It’s Monday, and it’s raining. And I don’t feel like blogging. So here’s an open thread for your enjoyment. What would you like to talk about?
Monthly Archives: March 2008
It slices, it dices, it juliennes — it’s Museum Square!
[A] project of this magnitude will likely never again be seen in Peoria. The economic development potential will only add to the diversity of our economic base. As a community, each and every one of us should do everything reasonably possible to ensure the huge opportunity of Museum Square is not lost: it is much too important to our future.
You heard right! A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. An offer this good won’t last long, so act now! Or am I the only one who found Mr. Bryant’s Museum Square article in this month’s Interbusiness Issues a wee bit overstated?
I especially liked the part where he said, “The synergies between the Caterpillar Visitors Center and the Peoria Riverfront Museum will bring upwards of 400,000 people per year to downtown Peoria.” Wow. The museum’s own website says “The Museum, in tandem with the Caterpillar Visitor Center, will attract more than 300,000 visitors each year….” Apparently Mr. Bryant believes it will attract a lot more — “upwards of” 100,000 more! The projections are looking better all the time. Heck, as long as we’re throwing out manipulatively-worded numbers, why not just say “upwards of a half-million people”? It’s true, give or take a couple hundred thousand, and it makes the whole project just sound more exciting (and profitable), doesn’t it? Or how about “upwards of four million visitors decennially”? That’s even more impressive.
Of course, “It does appear that a public funding mechanism will be necessary to complete the project.” Hey crossword puzzle fans, can any of you give me a three-letter word for “public funding mechanism”? So, first they disregard the public’s wishes and every city planning expert’s recommendation for redeveloping the old Sears block (urban density, mixed-use, residential component) — in fact, they propose the exact opposite — then they want the public to help pay for it. Genius.
You might ask why a tax public funding mechanism is warranted. “Across the country, projects of this type generally have at least one-third of their funding from public sources,” Bryant explains. In a related story, Peoria County is listed among the highest in “relative effective property tax level…as a percentage of market value” across the country. Across the country, the State of Illinois has one of the highest sales tax rates, too, and we have lots of local taxes piled on top of that. There’s talk of the state’s income tax being raised. Meanwhile, here in the city, we just voted to raise our property taxes to pay for some library improvements, and District 150 — courtesy of Aaron Schock and the state legislature — is raising our property taxes without a referendum to pay for new school buildings. No doubt taxes will also be raised by the Park District to pay for the new zoo and efforts to build a trail next to the Kellar Branch railroad line.
But hey, what’s one more tax public funding mechanism? It’s a small price to pay for Utopia.
Quote of the Day
“I couldn’t give a [profanity] whether a person calls himself a scientist. Science has covered itself with glory, morally, in my time. Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews. Scientists told Stalin it was a good idea to wipe out the middle-class peasants. Scientists told Mao Tse-Tung it was fine to kill 50,000,000 people in order to further the revolution.”
–Ben Stein
HOPC Update
I thought you might be interested to know what’s going on with the Heart of Peoria Commission these days. Here’s a quick look:
The Executive Summary
One of the top things on the Heart of Peoria Commission’s work plan this year is to develop an executive summary of the Heart of Peoria Plan. The Plan as it exists now is a large-format (11×17), 78-page color document that is expensive to reproduce (~$150). Even as a commissioner, when I asked for a copy of the document, I was presented with a stapled, single-sided, photocopied, black and white version.
Well, that doesn’t exactly invite people to read the document and catch the vision. So the idea is to create a smaller, shorter, easier-to-reproduce, but still color version of the plan that would give the basic ideas in summary form. This could then be given to anyone who wants or needs to know about the Plan, from citizens to developers to commissioners/council members.
There were two options for getting this done. We could have a staff member do it (Planning and Growth Director Pat Landes offered one of her staff — Kimberly Smith), or we could see if someone from the original team that put the plan together (e.g., David Brain from New College of Florida) would be able to do it for us for a small fee.
