Monthly Archives: July 2007

General News

A review of the fireworks

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Fireworks clipartMy family went to see two fireworks shows (like we do every year): the July 3 show at Glen Oak Park, and the new “Red White and Boom” show down on the riverfront.

The show at Glen Oak Park was excellent, as usual. This is actually my favorite show — it’s in a beautiful setting, the Peoria Municipal Band plays (they always put on a great show), and the fireworks display is superb. There’s a lot of variety in the types of shells that are shot off, and the pacing is perfect. I think the show lasted 20-25 minutes this year. The kids loved it, of course; my youngest (James, 2) just sat there looking up at the sky with his mouth open, clearly awed by the spectacle. This event always has that “small town” fireworks show feeling, even though there are thousands of people there and the show is way better than you’d see in an actual small town.

The show at the riverfront was also great, but for a different reason: it was big, as promised. This year, Peoria and East Peoria combined forces to produce the biggest fireworks show ever on the riverfront. It started a little early because storm clouds were starting to roll in. This show was choreographed to music and it was announced that 5500 shells were sent up. Believe me, it was big, and very impressive.

One thing I experienced this year that I never experienced before was fallout. We set up on the East Peoria side of the river (because in years past it’s been less crowded — not so this year), and the wind was blowing east, so the ash and exploded shell casings rained down on us during the show. I guess I always knew that something had to be falling back to earth, but this was the first time I saw it falling out of sky on the crowd. I had to brush myself off when it was all over.

I love fireworks, and here in Peoria we have a couple of the highest quality fireworks displays you’ll see anywhere. While I appreciate the combining of the Peoria and East Peoria shows, I hope the Park District continues to keep their show separate and on the third. It’s a great tradition, and I enjoy getting to see two shows on two different nights. Kudos to the organizers of both shows.

Caterpillar

CAT stock downgraded

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CAT LogoCAT stock is going down due to a downgrade by UBS AG, reports the Chicago Tribune:

Caterpillar stock retreated $2.46, or 3.1 percent, to $77.99, on the New York Stock Exchange, its largest drop since Feb. 27…. [New York-based analyst David A.] Bleustein reduced his rating on the stock to “reduce” from “neutral” and the price he expects the shares to reach to $70 from $78.

You can read more about it in Forbes and Barron’s.

Uncategorized

Happy Independence Day!

CREDIT: “U.S. Capitol paintings. Signing of the Declaration of Independence, painting by John Trumbull in U.S. Capitol, detail II.” By Horydczak, Theodor, ca. 1890-1971, photographer. From Washington as It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959 Created/published ca. 1920-ca. 1950. LC-H8-CT-C01-063 DLC Part of Theodor Horydczak Collection (Library of Congress) Horydczak, Theodor, ca. 1890-1971. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Bradley University, Ray LaHood

Logic apparently not a job qualification

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Ray LaHoodAccording to the Journal Star, Ray LaHood is still contemplating applying for a job for which finalists have already been chosen:

“I’m still considering the decision,” said LaHood, a Peoria Republican.

Asked how that could be, given that the search committee has selected its finalists to be interviewed shortly at an out-of-town location, LaHood responded, “I just told you where I’m at with it.”

Presumably, LaHood is also still considering a gubernatorial run for 2006. I wonder what he’ll decide?

Kellar Branch

Oh my Darling, oh my Darling, oh my Darling, CIRY

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Kellar Branch RailroadBack in February, former mayor Dick Carver came to Peoria (at taxpayer expense) to talk about options for the future of the Kellar Branch, including which railroad company would be the better rail carrier: Pioneer Industrial Railroad or Central Illinois Railroad Company. The president and general counsel for Pioneer showed up at the meetings, but no one from Central Illinois Rail bothered to make the trek down from Granville, Illinois. I also addressed the council at the time with what I thought was a well-reasoned argument in favor of the rail carrier who had provided better, safer service (Pioneer).

Nevertheless, the City chose Central Illinois Railroad, in no small part because of Dick Carver’s comments. One comment in particular (summarized below from the Feb. 13 council minutes) was especially swaying to the council:

Mr. Carver said he felt that Mr. John Darling, President of Central Illinois Rail Company, had a good relationship with the Union Pacific Railroad. He said Mr. Darling committed himself to making service more reliable, and more frequent, with a reasonable cost.

You see, without the Kellar Branch in operation, the western connection is only accessible from the Union Pacific line, so a good working relationship with UP (among other things) is essential if shippers on the western connection are ever going to get something close to a competitive rate.

John Darling, President of Central Illinois Rail, was the man of the hour that night, even though he wasn’t there at the meeting. Dick Carver talked him up, explained what a great working relationship the guy had with UP, etc. He wouldn’t come right out and say that Darling/CIRY was a better choice than Pioneer, but he might as well have. The implication was clear. So the council voted to get a contract with CIRY based on that recommendation and the promise of John Darling.

