Monthly Archives: March 2007

City Council, City of Peoria

Council Roundup: Boots and Phase II

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Besides the double-taxation outrage that was deferred for a month, there were two other notable items passed by the council tonight:

  • Boots for parking ticket scofflaws — The council passed the ordinance that would allow an immobilization device (commonly referred to as a “boot”) on a car that has five outstanding, unpaid parking tickets on it. There were two amendments made to the ordinance — one was to allow 48 hours (instead of 24) for the tickets to be paid before impounding the car after the boot is applied; the other was to send notice to scofflaws that their car will be booted if they don’t pay up via certified mail instead of just regular mail.
  • Phase II of Riverfront Stonehenge Village approved — Riverfront Village has not been successful. Every year for the past six years, on average, the city has taken $100,000 from the Central Business District TIF and used it to pay for Riverfront Village losses instead of using it to pay off the bonds of the TIF. That’s $600,000 it’s lost over six years.

    Nevertheless, based on the City Manager’s projections, the new three-story office building that developer Mike Wisdom wants to erect on the stilted concrete pad will make that deficit disappear. I’ll believe it when I see it. Projections don’t mean much — the original project was supposed to break even, not lose $100,000 per year. We’ll see if these new projections are any more accurate than the last ones.

    One thing they’re going to do is apparently build a new pedestrian walkway that will take visitors right down to the new museum square. Considering how much money the museum project hasn’t raised, this walkway could be our own personal “bridge to nowhere.”

Update (3/28): A couple of things about the Riverfront Village project. If I could wave a magic wand, I would get rid of it as it’s currently configured. I’m not philosophically opposed to having development along the riverfront, but I think you should be able to actually see the river and enjoy the river view from said development, that it should be pedestrian-friendly, and it should be aesthetically pleasing. But, considering the monstrosity we know as Riverfront Village is already there and we can’t feasibly tear it down, we should take this lemon and try to make lemonade if we can. Perhaps this “Phase II” is a way to do that.

Regarding the pedestrian walkway, it’s come to my attention that my post made it sound like I was saying it would span Water street and the train tracks — no, no, it doesn’t do that. It’s just that it’s supposed to “connect” (the City’s word) with Museum Square eventually. Essentially what it does is provide access to the concrete pad from the Water Street side so you don’t have to walk around to the river side to get up to the businesses on top. It’s hard to argue that this wouldn’t be an improvement. But the council communication made it sound like the purpose was to poise it for connection with Museum Square, which seemed like a spurious use of city money.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria County

City needs to tell County Board we’re sick of double taxation

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On November 6, 1996, the Journal Star reported, “Peoria County voters approved a quarter-cent public safety sales tax Tuesday to pay for jail and warning siren improvements. With 96 percent of precincts in, the measure had 61 percent of the vote. The tally was 37,194 for the tariff and 24,047 against.” The tax went into effect January 1, 1998, and was expected to generate $3.3 million every year.

I wonder how many of those voters would have voted for that tax if they knew then what we know now: it apparently only applies to that part of Peoria County outside the City of Peoria’s corporate limits.

The City Council tonight deferred for one month a request to purchase a new Outdoor Warning System control system for $160,008.15. Why wouldn’t this system be paid for by the County out of that public safety tax? That’s what the City Council would like to know. According to City staff, the county won’t pay for it because the County Administrator said they won’t.

That’s right. Even though the City has almost 62% of the County’s population (112,907 City residents out of 182,328 total residents for the County), and we’re all paying the .25% County Public Safety Tax every time we buy any general merchandise in the City, the County thinks they shouldn’t have to use that revenue to purchase a new control system for our warning sirens, even though we live in Peoria County — even though that was the stated purpose of the tax when it was approved by the voters.

So, all of us City dwellers are already paying for warning sirens, but that money is only being spent by the County Board outside our city limits. Thus, we’re being asked to pay $160K more for the same service within our city limits!

Frankly, that’s an outrage. The City of Peoria is part of Peoria County, and we should be getting the services we’re paying for. We’re not. And it’s not just the warning sirens.

