Monthly Archives: October 2007

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Final school siting forum tonight at Glen Oak School

Tonight is the final Woodruff High School Attendance Area School Site Selection forum. It will be held at Glen Oak Primary School, 809 E. Frye Ave., at 7:00 p.m.

Alert blogger Brad Carter commented on another post:

I wasn’t sure where to post this, but tonight is the final forum for the Woodruff feeder school and in the latest school board meeting it was stated that city representatives would be in attendance. Also, the board seemed to feel as the city would be willing to contribute financially.

The board is right. In the proposed 2008 city budget, there is money set aside to potentially help District 150 — if they build a school in the East Bluff.

There’s a Capital Improvement Project request for $344,000 titled “Park to Support School in the East Bluff.” The description of the project is, “These funds are being requested to purchase and develop park-like property in the East Bluff to support a school.” The reason/justification is:

The City of Peoria sold property in Southtown that was designated for open space under a grant from Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Funds from selling this property with the IDNR grant designation must now be used for purchasing property within another location. The location must be open space to be used as a park and must be approved by IDNR for the conversion. Since these are restricted funds, the area they are to be used in is somewhat limited. Using these funds for a park-like setting to support a school in the East Bluff would be an ideal use of these funds. Final approval of the project would rest with IDNR.

In other words, the request is saying, “we’ll spend $344,000 to create a park-like setting if the school board builds a school in the East Bluff. Otherwise, we’ll find another way to use the money that doesn’t directly benefit the school district.” It’s also interesting to note that this is less than the $500,000 that was offered last year for property acquisition if the school district would build a replacement school on the site of the current Glen Oak School instead of adjacent to the park. I know Third District Councilman Bob Manning is planning to speak tonight, so perhaps he will mention this funding in his remarks.

Also planning to speak is Beth Akeson, Vice Chair of the Heart of Peoria Commission. And at the first forum, Roberta Parks spoke on behalf of the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce and said the school board should consider sites that have “better spin-off potential” or potential for economic development around the new school, both residential and commercial. She said at that time the chamber didn’t have a specific site they recommended, but may have one by the last meeting, so I would expect to hear a presentation from the chamber as well.

I expect this to be the best attended, most vocal, and longest meeting of the four forums.

City Council, City of Peoria

Oct. 23 council agenda portends another protracted meeting

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Last week, the council meeting lasted six hours, starting on Tuesday and ending on Wednesday. That’s probably not going to happen this coming Tuesday (Lord willing), but if the agenda is any indication, it’s still going to be a relatively long meeting. Here’s the agenda for Tuesday night’s council meeting:

Continue reading Oct. 23 council agenda portends another protracted meeting →

Peoria Park District

Still waiting for Park Board report on televising meetings

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From the April 27, 2007, Peoria Park Board minutes:

Mr. Christopher J. Summers read from a letter he wrote to the Park Board regarding the question of whether or not to televise Park Board meetings on the public access channel. VICE PRESIDENT CUMMINGS MOVED STAFF PREPARE A STUDY OR REPORT WHICH WOULD GIVE THE BOARD A SUMMARY OF ALL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH TELEVISING OF ALL PARK BOARD MEETINGS, OR ALL BUDGET SESSIONS. REPORT TO INCLUDE ALL THE BENEFITS OF SAME AND DISADVANTAGES OF SAME. STAFF TO INCLUDE THEIR SUGGESTIONS OF POSSIBLE DONORS WILLING TO CHAMPION THIS EFFORT IF COSTS ARE HIGH. Motion seconded by Trustee Petty. Deliberation followed with questions raised regarding who pays for the televised service, the previous history of this issue, and possibility of staff doing the taping of meetings and giving pre-recorded tape to Insight Communications public access channel. Motion carried on unanimous voice vote. (Results: 6 Ayes; 0 Nays)

It’s been six months, and there’s been no further mention of this action item that I can find. Did it slip through the cracks?

City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan

Capital dollars for the Heart of Peoria

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Although the Heart of Peoria Commission is currently slated to receive no funding in the city’s proposed 2008 capital budget, that doesn’t mean the Heart of Peoria area is getting no funding for projects.

