Museum odds and ends (UPDATED)

  • From the Wall Street Journal: “Ten Things Museums Won’t Tell You.” Number 7: “Our priceless treasures are languishing in storage.” Number 9: “You think our building is ugly; we say it’s one of a kind.”
  • The County is still hashing out a redevelopment agreement with the Peoria Riverfront Museum (PRM), the City of Peoria, and Caterpillar. I received a draft copy anonymously through the mail. One of the items: “PRM will commence construction of the Project if and when all conditions precedent are satisfied, including receipt of funds equal to the entire Project Budget, plus a project contingency in a to be determined amount.” Another interesting provision states that once PRM is up and running, Lakeview Museum will cease to exist. I’ll post a copy of the document this evening.
  • So, how much is the entire “Project Budget” and how much in funding has been received? According to an October 22 letter to the County, the total project budget is $79,486,662. The total pledged dollars: $73,285,140. Since then, the state has passed a bill (still waiting for the governor’s signature, I believe) allocating $5 million in additional funds to the museum, which would bring that total up to $78,285,140. That leaves a remaining funding gap of $1,201,522. However, most interesting is this statement (emphasis mine): “The total amount collected for the project to this point is $14,244,543.”
  • Merle Widmer has his own update on the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum.

UPDATE: As promised, PDF Link here is the document.

Moore’s list of critical city positions

It was mentioned during the city council meeting that City Manager Scott Moore asked the council to restore 22 critical positions with the city. The list was projected on the wall briefly, but wasn’t included in the packet on the city’s website (at least, I couldn’t find it). I was able to get a copy after the meeting — here are the positions:

Manager Recommendations for Operations
Positions Restored
In Priority Order

6 Police officers (PPBA)
2 ECC Communicators (AFSCME)
Network Specialist (AFSCME)
Computer Operator (AFSCME)
Legal Administration Coordinator (AFSCME)
1 Animal Control Officer (AFSCME)
Police Records Manager (Exempt)
1 Animal Control Officer (AFSCME)
2 Part-Time Kennel Technicians (AFSCME)
1 ECC Supervisor (Exempt)
Public Safety Coordinator (Exempt)
1 Accountant (Exempt)
1 Code Enforcement Inspector (AFSCME)
2 Police Info Tech for 3rd Shift (AFSCME)

Subtotal (22 Positions)

Note: “ECC” stands for Emergency Communications Center. According to the city’s website, “The ECC provides dispatching services to Peoria Police, Peoria Fire, Peoria County Sheriff, Emergency Medical Services, Peoria County Fire & EMS agencies and other City departments as part of the Peoria City/County Enhanced 9-1-1 system.”

Police Benevolent: Why haven’t they agreed to wage concessions?

After the Tuesday night City Council meeting, I caught up with Troy Skaggs, president of the Peoria Police Benevolent, and asked him why the police union had not agreed to any wage concessions. He said there were basically three reasons.

He told me that the union met Monday night, and that City Manager Scott Moore gave a presentation. During that presentation, Moore said this wasn’t going to be a one-year concession. It was likely that the city would be back next year asking for concessions again. And probably the year after that. This was the first time the city had come out and said these requests for concessions would be ongoing and not a one-time deal. That’s the first reason the union was uneasy with agreeing to wage concessions.

Secondly, Skaggs pointed out that the police department is already down 16 positions. Seven positions are vacancies from the beginning of the year that they simply haven’t filled, and an additional nine positions are officers who took advantage of the Voluntary Separation Initiative (VSI) recently offered by the city. They’re not going to fill any of those positions, yet the council wants to cut the department by an additional 17 positions. At the same time, according to Skaggs, the fire department is “back-filling” ten positions, eight of which were vacated due to VSI. So the police union doesn’t see the equity in these two situations.

Finally, the city wouldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t lay off more officers anyway, even if the union did agree to wage concessions. That really made the union uncomfortable, since they could give up wage increases and lose a bunch of additional officers anyway, meaning they’d be doing more work for no additional pay. Before I talked to Skaggs, I had asked Mayor Ardis about negotiations with the police union, and while he directed me to talk to the union president, he did mention that the police department had wanted some guarantees but the city didn’t feel comfortable with the offer having strings attached.

My take: I can understand, on the one hand, the city not wanting its hands tied in case the forecasted (or actual) deficit gets worse. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me for the police union to expect some sort of commitment from the city in return for wage concessions.

Bottom line, though, we need police protection. We can’t balance the budget at the expense of public safety. If we “punish” the police union for not taking wage concessions by laying off more police officers, we’re only hurting ourselves.

The council needs to face the music and raise revenue somehow. They simply can’t balance the budget by reducing expenses because the cuts are too deep. Even the City Manager recognizes this — he identified 22 positions that have been cut so far that he’d like to see restored because they’re critical for the city. Those positions include restoring six police officers and several support personnel in the police department.

The real mystery is why the council is so reticent to raise taxes for public safety when they’re so quick to raise taxes for private development schemes like the proposed downtown Marriott hotel deal. Nobody wants higher taxes, but if we’re going to be paying higher taxes anyway, the proceeds should go toward the highest public benefit. As it stands now, we’re paying higher taxes and getting less police protection in return.

Not only is that bad public policy on its face, it only exacerbates the city’s predicament because it drives residents and business out of Peoria. Nobody wants to live where it’s unsafe — whether perceived or actual — and nobody is going to want to shop and dine in Peoria when they can get the same goods and services at a much cheaper tax rate just over the river, or in Peoria Heights, or in any of the other surrounding communities. The city is cutting its own throat.