Daily Archives: September 1, 2006

Peoria Park District

I wonder if it’s an 18-minute gap

2 Comments

Part of the Open Meetings Act requires that audio recordings be made of executive sessions precisely for the reason that’s facing the Peoria Park District now — someone is challenging the legality of action taken in closed session. Specifically, there’s a lawsuit over the Peoria Park District’s actions regarding sharing parkland with District 150 so they can build a school on a portion of Glen Oak Park. A judge can review the executive session recordings to see if any illegal action took place during the meeting…

But guess what? Merle Widmer reports that parts of the recordings in question have been erased!

First I heard it was one tape that got erased “accidentally” of Peoria Park Board and Peoria Public School District #150 Executive Minutes. Then an unimpeachable source told me it was “two” Park Board Executive tapes that were “accidentally” erased. These tapes supposedly contain dialogue between certain Peoria Public School District #150 Board Members and members of the Peoria Park District Board of Directors concerning the relocating of Glen Oak School on Prospect Road and on private and PPD land.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I smell a cover-up.

City Council, City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

And for your breach of contract, have another $187,847

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What do you do when a company exhibits questionable competence, endangers the citizens of Peoria, and breaches their contract with the city? If you’re the city of Peoria, you award them another contract for more work.

Just to recap: Central Illinois Railroad (CIRY) tried to fulfill their contractual obligations. Late last year they tried to take some lumber up the Kellar Branch to Carver Lumber Company. What many people don’t know is that the Kellar Branch includes a pretty steep hill where it climbs the bluff. CIRY was using a vehicle called a Trackmobile to haul the lumber up the hill. Trackmobiles are designed for moving train cars around in a train yard, not for hauling lumber uphill; they don’t have as much power as an engine. As a result, they lost traction and the train barrelled down the hill backwards at 30 mph through several grade crossings. That runaway train could have killed someone, but thankfully didn’t. After that, they never again attempted to use the Kellar Branch — in breach of their contract with the city.

Not only did the city not enforce that contract (to Carver Lumber’s detriment), but now they want to hire the same company — a company with questionable competence — to do some rail crossing work on Allen Road to the tune of $187,847.

There are several things wrong with this picture:

  1. It does not appear that the City got multiple quotes and this was the low bid. For such an expensive project, one would think they would have bid it out. If they did, they didn’t disclose that information to the council in the Request for Council Action.
  2. The experience the City has had with this company is not exemplary. As noted above, they have been in breach of contract and have endangered the lives of Peoria citizens by their gross negligence. Why should we trust them?
  3. The quote submitted is apparently not itemized. There is hardware as well as labor included in that number of $187,847. How much are they charging for labor? How much for parts? Shouldn’t we at least get an itemized quote? It could be that it is itemized on “Exhibit 2B” which is unfortunately not included in the material available online.
  4. Recently, this same company filed a non-itemized quote with the Surface Transportation Board claiming it would cost over $500,000 to bring the Kellar Branch up to operable working condition, yet Pioneer Industrial Railway submitted an itemized work order indicating it would only cost around $10,000. See my previous post on this issue for more details. Doesn’t this indicate to anyone that CIRY’s cost estimates at least have the potential of being inflated?

One other thing: this work is not being paid by the city, but by IDOT. Does IDOT know anything about the history of this company? Did they have any part in this choice? In fact, why isn’t IDOT doing this work themselves? IDOT’s Bureau of Railroads provided an estimate for track repair on the Kellar Branch back in 2000 (which was used by the city to try to prove repairs are too costly). If they can provide estimates and repair work, and if they’re footing the bill anyway, why is CIRY involved at all?

I certainly hope someone takes this off the consent agenda on Tuesday and asks city staff some hard questions about it.

City of Peoria

What’s wrong with Peoria?

15 Comments

Peoria LogoI’m disturbed by what I see as a trend to de-emphasize the name of our beloved city, Peoria. The museum is only the latest in a long line of the name purging. Remember what CityLink used to be called? That’s right, GP Transit — where “GP” stood for “Greater Peoria.” The Journal Star stopped calling themselves the “Peoria Journal Star” decades ago. The Peoria Civic Center is looking to sell their naming rights, so it will likely lose the Peoria part of its name. Now, the Peoria Regional Airport is floating the idea of changing its name as well.

Why? What’s wrong with “Peoria”? Is it a lack of civic pride? Are people embarrassed to be associated with Peoria?

One argument I hear often is that many of these places want to have more regional appeal, thus they come up with more generic or regional names. Here’s my question: how’s that working out? Does CityLink have a large presence in East Peoria, Pekin, Germantown Hills, Metamora, Washington, Bartonville, etc., now that they’ve adopted a regional name? Has the Journal Star’s circulation risen since they de-emphasized “Peoria” in their nameplate? Has fundraising really taken off in the surrounding cities since the museum started calling themselves (temporarily) the Central Illinois Regional Museum? I’m highly skeptical that these efforts have resulted in any appreciable difference in revenues or attitudes toward the companies who’ve chosen to eschew the Peoria moniker.

Another argument is that Peoria supposedly has a bad reputation for whatever reason, thus making the name a marketing liability. First of all, I don’t believe people are that easily fooled. You still have to tell people where you’re located, so they’re going to find out that you’re in Peoria eventually. You can’t trick them into coming here. Secondly, hiding the Peoria name doesn’t help improve that reputation, if one concedes such a repuation exists. If the Peoria Civic Center is successful, then Peoria’s reputation is helped. If the Peoria History Museum gained national attention, then the Peoria name would shine. But if the AMAZEum prospers, or the ABC Company Civic Center is a popular regional attraction, what does that do for Peoria’s name? Nothing. It’s self-defeating.

So, I ask again, what’s wrong with Peoria? What’s wrong with showing a little pride in our city? Yes, I do my fair share of criticism of the city, but I consider around 99% of it constructive criticism, and frankly, I love Peoria. That’s why I live here. That’s why I’ve chosen to live right in the heart of the city. That’s why I call my blog “The PEORIA Chronicle.”

I’m tired of seeing “Peoria” get short shrift. Despite its challenges, Peoria has a lot going for it. We all know it. We can all quote chapter and verse about Peoria’s storied past and our progressive vision for the future. Why not flaunt it? We should be proud to put the name “Peoria” on our museums, civic centers, airport, buses, newspapers, etc. And we should be proud to be known as Peorians.