Remember the other thing the public safety tax was supposed to pay for? Warning siren improvements and…. A new county jail. Right. And in addition to City of Peoria residents paying the public safety tax for that, Peoria Police have to pay the County a booking fee of $20 for every inmate they want to house in that jail — the jail that we helped pay for! This last came up in the summer of 2005 when Randy Oliver suggested the City stop paying said fee. Well, we’re still paying it.

Enough is enough. Either city residents should get to stop paying the public safety tax, or we should get some benefit from it. But the current system is broken.

I encourage all of my readers to contact their County Board representative — or all the County Board members, if you want — and ask them to start providing the City the services it deserves for the money we’re paying in sales taxes for public safety. Here is a link to the County Board members and their contact information.

Blogosphere, Peoria Journal Star

Journal Star breaking news: People can be cruel!

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In the most shocking news report yet this year, the Journal Star has revealed that people can actually say very cruel things about other people.

Of course I’m being facetious. But what the Journal Star actually reported is almost as ridiculous: that civil discourse has only recently been degraded by the invention of the Internet:

It was yet another example of how the Internet – and the anonymity it affords – has given a public stage to people’s basest thoughts, ones that in earlier eras likely never would have traveled past the watercooler, the kitchen table or the next bar stool…. [I]s a decline in civil discourse simply the price that we pay for the advance of technology?

Which “earlier era” would that be? Before the printing press? Because, as I recall, there were some pretty nasty — and anonymous, I might add — pamphlets published early in our nation’s history, over a century before the wily Internet was invented. (I’m certainly not anywhere near the first person to make such an observation. This article from USA Today is but one example.)

Let’s consider just a couple of examples. Clement Moore (of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” fame) wrote an incendiary pamphlet calling Thomas Jefferson a racist in 1804. (Journal Star columnists would never accuse someone of racism, right?) And Jefferson received further abuse from the Federalist press:

[Jefferson’s] warm appreciation of fellow deist and reputed heavy drinker Thomas Paine presented an easy target for the Federalist press. One newspaper suggested that Jefferson’s interest in agriculture must have been the reason for his willingness to be associated with such “‘manure'” (p. 77). Another publication depicted Paine as wanting Jefferson to loan him his slave Sally Hemings because he had no female companion.

Ah, the halcyon days of high civil discourse . . . the vaunted heritage of newspaper reporting. Of course, no newspapers are like that today, fortunately. Injurious stories are nowadays the exclusive domain of the blogosphere and “message boards,” or so the Journal Star would have you believe:

News organizations, struggling to find ways to keep their readers involved in an increasingly digital and interactive world, are trying to strike the right balance.

Yes, news organizations are very thoughtful and will strike the right balance. They would never fabricate stories or report a false story that could be injurious to someone’s reputation. Just ask Jayson Blair or Dan Rather.

What’s my point? I’m certainly not defending incivility. My only point is that incivility can and does happen in any medium — radio, TV (ever heard of Jerry Springer?), newspapers, and yes, even the Internet. That the Journal Star wants to single out the Internet as somehow novel or worse than any other medium in lowering civil discourse is patently baseless. Putting this “news” on the front-page and above the fold makes the Journal Star look outdated and foolish.

Tomorrow’s Journal Star investigative report: Telephones have increased rudeness!

Kellar Branch

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley

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Kellar Branch RailroadThere are two articles in the Journal Star this morning regarding Peoria Heights’ desire to look at the feasibility of putting a trolley on the Kellar Branch rail line (Trolley enters Kellar line talks and Towns seeing boost from trolley systems). Both are well written and factual — a benefit of having replaced retired editorialist reporter Elaine Hopkins with Dave Haney on that beat.

There are just a couple of things I’d like to add to Haney’s stories that I think are pertinent. First, he made a lot of references to these trolley lines being taxpayer-supported in other communities. What’s being proposed in Peoria Heights, however, would not be tax-supported. The Illinois Prairie Railroad Foundation, in cooperation with Pioneer Railcorp, believes it can offer trolley service without receiving any taxpayer assistance, instead relying on economic development grants and ad revenue.

Also, while most trolleys are powered by overhead electric lines connected by a catenary on top of the trolley, the trolley being envisioned for Peoria Heights would run on battery technology — maybe even batteries created by Firefly Energy as a way of cross-marketing. That would lower the start-up costs of a Heights trolley.

