Barrington Broadcasting, owner of WHOI, to be sold

PEORIA — Barrington Broadcasting, owner of 24 television stations including local channel WHOI (19, ABC), may be bought out by Nexstar Broadcasting Group or Sinclair Broadcast Group, according to TVNewsCheck.com. Nexstar owns or manages 55 television stations including local channel WMBD (31, CBS), and Sinclair owns or manages 74 television stations including local channel WYZZ (43, FOX).

Under FCC ownership rules, one company cannot own two of the television stations in a market Peoria’s size, so if the sale of Barrington goes through to either Nexstar or Sinclair, it appears they would have to divest themselves of one of Peoria’s channels.

Main Street Commons, City Council continue to flout form-based codes

More residential parcels will become parking lots for the Main Street Commons development following the City Council’s 8-2 vote Tuesday night. The student apartment complex at Main Street and Bourland Avenue was granted approval to add 32 more apartment units to the existing 88 units and nearly double the number of off-street parking spaces from 97 to 182.

The plan, which violates the letter and spirit of the Land Development Code, was agreed to by City staff, the Zoning Commission, and the majority of the City Council. The plan was opposed by the University East Neighborhood Association and council members Akeson and Sandberg.

And they say Peoria isn’t “business friendly.” The Zoning Commission approved the plan even though the developer stood in front of them and admitted that he didn’t respond to the neighborhood association’s request to have him explain his plan to them. Second district council member Barbara Van Auken, who is seeking reelection next spring, made the motion to approve on the Council floor in spite of opposition to the project from the neighbors she represents.

Whither the West Main Form District?

What’s especially disappointing about this latest addition to Main Street Commons’ special use permit is that this project is set in one of the City’s four form districts — areas with very specific form-based codes. Form-based codes are used to combat urban sprawl — to proscribe built environments like the very one being created by Main Street Commons. This code was put together following a long process of public involvement and the inclusion of all stakeholders in the area.

But form-based codes only work if they’re followed. In this case, certain limits within the code have been consistently overridden by the Zoning Commission and the Council to the detriment of the neighborhood.

The buildings that front Main Street, according to the code, can be up to 5 stories tall, but as you move away from Main Street and into the adjoining neighborhood, the building mass is supposed to diminish. The code permits structures to be built along Bourland (going north from Main) to be 2-3 stories high and have frontage that does not extend further than 130 feet. The structure the council is allowing will be 4 stories high and extend 200 feet. This does not sufficiently taper the building mass into the neighborhood.

Another purpose behind the limits on building mass is to provide enough room on and around the block for parking. By increasing the mass of the building, additional parking needs are generated, and that has led to the razing of houses in the adjoining neighborhood to make way for surface parking lots. As of Tuesday night, two more parcels were added for conversion to surface lots. This again violates the letter and spirit of the code. Two of the goals of the parking requirements are to “reduce fragmented, uncoordinated, inefficient, single-purpose reserved parking,” and, “avoid adverse parking impacts on neighborhoods adjacent to the form districts.” This special use does just the opposite.

The code also requires alleys, but in a subsequent vote the Council vacated the existing alleys in the block being developed by Main Street Commons.

In short, the Land Development Code was once again eviscerated, treated like it doesn’t exist. The protections for neighborhoods were overruled and a development that could have been a welcome addition and stabilizing force has instead turned into an encroaching, destabilizing force in the University East neighborhood because it’s being allowed to grow unchecked by the very public bodies that are supposed to be representing the residents of Peoria.

Salt Lake City takes a different, better approach

The very same night the Peoria City Council voted to allow houses in an urban neighborhood to be razed to make way for a surface parking lot, the City Council in Salt Lake City, Utah, banned demolishing buildings to create parking lots. Furthermore, they are considering an ordinance that “would require property owners to keep vacant buildings and houses ‘habitable’ — fit to live or work in. It would allow for demolition only after a property owner submits plans for a replacement structure and obtains a building permit.”

Why? Because they recognize that just razing buildings does not stabilize an area. Take a look on the South Side or East Bluff in Peoria. There are lots of empty lots where houses have been razed. But has that really helped the neighborhood? There are certainly some advantages to such a strategy if the property was an eyesore, safety hazard, or haven for drug dealers. But ultimately, replacing run-down structures with vacant lots (often weed-infested) and surface parking do nothing to increase property values or attract new people to the neighborhood. Urban neighborhoods with multiple missing houses look like a smile with missing teeth: not attractive.

It’s a shame more progressive policies against blight can’t be enacted — and enforced — here in Peoria. It’s a shame we don’t enforce the existing policies that residents already worked so hard to enact.

A person in the City Council gallery Tuesday, frustrated with the Council on another issue that affects a neighborhood in the third district, asked rhetorically if the City Council represents the residents or the developers. I think we all know the answer to that question.

