Daily Archives: January 3, 2007

City Council, Elections

The Thetford Files: MidTown Plaza

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[In the time leading up to the at-large City Council election, I’ll be occasionally pulling out some pertinent data on Gale Thetford and posting it under the headline “The Thetford Files,” lest we forget why she was voted off the council.]

From the March 10, 1999, edition of the Journal Star:

The City Council narrowly approved a deal Tuesday night that will create MidTown Plaza with $5.5 million in public financing.

Third District Councilwoman Gale Thetford, sponsor of the East Bluff project, secured the minimum nine “yes” votes needed to OK the agreement with developer David Joseph. […]

“It was sweaty, but we did it,” Joseph said after the 9-2 vote, when he hugged Thetford outside council chambers.

Ewwww! While you may think the grossest part of this story is David Joseph and Gale Thetford hugging… um… well, yeah, I guess that is the grossest part. But the second grossest part is that the City paid $5.5 million to “clear the land” (including knocking down old ladies’ houses on Dechman) required to make way for this project and made the area a TIF district after rejecting their own consultant’s report that said this was a bad deal for the City. Who did they listen to instead? The developer’s consultants, of course. I’m sure they weren’t biased….

The city’s consultant (Development Strategies, Inc.) predicted, according to a Journal Star editorial on 3/9/1999, that Cub Foods “would draw 90 percent of its customers from other city grocery stores.” Joseph’s consultants (Melaniphy & Associates, Inc.; Deloitte & Touche) predicted “43 percent of revenues would come from customers living outside the city” and that Cub Foods “would draw customers from a 10-mile radius.”

Now I haven’t done a scientific study, but I defy anyone to prove the City’s consultant wrong. I would be willing to bet that 90% of the customers are not only from Peoria, but specifically from the East Bluff, especially now that Thompson’s/Sullivan’s and John Bee have closed.

Another boondoggle, courtesy of the tireless efforts of developer-hugging Gale Thetford. In all fairness, if the City gave me $5.5 million on a silver platter, I might hug… no, no, I wouldn’t. Not even for $5.5 million.

Amtrak, City of Galesburg, City of Peoria

How about a Peoria-Quad Cities Amtrak route?

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Amtrak LogoWhile I was on hiatus, there was an interesting editorial in the Galesburg Register-Mail suggesting a Galesburg-Peoria commuter train. John Pulliam is their business writer at the Galesburg paper (the equivalent of the Journal Star’s Paul Gordon), and he makes some good points:

Ever since Maytag and Butler abandoned the Burg, many people have been paying big bucks to commute to Alcoa and John Deere in the Quad Cities and Caterpillar in Peoria. Driving that far every day is expensive, tiring and causes you to need a new car about twice a month. Why not take the train? (Because there isn’t one.) […]

Not only could a commuter line take Galesburg workers to Peoria, but Peoria’s nearest Amtrak service is Galesburg and Normal. Not good for a metro area of about 350,000 people. I know Peorians would rather have a direct route to Chicago, but the commuter train could bring them to Galesburg, where they could catch Amtrak to Chicago and many other destinations.

I agree. But why stop there? Let’s extend it on to Normal, or even Champaign. We need a good east-west train route in Illinois.

Pulliam suggests using the BNSF rail line between Galesburg and Peoria. I wonder how amenable BNSF would be to letting Amtrak use their line and how much it would cost to upgrade it to passenger rail standards. Maybe one of my rail-enthusiast friends can give me the low-down on whether any of this wishful thinking would really be feasible.

Blogosphere, City of Peoria

There’s a new portal in town: Peoria.com

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Screenshot of Peoria.com

If you’re looking for a good Peoria portal, check out the new Peoria.com. Their site has a good, clean look and no broken links that I can find. The pages load quickly and have attractive graphics. The whole thing looks very professional.

They link to news stories equally from traditional media outlets and blogs, and they are actively seeking bloggers to provide original news and opinion for their site. There’s a forum (more like a traditional computer bulletin board than a blog), a listing of upcoming Peoria events, classified ads and job listings and a community guide. It’s pretty well-rounded.

The key is going to be keeping everything fresh and updated. How many portals have you visited that have information woefully out of date or missing completely? If they’re vigilant in keeping things relentlessly updated and complete, I think they’ll be very successful. And I wish them the best of luck.

Ray LaHood

Quick poll: Who thinks LaHood has “influence”?

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Ray LaHoodThis news happened while I was on hiatus: WHOI reported last December on a group of people who were outside Congressman Ray LaHood’s Peoria office “holding signs stating he is spending too much on local issues.” Wow! I’ve only heard about this event from WHOI — was it covered by any other media outlets?

Anyway, the news reporters decided to try to find out why LaHood was getting so local all of a sudden. One political science professor thought it was LaHood’s way of trying to “stay in touch” with his constituents. But the most interesting quote was from LaHood himself:

“People look at me as somebody that has influence and if my office and my position can influence things in a positive way in the community, I want to be a part of that.” LaHood said.

LaHood has influence? Let’s recap his success in influencing things in a positive way: He tried to play mediator in the rails-to-trails issue to no avail; he tried to play mediator in the Glen Oak School siting issue to no avail; he’s trying to get two election commissioners thrown off the commission — the results of this latest one are yet to be determined. So far, he’s batting .000.

Is this an indication of the kind of “influence” he has in Washington?

General News

Somebody call America’s Funniest Videos

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Michael Smothers reports reports on the very progressive [/sarcasm] East Peoria hiking/biking trail in today’s Journal Star:

If the weather cooperates next New Year’s Eve, revelers from Morton who choose to celebrate the occasion at a tavern here won’t need a designated driver: They can bicycle home.

At least there will be a hiking/biking trail providing that option….

All I can say is, bring out the camera crews. Watching a bunch of drunken, bicycling bar patrons would be funny enough, but watching them try to ride uphill all the way to Morton in the dark at 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day should be a real hoot!