The costs of putting in a trolley would actually be a lot less than the other communities that have them because we have something they didn’t: the rail line. The Kellar Branch rail line is already there, and the rail line is the most expensive part of putting in a trolley system. I’m glad to see the Heights taking this proposal seriously.

Now if we can just get Peoria, the Park District, and the RTA aboard….

City Council, City of Peoria

City wants to give parking ticket scofflaws the boot

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Boot Car ImmobilizerParking scofflaws beware, you may find your car immobilized if the city passes a new ordinance Tuesday night.

City Manager Randy Oliver is requesting that the City Council pass an ordinance that would allow a car immobilization device commonly known as a “boot” (an example is pictured at right) to be attached to a vehicle that has five or more outstanding unpaid parking tickets. Oliver believes parking ticket collection will be improved by this policy.

I agree. There’s really no good excuse for a person to have five or more unpaid parking tickets. If you’re going to have parking laws, they should be enforced. I don’t think there’s any doubt that this would be plenty of incentive for someone to finally pay what they owe to the city.

City Council, City of Peoria

Pay raise for City Manager on Tuesday’s agenda

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It looks like Randy Oliver will be getting a raise on Tuesday night:

The Mayor and City Council conducted an annual review of the performance of the City Manager. Based upon that review, the attached Resolution increases compensation 2.8% from $153,985 to $158,297, with the automobile allowance remaining at $575 per month and the deferred compensation percentage remaining at 12.5%. The raise is retroactive to January 1, 2007.

On the one hand, 2.8% is pretty meager, but on the other hand, when you make as much as Oliver does, that’s a $4,312 raise — equivalent to an almost 11% raise for someone who makes $40,000 per year. So he’s doing okay. The other thing that a 2.8% raise possibly indicates is that his performance is so-so. I mean, 3% is kind of the standard raise, isn’t it?

That’s one thing that’s got to stink about being a public servant — everyone knows your salary.

City Council, City of Peoria, Elections

Quiz Show: Council candidates participate in Warehouse District test

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Last night (3/22), the ten candidates for five city council at-large seats stood by easels with flipcharts on them, marker in hand, and answered questions compiled by the Warehouse District Association. It was fun, but it really was a test — a test to see how much the candidates know about the Heart of Peoria Plan, the proposed Land Development Code, and the Warehouse District. Their answers will be graded and, while the answers won’t be published, their scores will. It’s just one more tool in evaluating the candidates.

Only part of the time was spent writing answers on paper, however. Interspersed were three or four rounds of questioning that required the candidates to answer verbally. Here are some of the questions and answers (remember, these are going to be specific to the Warehouse District because that’s the audience for this forum):

Q: Where should the next major development be in the city?

  • Turner: Museum and CAT visitors center, Warehouse District and Eagle View area
  • Thetford: Downtown, older neighborhoods,
  • Spain: Downtown, riverfront, warehouse district, Renaissance Park
  • Sandberg: Within the 8,000-acre Heart of Peoria area

Q: Would you vote for the Warehouse District TIF if elected to the council?

  • Polk: Only if it’s not detrimental to District 150
  • Montelongo: “I would want some strings attached to that as well.” (didn’t specify what strings)
  • Jacob: Wants to complete the TIF study before making a final decision

Q: If elected, what value would you place on the Warehouse District?

  • Irving: Extremely high; development needed in this area, especially retail
  • Gillette: Important; outdoor malls, restaurants, night clubs, etc., needed to bring people to the area
  • Cassel-Fitzgerald: Very high; supports Warehouse District

Q: How would you fix the streets in the Warehouse District and Downtown?

  • Cassel-Fitzgerald: Procedures in place for owners to do something about the sidewalks; some streets need to be two-way; to some extent it depends on who moves there
  • Gillette: Return some streets to natural character (e.g., many downtown streets still have brick underlayment); change one-way streets to two-way; change Washington Street to three lanes
  • Irving: Change one-way streets to two-way; put in more ornamental landscaping; imperative that traffic be slowed down in order for Warehouse District to be successfully implemented
  • Jacob: Make one-way streets two-way; slow traffic down; create diagonal parking; realize that this effort will require significant investments in infrastructure

Q: What is the city council’s role in economic development in the Warehouse District?