Fast-forward five months: The city is still unable to reach an agreement on a new contract with CIRY, and guess what? John Darling is no longer the president of Central Illinois Railroad. Randy Ray informed at least one councilman today, “Mr. Darling has left. Their new Chief Operating Officer is Jack Stolarczyk.”

Now that their pretense for choosing CIRY over Pioneer (Darling) is “lost and gone forever,” will they say “dreadful sorry, CIRY” and drop them in favor of Pioneer?

I think we all know the answer to that.

CityLink

Park ‘n Ride into the past, I guess

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I thought I might ride CityLink’s Park ‘n Ride service to see the fireworks at Glen Oak Park tonight. My wife and I did that last year and it seemed to work relatively well. So I wanted to get some info on where they would be picking up people and how much the fares were.

First stop, the website:

Park and Ride

If you can’t read it, it says this:

Park-N-Ride Services Hotline
Call 679-8333 For Recorded Schedules, updated regularly

There are no June Park & Ride and Special Events

Please check back to see more upcoming events in July

Okay, so their website is a little out of date. I’ll try calling the hotline. I kid you not, this is the entire recording, verbatim, recorded by me today, July 3, 2007, at 6:00 p.m.:

[audio:https://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Audio/CityLink1.mp3]

Wow, thanks CityLink for your “regularly updated” Park ‘n Ride hotline! Now I know just where and when to catch the bus for events that happened in November and December of last year! Just one more thing, where do I find your time machine?

I think it’s funny that the telephone “hotline” is even more out of date than the website. And it’s even funnier that the recording cuts off at the end — indicating to me that even when this was originally recorded, it was only marginally helpful.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more comical, I tried pressing “0” for an operator. Guess what?

[audio:https://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Audio/CityLink2.mp3]

Looks like we’ll be driving.

Museum Block

More details come out about museum changes

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Jennifer Davis has been doing some digging and came up with these specific changes:

…shrinking the building by about 15,000 square feet and doing away with both the reflecting pool and the large metal sphere enclosed in glass, which held the planetarium. Further, though it will look like a two-story building in places, the second floor will house mechanicals and no longer be accessible to visitors. The retail space along Water Street also will be put off for now. The planetarium still will exist, but in a silo-looking structure.

The City Council should shoot this down with both barrels. As far as I’m concerned, the museum group has proven that this cannot be a successful venture at its current size, and I don’t mean just the size of the building. I also mean the size of the project (combining multiple museums into one in an ever-decreasing space) and the size of the land (taking all that prime real estate away from public development that would produce tax revenue for the city for an 80,000 square foot building).

If the museum group wants to continue to try to stuff five or six museums/halls-of-fame into an 80,000-square-foot building, I suppose that’s their prerogative. But there’s no way the council should allow them to continue squatting on two-thirds of the former Sears block to do it. Give them a smaller portion of the block, and open the rest of it to private development — preferably a mix of retail and residential, in keeping with the principles of New Urbanism.

City Council, City of Peoria, Museum Block

Honey, I shrunk the museum

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Shrinking museumI hear tell the museum folks are wanting to modify their agreement with the city to make the proposed museum even smaller than it already is. It may come before the council on July 10.

My sources say they want to reduce the gross floor area from 96,000 to 80,000 square feet. I wonder what that will do to the display space. Considering they were only going to have about 70,000 square feet of display space before, this reduction could potentially leave less than 60,000 square feet for the public.

And, of course, a reduction of square footage demands architectural changes to accommodate the smaller space. No word yet on what those changes will be, although I’m still hearing rumors that it will involve reducing or eliminating the second floor.

I would suggest that they follow the sage advice of philosopher C. S. Lewis: “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

City Council, City of Peoria

Council to citizens: be quiet

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Minute MinderThe council is installing something new this week for Peoria citizens: a timer. Those pesky citizens take up a lot of the council’s time on Tuesday nights, so in addition to reducing by half the number of opportunities to address the council (the council’s now meeting only twice a month instead of four times), they’re also going to start strictly enforcing the five-minute rule when citizens take to the microphone.

To facilitate the new rules, they need to buy a timer. But not just any timer:

The $2,675 electronic timer is supposed to tell citizens when their allotted five minutes to address the council is up. The timers – one mounted on the public lectern, one on the back wall and two behind the mayor’s desk – will use green, yellow and red lights to guide speakers on how much time they have remaining.

A $2,675 timer? Are you kidding me? The timer pictured above can accomplish the same thing for only $7.99 from Bed Bath and Beyond. For $14.99, you can get a digital timer that will allow you to have your one-minute warning beep, if that’s important.

That’s not all. The council is also going to require that anyone wishing to address the council fill out a card — before the meeting — in order to be recognized. Since there are fewer meetings, they will undoubtedly be longer. So now we’re going to require citizens to get down to City Hall before 6:15 to fill out a card and then sit in council chambers for the whole meeting, which may go until 10:00, just so they can speak for five minutes at the end and, presumably, get cut off if they speak too long.

Now tell me this isn’t an effort to try to discourage citizen comments.