Monthly Archives: January 2007

City of Peoria, Peoria Journal Star

No bluffing, the JS got it wrong

14 Comments

In today’s Journal Star I read this headline: “Peoria woman has purse stolen in West Bluff.”

Well, that’s my neck of the woods, so I wanted to know what happened and where. Imagine my surprise when I next read this (emphasis mine):

The 34-year-old victim told police shortly before 11 p.m. that while she was headed west on Nebraska Avenue approaching Peoria Avenue, the men came up on her from behind.

That would be the East Bluff. You know, it’s this kind of sloppy reporting that will get some reporters/editors fired when Dave Ransburg buys the paper.

Blogosphere, Peoria Park District

A tale of two park districts

5 Comments

PeoriaIllinoisan has a great blog entry today about Krug Park in St. Joseph, Missouri, and its similarities to the Peoria Park District. Check it out!

And speaking of the park district, I’ve been hearing rumors that there’s a petition drive on the East Bluff — an attempt to identify the “silent majority” that wants the Glen Oak/White replacement school built in Glen Oak Park. I guess they want to petition the Park Board to reconsider their recent decision to not allow park land to be shared for a school site at Prospect and Frye. If this rumor is true, it will be interesting to see how many people sign the petition, if all the signatures are valid, and if Jim Stowell and David Gorenz consider these activists to be a “very vocal minority.”

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Police

Reader poll: What is adequate police protection?

7 Comments

In my last reader poll, I asked the question, “What are essential services?” and the answers were terrific — very enlightening. Certainly there was a lot more disagreement than I thought there would be, but there was one thing, and one thing only, on which everyone agreed: police protection is an essential service.

But how do we assess whether this essential service is adequately provided by the City? What would the City have to do for us each to say, “yes, they’ve adequately provided for police protection in Peoria”?

Is it as simple as staffing x-number of cops on the beat? Is it solely punitive, or is there a prevention or early-intervention component to having adequate police protection (e.g., could some funding for education be considered an investment in crime prevention, and in that sense be considered part of providing adequate police protection)? Is it a funding issue — having enough money for all the communications and other equipment needed?

I think a distinction needs to be made here for the purposes of this question not becoming too large. I’m talking about what the City Council can do to adequately provide police protection. I’m not looking for a critique of the police department’s or the state’s attorney’s effectiveness or what they can do better at this point. Just from a Council perspective, at what point are you/we satisfied that they (the Council) are doing enough, and any problems or shortcomings are someone else’s fault other than the Council’s?

City Council, City of Peoria

Grayeb seeks to trample private property rights

37 Comments

From the Journal Star over the weekend:

Calling the city “behind the curve,” Councilman Chuck Grayeb says people in Peoria deserve the right to enjoy dinner without a side order of second-hand smoke.

I can suggest several options for Mr. Grayeb and the “people in Peoria” about whom he’s concerned. Here’s a list of smoke-free restaurants from the Illinois Department of Health. In addition, Mr. Grayeb is free to start his own smoke-free restaurant — he’ll certainly have time for a new venture now that he’s leaving the council.

Of course, neither of those options are Grayeb’s solution. He’d rather trample private property rights:

To that end, he plans to push for a referendum in the next few months banning smoking in Peoria restaurants.

I think this is focusing on the wrong problem. Instead, the council should be doing something to stop the gangs that are tying people up and forcing them to eat in restaurants that allow smoking!

Uncategorized

Hello from Kansas City

1 Comment

In case you’re wondering why blogging is so light today (and will be tomorrow, too), it’s because I’m in Kansas City — well, actually Overland Park, Kansas. I couldn’t tell you ahead of time because I was coming out here for a surprise anniversary party for my aunt and uncle. They’re celebrating their 25th anniversary this month! Well, they were very surprised and a good time was had by all.

I’ll be driving back tomorrow, so it will be another light posting day. Also, the Dead Sea Scrolls are on display at Union Station in KC…. If they’re open tomorrow, I might have to take a look at that exhibit!

Feel free to consider this an “open thread” and comment on anything you want while I’m gone.

City Council

The Council returns Tuesday, Jan. 9

9 Comments

The first thing on Tuesday night’s agenda is (after the proclamations) is:

INITIAL SNOW DEBRIEFING by SIX SIGMA BLACK BELT LORI DAVID from CATERPILLAR, INC. to Provide an OVERVIEW, INITIAL OPPORTUNITIES, OBSERVATIONS for IMPROVEMENTS, and the APPROACH for COMPLETING THE ASSIGNMENT.

Oh, goody. Like we need a Six Sigma black belt to figure this one out. Please tell me Ms. David is doing this service pro bono and we’re not wasting any more money on this snow fiasco. If she is being paid, perhaps they can fire Mr. Haste and take her fee out of the money they would no longer be wasting on him.

Other notable items, in no particular order:

  • Website redesign. They may hire IceCentric, LLC to redesign the city’s website for up to $45,000.

