Daily Archives: April 3, 2006

Peoria Mayor, Peoria Public Schools

While Peoria waits for anonymous donors, other cities look at alternative Promise funding

Peoria isn’t the only city jumping on the Kalamazoo Promise bandwagon. The Kalamazoo Gazette reports that “there’s now a Ventura Promise in California, and talk of a Newton Promise in Iowa, a Peoria Promise in Illinois and a Promise-type program for Hammond, Ind.”

As you may remember, the money for the Kalamazoo Promise came from an anonymous group of private citizens. Mayor Ardis wants the “Peoria Promise” funded the same way, but so far there’s been no indication any anonymous donors have come forward. Other cities are considering different funding scenarios (emphasis mine below):

The Ventura Promise is a community-college scholarship program for lower-income families. Under the program, announced this month, the Ventura College Foundation will pay a year’s tuition for high school graduates and General Educational Development certificate holders from families with household incomes up to $50,000.

The version proposed by Hammond, Ind., Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. would be funded by casino revenues and limited to children of homeowners.

In Newton, Iowa, economic-development leaders are pushing for a scholarship program funded through a local sales tax that voters approved Tuesday. City leaders said the tax would not be used to create The Newton Promise this fiscal year but have not ruled out creating such a program down the road.

I personally think the Kalamazoo Promise is fantastic, and I’d love to see it work here in Peoria. However, as the Journal Star points out today, Peoria is being tapped for an awful lot of funding for other projects right now (e.g., museum, Ren Park, zoo, schools), so perhaps the timing is a bit off to ask for large philanthropic donations.

So, if the donations don’t come through, what should the city do? Options:

    1. Find alternative funding, like other communities
    2. Continue to wait for anonymous donors
    3. Speak of it no more and hope no one remembers

    I vote for #2. The last thing Peoria needs is more taxes — sales taxes in particular — so option #1 is out. But I don’t want to see the idea just be forgotten either. I think the idea is good enough that it’s worth keeping the challenge out there for a while, even if the chances of funding seem slim at present.

Heart of Peoria Plan, Peoria Public Schools

Speaking of the Heart of Peoria Plan . . .

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What does the Heart of Peoria Plan have to say about our District 150 schools?  This:

Project Name: Neighborhood Schools.

Finding: Peoria has maintained an architectural legacy of attractive brick school buildings, well located in its inner city neighborhoods.

Discussion: This plan has little to say about the schools, beyond emphasizing their importance to the revitalization of neighborhoods. However, the issue of the schools came up again and again at the charrette. Peoria’s inner city schools are reported to be in much better shape than in many cities, with some particularly noteworthy successes such as the programs at Harrison School. At the charrette, however, a number of citizens brought up the possibility of closing and replacing the inner city schools–including, most pominently, the high school. At a time when many cities are re-discovering the importance of smaller scale neighborhood schools to healthy communities, Peoria has an opportunity to capitalize on a resource that fortunately hasn’t yet been lost as a result of the fashion of the 1960s for increased centralization.

Recommendation:

  • Encourage the continuation and expansion of programs to strengthen Peoria’s well-located historic schools, using available funds to renovate and enhance rather than consolidate or replace these schools.
  • As a priority, renovation should include restoring the glass in the windows.

I thought the line about increased centralization being “the fashion of the 1960s” was especially amusing in light of all the people who think tearing down old buildings is “progressive.”

Caterpillar, City Council, Heart of Peoria Plan, Museum Block

Cat blames HOPC for higher Museum Square costs

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The Heart of Peoria Commission (HOPC) is on the agenda for Tuesday night. They are recommending approval of the proposed elevations of Museum Square. But included in their request is a copy of the HOPC’s meeting minutes, and they reveal something of Caterpillar’s mindset.

Putting Museum Square parking underground is expensive. As was reported back in February, it may add as much as $3 million to the cost. At that time, the Journal Star editorialized that, essentially, this extra expense was the HOPC’s fault because they didn’t want to see another surface parking lot downtown.

Now it’s Caterpillar’s turn to play the blame game.

Despite the fact that Cat got almost everything it wanted in the museum site plan (except the surface parking lot) even though it severely compromised the Heart of Peoria Plan, and despite the fact that this project is continuing to get support from the HOPC, commission minutes reveal that Caterpillar representative Mark Johnson (Project Manager for the Caterpillar Visitor Center) wanted this line included in the commission’s recommendation to the council on Tuesday:

“The Commission recognizes that the inclusion of the underground parking structure in the site plan has resulted in a substantial increase in infrastructure development cost and urges the Council to work with the developers to adopt a mutually acceptable financing plan.”

In other words, he wanted the Commission to take responsibility for the additional parking expense on Museum Square. Why? The minutes state:

Mr. Johnson said, “I urge the Commission to step up to their responsibility, as we developed this underground parking as a part of this plan in response to this Commission’s strong recommendation; and we have to find a way to pay for it.”

Au contraire, replied commissioner Beth Akeson:

Commissioner Akeson said she was sorry the Commission has been put in the position to make it appear they are the ones that forced the issue of underground parking, when in actuality the Commission was never brought into the conversation about what its recommendation would be.

(Emphasis mine.) That’s right. It wasn’t the HOPC that came up with the underground parking idea. They weren’t even consulted.

In fact, the need for any parking on that site is questionable. Even if it could be shown that parking is needed, the bulk of the cost is not simply to put it underground per se, but to put it below the site as it’s currently designed — i.e., with the boomerang-shaped buildings. Those building designs were not the HOPC’s either.

Mr. Johnson’s amendment was defeated, but expect this argument to surface again — on the very next agenda item.

Caterpillar and Lakeview want to amend the City of Peoria/Museum Block Redevelopment Agreement.  Among other things, they want to remove the $500,000 cap on TIF reimbursement.  I imagine this will be the source of some discussion, as it’s the only part of the amendment that “could result in additional money being paid over by the City to the Museum.”

I have an idea.  Instead of reducing the size of the museum by 15,000 square feet and trying to finagle more money from the city, why not make money and increase density by adding residential, restaurant, and retail components, like the Heart of Peoria Plan recommends?  You remember the Heart of Peoria Plan, right?  You know, the one the council adopted “in principle”?