Monthly Archives: August 2006

City of Peoria

The Plague has hit my house

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Monday morning, I got sick. Monday afternoon, my wife got sick. Tuesday, my son got sick. Last night, my youngest daughter got sick. Sick, sick, sick. That’s all that’s going on at my place this week. I’d like to go a good long time (like maybe forever) before being vomited on again, if that’s at all possible.

Maybe all this sickness could explain why I’m suddenly bored to death with my blog. Or it may be because I always talk about the same things… District 150… Kellar Branch… City Council… Blah, blah, blah.

I’ve thought about writing about other stuff, like my life. But my life isn’t a fount of entertaining first-person narratives, although I did want to share this:

My oldest daughter — the only one who didn’t get sick this week… yet — is learning to write, so all summer she’s been writing notes. My favorite one came to my wife after our little angel had done something especially disobedient. It read: “Dear Mommy, I love you and I want to obey you but I can’t.” Kinda says it all, doesn’t it? I believe the Apostle Paul wrote something similar in his epistle to the Romans.

But I digress. It’s time, once again, for me to step away briefly from the blogosphere and see if I miss it. Every time I’ve done this before, I’ve always come back. That either means it’s an enjoyable, worthwhile hobby, or it’s the fulfillment of that biblical proverb, “as a dog returns to his vomit….”

Nah, it can’t be the latter. Not after this week….

City Council, City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

City walking over dollars, looking for dime

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On Tuesday night, the city council was reminded again about the impending budget crunch due to new accounting regulations known as GASB45:

GASB refers to the General Accounting Standards Board, an operating arm of the private Financial Accounting Foundation. GASB establishes standards of state and local government accounting. And Section 45 is a policy adopted by the board in 2004. It requires that governments must account today for future costs of guaranteed medical benefits for retirees…. [Those] higher costs, when the bills eventually come due, must be paid for by higher taxes or reduced services.

Standard and Poor’s, which takes this seriously because it rates government credit, said in a December 2004 report that GASB could uncover much higher costs that could “seriously strain operations” or uncover conditions in which governments “are unable or unwilling to fulfill these obligations,” which could hurt governments’ credit ratings.

So, Peoria is going to be facing some potentially drastic measures, such as making cuts in health care coverage for employees. Since that’s unpopular, every item of business, no matter how small, came under scrutiny. They even spent time haggling over hiring a part-time training coordinator for a mere $5,000.

I would be more sympathetic to these conscientious cost-cutting measures if it weren’t for the fact that the city council is poised to throw away a $565,000 asset without giving it a second thought. While they’re haggling over $5,000, the park district can hardly wait to get the word that it’s okay to tear out a half-million dollar rail line known as the Kellar Branch — a rail line for which there is a willing buyer or lessee — so they can turn it into a hiking trail. The irony is that the city could get the money and the trail, too, if they’d accept Pioneer Railcorp’s offer to buy or lease the line.

If the city council is really interested in plugging the GASB45 gap, then they should stop walking over dollars to pick up a dime.

City of Peoria, Peoria Journal Star

Everybody’s the exception

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Phil Luciano’s article today once again highlights the no-win situation of city code enforcers. You know, if they don’t enforce the law on the petty issues, people complain about them not doing their jobs and wax eloquent about how important it is to fix problems when they’re small so bigger violations aren’t likely to happen (aka the “broken window theory”). But if they do enforce the little issues, then people like Phil Luciano complain that (a) the ordinance is stupid, and/or (b) this person who’s breaking the ordinance should be an exception.

In this particular case, apparently Phil thinks that code violation officers, upon seeing someone violating some ordinance, should immediately find out how much money the person has put into their house, interview the person to see if they have a justified reason for breaking the ordinance, perhaps interview a few neighbors to see how they feel about it, and then make an informed decision on whether to enforce the law or not based on those factors. Most importantly, if the person threatens to move, immediately tear up the citation and allow them to break any code they want.