    The website seriously needs to be updated, so this is good news.

  • Sign ordinance changes. Adams Outdoor Advertising wants the City to change its sign ordinance to allow electronic off-premise billboards that can change messages every six seconds.

    Because traditional billboards just aren’t garish enough.

  • Riverfront programming. The proposed intergovernmental agreement between the City and Park District to provide programming along the Riverfront has been reduced from five years to one. Furthermore, during that one year, “additional revenue sources and cost reduction opportunities [will] be identified to move the Riverfront toward being self-sustaining.”

    Who proposed this course of action? Councilmembers Van Auken and Manning, of course. I’m still disappointed that they caved on Fire Station 11 and the garbage fee, but at least they’re taking steps to reduce expenses. It’s “little” cuts like this that eventually add up to enough money to take care of the big issues.

  • TIF Bloat. The Warehouse and Eagle View proposed TIF districts seem to be expanding all over the place. The Peoria Housing Authority wants to be in the Eagle View proposed TIF because it means they “get a better rating from the Federal government for redevelopment funds.” Some unnamed council member asked that the Warehouse District proposed TIF be extended north along MacArthur Blvd. because it “might have significant future financial impact as developers are induced to develop the area and more taxes and fees are generated.”

    Heck, let’s just make the whole city a TIF! Just think of how much development and, presumably, wealth we would have then! The council should stick with the original intent of the proposed TIF districts and only expand boundaries that fit within that intent. I hedge my statement this way because there are some boundary changes that are perfectly defensible and should be adopted (for instance, there are some parcels that were obviously omitted unintentionally). But to include PHA and additional housing is unwarranted.

If nothing gets deferred, be prepared to settle in for a long meeting.

City of Peoria

Haste makes waste

17 Comments

The snow debate is back. This time the focus is on Street Department Manager David Haste. Despite his abysmal performance in the days (weeks?) following the big Dec. 1 snowstorm, Public Works Director Steve Van Winkle has seen fit to give him a whopping 4.68% merit increase, in addition to approving $5,150 in overtime pay — for a salaried employee — between Nov. 30 and Dec. 10, according to today’s Journal Star.

You really should read Elaine Hopkins entire article and see if you don’t find your blood pressure rising just a little. There’s plenty of controversy surrounding Mr. Haste:

  • “[H]e reported working 129 hours over six days, an average of 21.5 hours daily.”

    I’d like to see the guy’s time sheet to find out exactly when he slept. Are we really supposed to believe that he only slept 15 hours in six days, an average of 2 1/2 hours per day? If true, it’s no wonder the guy was making poor decisions. I’d be willing to buy one or two days with only 3 hours sleep, but 5-10 days after the event? He’s still working over 20 hours a day with no sleep? And why the heck does a salaried employee get overtime pay?

  • “Haste said he and his wife were unable to find an affordable home in the Dunlap school district, though they continue to look. So Haste adopted a rental property he bought in 2000 as his residence….”

    Haste lives in Princeville, but when he was promoted to Street Department Manager, he was required by city residency requirements to become a resident of Peoria within a year (by 2004, in his case), but he wanted his teenage kids to be able to continue attending Dunlap High School.

    So, the guy owns two properties and makes $80,000/year, but he hasn’t been able to find an affordable home in the Dunlap High attendance area of Peoria in the last three years? He’s not looking very hard.

    Furthermore, he’s not convincing anyone (except Van Winkle, apparently) that he’s really living in the rental house in Peoria. It doesn’t have a stove in it, and it’s not listed as owner-occupied on the tax rolls, although there is some evidence that he may sleep there occasionally and Van Winkle claims his residency claims have been investigated. I don’t know the exact wording of the city’s residency ordinance, but if this isn’t breaking the letter of the law (and since it’s clearly not his primary residence, I don’t see how it couldn’t be), it’s certainly breaking the spirit of it.

  • “Haste said […] he has not even taken vacation he is eligible for, [and] added, ‘It’s not easy to do this (job). It’s not fun.'”

    Sounds like instead of looking for a new house in Peoria, Haste should be looking for a new job that he would enjoy. The City Manager should help him along toward that decision.

City of Peoria

Reader poll: What are “essential services”?

28 Comments

I think a vast majority of Peorians agree with the phrase “essential services first.” The question really is, what services fall under the category of “essential”? Public safety would undoubtedly top the list, and public works wouldn’t be far behind. But if you were going to strip the city’s responsibilities down to the bare essentials, what would they be? Or, alternatively, what are the most non-essential things the city does — what should the city stop doing or cut completely?

Uncategorized

Quote of the Day

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Edmund Morris“Theodore Senior belonged to a class and a generation that considered politics to be a dirty business, best left, like street cleaning, to malodorous professionals.”

— Edmund Morris, describing President Theodore Roosevelt’s father’s view of politics in “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” (1979)

City Council, Elections

The Thetford Files: MidTown Plaza

11 Comments

[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.