Monthly Archives: February 2008

City of Peoria, Peoria Civic Center, Taxes

Higher taxes draw tourists?

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That’s what “two downtown hotel executives” (Donald Welch of the Hotel Pere Marquette and Sami Quereshi of the Holiday Inn City Centre) told the Journal Star. They are quoted in the paper as advocating a quarter-percent increase in the overall HRA tax to “draw large conventions and out-of-towners to Peoria.”

A quarter-percent increase in the (HRA) tax could generate $750,000 to $800,000 to the tourism reserve fund, allowing the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau to market the Civic Center and other venues to larger-scale conventions and events….

“The impact [of the tax increase] on the individual is insignificant,” [Welch] said. “The impact to the community to have a fund to attract conventions, out-of-towners, is huge.”

Well, that certainly defies conventional wisdom, doesn’t it? Ironically, there was an article in the State Journal-Register yesterday that says the exact opposite. Apparently there’s a proposal by a city alderman to raise Springfield’s hotel tax, and hoteliers are speaking out against it:

Michael Fear, general manager of the Hilton Springfield downtown, said the higher tax would raise only a pittance for the city but could rob Springfield of its competitive advantage when it comes to tourism. “It’s a bad idea,” Fear said. “We are able to attract conventions because of our tax rate. For large meeting planners, 1 or 2 percent can be thousands of dollars. It may be the difference between coming here and not coming here.”

In Springfield, the hotel tax is 10%, so the proposed increase would put it up to 11 or 12%. Here in Peoria, the hotel tax is 11.5%, and a quarter-percent increase would raise it to 11.75%. In Springfield, a tax rate that high would “rob Springfield of its competitive advantage when it comes to tourism.” In Peoria, a higher tax rate “could draw large conventions and out-of-towners to Peoria.” If anyone can figure that out, please explain it to me.

I also love the way hoteliers have turned Economic Development Director Craig Hullinger’s original proposal of a voluntary hotel tax into an overall HRA tax increase proposal in a little over a week and a half. That didn’t take long, did it?

This proposal should be blown out of the water immediately. The HRA tax was supposed to be temporary and for a single purpose — to support the establishment of the Civic Center. It was never supposed to be permanent nor a source of revenue for other agencies (although that hasn’t stopped the city from funding agencies like ArtsPartners from the proceeds).

Besides, didn’t the Civic Center just spend $55 million for expanded convention space so that that development would bring in tons of tourists and boost our economy? Didn’t the council just approve extending the HRA tax another 30 years for that effort? What, that wasn’t enough? Now we need to raise the HRA tax even more?

Hey, I have an idea: why don’t we all just set our money on fire instead?

Bradley University

Hold your breath, neighbors — Bradley has a new vision

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And now a news report (courtesy of WEEK-TV) that will send shivers up the spine of every remaining homeowner in the Arbor District, and other surrounding neighborhoods:

Bradley University’s president [Joanne Glasser] has a vision that she believes will be a renaissance for the school. In addition to new facilities to replace Haussler Hall and Robertson Memorial Field House, new projects will be announced this spring as part of the university’s Renaissance Project. … Glasser says Bradley will unveil more details about the Renaissance project April 24.

Oh, great. The last time a Bradley president had a vision, a whole street full of beautiful, 100-year-old single-family homes were torn down so they could put up a five-story parking deck. The whole neighborhood was destabilized as owner-occupied homes started falling to rental property like dominoes.

I and my neighbors will be holding our collective breath until April 24, hoping that these “new projects” won’t “improve” Bradley at the expense of our home values again.

UPDATE: Shelley Epstein called me today (he works for Bradley now; he’s no longer with Ameren), and wanted to assure me and my readers that the university has no plans to expand its footprint. They are committed to their 15-year plan that was approved by the city, and are on record as saying so.

