Monthly Archives: November 2009

League of Women Voters, Peoria Public Schools

League of Women Voters to host charter school debate

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From my inbox:

League of Women Voters Invites the Public to hear about the Charter Schools Proposal in Peoria – Will this “fix” District 150 or cost money & hurt other schools?

Peoria – Should Peoria School District 150 approve a math, science and technology charter school, a middle school to be expanded into a high school? How will this impact other schools and students? How will it be financed?

Cindy Fisher and Vicky Stewart will explain the plans of the Peoria Charter School Initiative to open a math, science and technology charter school in District 150 by August, 2010, beginning with grades 5 – 7 then expanding yearly into high school. The plan contemplates a school with 600 students, with the students chosen by lottery.

Gerry Brookhart, the Regional Supt of Schools, will explain what charter schools are and the restrictions the state of Illinois places on them.

Tom McLauglin and Sharon Teefey from the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) will present their alternative view on charter schools.

The presentations will be followed by a question and answer session.

When: 9-11am Saturday, November 21, (free) Program (8:30am optional light breakfast $8)
Where: Peoria Castle Lodge (formerly Jumers) 117 N Western Ave.

Having heard the charter school proponents’ view quite a bit as of late, it should be interesting to hear the union’s take on the issue.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Police

No council meeting Tuesday

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From Alma Brown, City of Peoria Communications Manager:

Pursuant to Rule 32 of the Council Rules, the Peoria City Council Meeting scheduled for November 17, 2009 is hereby canceled.

The cancellation is due to the City Council’s inability to make budget decisions necessary to close the deficit and bring forward a balanced budget in the absence of specific concession information from our Police Benevolent and AFSCME bargaining units.

The City Council has directed staff to continue meeting with these units in order to reach agreement on the requested concessions.

My sources say that some sort of concessions might be forthcoming from the Police union, thus accounting for the delay in making final budget decisions. Despite the wording in the e-mail, there doesn’t appear to be the same optimism regarding AFSCME. But we’ll see what happens between now and next Tuesday.

Peoria Public Schools

Dr. Fischer: D150 is big ship, hard to reform

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Dr. Cindy Fischer spoke at the Uplands Residential Association meeting Thursday night, November 12. She had been invited by Uplands resident Jennifer Brady to talk about the Peoria Charter School Initiative. Her presentation was similar to the one given at the Civic Center, except that there were no representatives of the Chicago Math and Science Academy (CMSA) in attendance.

According to Dr. Fischer’s presentation, the charter school as proposed would have roughly the same demographics as the rest of District 150. Their plan is to recruit students from all parts of District 150, including the most impoverished areas. They’re committed to maintaining diversity. This was interesting to me because the district has long maintained that poverty is a root cause of low achievement. So I wondered why, given the same demographic makeup, the charter school promised to deliver such high performance. Dr. Fischer explained that the charter school would get better results because of the “best practices” that would be implemented and various other components of their program, such as a longer school day, higher teacher accountability, etc.

That all sounds great, but why isn’t District 150 doing that already? Dr. Fischer is not an outsider to District 150. She was in central administration. In fact, she was an Associate Superintendent. She was in a position of major influence. So, why didn’t she implement these “best practices” and other components when she was there? Are the practices only legal for charter schools to implement? Was she unable to enact changes because of resistance from others? Or did she only learn about these practices after retiring from the district?

I asked her those questions Thursday night. She explained that, in her position as Associate Superintendent, she wasn’t over curriculum and instruction for middle and high schools. She was over “everything else” — things like early childhood education, safety, etc. So she in fact wasn’t in a position to implement the kinds of reforms being discussed.

She also said that when she first came to the central administration building, she was ready to go in and make changes, but found that it wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be to make reforms. She said District 150 is “like a big ship,” and “before you can turn a big ship, you have to slow it down.” In keeping with that metaphor, she explained that she spent most of her time just trying to “slow down the ship” so reforms could be made.

Finally, Dr. Fischer explained that the proposed “best practices” are easier to implement in a charter school because you are “starting from scratch.” Since you’re building a new school from the ground up, you don’t have to change an existing culture. You can establish the kind of learning and working culture you want from the outset.

