Daily Archives: January 10, 2007

City of Peoria, East Bluff, Peoria Park District, Peoria Public Schools

East Bluff businesses want nothing to do with petition signing

9 Comments

Clare Jellick reports tonight:

The Boys and Girls Club has pulled out of letting a group of people use its space for a petition drive in support of a school at Glen Oak Park. […]

“We went to several places, and they said it was kind of controversial. They did not want to allow us to rent a space because of the subject matter,” said Bruce Morgan, who lives just south of the park on Frye Avenue.

I have the solution for our luckless “silent majority.” They can have their petition signing party on one of the properties the school district recently purchased on the corner of Frye and Prospect. I’m sure the school board wouldn’t mind. Plus, it would have these added benefits:

  • Reduction of depression and aggression in petition signers
  • Environment-based petition signing develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making
  • Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that signing petitions in natural surroundings stimulates creativity and activism
  • Ability to draw a better picture of a bee next to their names on the petition

The people behind this petition drive need to ask themselves, don’t their petition signers deserve the best environment for signing a petition? Can they really even consider anyplace else? It’s easy to get there — just one moderately busy street to cross. It will increase park attendance, and while they’re there, they can visit the zoo and botanical gardens.

City of Peoria, East Bluff, Peoria Park District

Petition drive underway to reconsider Park Board decision

14 Comments

The heretofore “silent majority” wants the Park District to know that, although they never said anything all last year while the controversy was going on, they really want a school in Glen Oak Park. Now, after the decision has already been made, they are mobilizing their forces — all 30 of them so far.

They have such nice things to say about their neighbors, too:

Lance Sperry, who has joined [Teresa] Larson in the cause, said the people that attended meeting after meeting to oppose the site aren’t the majority.

“It’s just a few that have the time to go to every (City) Council meeting, shake their fists at every Park Board meeting. A lot of us just don’t have the time to do this,” Sperry said.

Oh, sure. Five neighborhood associations, the Heart of Peoria Commission, Councilman Bob Manning, et. al., are just a few lazy bums with all kinds of time on their hands and nothing better to do than to go to every council and park board meeting. They don’t have job commitments or families or social lives like the vaunted “silent majority” who “just don’t have the time” to participate in civic affairs.

That means this “majority,” if we are to believe Mr. Sperry, is too busy to make a call, write a letter, or attend a meeting; no, political action is evidently at the very bottom of their priority list, and they consider that a virtue. Teresa Larson (the apparent leader of this petition drive) says she “just assumed that the Park Board would make the ‘right’ decision.” Well I guess she and her johnny-come-lately petition signers have learned a valuable civics lesson.