I appreciate the assurance, but he’ll have to forgive me and my neighbors if we’re a bit less than trusting, considering it was only a few months ago that they broke their last 15-year plan to which they were ostensibly committed. There are encouraging signs, such as the fact that there’s a new president now and the administration at Bradley has been having regular meetings with neighbors. Nevertheless, I just can’t shake my suspicious feelings. How does that old saying go? “Fool me once, shame on you…”

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Mayor’s incentive: Peoria Promise

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Peoria Promise Logo

I’ve received the following press release (with the snazzy logo you see above):

WHAT: Mayor’s Incentive – Peoria Promise Media Conference

WHEN: Monday, February 11, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.

WHERE: Woodruff High School’s Conference Room, 1800 NE Perry Avenue, Peoria, IL 61603

The Mayor’s Incentive, Peoria Promise will present a detailed plan for Peoria Promise’s funding including donors and a Gala to be held this Spring. This year’s District 150 graduates will be funded.

SPEAKERS INCLUDE: Mayor Jim Ardis; Board of Education President, Dr. David Gorenz; Superintendent of Peoria Public Schools District 150, Mr. Ken Hinton; Caterpillar Director of Corporate Public Affairs, Mr. Tim Elder

Additional information: Peoria Promise is an opportunity for qualifying City of Peoria graduates to receive a scholarship covering full tuition towards a degree or certificate at Illinois Central College.

The Gala will be held Friday, May 2, 2008 at the Hotel Pere Marquette. Artist Michael Israel will be attending with his world renowned paintings and a new work specifically done for Peoria.

City Council, City of Peoria, State Legislation

Council to take up smoking ban ordinance … again

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In December 2007, the city council considered passing its own local smoke-free ordinance to mirror state legislation banning smoking in public places. The motion failed because it needed the approval of a majority of the council (not merely the majority of a quorum), and a couple of council members weren’t in attendance that night. Next Tuesday, the council will try to pass it again.

The arguments are these:

  • No Smoking by lawIt should be defeated because (a) the state law is poorly written and could lead to downtown businesses getting tickets for non-patrons who happen to be smoking within fifteen feet of their entrance, and (b) the city’s police department is too busy working on more important issues to be called away to give citations for smoking violations; since the state issued this unfunded mandate, the state should enforce it. If the city passes this ordinance, they will have to pay for adjudicating the tickets, whereas if they don’t pass the ordinance, the tickets would be adjudicated by the state’s attorney.

  • It should be passed because the city would get 100% of the fine if it prosecutes under a local ordinance, and only 50% if under a state ordinance violation. Violations are complaint-driven and not high-priority, thus they wouldn’t pull any officers off their beat or cause any hardship.

The appearance of this ordinance on the agenda explains why the police department is gearing up to do raids on local bars looking for smoking scofflaws. Once this ordinance passes, it will be an opportunity for the city to start raking in some money in fines.

City Council, City of Peoria, Parking

Downtown parking rates going up

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During downtown events (such as Bradley basketball games or Peoria Symphony concerts), the city-owned parking decks allow patrons to park for a flat rate of $5. That price may be going up on April 1 if the City Council passes a resolution at next Tuesday’s meeting. The resolution under consideration would raise rates one dollar to a $6 flat fee. The increase is estimated to bring in an additional $61,600 per year.

City of Peoria

City salt supplies running low (UPDATED)

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I hope we don’t get very much more wintery weather this, um, winter:

Update as of 8:00 a.m.: City crews are salting primary streets, and secondary intersections. Once plowing operations begin, salting will be limited to major intersections, bridges, and hills. [emphasis mine] Salt supplies in our area are running low, therefore, we need to limit our use of salt at this time. Crews will maintain driving lanes on primary streets by plowing until the snow ends. Snow fall will become heavy during the morning, and afternoon. We can expect traffic delays during evening rush. Please use caution while driving, and reduce speeds.

