Former Peoria resident and mayor Bud Grieves has this dire warning for Peorians in his letter to the editor of the Journal Star yesterday:

If we fail to attract an increasingly mobile and demanding work force, our fine hospitals, Caterpillar and others will look for greener pastures, and Peoria will wither and die.

Now just reading that quote, wouldn’t you think he would talk about the importance of cracking down on crime, enhancing the school district, improving regional alliances, strengthening the city core, or something really important like that? Me too. But no. According to Grieves, the thing that’s going to bring the “high-quality employees” to Peoria in droves is the new regional museum:

First-class museums rank high on their list and, along with our other recent Downtown developments, create a cohesive and exciting environment.

First of all, he’s assuming facts not in evidence. What evidence exists that this still-going-by-its-supposedly-working-title “Central Illinois Regional Museum” is going to be “first-class”? They can’t even decide what kind of museum it’s supposed to be. Is it an art museum? history museum? natural history museum? science and technology museum? According to their website, it’s incredibly all four, all within about 70,000 square feet. That’s about 17,500 square feet to devote to each of those four types of museum exhibits. This is like one of those restaurants where they serve 23 different types of cuisine and none of them well. Trying to be the übermuseum is a recipe for third-rate, not first-class.

Secondly, the museum designers spurned the Heart of Peoria Plan, even though authentic urban character and historic buildings are also among those things “high on the list” of “high-quality,” creative-class employees. Not only that, the Heart of Peoria Plan was crafted to the specs of Peoria residents; perhaps fundraising would be going easier had the museum designers implemented any of the New Urbanist principles Peorians prefer for downtown redevelopment. Of course, as PeoriaIllinoisan points out, there are lots of projects attempting to improve the “quality of life” here in Peoria right now, and all of them need money.

Finally, I simply don’t believe that the museum project is the lynchpin of Peoria’s future, and trying to get people to donate to it out of fear, as Grieves tries to do, only proves the blindness (and desperation) of its supporters, not its critics.