City Manager Randy Oliver sent me this breakdown of the funding that is currently proposed:

The Heart of Peoria area is proposed to receive a significant amount of the City’s proposed 2008 CIP non-discretionary resources. The major initiatives are:

  • Sheridan Road Triangle – $285,000
  • Warehouse District Infrastructure (Roads) – $1,000,000
  • Wisconsin Business Improvement District – $100,000
  • ML King Opportunity Acquisition – $100,000
  • Main Street Traffic Study – $35,000
  • Downtown Improvements – $200,000
  • Water Street – Hamilton to Washington – $1,000,000 (total funding $2 million balance from the State)
  • Center University of Illinois Medical School Campus – $2,000,000

This does not include Sidewalks in Need of Repair (SINR) or Special Assessment projects.

Although all these projects are in the HOP area, they are not all “Heart of Peoria Plan” projects. The U of I Medical School campus, for example, has nothing to do with the HOP Plan.

A significant amount of money is being put toward the Warehouse District, however, and that’s a good thing. Development of this project, though, is largely dependent on getting IDOT to go along with the vision and allow the city to make the kinds of street improvements needed to make it a viable mixed-use area. As Gary Sandberg recently pointed out, no one is going to want to live down there as long as the traffic is hostile to pedestrians.

I’m not sure what some of these projects are. Even after looking at the proposed budget on the city’s website, I can’t figure out what the $200,000 in “downtown improvements” is set aside to provide. I may have just missed the explanatory document requesting this funding — the budget is over 300 pages and it’s easy to overlook things.

UPDATE: Here’s what Mr. Oliver had to say about the “Downtown Improvements” funds:

Theses funds are a continuation of the funding for improvements to Water Street behind the Museum/CAT from a prior year project. A CIP sheet should have been included.

These improvements are required to be completed under a Development Agreement when the Museum/CAT Experience is completed. The improvement provides for a continuation of the street scape, diagonal parking on the Museum side of the block and elevating the street above the 100 year flood plain.

City Council, City of Peoria

City Council budget session minutes released

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Did you miss the special City Council meeting on Monday where they discussed the proposed 2008 budget? Here is the meat of the official minutes from that meeting, which were released today (they’re long, so click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below to see the whole thing):

City Manager Randy Oliver provided the City Council with an overview of the 2008 Preliminary Budget. He discussed 2008 projected revenues and property tax base (EAV) growth from 2000 through what was estimated for 2007. He pointed out that out of every tax dollar, the City’s share was only 11%, with 9% going to the Park District, 10% going to the County, 59% going to the School Districts, and 11% going to other. He further discussed sales tax revenues from 2003 to 2008, which included local revenues and from the State revenues. He also discussed projected 2008 operating expenditures with 30% for the Police Department, 22% for the Fire Department, 21% for Public Works, and the remaining split between the other smaller departments. He explained the Operating Budget and the amount of increases over the last four years. He closed by discussing the General Fund – Fund Balance and the amounts of increases from 2000 to 2006.

Continue reading City Council budget session minutes released →

Television

Beware of “fake news” on TV

When is TV news real journalism and when is it fake? According to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), it’s fake when it’s nothing more than a “video news release,” or “VNR”:

Video news releases are public relations videos designed to look like television news stories. The vast majority of VNRs are funded by corporate clients to promote the company’s products or public image.

For example, the makers of Zicam, a cold remedy product, put together a VNR about the inconvenience of catching a cold while traveling. It was taped just like a news report, except that the surveys and reports it refers to are all company-sponsored, there are lots of Zicam product-placement opportunities, and their expert interviewee states, “in my research I found that homeopathic zinc products can shorten the duration of your illness.” You think you’re watching a report that includes unbiased scientific research, but it’s really just a clever commercial for Zicam.

CMD quotes a public notice from the FCC that states VNRs “must clearly disclose to members of their audiences the nature, source and sponsorship of the material.” The problem is, there are many TV news programs using VNRs without ever disclosing that their source material is simply a PR video hawking a specific product. Worse, CMD shows examples on its website of stations that “disguise VNRs as their own reporting”:

Newsrooms added station-branded graphics and overlays, to make VNRs indistinguishable from reports that genuinely originated from their station. A station reporter or anchor re-voiced the VNR in more than 60 percent of the VNR broadcasts, sometimes repeating the publicist’s original narration word-for-word.

CMD identified over 100 stations that aired what they consider “fake news.” No Peoria stations were listed. However, the owners of most of Peoria’s commercial stations were represented on the list (the one notable exception being Barrington Broadcasting, owners of WHOI) because stations they own in other cities did misuse VNRs.