At-large city councilman Gary Sandberg recently left a comment on another post explaining why this situation has occurred. Since readers may have missed it, I’m reprinting it here (with spelling corrections):

1. The City of Peoria and the County purchases it’s road salt through a state purchase contract. The salt purchase is bulk “salt” delivered to a location. As such, each unit of government must state how much salt will be committed to purchasing by that unit of government. The amount is hopefully based on past usage as well as any forecasts for salt based on expected weather conditions (and we know how accurate weather forecaster can be), amount of money budgeted for purchase, and to a lesser degree anticipated salt availability (no anticipated problems were anticipated because of production, delivery, labor situations, etc.)

2. The unit of government is then REQUIRED to purchase 80% of the total quantity of salt the unit said they would purchase. The supplier also guarantees delivery and price for up to 150% of the quantities the unit of government said they were committed to.

As can be seen, these two limits 80% has to be purchased regardless of need and the 150% maximum guarantee of price and availability balances the unit from stating artificially high amounts and then NOT PURCHASING because of lack of need and leaving the overstocking of salt in the hands of the supplier and perhaps then useless overtime or until the next salt season. The 150% provides the guarantee that if the units don’t want to eat excess salt purchased because of the 80% rule OR because of unanticipated weather conditions or need for salt usage that units will have access to more than the unit committed to purchase.

As of around the 27th of January, the averages usage of road salt purchased through the State of Illinois in this area was at 138% OVERALL. As such, two dynamics start taking place, first whether the supplier can keep up with demand physically, and then the dynamics of the price changing. (How many out there realize that Peoria is the northern most point where salt comes “UP” the river for delivery? The Salt for Chicago as was mentioned is delivered through the Great Lakes. Duh, think about dynamics of delivery costs between those two choices.)

I used the average usage at 138% to recognize that it encompasses all the units of government locally that uses the state supplier and some may be higher in usage and other lower, but clearly the ceiling for guaranteed delivery and pricing was much closer than the minimum purchase.

As such in the City of Peoria the Administration made an informed decision based on anticipated warming weather conditions to use less salt as the City, as well as all local units of government approaches the upper limits of their respective purchase contracts. Will they be correct can only be determined in the coming 6-8 weeks when snow/ice conditions may be present? If the City does not need one more tablespoon of salt during this season, all the naysayers and conspiracists can blame the City for this past week’s decision. If on the other hand, the City has 2 or 3 weather incidents or perhaps just 1 “big one” in the intervening 6-8, the Administration made the correct decision. I suppose for some, the Administration should have known about the 7 previous needs for salt usage this season plus the remaining incidents and just committed to ordering more.

Bet you never knew buying salt was so complicated, did you? I certainly didn’t. I wonder how much extra it’s going to cost the city if they have to buy more salt at a premium price in order to keep our roads safe. And, when will they decide to order more salt instead of conserving by only salting selected intersections, bridges, and hills.

UPDATE: The Journal Star answered my question. “To combat the problem, the Peoria City Council will be asked to approve a contract for about $212,000 to purchase more salt.”

UPDATE 2: I’ve just been forwarded a copy of an e-mail written by Public Works Director Dave Barber explaining the salt situation:

As I mentioned this morning we need to take action to secure a new supply of road salt for the remainder of this winter. We contracted through the Illinois Department of Management Services for Road Salt with a contract amount of 8,000 tons. The price for the contract this year was $36.57 per ton (delivered to our site). Under the terms of this arrangement with the State we are obligated to buy 70% of this amount ($5,600 tons) and can purchase up to 130% (10,400 tons) at the same price. So far this winter season we have purchased 11,822 tons through this contract but they will not honor any more requests for salt. We purchased 7,470 tons ($273,177.90) in December so it was paid from the 2007 budget. We have purchase 4,352 tons ($159,152.64) this year in January and also 8,800 gallons of calcium chloride ($5,236.00) in January for total costs from our account for materials of $164,388.64 leaving $89,361.36 in our budgeted line item for chemicals (paid through Motor Fuel Tax (MFT) funds). We have secured a source of road salt from Cargill here in Peoria and they are offering to sell up to 5,000 tons at $42.42 ($212,100) for the remainder of this winter season. To accomplish this we will need City Council approval for the contract with Cargill and will need a resolution to approve spending and additional $125,000 in MFT funds. We plan on taking this matter to City Council on February 12, 2008.