  • Montelongo: “Set the tone” for business growth
  • Polk: Find as many venues to make the city as progressive as it can; use Warehouse District to bring tourism in; provide whatever the need to make this a thriving area
  • Sandberg: Adopt regulations that would promote investment; stand against development not in keeping with the vision for the Heart of Peoria Plan and Warehouse District

Q: (1) Have you ever walked the Warehouse District? (2) If so, do you think the city’s efforts to keep the streets/sidewalks clean and repaired is adequate?

  • Spain: (1) Yes; (2) No, a better job needs to be done in this area for the Warehouse District to be successful; consider the “hidden costs” of doing this (e.g., added costs to clear the sidewalks of snow in addition to the street)
  • Thetford: (1) Yes, portions of it; (2) Not as good as it should be, but better than some older neighborhoods; the city needs to work on the streets all over Peoria, not just in the Warehouse District
  • Turner: (1) Yes; (2) Visited warehouse districts in other cities, so he knows the vision; here, “we have a long way to go.”

Q: Will you encourage establishment of the arts as a vital part of the Warehouse District?

  • Turner: Yes; committed to Arts Partners
  • Thetford: “Without question”; has a minor in theater and has acted at Cornstock, so is committed to the arts; our arts community distinguishes Peoria from among other cities in Illinois
  • Spain: “Absolutely yes”; it is a critical part of our community; offered to have his jazz band come down and play a gig in the Warehouse District

Q: What do you think the [now-defunct] Riverfront Commission in the past accomplished?

  • Sandberg: It was a waste of money that destroyed our riverfront; the scale is wrong, the architecture is wrong; it is a barricade to our river [after Sandberg’s comments, the audience applauded unprompted — the only time this happened]
  • Polk: Disappointed in how our riverfront turned out; expected something different
  • Montelongo: Got things started, but outcome was misguided; didn’t meet expectations
  • Jacob: It’s easy to sit back and bash the Riverfront Commission’s work after the fact; yes, mistakes were made, but the opportunity now is to work with what we’ve got and come up with solutions; focus on the future

Q: What has the Heart of Peoria Commission (1) accomplished so far, and (2) what can they do in the future?

  • Irving: (1) They have brought forth the form-based code; (2) communicate, publicize, and come up with more ideas for drawing people into the older parts of town
  • Gillette: (1) They’ve completed basic studies on what can be done; (2) need to communicate and listen to the neighborhoods
  • Cassell-Fitzgerald: (1) Commission has not done what it could have done; there are no resolutions to their recommendations; (2) Work closer with neighborhood associations; network with other organizations

Keep in mind that these questions and answers are just pulled from my notes. Some of the candidates talk very fast, and I just tried to get the basic gist of what they were saying, with a quote here and there when I could get it. In fairness, they had to talk fast, because the pace of the Q&A time was pretty peppy.

I thought these questions and answers gave some insight into the candidates’ knowledge of the issues that are important to the Warehouse District, and also some idea of how they view the council’s role in development. Jennifer Davis of the Journal Star covered the event, as did Kim Carollo of HOI News.

City of Peoria, Insight Communications, State Legislation, Television

Almost a year later, and still no cable franchise agreement

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Cable TVOn April 15, 2006, Peoria’s 20-year cable franchise agreement with Insight Communications expired. As of today, we still have no cable franchise agreement, but City Attorney Randy Ray is hopeful that we will soon. In an e-mail I received in response to my question on how negotiations were going, he said this:

Our attorney is working on what I hope is a final version [of the proposed new franchise agreement]. We are subject to being affected by pending legislation in Springfield.

That is one, long, drawn-out negotiation. No doubt the legislation to which Ray obliquely refers is H.B. 1500, the so-called “Cable and Video Competition Law of 2007.” It’s backed by telcom behemoth AT&T which wants to get into the cable TV business without having to negotiate franchise agreements with each municipality the way cable companies have done for the past 40 years.