I have to say, Dr. Fischer was a very impressive speaker. My question didn’t rattle her at all. She didn’t sound or appear defensive in answering it, but spoke as professionally and engagingly as she had the rest of the evening. She also expertly avoided saying anything negative about District 150 teachers, union, administrative staff, etc., even as she spoke about the district’s low achievement scores. The board of directors made an excellent decision in appointing her the public face of the Peoria Charter School Initiative.

Radio

WOAM only half on

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Radio station WOAM (1350 AM) has been broadcasting the past few months in an apparent effort by the owner to keep his FCC license while he tries to sell the station. There are no DJs, no commercials, and no news or weather breaks. Just easy listening music and station IDs.

I’ve listened to it a few times the past several weeks, and I’ve noticed that they don’t have their equipment hooked up properly. You see, they’re a mono station, but they play music that was originally recorded in stereo. If you’re going from stereo to mono, you need to combine the two stereo tracks into one mono track using a Y-adapter (or, alternatively, using an audio software program to combine the tracks). What WOAM is doing is just playing one of the stereo tracks and not the other.

That’s a problem — especially when they play songs from the early days of stereo recording, like songs by The Association or Simon & Garfunkel. In those early, experimental days, bands would do some crazy things by today’s standards. For instance, they might put all the percussion in the right channel and all the vocals in the left channel. So if you only hear one track and not the other, the song sounds weird at best. And WOAM plays a lot of songs that suffer from that problem.

So, WOAM station owner, while I know this is just a temporary thing and you’re losing money anyway, why not spend a couple bucks on a Y-adapter, just out of the goodness of your heart? Your listeners will appreciate it.

City Council, City of Peoria

Liveblogging the City Council 11/10/2009

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Welcome to room 400 of Peoria City Hall. Once again, I’ll be providing live news and comment on tonight’s City Council meeting. The agenda is below. I’ll be updating this post with my comments throughout the evening, so refresh often.

The mayor and all council members are present.

Here’s the agenda:

Continue reading Liveblogging the City Council 11/10/2009 →

General News

There is no honor among thieves

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From the Washington Examiner:

The private homes that New London, Conn., took away from Suzette Kelo and her neighbors have been torn down. Their former site is a wasteland of fields of weeds, a monument to the power of eminent domain.

But now Pfizer, the drug company whose neighboring research facility had been the original cause of the homes’ seizure, has just announced that it is closing up shop in New London.

To lure those jobs to New London a decade ago, the local government promised to demolish the older residential neighborhood adjacent to the land Pfizer was buying for next-to-nothing. Suzette Kelo fought the taking to the Supreme Court, and lost. Five justices found this redevelopment met the constitutional hurdle of “public use.”

A comment on the story in the New Haven Register says it all: “Karma working her magic in New London.”

City Council, City of Peoria

City Council preview

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There’s a city council meeting tonight. Here are some items of interest:

  • There’s a request to use Tazewell County Asphalt Company to seal a parking lot behind the city’s municipal services building. I wonder why the council would even consider patronizing businesses in East Peoria — a city they believe tolerates discrimination, as they made perfectly clear a few weeks ago. Will they reject this bid and any others until these communities adopt the same Fair Employment and Housing Commission statutes as Peoria?
  • Despite all the cost cutting, the city will still have to raise property taxes. A truth in taxation hearing will be held tonight.
  • Comcast’s cable franchise agreement with the city, which expired way back in 2006, is up for yet another temporary extension. Will a permanent agreement ever be reached?
  • Continued discussion on the 2010 budget, including a discussion on the cost of police uniforms.
  • Taxes are also going up in the “Town of Peoria.” You gotta love the “Town of Peoria.” It has the same borders as the City of Peoria, and the City Council members are the Town Trustees. Yet, they get over $2 million in separate tax levies. Illinois: king of superfluous municipal organizations.
City of Peoria, Peoria Journal Star

Word on the Street counterpoint

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Let’s talk about today’s Word on the Street column:

Critics of publicly financing a Downtown hotel have linked last year’s City Council vote to extend $39.3 million in bonds for the $102 million Marriott with this year’s budget reduction decisions.

Some council members are fighting back, saying the criticism is unfair and inaccurate. They say the bond issue for the hotel project has nothing to do with next year’s budget deficit, or with the budget in general.