We estimate that we started this season with about 7,500 tons of salt in the Salt dome at our operations center. We have purchased 11,822 tons and have used about 15,468 tons which leaves us with about 3,854 tons on hand at the present time.

So the additional salt will cost $42.42 per ton, compared to the earlier guaranteed price of $36.57. That’s an increase in cost of about 16%. I understand from another e-mail I received that the city could get a cheaper price elsewhere, but they wouldn’t be able to get the salt as quickly. Evidently, Cargill can get it as fast as they want it, but it’s going to cost the city a little more.

City of Normal, Peoria Public Schools

Who says school referendums never pass?

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Last year, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation that allowed District 150 to request funds from the Public Building Commission (PBC) for the purposes of constructing new school buildings. The money for that construction will be collected from the property taxes of residents within District 150 without their consent. If the legislation had not been passed, the school district would have had to ask the voters through a referendum for the money to build the schools.

The standard argument is that it’s impossible to pass a referendum because no one votes to raise their own taxes. If we had to wait for a referendum to pass, we would never get new school buildings, supporters of the legislation claim. When asked on the State Senate floor why the school board hasn’t tried a referendum, then-Senator Shadid could only muster this argument:

I can only tell you that when I tried to build a county jail, we had three referendums that failed and we finally had to go to the public building commission in 1985 to get a jail built that was to replace the jail that was a hundred and twenty-five years old.

Translation: Since it was so difficult twenty-two years ago to pass a referendum to build a jail, obviously it will be impossible now to get a referendum passed to build new schools.

But more and more evidence to the contrary is piling up. Just last year, the Peoria Public Library put a referendum on the ballot asking for residents to raise their own taxes so the library could modernize and build a new branch in the north part of town. And now, there’s news out of Normal, Illinois that (gasp!) voters passed a referendum allowing the school district there to build new schools:

The referendum to issue $96.7 million in building bonds passed 12,049 to 8,543, or about 59 percent to 41 percent. The proposal to raise property taxes by 10 cents per $100 equalized assessed valuation passed 10,625 to 10,118, or about 51 percent to about 49 percent. … Voters OK’d building two new elementary schools and a middle school, expanding Sugar Creek Elementary School, renovating existing eight schools and installing security and technology improvements to 15 schools.

Note that in Normal, their taxes will actually be going up, not simply staying the same as older bonds are paid off as is reportedly the case in Peoria. My question is, if Normal can do it, why can’t Peoria? Why is the Peoria school district afraid to ask voters for their okay? Why do they insist on doing an end run around the democratic process by going to the PBC?

I think the difference is this: the entity asking for money has to make their case to their constituents. They have to make their case, and they have to make it convincingly. The school board has shown an inability to do either of those things, especially the latter. People are concerned about student performance and safety, and this spending spree for new buildings will address neither of those concerns. In fact, it diverts effort and attention away from the main problems.

Without the support of the electorate, the school board has to find a way to get the money from their constituents without their consent, and state legislators (helped along by some false statements by Aaron Schock) were more than happy to oblige.

Nevertheless, our school board members and legislators enjoy high approval ratings, if yesterday’s election was any indication. First district school board member Martha Ross ran unopposed for another term. Rep. Schock collected over 70% of the vote for the 18th Congressional race, despite his de facto raising of District 150 residents’ taxes.

Incidentally, they also passed a referendum in Rochester, Illinois (just outside of Springfield) for $26 million in school construction money. All these cities are defying the odds, apparently.

Elections

Primary election results and comment

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18th Congressional District (Republican)

Aaron Schock 55,576 71%
Jim McConoughey 13,307 17%
John Morris 9,108 12%

The only thing surprising about the outcome of this race is the margin of victory. Schock was expected to win with at least a plurality, but most likely a small majority of votes. Instead, he won in a landslide, getting over 70% of the vote in a three-way race. I don’t think this can be characterized as anything less than a mandate. This primary gives Schock tremendous momentum going into the general election in a traditionally conservative district.

