content and an improved menu system.
A petition drive was launched today by Citizens for Responsible Spending, County Board members Brad Harding and Merle Widmer, and At-Large City Councilman Gary Sandberg. It’s an effort to allow Peoria County residents the opportunity to vote on whether or not to issue $41 million in general obligation bonds to construct the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum.
Why? Because things have changed since April 2009 when the revenue to pay for the bonds was approved by the voters. Back then, we were promised they would issue revenue bonds, so as to limit the exposure of Peoria County taxpayers and protect our general sales tax receipts. Now they’re trying to issue general obligation bonds. Back then, they made it very clear there was going to be an IMAX Theater — the contract was just sitting on their desk waiting to be signed as soon as the referendum passed! Now they say IMAX isn’t compatible with their mission. Back then, the County assured us that they would insist that all the private financing be raised and in hand before construction would begin. Now they’re planning to start construction before the private money is raised, before vital grant money is awarded, before they own the land, before the bonds are issued, before the bond hearing is held, and even before Caterpillar has voted on the redevelopment agreement.
In short, the County has betrayed the trust of the Peoria County taxpayers. They’ve reneged on their promises. They’ve broken their word. Peoria County residents deserve better.
The last available option to residents is to gather signatures to put the museum funding on the ballot so we can vote on their real plan, not the bill of goods we were sold in the Spring of 2009.
For more information, or to get involved, please go to BlocktheBonds.com.
You don’t generally see (or pay attention to) election ads about retaining judges during campaign season. Races with two or more opponents tend to get all the attention; the question of whether to retain a judge just isn’t very exciting. But it looks like this season things may be a little different, especially for Appellate Court Judge Mary McDade. A Chronicle reader sent me a link to this homemade ad on YouTube:
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Peoria City Council meeting. I haven’t been able to attend the last couple of meetings, but I’m back tonight, liveblogging the event for your entertainment. You can join the fun at City Hall, fourth floor, Council Chambers. You can also watch live on Comcast cable channel 22, or listen live on 89.9 FM, WCBU.
The hyperlinked agenda is here, if you want to see supporting documentation. Otherwise, I’ll list the agenda items below and give a play-by-play on each of them as the council discusses them. This post will be updated frequently throughout the evening, so be sure to refresh your browser. It’s now 6:15 p.m. and time to get started. Without any further ado, here’s tonight’s agenda (it’s a long one!):
Continue reading Liveblogging the City Council 8-24-2010
Before the City Council can give away the museum block for $1, they first have to approve the “design concepts” for the museum. On the council communication, under “neighborhood concerns,” it states, “Heart of Peoria Commission reviewed the drawings prior to Council approval on April 4, 2006.” This is misleading. First of all, the design plans have changed dramatically since 2006. The council communication does acknowledge that there have been “some revisions,” but that’s rather understated, considering the size of the building decreased by 26%, retail development has been pushed off to a future phase, etc. Secondly, the Heart of Peoria Commission recommended denial of the changes that reduced the building size in 2007.
Why is City staff not providing council members with all the facts? What other facts have they omitted?
The City Council wants to see if all or part of the East Bluff recently dubbed “East Village” qualifies as a redevelopment area and tax increment financing (TIF) district. The council will vote tonight on whether to pursue a feasibility and housing impact study of the area that stretches from Arcadia to Adams, spanning three council districts. It surrounds, but does not include, the existing MidTown Plaza TIF. Since OSF St. Francis Medical Center is paying for the consultant, this item will pass easily.
It’s been a long time coming, but Pat Sullivan is finally being replaced on the Traffic Commission. He resigned in October 2009, ten months ago. Taking his place will be Patrick McNamara, a retiree of Caterpillar and past president of the Uplands Residential Association. He’s since moved out of the West Bluff.
I know Mr. McNamara; he lived down the street from me when he lived in the Uplands, and I got to interact with him at Uplands Residential Association meetings. He was always well-prepared, well-spoken, and reasonable — a really nice guy. I think he’s a great choice for the Traffic Commission.
However, I have to wonder if he’ll ever get a chance to serve, considering the frequency of Traffic Commission meeting cancellations and the rather low view our Public Works Director has of the commission’s role. If the commission is not going to be utilized or supported, or if it is not seen as valuable, perhaps the better solution would be to disband it (ala the Heart of Peoria Commission) instead of wasting these fine citizens’ time.
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