Garbage collection bill coming soon

PEORIA — You may have noticed that your water bill is $13 cheaper lately. That’s because the so-called “garbage fee,” which used to be collected for the City by Illinois American Water Company, is no longer included on your water bill.

But now a separate bill for garbage collection is coming soon to your mailbox.

“On October 30, 2012, the City Council approved an agreement with First Tech, a subsidiary of Busey Bank, to manage the billing services for the refuse collection fee,” City Manager Patrick Urich said via email. “We will be mailing out bills shortly, and they will be going to property owners (not tenants).”

Only residential property owners will receive garbage collection bills. Commercial, industrial and non-profit properties contract separately for garbage collection service, so they are not charged for residential waste service, which is provided by Peoria Disposal Company (PDC) under a contract with the City of Peoria. “This is why it wasn’t recommended to be a property tax-supported service,” Urich explained.

One question that has been raised by residents is how payment of this fee will be enforced. Under the old system, non-payment could result in water service being shut off. The new system doesn’t have such an obvious enforcement mechanism.

“We have been reviewing all of our options,” Urich said, “including stopping trash collection, placing liens, or including non-payment in the State Comptroller’s Local Debt Recovery Program that would allow us to intercept any income tax refund if monies are owed to us.”

Another question that has been voiced in the community is why PDC doesn’t bill residents for garbage collection directly, which would save the City money on the cost of billing, which is estimated to be as much as $160,000 per year.

Urich says that “the fee is ours (the City’s),” not PDC’s. “If we did not have a contract with PDC to collect waste and dispose of it, each individual would be responsible for it (like the unicorporated county).” In other words, the contract is between PDC and the City, not PDC and individual property owners. Thus, if the City wants to recoup its costs, it must bear the cost of billing property owners.

If individuals were to contract individually with a waste collection company, Urich added, “the cost could be considerably higher.”

Sandberg running for first district rep

PEORIA — At-large city councilman Gary Sandberg filed petitions today to run for the first district council seat. He turned in his petitions at 4:59 p.m., just seconds before the deadline.

That means there will be three candidates vying for the first district seat being vacated by incumbent Clyde Gulley: Denise Moore, Randall Emert, and Sandberg. Sandberg recently moved from his home on Bigelow in the second district to an upstairs apartment on Adams Street in the first district.

If Sandberg loses the first district election, he will remain an at-large councilman. There is no requirement that he give up his at-large seat in order to run for a district seat. If he wins the election in April, then he will have to vacate his at-large seat, and the council will vote on a replacement to finish out the final two years of his at-large term.

UPDATE: According to WEEK-TV, here is the complete slate for the Peoria City Council races:

  • 1st District — Denise Moore, Randall Emert, Gary Sandberg
  • 2nd District — Chuck Grayeb, Barbara Van Auken (incumbent)
  • 3rd District — Chad Grimm, Tim Riggenbach (incumbent)
  • 4th District — John Kunski, Jim Montelongo
  • 5th District — Dan Adler, Casey Johnson, Patti Smith, Dan Irving (incumbent)

As mentioned previously, incumbent Clyde Gulley is not running for reelection, but he is running for Township Supervisor against incumbent Joe Whalen. And fourth district councilman Bill Spears is also not running for reelection.

Council hopefuls begin filing petitions

Monday was the first day mayoral and city council candidates could file to have their names placed on the ballot for the Feb. 26, 2013, primary election, and several candidates were there when the election commission doors opened.

Turning in nomination petitions for mayor was incumbent mayor Jim Ardis. He currently has no opponent since at-large councilman Chuck Weaver decided not to run.

In the first district, Denise Moore and Randall Emert, Sr. filed petitions. Incumbent Clyde Gulley is not running for reelection to the council, but he was at the election commission Monday morning; he will be running against incumbent Joseph Whalen for Township Supervisor. Whalen is running as a Republican, Gulley as a Democrat. (Council races are non-partisan.)

In the second district, incumbent council representative Barbara Van Auken filed her petitions. She will be opposed by former at-large councilman Chuck Grayeb, who also filed Monday morning.

In the third district, only incumbent Tim Riggenbach filed petitions.

In the fourth district, former city inspections department manager John Kunski filed. Incumbent Bill Spears has announced he will not be seeking reelection. I’ve heard that former at-large councilman Jim Montelongo will also be running in the fourth district, but he has not yet filed as of Tuesday morning, according to the list I received from the election commission.

In the fifth district, incumbent Dan Irving has filed. Two challengers have announced, but only one was there to file his petitions: Dan Adler.

City Clerk Beth Ball filed her petitions. This will be her first election. She finished the term of Mary Haynes upon her retirement. City Treasurer Patrick Nichting filed his petitions for reelection as well.

