King Matheson suffers the little people’s queries

The Journal Star had an interesting article today on how some ticked-off east bluff residents cornered Sean Matheson after the school board meeting last night. I just want to make a couple of quick comments:

Matheson said there isn’t enough space to build a new school on the Glen Oak site. In order to have enough room, more properties would have been impacted.

Prove it. As I stated earlier, the school district is not obligated to build on 15 acres, or even 10 acres. In fact, there is no minimum acreage requirement in the State of Illinois. What’s the justification for believing “there isn’t enough space” on the current Glen Oak School site?

Matheson said the location for the new school is final, but the programs that go into it are not. He encouraged the residents to be part of the process to design the school, which will take place in the coming months.

“Remember, we’ve made one decision, and I understand that decision is controversial, but there are many other decisions that need to be made,” he told the group of residents.

I was trying to figure out a word for this, and I think Bill Dennis hit it on the head: arrogance. Sure, they’ve just made one little decision: the decision to throw 14 long-time homeowners and 7 renters out of their houses, leave a large vacant building on the corner of Frye and Wisconsin, and take more of Glen Oak Park out of use. It’s nothing, really. Nothing the little people should have any say about.

To add insult to injury, now the board wants public input. Now, the board wants buy-in. Now they want to patch things up with the remaining neighbors. Matheson is essentially saying — in the same breath — “screw you” and “we want your input!” That engenders trust and cooperation, doesn’t it?

No doubt his remarks are a reference to the recently-created School Design & Construction Planning (SD&CP) Committee. At the February 21 school board meeting, Guy Cahill explained the purpose of this committee (emphasis mine):

[T]he goal of this committee will be to advise the Administration and Board on the programming elements that are to go into the building – how will teachers teach, how will students learn and how will that affect student achievement. The core committee will also reach out into the community with several sub committees asking, “What fits into this neighborhood, what extra curricular activities would you like to see at this site, what should be some of the partnerships and what services would you like to see offered at this site.” The core committee will also be advising the Board’s Building Committee on the selection of the architects and will select seven firms to give presentations to the Board’s Building Committee. In addition the members will visit firms and school sites to see how the firms’ designs fit our requirements.

Let’s see if we can answer one of those questions: “What fits into this neighborhood?” Neighbors fit into the neighborhood. Too bad they won’t be there anymore.

Public meeting on landlord licensing planned

NEWS RELEASE
Date: April 4, 2006
Released by: Alma Brown, Public Information Officer, 494-8554
Subject: LANDLORD LICENSING

Council Member Bob Manning will hold a meeting on April 8, 2006, from 2:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. at Peoria City Hall, in City Council Chambers, to discuss the possibility of requiring landlords to be licensed.

The meeting is open to the public and the community is encouraged to attend.