Kudos to Peoria County for quickly cleaning up all the garbage on an abandoned portion of Big Hollow Road and sealing off access to it! Here are a couple of pictures showing the cleaned road and the barricades blocking access:
Also, kudos to HOI News for drawing attention to this situation and following up with city and county officials. This was a win for everyone. Hopefully the filthy pigs who dumped their garbage there in the first place will stay away now.
Billy Dennis is reporting that the city is planning to de-commission the Heart of Peoria Commission and redistribute the members to other city commissions, most notably the Planning Commission. This has all come up relatively quickly, so I’m not going to have many comments on it until the HOPC meets (May 25) and we have a chance to discuss it. I will say a couple of things, though.
First, the part about putting Heart of Peoria Commission (HOPC) members on other commissions should be no surprise, since that was the recommendation from the city’s Committee on Commissions (item C.4.). The specific appointments to these other commissions that Billy lists on his blog are only suggested at this point, as not all commissioners have been contacted to see if they are able or willing to serve on those commissions. I have been contacted and have expressed my willingness to serve on the Planning Commission. I think dual appointments are a good idea, and infusing New Urbanism principles into these existing commissions will make them and the city stronger.
As for the HOPC being decommissioned, that’s something that needs to be discussed. I knew this idea was out there as a possibility, but I didn’t expect to see it coupled with the dual appointments as it was in the communication that Billy posted on his blog. There are a number of pros and cons to decommissioning HOPC, and I don’t know that all the ramifications have been thoroughly explored.
The idea promoted in the draft council communication would be to change HOPC from a city-appointed commission “to a private, civic commission, similar to that of Peoria City Beautiful, allowing the current and future members to meet as they wish, without Open Meeting Act regulations, to study, advocate, and take other actions as they wish related to the Heart of Peoria Plan and New Urbanism.” Another idea I’ve heard that was not listed, however, would keep the HOPC as a city commission, but have it meet more infrequently (quarterly, perhaps) to advocate for and educate on New Urbanism principles, kind of like it’s doing now.
I’m sure there will be some (ahem) spirited discussions about these ideas over the next couple of weeks. I think the dual appointments definitely need to be done because all the commissions need to have new urbanism principles represented. Whether the HOPC is decommissioned is still an open question for me. I look forward to hearing more discussion/debate on that idea.