The FCC has taken notice, and recently levied a $4,000 fine on a Comcast cable channel for failing to identify a VNR they ran as a news story. This one was for an herbal remedy called Nelson’s Rescue Sleep. Comcast defended its use of the VNR material, saying, “The segments in question were chosen by journalists in the course of reporting, and Comcast received no consideration or benefit by using the material.”

Indeed, since these types of news releases are provided for free to stations and with no limitations on how they can be edited, some newsrooms find them to be an easy source of content for “news” reports. Neither CMD nor the FCC says TV stations can’t use VNR material in their broadcasts, only that the source of the material should be clearly disclosed so viewers can make informed judgments as to the claims of such material.

2008 Campaign, Internet

A couple cool things I found on the Web

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Here are a couple of interesting sites I thought I’d pass along:

  • Complete Broadcast Day, September 21, 1939. All 19 hours of broadcasting, unedited, was preserved by radio station WJSV in Washington, D.C. on 9/21/1939. The whole day is here at this site in mp3 format (fortunately in separate files so you can easily sample it). You may recall that Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, setting World War II into motion. This broadcast includes President Roosevelt giving an address to a joint session of Congress explaining how the U.S. was going to remain neutral. Also included is the last regular season baseball game between the Cleveland Indians and Washington Senators that year. And a little after 12:30 a.m., you can hear the Bob Chester Orchestra play that smash hit, “Shoot The Sherbert To Me, Herbert.” (It makes me laugh every time I see that title.) It’s really a fascinating time capsule.
  • Select a Candidate Quiz. My parents forwarded this to me. It’s a short quiz you take identifying your position on certain hot-button issues, then your answers are compared to the stated positions of the presidential candidates. The candidate with the highest score is the one that shares your positions the closest. I took it; Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson tied for the highest score (43) based on my positions. I’m not quite sure how to feel about that. Bottom of the list: Chris Dodd. He and I disagree on almost every issue, apparently. Who tops your list?
The Peoria Chronicle

The sun also rises

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You may have noticed that the header for my blog has a new picture. I’ve been wanting to change it for some time, but just haven’t gotten around to it before now. The old picture was one was a great picture of the Peoria skyline at night that I found online. The new picture was one I took this evening around 5:30 at East Peoria’s riverfront park. The view of Peoria’s skyline from this park is really spectacular. I highly recommend it to all you shutterbugs out there.

Peoria Pundit

Kudos to Billy

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I’ve been noticing lately that Billy Dennis has really stepped up his citizen journalism. He’s always been the “blogfather,” of course, but I’ve noticed an increase in his first-hand reporting lately. He’s doing an especially good job of covering the 18th congressional district race.

I frankly can’t keep up with him anymore. If he keeps this up, I may give up my blog and just occasionally post guest commentary on his site. 🙂

Peoria Public Schools

Just when I was about to compliment them….

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Peoria Public Schools logoI was all set to praise the District 150 school board for being open-minded about the two-school option in the East Bluff/North Valley area, and reconsidering their plans to remodel the district offices… and then I read this:

District 150’s newly named deputy superintendents will receive temporary pay raises until Superintendent Ken Hinton recovers from back surgery and returns to work.

The School Board approved 15 percent raises for deputy superintendents Cindy Fischer and Herschel Hannah. Their pay will return to normal when Hinton comes back.

What is the matter with these people? Let’s review. Royster is fired. Board wants Hinton to replace her, but Hinton doesn’t have certification to be a superintendent. They hire him anyway (as “deputy” superintendent) and hire Fischer and Hannah as co-interim superintendents. Then Hinton gets his certification and becomes Superintendent.

Then the board decides to keep Fischer and Hannah on anyway, even though these positions are unnecessary now because the Superintendent position is filled. They call them “Associate Superintendents” and gave them a huge pay increase just a few months ago.

Now that Hinton is out on medical leave, they give them both another huge pay increase (albeit “temporary”) while he’s out of the office. These two superfluous positions already pay over $114,000 a year before the increase. Fifteen percent of that is over $17,000 (annually).

I can find no other school district the size of District 150 that has as many superintendents as District 150. This is the district that is always complaining about not having money, using the Chamber of Commerce to get donations to keep the truancy center open, considering outsourcing the lunch ladies, negotiating low or no raises for teachers, etc., etc. Yet they can spend gobs of money on superfluous administrative positions and give them mammoth raises without batting an eye.

Priorities?