Daily Archives: July 12, 2010

Amtrak, Tri-County Regional Planning Commission

Passenger Rail task force members include former Peoria mayor

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Richard Neumiller, former mayor of Peoria and member of the now defunct railroad commission, is on a new passenger rail task force put together by the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission (TCRPC). Neumiller was appointed by Mayor Jim Ardis to represent Peoria on the task force. Here is the full list of task force members, provided by the TCRPC:

Illinois River Valley Council of Governments

City of Peoria Dick Neumiller
Village of Bartonville Rhonda Wolfe
City of Chillicothe Randy Stevens
Limestone Township Bob Lawless
Tazewell County Clint Drury
City of Pekin Steve Brown
City of East Peoria Ty Livingston
Village of Morton Norm Durflinger
Washington Township Gary Manier
Woodford County John Krug
Village of Roanoke Kevin Braker
City of Eureka Marc Pasteris
Village of Metamora Bill Belshaw
Woodford County Township Gayl Wyss
Peoria County Paul Feltenstein

Tri-County Regional Planning Commission

Stephen Van Winkle John Blossom
Russ Crawford James Polk
Dean Grimm  

Bloomington Normal

Mark Peterson, Town of Normal
Aaron Quick, City of Bloomington

Ex-officio Members

Steve Jaeger, HOI Port District
Larry Koch

If you’re counting, you may notice that there are 22 members (not including ex-officio members), not 21 as stated in the Journal Star the other day. For more information on the Illinois River Valley Council of Governments, see the TCRPC’s overview here.

I caught up with Terry Kohlbuss, executive director of TCRPC, and we had a good discussion regarding the task force’s plans to establish a link between Peoria and Bloomington. On the positive side, they still see a direct passenger rail connection between Peoria and Chicago as the ultimate goal. That’s important, because it means they are still awaiting the Amtrak-IDOT report and are not trying to second-guess its conclusions. However, where we disagree is on the strategy for meeting that ultimate goal. As stated in my previous post, the task force wants to pursue a link with the Bloomington Amtrak station first — starting with carpooling, then vans, then buses, then a passenger rail shuttle, and eventually direct service via Bloomington to Chicago.

I still fear that such a strategy is too risky. Rail service from Peoria to Bloomington will not produce high ridership, and given the cost of establishing Peoria-Chicago service, low ridership between Peoria and Bloomington could be used by politicians to justify killing passenger rail here before a direct link to Chicago can be established. I’m afraid decision-makers would not conclude that Peoria-Bloomington service is unpopular, but that rail service in general is unpopular and unsupported. That would be a real tragedy that would set Peoria back thirty years.

A better strategy would be to establish direct service between Peoria and Chicago first — which will produce high ridership numbers — and use that success to add more rail lines in the future, perhaps even an east-west route like the one being proposed by the task force, especially if it could be extended to Champaign.

Television

News 25 Today now in HD (UPDATED)

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I’m not sure when they started this (I don’t normally watch early-morning TV), but I just noticed this morning that WEEK’s “News 25 Today” local show with Garry Moore and Sandy Gallant is now being broadcast in high definition. It looks really good! There were very few technical glitches this morning, too.

UPDATE: All of WEEK’s news shows are evidently in 16:9 HD. I’m watching News 25 at 10 now. They also have some new computer graphics, including “pillars” that fill in the side margins of (some of) the 4:3 footage they’re still using for national news stories. Their shots and CG are composed so they can use a center cut for standard def broadcasts (i.e., no letterboxing on older 4:3 sets — the picture appears full frame). Their ad bumpers are still standard def. Still, they’re the first local news to broadcast in HD.

City of Galesburg, PeoriaNEXT

PeoriaNEXT incubates another government sponge

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PeoriaNEXT Innovation Center, the organization that brought you Firefly Energy, has incubated another start-up company that can’t start up without taxpayer-supplied venture capital. It’s called Intellihot, and fortunately for Peoria taxpayers, it’s getting its combined $1,015,000 in direct lending and commercial loan guarantees from the taxpayers of Galesburg.

The Galesburg City Council unanimously approved a $675,000 loan (at 3% for 10 years) plus a guarantee they would cover 20% of a $1.7 million bank loan (that works out to $340,000). The editors of the Galesburg Register-Mail are also unanimous in their approval of the council’s action. It’s not hard to see why. Intellihot promises to “create 45 jobs paying $25 an hour [in the next two years] and plans to develop a 30,000 square feet facility in the Sustainable Business Center, which is located in old Carhartt building on West Main. The company hopes to employ 144 workers here within four years.”

Intellihot is a company started by two former Caterpillar engineers. So why are they planning to manufacture their tankless water heaters in Galesburg instead of Peoria? According to Paul Gordon’s column on Sunday:

There is a facility already available in Galesburg that will be a sustainable and green incubator for manufacturing products. […]

“Finances, of course, were a very important factor, as was the skills of Galesburg workers. But having the sustainable, green manufacturing incubator ready was key because we have some time lines we have to meet. We have to get some things done to move this forward or someone else will,” [Sridhar Deivasigamani, president of the company] said.

What is this “green incubator” that Galesburg has? The Galesburg newspaper explains:

The [former Carhartt] building offers 80,000 square feet of manufacturing/warehouse space, as well as 8,000 square feet of offices. According to a news release from the [Sustainable Business Center], “Incubation services will be offered to new, green businesses at below market lease rates. Services will include receptionist, copy, fax and conference room. Staff will be available to help draft business plans and to mentor and work with new businesses.”

Carhartt is a Michigan-based manufacturer of “premium workwear” that closed its distribution center in Galesburg last August. However, instead of selling the building and abandoning Galesburg altogether, Carhartt’s majority owners (Mark and Gretchen Garth) donated the building to their family foundation, HumanLinks, and have been turning it into the Sustainable Business Center. WQAD reported in June: “Using green technology, it hopes to eventually replace some 200 jobs that were lost here.”

Bottom line, Intellihot is getting “below-market lease rates” on their manufacturing space and over $1 million in financial backing from Galesburg, and that’s why they’re going to build their product there instead of Peoria.

I wish Intellihot and the taxpayers of Galesburg the best of luck. Peoria’s foray into venture capital for another PeoriaNEXT start-up company didn’t work out so well. Perhaps Galesburg will fare better. Still, I miss the good old days when entrepreneurs used exclusively private financing to start up new companies instead of relying on public tax dollars.