Daily Archives: March 28, 2006

City Council, City of Peoria

Council roundup: Longevity pay gets the short straw

Long-time city employees will no longer be rewarded for simply sticking it out a requisite number of years.  The city council voted to eliminate longevity raises/bonuses for city managers and give salary increases based on merit alone, like most businesses nowadays.

If I worked for the city a long time, I would probably be ticked off.  On the other hand, councilman Turner pointed out that Peoria eliminated longevity pay two or three other times in recent history, only to reinstate it a few years later.  So perhaps it will prove to be a temporary measure.

This measure is predicted to save just under $300,000.

Sorry for harping on this, but if the city is so strapped for funds, why didn’t they sell that old rail line that runs through the heart of the city to Pioneer Railway and rake in that cool $565,000 when they had the chance? Maybe they should approach Pioneer and see if they’re still willing to buy….

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Civic Center

Council roundup: Hotel “request for proposal” approved

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The city council wants to get proposals for a new hotel that would be physically connected to the Peoria Civic Center.  The Civic Center Authority believes that such a hotel is crucial for the success of the civic center expansion.  According to the all-knowing, all-seeing consultants, convention centers “in northern climates” are more successful when they have climate-controlled hotels connected to them.  Thus, they’re looking for a hotel that meets this criteria:

  • National chain with centralized reservation system
  • Minimum 3-4 star Mobil rating
  • At least 250 rooms (300 preferred)
  • Full-service, including pool, sit-down restaurant, bar and room service
  • Facility must be architecturally compatible with Peoria Civic Center

Incidentally, I think that second bullet is funny — I mean, is the minimum 3 or 4 stars?  It can’t be both!

The request for proposals originally specified where the hotel would be sited on the Civic Center property, but the council decided to leave the specific location open to developers, so long as the hotel is physically attached somehow.

My take: This is only the latest in a series of proposed “silver bullets” for the success of the Civic Center.  What does the Civic Center need to be successful?  HRA taxes.  A consultant.  A renovation.  An expansion.  A hotel.  It never ends!  It’s like that old detective show “Columbo” starring Peter Falk.  Just when you think you’ve finally gotten rid of them, they turn around and say, “Oh, one more thing….”

We’re always just one more large capital expenditure away from wild success.  This hotel is just the latest mirage.  They’ll build it, and the Civic Center will continue to operate in the red, and then we’ll hear that there’s just one more thing we need:  a new covered parking deck, perhaps, or a private restaurant in the Civic Center proper, or whatever.

I don’t know what the answer is for the Civic Center, but I can tell you that it isn’t more tax money. Why is it that The Mark of the Quad Cities can make a profit for 12 straight years (they had their first losing year in 2005), but Peoria’s Civic Center, which is managed by SMG, can’t ever turn a profit?  Is it time for new management?

City Council

Council roundup: Council quiet on noise ordinance

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The city council tonight deferred action for two weeks on a proposed noise ordinance revision.  The council agenda included an item that would give the police the power to impound a vehicle that violates the noise ordinance (noise so loud it can be heard from 75 feet from the vehicle). Councilwoman Van Auken explained she wanted to (a) make sure motorcycles would be exempted, and (b) gather more information on how effective enforcement of this type of ordinance has been in the communities where it has been tried.

Immigration, US/Mexican Relations

Manifest Destiny

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It disturbs me that Mexican President Vicente Fox is pleased that the U.S. is working on passing the closest thing to amnesty as they can for illegal Mexican immigrants. According to the Associated Press:

Mexican President Vicente Fox said the vote was the result of five years of work dating to the start of his presidential term in 2000, and puts Mexico one step closer toward the government’s goal of “legalization for everyone” who works in the United States.

“My recognition and respect for all the Hispanics and all the Mexicans who have made their voice heard,” Fox said. “We saw them turn out this weekend all across the United States, and that’s going to count for a lot as we move forward.”

Doesn’t it bother him that conditions in his country are so bad that millions of its citizens are fleeing across the border to the U.S.? Instead of working for five years to make it easier for them to leave, wouldn’t it be better if he spent his time trying to improve conditions in Mexico so people weren’t so compelled to get the heck out of there?

A more provocative question: has the idea of Manifest Destiny been vindicated? That is, has the U.S. proved its economic and political superiority, thus justifying its territorial expansion?  Would Mexicans be better off if the U.S. annexed Mexico (peacefully, of course)?

City of Peoria, Insight Communications, Television

Cable franchise agreement to be extended until July 15

The 20-year cable franchise agreement the City of Peoria has with Insight Communications is set to expire April 15, but the city is offering to extend it until July 15, according to Randy Ray, corporation counsel for the city.

Ray didn’t explain further, so the rest of this post is pure speculation.

