Oct. 23 council agenda portends another protracted meeting

Last week, the council meeting lasted six hours, starting on Tuesday and ending on Wednesday. That’s probably not going to happen this coming Tuesday (Lord willing), but if the agenda is any indication, it’s still going to be a relatively long meeting. Here’s the agenda for Tuesday night’s council meeting:

Continue reading Oct. 23 council agenda portends another protracted meeting

Still waiting for Park Board report on televising meetings

From the April 27, 2007, Peoria Park Board minutes:

Mr. Christopher J. Summers read from a letter he wrote to the Park Board regarding the question of whether or not to televise Park Board meetings on the public access channel. VICE PRESIDENT CUMMINGS MOVED STAFF PREPARE A STUDY OR REPORT WHICH WOULD GIVE THE BOARD A SUMMARY OF ALL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH TELEVISING OF ALL PARK BOARD MEETINGS, OR ALL BUDGET SESSIONS. REPORT TO INCLUDE ALL THE BENEFITS OF SAME AND DISADVANTAGES OF SAME. STAFF TO INCLUDE THEIR SUGGESTIONS OF POSSIBLE DONORS WILLING TO CHAMPION THIS EFFORT IF COSTS ARE HIGH. Motion seconded by Trustee Petty. Deliberation followed with questions raised regarding who pays for the televised service, the previous history of this issue, and possibility of staff doing the taping of meetings and giving pre-recorded tape to Insight Communications public access channel. Motion carried on unanimous voice vote. (Results: 6 Ayes; 0 Nays)

It’s been six months, and there’s been no further mention of this action item that I can find. Did it slip through the cracks?

Capital dollars for the Heart of Peoria

Although the Heart of Peoria Commission is currently slated to receive no funding in the city’s proposed 2008 capital budget, that doesn’t mean the Heart of Peoria area is getting no funding for projects.

City Manager Randy Oliver sent me this breakdown of the funding that is currently proposed:

The Heart of Peoria area is proposed to receive a significant amount of the City’s proposed 2008 CIP non-discretionary resources. The major initiatives are:

  • Sheridan Road Triangle – $285,000
  • Warehouse District Infrastructure (Roads) – $1,000,000
  • Wisconsin Business Improvement District – $100,000
  • ML King Opportunity Acquisition – $100,000
  • Main Street Traffic Study – $35,000
  • Downtown Improvements – $200,000
  • Water Street – Hamilton to Washington – $1,000,000 (total funding $2 million balance from the State)
  • Center University of Illinois Medical School Campus – $2,000,000

This does not include Sidewalks in Need of Repair (SINR) or Special Assessment projects.

Although all these projects are in the HOP area, they are not all “Heart of Peoria Plan” projects. The U of I Medical School campus, for example, has nothing to do with the HOP Plan.

A significant amount of money is being put toward the Warehouse District, however, and that’s a good thing. Development of this project, though, is largely dependent on getting IDOT to go along with the vision and allow the city to make the kinds of street improvements needed to make it a viable mixed-use area. As Gary Sandberg recently pointed out, no one is going to want to live down there as long as the traffic is hostile to pedestrians.

I’m not sure what some of these projects are. Even after looking at the proposed budget on the city’s website, I can’t figure out what the $200,000 in “downtown improvements” is set aside to provide. I may have just missed the explanatory document requesting this funding — the budget is over 300 pages and it’s easy to overlook things.

UPDATE: Here’s what Mr. Oliver had to say about the “Downtown Improvements” funds:

Theses funds are a continuation of the funding for improvements to Water Street behind the Museum/CAT from a prior year project. A CIP sheet should have been included.

These improvements are required to be completed under a Development Agreement when the Museum/CAT Experience is completed. The improvement provides for a continuation of the street scape, diagonal parking on the Museum side of the block and elevating the street above the 100 year flood plain.

City Council budget session minutes released

Did you miss the special City Council meeting on Monday where they discussed the proposed 2008 budget? Here is the meat of the official minutes from that meeting, which were released today (they’re long, so click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below to see the whole thing):

City Manager Randy Oliver provided the City Council with an overview of the 2008 Preliminary Budget. He discussed 2008 projected revenues and property tax base (EAV) growth from 2000 through what was estimated for 2007. He pointed out that out of every tax dollar, the City’s share was only 11%, with 9% going to the Park District, 10% going to the County, 59% going to the School Districts, and 11% going to other. He further discussed sales tax revenues from 2003 to 2008, which included local revenues and from the State revenues. He also discussed projected 2008 operating expenditures with 30% for the Police Department, 22% for the Fire Department, 21% for Public Works, and the remaining split between the other smaller departments. He explained the Operating Budget and the amount of increases over the last four years. He closed by discussing the General Fund – Fund Balance and the amounts of increases from 2000 to 2006.

Continue reading City Council budget session minutes released

Beware of “fake news” on TV

When is TV news real journalism and when is it fake? According to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), it’s fake when it’s nothing more than a “video news release,” or “VNR”:

Video news releases are public relations videos designed to look like television news stories. The vast majority of VNRs are funded by corporate clients to promote the company’s products or public image.

For example, the makers of Zicam, a cold remedy product, put together a VNR about the inconvenience of catching a cold while traveling. It was taped just like a news report, except that the surveys and reports it refers to are all company-sponsored, there are lots of Zicam product-placement opportunities, and their expert interviewee states, “in my research I found that homeopathic zinc products can shorten the duration of your illness.” You think you’re watching a report that includes unbiased scientific research, but it’s really just a clever commercial for Zicam.

CMD quotes a public notice from the FCC that states VNRs “must clearly disclose to members of their audiences the nature, source and sponsorship of the material.” The problem is, there are many TV news programs using VNRs without ever disclosing that their source material is simply a PR video hawking a specific product. Worse, CMD shows examples on its website of stations that “disguise VNRs as their own reporting”:

Newsrooms added station-branded graphics and overlays, to make VNRs indistinguishable from reports that genuinely originated from their station. A station reporter or anchor re-voiced the VNR in more than 60 percent of the VNR broadcasts, sometimes repeating the publicist’s original narration word-for-word.

CMD identified over 100 stations that aired what they consider “fake news.” No Peoria stations were listed. However, the owners of most of Peoria’s commercial stations were represented on the list (the one notable exception being Barrington Broadcasting, owners of WHOI) because stations they own in other cities did misuse VNRs.

The FCC has taken notice, and recently levied a $4,000 fine on a Comcast cable channel for failing to identify a VNR they ran as a news story. This one was for an herbal remedy called Nelson’s Rescue Sleep. Comcast defended its use of the VNR material, saying, “The segments in question were chosen by journalists in the course of reporting, and Comcast received no consideration or benefit by using the material.”

Indeed, since these types of news releases are provided for free to stations and with no limitations on how they can be edited, some newsrooms find them to be an easy source of content for “news” reports. Neither CMD nor the FCC says TV stations can’t use VNR material in their broadcasts, only that the source of the material should be clearly disclosed so viewers can make informed judgments as to the claims of such material.