Republican voters evidently were not concerned about Schock’s early foreign policy gaffe when he suggested that the U.S. sell “Pershing nuclear missiles” to Taiwan in an attempt to pressure China to stop aiding Iran. Rather, they looked to Schock’s constituent services, his conservative record, and his youthfulness and energy. Schock’s name recognition and campaign experience certainly helped him as well.

92nd Legislative District (Democrat)

Jehan Gordon 5,694 52%
Allen Mayer 5,332 48%

County Board member Allen Mayer did very well in the county, collecting roughly two-thirds of the votes there. However, in the city, Jehan Gordon won well over half the votes, and since the city has more voters than the county, she rode those city votes to a slim victory. Only 362 votes separated the two candidates when all was said and done. There was a large number of undervotes in this race (voters who skipped this contest, not voting for either candidate), as much as 10% in the county and 11% in the city.

Gordon did better in early voting results than in the election, likely due to controversy that came to light late in her campaign. A radio ad indicated she had graduated from the University of Illinois, when in fact she was still three hours short of a degree. Then, just a couple weeks before the election, she admitted to select news outlets (WEEK-TV and the Journal Star only) that she had been convicted of shoplifting in Champaign County nearly eight years ago when she was 18. Her missteps evidently turned off a few voters, but enough were unconcerned or forgiving, making her the primary winner.

Not reported in the mainstream media was the fact that she left her shoplifting fines unpaid until January this year, almost eight years after the incident, after she entered the race, and just days before she admitted her indiscretion to select media. Why this information went unreported is mystifying to me, but journalists I’ve talked to frankly didn’t find it all that newsworthy.

Ms. Gordon goes into the general election without a mandate, and the issues that came out in the primary are likely to follow her through this year’s campaign. She’ll face Joan Krupa, CEO of Heartland Community Health Clinic. Cindy Ardis-Jenkins is the candidate that appeared on ballots for the Republican nomination, but she dropped out of the race before the primary, and Republican party officials appointed Krupa to run in the general election.

U. S. Senate (Republican)

Steve Sauerberg 370,204 56%
Andy Martin 225,069 34%
Mike Psak 69,812 10%

Willowbrook medical doctor Steve Sauerberg won the nomination handily, beating out perennial candidate Andy Martin and truck driver Mike Psak. The Senate race hasn’t gotten much coverage because it would take a miracle for anyone to unseat Democrat Dick Durbin. He’s the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate and has a huge campaign war chest. It’s not unprecedented for such a strong incumbent to lose in a general election, but it is rare, and highly unlikely this year especially.

Peoria County Auditor (Democrat)

Carol Van Winkle 13,090 70%
Kent Rotherham 5,499 30%

When Rotherham got on the phone to talk about conceding to Van Winkle in this race, he sounded incredulous. Van Winkle was appointed to the position after Steve Sonnemaker took the Peoria County Clerk position, and she’s not a certified public accountant. Rotherham, a CPA himself, says that not having a CPA as county auditor is like not having a lawyer as state’s attorney. He’s considering running against Van Winkle again in the general election as an independent candidate.

Peoria County Coroner (Republican)

Johnna Ingersoll 12,362 72%
George Blackburn 4,746 28%

Ingersoll handily dispatched challenger George Blackburn in the coroner’s race. There had been some controversy in the past over how quickly she got the county morgue established and operational, and how long it took to hire a forensic pathologist. But since those issues have been resolved now (and resolved well, I should add; the forensic pathologist is shared with McLean County and is paid on a per-incident basis rather than being on salary with benefits, which saves the county money), Blackburn was unable to get any traction on them in his bid to unseat the incumbent Ingersoll. Blackburn also tried to make hay of Ingersoll’s lack of a college degree, but that didn’t give him much of a boost either.

