City council members submitted a total of 49 questions about the proposed library expansion. Mayor Ardis collected them and submitted them to the Peoria Public Library Board and expects them to answer them all in writing by next Friday, June 6. The council will then discuss the answers during the June 10 council meeting.

Sadly, there’s no indication which council members asked which questions. Some of the questions are completely irrelevant (e.g.,”Whatever happened to the library at Main and University?”, “Why were the libraries closed the weekend that the high schools had finals?”). Others are designed to call the library referendum into question (e.g., “What percent of the 70% of people that voted for the new library system understand your full plan?”). Some are just idiotic (e.g., “If the downtown museum is successful, would it be possible to position the downtown library at that location?”). There are good questions, too, but I’ll bet almost all of them could have been answered by Gary Sandberg if any of the council members had bothered to contact him.

Below is the cover letter from the mayor. The questions can be seen by clicking the “Read the rest of this entry” link that follows.

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

Jim Ardis
Mayor

May 30, 2008

TO: Library Board & Director
FROM: Peoria City Council
RE: Questions regarding Library Operations and Expansions

Please find the attached questions submitted by members of the Council. Note that all members were asked to submit questions for clarification from your report or possibly some information not included in your report.

We would like to emphasize that this process should not be viewed as second-guessing your work to this point. Our collective goal is to understand your thought process and recommendations and discuss how we can incorporate them into a plan for enhanced library services that can be done within a realistic budget. Every single person on our Council supports strong libraries.

Make no mistake; we feel compromise will have to happen if we are going to move forward. Otherwise we would have approved what you submitted to us 10 days before the decision was to be made. Please acknowledge that the questions attached should be viewed as a starting point and based on your response, will likely generate additional questions. We would like to think good communication will accelerate this process and get us to a point where we can focus on what we can both agree on going forward. We are very confident that Councilman Spears will be able to do an outstanding job as our liaison.

We would like to request that a written response be provided to the Council by 5pm on Friday, June 6th. In addition, we would like to place an agenda item at the June 10 meeting to discuss these questions and answers publicly. There will be no vote taken at that meeting regarding the issuance of bonds. Please advise the City Manager of your ability to provide the written response to these questions and your willingness to participate in Council discussion as outlined.

Thank you for helping us answer these very important questions that were not clear to this point. This due diligence is very important to the decision making process. Have a nice weekend.

Jim Ardis
Mayor

Continue reading 49 Questions about the Library

I just received this news release from the city:

Mayor Jim Ardis has appointed Council Member Bill Spears to fill the position of Liaison to the Peoria Public Library Board.

Mayor Ardis said, “Moving quickly to appoint a liaison after Councilman Sandberg’s resignation stresses the importance the Council places on having a liaison [...]