This ought to be good. I can’t wait to hear how $39.3 million has nothing to do with the budget.

“There is a misperception being promoted that the city has $39 million in the bank and is giving it away to a private developer when that is just not the case,” at-large City Councilman Ryan Spain said.

Oh, no. I know the city doesn’t have $39 million in the bank. That’s precisely the point. The city is going to have to go $39 million in debt to give $39 million away to a private developer.

At-large City Councilman Eric Turner agreed. “It doesn’t impact anything,” he said.

By “anything” here, I’m assuming he meant it in the context of the 2010 budget. And this may shock you, but I don’t disagree with him in that assessment. It won’t impact anything in 2010. But it will certainly impact the budget in 2012 and beyond. But I suppose that’s irrelevant, eh? Why look past the end of your nose when making decisions, right?

Linking this year’s deficit-related decisions, such as cutting police officers, with last year’s hotel project vote has been done at times during council meetings and on blogs.

He’s talking about me here, in case you didn’t catch it.

At-large City Councilman Gary Sandberg has brought up the issue before, saying the priorities of the council are screwed up. He said he has received calls from constituents concerned with why the city is assisting a developer build a hotel at a time when police officers may be laid off.

If the city wanted to assist the developer by improving public infrastructure around the site, that would be one thing. It’s quite another thing to just hand over cold hard cash to a developer to help him construct his project.

At issue is the city’s public financing portion of the project.

The city’s bond will be paid back through revenues generated by the project, including tax-increment financing and additional hotel, restaurant and sales taxes it generates.

“Revenues generated by the project.” That assumes revenues will be generated, which is a point of contention. Private banks, whose loans would have to be repaid through revenues generated by the project, have not been willing to loan the developer the money he needs to start the project, despite all this backing from the city. What do they know that the city doesn’t? Or is it just that the city is content to take higher risks with taxpayer money than banks are willing to take with their private funds?

Also, not explicitly mentioned in this statement is the fact that the council raised sales taxes 1% within the Hospitality Improvement Zone. Why was this necessary if “revenues generated by the project” are sufficient to pay back the bonds?

Projections show the city is to owe $2.5 million in 2012, the year the hotel is anticipated to open. The opening date likely will be pushed back because of delays in moving the project forward.

Not mentioned is the reason for the delays: inability to get private financing.

If the revenue from the project doesn’t materialize as anticipated, it is possible the city can make its bond payments from revenues from adjoining tax-increment financing districts (the hotel project is located within a TIF district, a key economic incentive device allowing the project to potentially happen).

City officials have estimated that about half of the $39.3 million can be raised from three adjoining TIF districts and directed to a fund that is separate from the city’s general operations fund, which pays for police, firefighters and other services.

If other TIFs are so flush with cash, why don’t they use that money to retire those TIF bonds early so the tax revenue go into the city’s general operations fund where they could pay for “police, firefighters and other services”? Wouldn’t that be a better use for those funds than on a hotel?

Recently retired Economic Development Director Craig Hullinger said the project “shouldn’t have a negative impact on the budget. It creates jobs and a tax base. That’s the logic for doing this.”

That’s what they said about MidTown Plaza.

Spain said the timing is right for the project. The hotel, when completed, would connect to the Civic Center via a skywalk.

And that’s relevant because…? I’m unclear whether these are just two disjointed statements the reporter decided to put in this paragraph, or if he’s implying that the skywalk was Spain’s justification for “the timing [being] right for the project.” If the latter, I have to believe there was more to his reasoning than what was reported. No one would say that a skywalk is justification for giving a developer $39.3 million in tax money. No one would be that foolish.

Project naysayers may have another chance to publicly sway the project. If developer Gary Matthews gets the financing needed to proceed, then the council will have to vote on the sale of bonds in order to officially participate in the financing of the project.

Matthews is still attempting to secure the private financing to begin a project that was originally supposed to start last spring. A national economic recession, though, has slowed the progress. (J.S.)

Yes, the recession is slowed progress, because the economic climate makes this project too risky for credit markets. But not too risky for our tax dollars, according to Mr. Spain and Mr. Turner. After all, we won’t have to pay the piper for several years, so it’s all good.