Obviously, the problem is that everyone has an excuse for breaking an ordinance. Rare is the person who flagrantly violates the law without some reason for doing so, no matter how flimsy that reason may be. I’m sure code enforcement officers have heard them all.

Question: Do we want the code enforced? If not, let’s get these ordinances off the books. If so, stop complaining when the code enforcement officers do their jobs.

Peoria Public Schools

School District 150 proves it’s easy to rehab older schools

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Peoria Public Schools logoWell, well, what have we here? WEEK.com has this chipper report about the supposedly old, horrible, dilapidated, beyond-repair, poorly-lit, un-air-conditioned dungeon known as Blaine-Sumner Middle School.

This is one of those schools that just couldn’t be rehabilitated and had to close. It’s one of those schools that District 150 said would cost more to renovate than to shut down. It’s one of those schools that costs so much in operations and maintenance, that the only way the school could save money was to mothball it along with ten other buildings and build five new ones. This is one of those schools that has all that plaguing asbestos that would surely be loosed and kill everyone inside if air conditioning were to be introduced.

And yet…

This is the school that, according to WEEK, “crews spent a month cleaning and painting…for its new use.” This is the school about which “Special Education Assistant Director Bryan Pullen said, ‘Air was added to all the offices, all the rooms, so there was some actual costs, but I think in the long run it will probably save money.'” This is the school that is “[t]he newly named Blaine Sumner Complex [which] is now home to special Education Services.”

So Blaine-Sumner, which was one of the lowest scoring buildings on the district’s Master Facilities Plan, was rehabbed with a little paint and some A/C in about a month. And now it’s going to be home to “[e]ighty-five special education workers including psychologists, coordinators and Medicaid staff….”

Huh. Let’s review the district’s Master Facilities Plan again. Blaine-Sumner was one of six buildings (net) that was supposed to save (among other things) about $500,000 annually in operation and maintenance costs. I quote:

Presuming a net number of school closures at six and based on Operations and Maintenance savings of $500,000 per school closed, a savings of $3 million could be realized.

So, the question is, how do they make up the approximately $500,000 they were supposed to save by closing this building? How does this impact the master plan? Will they have to close another school now?

And, of course, the big question: If it’s this easy to rehabilitate these old buildings — and remember, according to the master plan, Blaine-Sumner was one of the worst-scoring on health/life/safety and operational tests — why do they need to close 11 of them and build 5 new ones in the first place? It looks to me like they’re not all that hard to fix up after all.

Blogosphere, City of Peoria

The WikiPeoria Project

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PeoriaIllinoisan has a great idea going over at his blog. He’s been visiting Wikipedia to see what it has to say about our fair city and thinks it’s missing some important information. Check it out.

UPDATE: Wikipedia is “an encyclopedia written collaboratively by many of its readers.”  All entries are supposed to be written from a “neutral point of view.”  And most importantly, contributors are supposed to respect other contributors.  So, how does one explain that after a contributor added “Name This Peoria Landmark” to the “external links” section on August 12, someone named “rklawton” removed that link on August 13?  Is someone purging Wikipedia’s Peoria entry of any blog references?

City of Peoria, Museum Block

Regional Museum can’t be everything

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In today’s Journal Star, former editor Barbara Mantz Drake profiles the Science Center of Iowa (Des Moines). She’s getting ideas for what should be included in the new Central Illinois Regional Museum here in Peoria. Along with the article is a sidebar titled, “Iowa Science Center has parallels for Peoria.”

Several things are similar between the two museums: size, exterior glass, planetarium and weather studio, cost to build, etc. But a couple things are much different: the annual operating budget in Des Moines ($7.8 million) is “nearly twice what is projected for Peoria”; and whereas Des Moines’ museum is limited in scope to science, Peoria’s museum square “will be a place for people of all ages to explore art, history, nature, science, technology, culture, high school sports and the Caterpillar story.”

So Peoria’s museum will have six times the scope and half the budget. Is that supposed to be a good thing? Also, how in the world is Peoria’s museum going to cover all of those subjects (art, history, technology, etc.) in the space Des Moines devotes to science alone?