It appears the only things the city wants are to have Insight broadcast the city council meetings for free, which would save the city about $32,000 annually, and to have a shorter term for the agreement.  I’m going to guess that the $32,000 is not the sticking point, but that the cable company wants a longer agreement.  I seem to remember (and I could be remembering this incorrectly) Ray saying that he wanted the new agreement to be for only five years.  If that’s the case, that would be a disincentive for a cable company to invest a lot in infrastructure; I could see how it would hold up negotiations.

And Insight is not shy about holding up negotiations.  In Decatur, their franchise agreement has been expired for three years and they’re still negotiating a new one.  Let’s hope it’s not that bad in Peoria, and that the short three-month extension is a signal that both parties are hoping to come to agreement soon.

Elections

Lane Evans will retire

WMBD-AM 1470 reports that U.S. Representative Lane Evans will not run for reelection due to his battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was diagnosed in 1995 and has been unable to work since February 14 of this year. He is 54.

He just won the nomination for another term in last Tuesday’s primary, so now the Democratic county chairmen in the 17th Congressional District will have to select a candidate to replace him on the November ballot. There’s no word on who that replacement will be, but whoever it is will be running against Republican Andrea Zinga, a former TV news anchor who ran for the same seat unsuccessfully in 2004, garnering 39% of the vote against the incumbent Evans.

City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan

City planning largely to blame for isolation

I’ve been commenting on quite a few Journal Star articles today. I should send them a thank-you note for supplying me so much material. But they did have another interesting piece — this one on elderly residents who stop driving due to safety concerns.

The subhead for the article reads, “the loss of independence can leave them [the elderly] isolated.” One of the elderly non-drivers interviewed for the story said, “I’m having to depend on other people to take me where I want to go.” But the article never addresses the underlying reason for this dependence on others to drive them around.

That reason is our city planning or urban design — specifically, that our city is largely designed for cars rather than for people. Peoria has much of its housing completely segregated from shopping, entertainment, business, etc., because of zoning laws that have not allowed mixed uses of property. This kind of design requires dependence on the automobile to take one from one type of zoning to another (from home to work, from work to the store, from the store to home, etc.). Thus, this kind of city plan is hardest on those who don’t have automobile transportation: children, the poor, and the elderly.

That’s why the Heart of Peoria Plan, which is based on New Urbanism, recommends the reinstitution of mixed use neighborhoods. For example, if there is a market within easy walking distance, and the neighborhood is pedestrian-friendly, non-driving elderly persons don’t feel quite as isolated because they can still walk to the store and pick up some groceries themselves without relying on someone to drive them around. Similarly, if there’s a restaurant or cafe nearby, they can walk to such a gathering place themselves, without having to ask for a lift.

When my grandfather stopped driving, it wasn’t because he was feeble or unable to live on his own. Sure his eyesight and reaction time weren’t as sharp as they used to be, but he could still walk, fix himself meals, and live alone in an apartment. If he had lived in a mixed-use neighborhood, there are a lot more things he could have done himself without relying on others to drive him. The isolation he felt was the result of automobile-dependent urban design.

City of Peoria, Peoria Police

Should Peoria not be hospitable?

An elderly couple just going out for a walk here in Peoria were approached by a young man who asked to use their phone. They let the man in, and he hid in the couple’s bathroom. Soon, the police arrived. It turns out the man had just robbed the Subway restaurant in Northwoods Mall.

The elderly couple was obviously shaken by this turn of events, and the Journal Star’s account of the incident includes this quote from the couple and advice from the police:

“You can’t be nice anymore,” the [elderly] man said. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. If the police hadn’t come in, I don’t know what would have happened.”

[Police Lt. Jeff] Adams echoed that and asked people not to let strangers into their homes.

“You’ve got a guy who has just committed a robbery,” Adams said. “If the police hadn’t been around, this could have turned bad quick.”

Isn’t that sad? “Letting strangers into your home” is what used to be known as “showing hospitality.” Now, the police are essentially saying that Peoria is so unsafe that we are being asked not to practice hospitality.

But is not allowing strangers into our homes the solution . . . or the problem? Maybe we should have more strangers in our houses — like the strangers who live next door. Do we know our neighbors? Could it be that our isolation has made us less rather than more secure?

And what about that stranger that asks to use your phone? Maybe you could engage him in conversation and try to find out a little about why he’s calling and where he’s going. If he sounds suspicious, by all means, don’t let him in your house. But maybe you can offer to let him use your cordless phone or cell phone — outside. You can still show kindness while trying to minimize your risk.

I remember many years ago when I was just a teenager and my car broke down on War Memorial Drive one Sunday evening. I had to go up to a nearby house and ask to use the phone. I sure am thankful a kind lady let this stranger into her house to use her phone, or it would have been a long walk home! Sometimes the stranger who asks to use your phone really just needs to use the phone.