Under H.B. 1500, a cable provider such as AT&T would apply not to the City of Peoria or the Village of Morton or any other local municipality for a cable franchise agreement to serve those communities, but rather to the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) to get franchise authorization. Furthermore, it would preempt home rule, meaning that it would strip municipalities of any authority to regulate use of their rights-of-way by cable operators (e.g., use of utility poles, underground easements, etc.), as they do through local franchise agreements now.

Opponents of the bill, such as the not-for-profit organization SaveAccess.org, say that it does a number of harmful things, including:

  • Shuts down Public, Educational and Government (PEG) stations around the state
  • Drops requirements that companies serve everyone
  • Weakens customer service protections
  • Harms fair competitions

Granted, those are all sound-bite sized talking points, but I think they’re true. Consider:

The first point is a reference to a provision in the bill that states, “Any public, education, or government channel provided under this Section that is not used by the franchising authority or local unit of government for at least 8 hours per day of non-repeat programming for 3 consecutive months may no longer be made available to the local franchising authority….” That’s a lot of public access programming to sustain. Insight provides channel 17 (Illinois Central College) and channel 22 (public/government access), and I don’t believe the two of them combined provide 8 hours/day of non-repeat programming. So I believe it’s fair to say the effect of the bill would indeed shut down PEG stations.

As far as it dropping requirements to serve everyone, local franchise agreements were always concerned with equity — with the same service being available throughout the city (see, for example, §5.1 of Peoria’s 1986 Cable Franchise Agreement). The bill as written would not require total coverage, and in fact would only require that by five years after rollout, 30% of households accessible to the cable operator’s service be low-income.

Since complaints about service would no longer be made locally, but to the state, I think there’s no question that it weakens customer service. Who do you think is going to be more responsive to your cable TV complaint: your city staffer/council rep or a state bureaucrat?

But the last point is the kicker. As a recent article in Multichannel News points out, “As currently written, the bill [H.B. 1500] would hold only incumbent cable operators to current franchises until their statutory end dates.” Indeed, §21-301(2) of the bill states, “Upon expiration of its current agreement, an incumbent cable operator […] shall obtain State authorization from the Commission pursuant to this Article and shall be subject to the provisions of this Article.”

And this may be one reason it’s taking so long to get a new franchise agreement between Insight and Peoria. Insight will want to protect themselves against signing a 10- or 20-year franchise agreement that is going to put them at a competitive disadvantage to AT&T, which will be deploying cable services under a state-granted franchise if this legislation is passed.

The bill has been assigned to the Telecommunications Committee, and there was a hearing on it today (3/22) in Springfield. There is a website set up specifically to oppose this bill called KeepUsConnected.org.

Ray LaHood

LaHood doesn’t want to make it too easy to form a union

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Ray LaHoodEarlier this month, Ray LaHood voted against the Employee Free Choice Act (which passed the House anyway, 241-185), H.R. 1696 H.R. 800, which would make it easier to form a union. Here’s a good explanation from a blog called The Chicagoist:

In a nutshell, the current process of administrative rules and labor laws require at least 30% of workers to sign union cards indicating that they want to have a union, petition the government for an election, and then go through a campaign before getting to vote to have a union or not. […]

The Employee Free Choice Act changes the rules regarding union representation, granting union recognition by signing up a simple majority of workers on union cards, eliminating the petition process. Furthermore, this bill creates meaningful consequences when employers violate employee rights to organize and provides for mediation and arbitration in first contract negotiations.

LaHood voted against it, telling the Pekin Times he felt it would “take away the opportunity of the worker to participate and have their voice heard through the ballot.” Wikipedia further explains why he may feel that way:

Critics contend union administered elections, with a lack of Federal oversight, will lead to coercion on the part of union organizers. Opponents of the EFCA also assert that the measure would not protect employee privacy [i.e., there is nothing requiring a secret ballot].

Thank goodness we have Ray LaHood in Congress to protect workers from those horrible unions! I mean, the current system is so much better, isn’t it, with all its protective red tape and long delays? I suppose that’s one way to fix the trade deficit — if we can get rid of the unions, then American workers can start competing for the low wages corporations are paying to workers oversees.

Meanwhile, staunch defender of the democratic process LaHood continues to defend the decidedly un-democratic federal earmark process.