Usually, museums limit their scope (they’re a history museum, or an art gallery, or a sci-tech musuem, etc.) because the type of museum affects a number of factors: how much storage is needed? what kind of storage conditions are needed? what kind of laboratory services are needed for restoration/preservation of artifacts/exhibits? what kind of skill/expertise do staff members need (e.g., you would want an archaeologist on staff for a natural history museum, but not for a sci-tech museum)?

Speaking of scope, the working title I understand is still the “Central Illinois Regional Museum.” So, in addition to broadening the subject matter, it appears they’re also broadening the subject area — how much of “central Illinois” is going to be covered by this museum?

When the museum idea was first pitched, it was called a Peoria history museum. How did we get from that to this unwieldy, unfocused museum described in the paper today? And how is a museum with such breadth of subject matter going to be supported by half the operating budget of a single-focused museum of the same size?

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Time to consolidate school districts?

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On the agenda Tuesday night is a request from Wilder-Waite Elementary School to be annexed into the City of Peoria.  Wilder-Waite is part of Dunlap School District 323.  They can’t be annexed yet because their boundary is not contiguous with Peoria, but they want to sign an annexation agreement so that when Peoria does annex the land between the current city limits and their property, they will also be annexed in and receive police, fire, and other Peoria services.

When Richwoods Township was annexed into Peoria, there were several school districts that shortly afterwards were consolidated with District 150; a unified school district was an important part of the annexation plans.  There was the fear that without such consolidation, Peoria schools would be divided into the haves and have-nots.

Considering the tax revenue that is generated in the northern part of Peoria that doesn’t go to District 150 but to District 323, are we not seeing that happen today? Aren’t we concentrating the wealth of the city into one school district while the other district suffers?  Isn’t it time we unified the school districts within Peoria’s city limits?

Abortion, Peoria Journal Star

Middle ground impossible in abortion debate

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The Journal Star’s editorial today included this line: “…rather than seize on intentionally divisive issues, pro-choice and pro-life forces ought to be working together to reduce the number of abortions.”

Wishful, simplistic thinking.

Consider this quote from the National Abortion Federation: “Opponents of abortion often portray abortion as a negative problem that society should try to eliminate. While we work to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, abortion is a valid and acceptable reproductive choice.”

And now compare that to the mission statement of the National Right to Life Committee: “The ultimate goal of the National Right to Life Committee is to restore legal protection to innocent human life.”

It may seem at first glance that these two groups want what the Journal Star says, i.e. “to reduce the number of abortions.” But that’s not really accurate. Their positions are more nuanced than that.

NRLC isn’t satisified to simply reduce abortions from, say, 800,000 per year to 650,000 per year. They want to eliminate it as an option, and for this reason: they believe that abortion kills a person — a living human being with a constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Pro-life advocates often compare abortion to slavery, pointing out that just because something is legal and sanctioned by the Supreme Court doesn’t make it right. So to them, the Journal Star’s idea to work with pro-choice advocates to reduce abortion but not eliminate it is as morally repugnant as if they were living prior to the Civil War and were asked to reduce slavery but not eliminate it.

NAF, on the other hand, isn’t really interested in reducing abortions at all, per se. They want to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies. The thought is that if there are fewer unplanned pregnancies, then there will be less demand for abortion. But if unplanned pregnancies went down but abortion demand stayed the same, they would still feel their goal was achieved.

In the final analysis, there is a gulf fixed between pro-choice and pro-life forces — one sees abortion as a “valid and acceptable reproductive choice” and the other sees it as the destruction of “innocent human life.” Hoping for middle ground is a pipe dream.

State of Illinois

Ryan’s a crook and a creep

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I see former governor George Ryan is back in the news. Seems a number of death row inmates he pardoned are now suing a group Chicago police officers claiming that Ryan’s pardon proves their innocence. So, the defendants want Ryan to testify as to why he pardoned them. That seems reasonable — his pardon is the lynchpin of the case.