Candidates have until Nov. 26 to file.

Peoria Riverfront Museum: A Review

The new Peoria Riverfront Museum opened last month, and a generous friend of mine gave me four free passes to encourage me to see it for myself. I took my kids on Saturday, Nov. 10, around 12:15 and we stayed until the museum closed at 5. It was fairly well-attended; I saw perhaps one to two hundred people while we were there.

The Exterior

We parked at Riverfront Village and walked across Water Street to the museum block. There is no entrance from Water Street, so visitors approaching from this side either have to circle the block or do what we did: climb the bare concrete stairs and cross the open space between the museum and the Caterpillar visitor center.

The pedestrian experience on Water Street is truly regrettable. The building is set back from the street over 100 feet. Between the street and the building is a berm, the aforementioned stairs, and the bare concrete air vents for the underground parking garage. Behind that — a half block away — the museum monolith rises above the landscape with its cold, gray, metallic siding.

Once you climb the stairs, there is a welcome surprise: the open space between the museum and Caterpillar visitor center is paved with bricks instead of concrete. Brick pavement provides a permeable membrane; that is, rainwater can pass between the bricks to the ground beneath, reducing runoff into the storm sewers. From the museum’s promotional material, it appears that water runoff is channeled to small gardens/plantings around the site.

The Entrance and the Theater

We entered the museum through the front doors that face Washington Street, through a large lobby, and up to the front desk. There were a lot of workers throughout the museum, and they were all very pleasant and helpful. We handed over our free passes and were each given a wristband that gave us access to all the exhibits and the planetarium, but not the “giant screen” theater. Had we paid for admission, it would have cost us $32.30 ($9.35 for adults, $7.65 for children) because we’re Peoria County residents and would enjoy a 15 percent discount. Normal price is $11 for adults and $9 for children.

I learned that the 15 percent discount for Peoria County residents does not apply to the “giant screen” theater. Everyone must pay full-price, which is $10 for adults and $8 for children. That came to $34 for me and my three children to see a 45-minute movie (“Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure” in 3D), plus the cost of popcorn and drinks. The museum workers really touted the size of the screen before starting the movie, specifically comparing it to the comparatively smaller IMAX theater at Rave Motion Pictures by the Shoppes at Grand Prairie. The museum group originally promised the public an IMAX theater that would show first-run Hollywood films, but then switched to a little-known brand (Global Immersion) showing primarily educational films once taxpayers had approved a referendum to help build the museum.

The screen was indeed very large (70 feet wide by 52 feet high), and the picture quality from the 4K (4096 x 2160 pixels) digital projector was superb. The audio system was designed by Legacy Audio, a manufacturer of high-end audio equipment. In fact, the president and founder of Legacy Audio, Bill Dudleston, actually designed this system specifically for integration with Global Immersion’s theater installations. I’ve heard Legacy speakers before because my uncle is an audiophile and used to sell their speakers. They have a very good reputation, and the sound in the theater was fantastic.

However, without the IMAX brand, and without first-run movies (or any Hollywood films, at present), this state-of-the-art theater is not going to draw many people. It’s a pretty hard sell to bring the family out for a 45-minute educational film at first-run theater prices. Fewer paid admissions means the museum will be hard-pressed to break even, given their pro forma operating budget.

The Exhibits

The museum is billed as “interdisciplinary,” and its mission is “to inspire lifelong learning for all — connecting art, history, science and achievement through collections, exhibitions and programs.” To that end, the museum includes the following exhibits: IHSA Peak Performance (achievement), “The Illinois River Encounter” (science), “The Street” and African American Wall of Fame (history), and International Feature Gallery (art). The planetarium and the aforementioned large-screen theater also add to the science portion (predominantly) of the museum.

We actually went to the theater later in the day. The first thing we did after getting our wristbands was to visit the Illinois High School Association’s Peak Performance gallery. It included a number of interactive displays that my kids thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, they could have spent the whole day in this one area and been content. We visited it about three times altogether. Their favorite displays were the ones where you see how high you can jump, how fast your reaction time is, how well you can balance, and how fast you can throw a baseball.

In the Illinois River Encounter, most of our time was spent in a room with a model of a river channel where you can manipulate sand and water to see how silt and sediment affects the flow of water down the river. The kids really enjoyed this interactive feature. My son also liked the display on the sinking of the Columbia, a steamboat that sank near Creve Coeur in 1918. There were several parts of the displays that were unfinished. For instance, there’s a small aquarium where fish from the Illinois river will be displayed, but it was not up and running yet.

Next, we went to “The Street” and, since I’m interested in Peoria history, I spent the most time here. The kids breezed through the exhibits pretty quickly, but spent most of their time in a side room with interactive displays that appeared to be designed to keep the kids occupied while adults looked at the exhibits. They looked at small objects through a high-powered microscope, put together model cars and raced them down a track, and fit magnetic gears together on a large board and spun them.