This race is deja vu all over again for all the candidates — the same candidates ran in the primary four years ago, with the same outcome. Ingersoll will face Democrat Steve Schmidt in the general election; that’s also a repeat of the last election. It’s hard to unseat an incumbent in races that are not high-profile, and in the absence of any scandal to compel voters to look to another candidate.

Voting

Some voters getting wrong ballot

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Eyebrows McGee ran into some trouble at the polling place today. She was only allowed to vote in federal races, not local ones. The poll workers didn’t know how to fix it, so essentially, through no fault of her own, Eyebrows was denied her right to vote in local elections.

I’ve e-mailed Tom Bride at the Election Commission asking him about this situation, but as you might expect, he’s a little busy today, so I don’t expect to hear from him any time soon.

On the positive side, this wasn’t an equipment failure, but rather human error. But on the negative side, the problem is reportedly widespread, which means this problem could cause some headaches if the vote is at all close in any of the races today.

UPDATE: I heard from Tom Bride. He said the problem is not system-wide; there are actually only a handful of cases. In each case, it was human error. The judge is supposed to compare the application to the code receipt to make sure they match.

The important thing to remember is this — if you get the wrong ballot, this situation can be corrected provided you haven’t hit “cast ballot” the final time. Once you hit “cast ballot” and get the American flag waving on the screen, it’s like dropping a ballot in the ballot box and you can’t get it back. Any time before that, however, they can void out your ballot and let you start over, including providing you with the proper ballot.

Peoria Public Schools

Peoria Board of Education undermines teacher, changes grade

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A kid gets a “C” in English. His parent appeals the grade. The principal sides with the teacher. The parent appeals again. Everyone up to and including Superintendent Ken Hinton side with the teacher. Then the appeal goes to the Peoria Board of Education. The Board votes 5-2 to change the grade to a “B.” To their credit, board members Stowell and Parker voted against the change.

The third-year English teacher, JoAnna Moe, told District 150 School Board members she gave the junior ample opportunity to better the grade, but issued a “C” for the lack of effort the student put into an enriched English project.

According to the district’s policy manual (§6:280):

Every teacher shall maintain an evaluation record for each student in the teacher’s classroom. The final grade assigned by the teacher cannot be changed by a District administrator without notifying the teacher. Reasons for changing a student’s final grade include:

  • a miscalculation of test scores;
  • a technical error in assigning a particular grade or score;
  • the teacher agrees to allow the student to do extra work that may impact the grade;
  • an inappropriate grading system used to determine the grade; or
  • an inappropriate grade based on an appropriate grading system.

Should a grade change be made, the administrator making the change must sign the changed record.

In this case, the administrators upheld the grade given by the teacher. One wonders what reason or authority the school board had for changing it based on the above criteria. The paper states that the appeal “eventually made its way to the board by school district rules, similar to cases involving suspensions and expulsions.” But after looking at the policy manual, including the section on suspensions and expulsions and the uniform grievance procedure, I could find no written policy on appealing a grade to the school board after it had been upheld by the administration.

The teachers certainly see this as precedent-setting. A petition signed by 70 teachers and staff members backed up the teacher. Scott Schifeling, Peoria Federation of Teachers President, was quoted in the Journal Star as saying, “I’ve never seen it go to this level. … I think it sets a very bad precedent.”

For its part, the school board won’t comment on the matter, hiding behind confidentiality rules and laws. So we can’t find out who the student was to know if this was the child of an influential person in the community, for instance; nor do we know what the school board’s reasoning was for overturning the unanimous decision of their entire staff of administrators and teachers.

What’s really incredible is that this is not changing a grade from failing to passing, or changing a grade from a “B” to and “A” to preserve some sort of perfect grade point average. Instead, it changes the grade from a “C” to a “B” — for reasons we’ll apparently never know.

What we do know is that the entire staff of District 150 is now demoralized, and teachers and parents will be forgiven for questioning the board’s commitment to high academic standards for District 150 students.