So, what is Ryan doing? Claiming “executive privelege.”

Huh. Gee, thanks, guv’nuh. Is this your way of sticking in to the system that convicted you for your licenses-for-bribes scheme? Do you have nightmares about those kids who died because your little fundraising plan? I would think the least (and I mean the least) you could do for penance is cooperate with the court.

I hope they lock you up and throw away the key.

City Council, City of Peoria

City staff wants their unauthorized practice codified

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As I explained in a previous post, the multi-billion dollar company American Financial Realty Trust (through their subsidiary First States Investors) recently bought the National City Bank building downtown (the old Commercial Bank building). That bank has a pedestrian walkway and underground vaults that encroach on the public way. Therefore, the city is supposed to be collecting ten cents per square foot on that encroachment annually.

Action was deferred last week while the staff answered some questions from the council. Those answers were released today. I’d like to simply look at the whole request and comment as I go:

First States Investors 4500 LLC, as the new owners of the National City Bank Building at 301 SW Adams, seeks the City of Peoria’s permission to continue using the pedestrian walkway and underground storage vaults on the property. Since both the walkway and the storage vaults are encroachments upon the public way, the buyer is seeking assurances that the City of Peoria will allow the continued use of the property. The buyer and seller were concerned that any refusal by the City of Peoria to allow the continued use and enjoyment of the encroachments would prevent the fullest utilization of the property and would require the parties to renegotiate the terms and conditions of the sale.

This part is completely reasonable. They want to be able to continue using the pedestrian walkway and underground vaults. The city can easily provide them assurances regarding this request. It’s the next part that defies logic:

Though § 26-111 of the Municipal Code, provides that a building owner pay .10/square foot as an annual fee for any encroachment upon the public way, the City of Peoria has not collected such a fee for a number of years.

Why not? That question was not answered in this new communication from staff. It’s apparent that nobody authorized the staff to stop collecting these fees. They just stopped, and now they want to use their negligence or deliberate unauthorized action to justify the continuation of that policy:

It would be unreasonable to begin collecting same relative to this transaction given the number of years the encroachments have existed.

No, what’s unreasonable is that staff has failed to do their job and are now shamelessly flaunting it.

The language of the ordinance provides for the building owners to provide proof of adequate public liability and property damage insurance prior to commencing any reconstruction, repair or other maintenance of the encroachments. Additionally, the Directors of Public Works and Inspections must authorize and monitor any repairs or reconstruction of the encroachments such that the City of Peoria is assured that the integrity of the public way is maintained.

Of course they should provide insurance for their own encroachment. The fee isn’t assessed to cover that. As far as the directors of Public Works and Inspections authorizing and monitoring any repairs or reconstruction, I think it’s fair to ask if they’ve been doing that, or if such monitoring also ceased “a number of years” ago.

The encroachment square footage, according to the Assessor’s Office, is 750 s.f. over the alley and 848 s.f. under the alley. If the annual fee were collected on this property, it would amount to $159.80. The land and building value is more than $4,000,000 and the City is receiving tax revenue on same. We believe collection stopped in the 1980’s.

The implication seems to be here that the amount is so small in comparison to the property tax revenue the city gets that it’s not worth collecting. Hogwash. The city collects lots of petty fines from businesses that pay plenty of property taxes to the city. The city by rights should charge them for the fees they haven’t paid since “the 1980’s.” That’s over $4,000 for the past 26 years.

Perhaps the most comical part of this is that according to this request, the company buying the bank building hasn’t even asked to get out of the fee — the only thing they’ve asked for is assurance that they can continue using the walkway and vaults; i.e., that the city won’t make them tear them out ala Peoria Heights vs. Alexis. Why city staff is insisting that the city stop collecting fees is a mystery.

But if that’s really what they want, then Patrick Nichting is right: they should include an amendment to the municipal code that repeals this fee. If a multi-billion dollar company shouldn’t have to pay it, then certainly no one else should.