“The Street” was smaller than I expected and offered a pretty truncated view of Peoria’s history. As you enter and go to the left, there are four panels that cover Native American history of Peoria, French exploration of the area, the rise of the City, and then modern-day Peoria. About as brief of an overview as you can imagine. Again, there were several displays that were incomplete or not yet open. On the right as you enter there is a large display of Peoria’s distilling history and a display on the mass-production of penicillin at the ag lab. In the middle of the floor was an old Caterpillar engine and some historic bicycles.

Strangely, the really big Peoria history artifacts weren’t even in this area: the Duryea automobile that used to be housed at the Peoria Public Library was tucked away downstairs away from all the other exhibits and Jerry’s famous motorcycle boots we’re no where to be seen, and the old courthouse clock was perched above the stairway by the giant screen theater.

Tucked in another side room was an interactive computer display where you can look up information on famous Peorians like Richard Pryor and Betty Friedan. It wasn’t the easiest display to navigate and didn’t offer video or audio–just static images and a lot of text to read. The African American Hall of Fame is located here, too. Not exactly prominently displayed.

I also question some of the history. One display indicated that the “village” of Peoria was incorporated in 1831, then incorporated as a city in 1845. While the latter date is correct, I cannot find any history book that talks about Peoria being incorporated as a “village” and certainly not in 1831. The Town of Peoria was incorporated in 1835; perhaps that’s what they meant. In any case, it made me suspect of some of the other information that was presented.

We next went to the movie, then to the art gallery, which didn’t seem to have any particular theme. I had to laugh at one of the pieces of art — a watercolor painting of the museum. Seriously? There was another entire room that was unfinished; it still had ladders and bare drywall. If I had had to pay full admission, I would have been upset that so much of the museum was not yet complete.

Our final stop of the day was at the planetarium. I had wanted to see Stars of Peoria, but the time it was available was the same time as the giant-screen movie. So we instead saw the “Laser Vinyl” laser light show. The kids thought it was pretty cool overall, although my son fell asleep. They had never seen a laser show before. My oldest daughter even recognized some of the songs.

We checked out the museum store on our way out. Even though the museum was closing to the general public, it was just opening for a special showing to the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, complete with hors d’oeuvres in the lobby.

Final Thoughts

For a building that is so oddly shaped and sited, the inside was surprisingly squared off. The exhibit spaces were in rectangular rooms. It made me wonder why the exterior needed to be so sprawling and inefficiently sited. The displays could easily have been placed in a building that sat on a corner of the old Sears block and rose four or five stories. That would have been cheaper to build and would have opened the rest of the block to other, mixed uses — residential, retail, restaurants. Instead, the block is completely dedicated to the museum and the Cat visitor center, both of which close around 5 p.m., leaving the block empty and the street inactive.

For a building that looks so large from the outside, it felt surprisingly small on the inside. I was especially disappointed with the small amount of space dedicated to Peoria’s history. When talk of a downtown museum first started, it was originally envisioned to be a Peoria history museum. Over the years, it morphed into an “everything” museum, largely at the instigation of former congressman Ray LaHood. Unfortunately, the museum is now the proverbial “jack of all trades, master of none.” It’s like the diner that has every dish you can imagine on the menu, but doesn’t fix any of them particularly well.

Hostess to liquidate

Reuters reports this morning via the Chicago Tribune:

Hostess Brands Inc., the bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, said it had sought court permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers.

Hostess said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union that began last week had crippled its ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities.

The Irving, Texas-based company said the liquidation of the company would mean that most of its 18,500 employees would lose their jobs.

Hostess gave striking workers until 4 p.m. Thursday to return to work to avoid this liquidation. The workers have indicated that they have already conceded enough during these bankruptcy proceedings and could not afford another 8 percent reduction in salaries. Now their salaries will be reduced 100 percent.

Peoria’s Hostess plant is located at 1511 W. Lincoln Ave. and and employs about 200 people, according to published reports.

Weaver decides against mayoral run

PEORIA — At-large City Councilman Chuck Weaver announced today via press release that he will not run for Peoria mayor this election cycle.

Weaver told the Peoria Chronicle that when he started exploring a mayoral run, incumbent Mayor Jim Ardis had not yet announced whether he would be seeking reelection. Now that Ardis has announced, Weaver said he thought a mayoral contest would be a distraction from the work the mayor and the council are doing.

Weaver also said that exploring a run for mayor allowed him to “get back out and talk to folks.” In the process, he learned that his base has gotten bigger and more diverse since he was first elected.

Mayor Ardis is currently the only announced candidate for mayor.

Here’s the press release:

Continue reading Weaver decides against mayoral run