We’ve run into roadblocks with both options. The first option (in-house) is stalled because, with the departure of Ed Boik, the Planning and Growth department is short-staffed, and so our staff liaison got pulled off the project. With the latter option, we run into funding issues. The council didn’t give our commission any funding this year, so we would have to try to convince a City department to spend some of their limited funds on this project. We’re still working on that option.
Sheridan Triangle
The Sheridan/Loucks Triangle project is moving along. After the Heart of Peoria Plan was adopted “in principle” by the Council, the next step the Commission did was get it codified for the Plan area. That’s when Farrell Madden came in and wrote the Land Development Code (LDC). The LDC includes four Form Based Code areas: Warehouse District, West Main (Renaissance Park), Prospect Road Corridor, and the Sheridan/Loucks Triangle. After the coding was finished, the Council passed a facade improvement program for the Sheridan/Loucks area (among others), which gave some incentives for the businesses to spruce up their storefronts.
Now in order for the area to really be revitalized, it takes not just private investment, but also public investment. The City needs to improve the streetscape in order for this area to be successful again. Right now the street is too wide, the sidewalks too narrow, and the traffic too fast. By installing wider sidewalks, pedestrian-scale lighting, street trees, and on-street parking, the City will incentivize redevelopment.
Even though this is obviously the culmination of the Heart of Peoria Plan and the LDC that was spearheaded by HOPC, the Commission has not been included in this latest phase yet. We weren’t invited (by accident, we’ve been assured) to the public kick-off meeting at Columbia Middle School. I heard about it, however, and attended anyway. While there, I talked to Gene Hewitt and Nick Stoffer from the City’s Traffic & Engineering department. They mentioned that they thought a Heart of Peoria commissioner should be on the Citizen Advisory Group (CAG).
I told HOPC chairman Bill Washkuhn that I’d be interested in serving on the CAG, and he forwarded my request to Second District Council Member Barbara Van Auken. She responded:
The representatives who are involved at this point are residential and business neighbors. At a later stage, we will seek input from others, including HOPC and Traffic Commissioners. I’ll notify C.J. when we are at a point where his contribution is appropriate.
After a recent Council meeting, I ran into Ms. Van Auken and asked her at what point in the process she would be bringing in the commissions, and she said once the engineers have some feasible options. Evidently she doesn’t want commissioners making suggestions of things that might not be feasible. So, once the engineers have several options from which to choose, she said the HOP and Traffic commissions will be invited to start participating.
Next Meeting
The next Heart of Peoria Commission meeting is scheduled for Friday, April 25, 8:00-10:30 a.m., City Hall, room 404.
“The audacity of hopelessness”
New York Times columnist David Brooks looks at Hillary Clinton’s ongoing campaign despite her slim (5% by some accounts) chance of winning the Democratic nomination for president, and comes away with some observations and questions:
When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.
Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance?
In other words, give it up, Hillary. Everyone can see that you’re putting personal ambition ahead of the party’s, let alone the country’s, best interests. You’re not wanted as the Democratic nominee. Go away.
Junction City going generic?
Have you seen “Junction City Phase II” yet? Here’s the sign with an artist’s rendering:
Doesn’t really look like Junction City, does it? Kinda looks more like the strip mall out by Wal-Mart on Allen Road. Is it just me, or did anyone else expect the new addition to be complementary to the style of the older part of Junction City, with its boardwalks and town hall? This new development looks… generic.
But hey, they’re not breaking any zoning laws or anything. They’re free to build another nondescript, run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter strip mall if they wish. I had just come to expect something with a bit more style from Junction Ventures.
Mental note . . .
. . . if you’re looking for a way to kill someone and get off easy, don’t use a gun, just push him into on-coming traffic.
I can barely hold back the tears
[Said Councilman Eric] Turner, who along with Councilman Clyde Gulley, were the only two to vote against the [Wal-Mart package liquor license] denial. “This is a national corporation trying to create an opportunity to compete with their competitors.”
—Journal Star, 3/26/08
I’ve been sobbing all morning about poor old Wal-Mart being denied that package liquor license at last night’s council meeting. Whatever will the Walton family do? How will they survive? How can they overcome this detrimental competitive disadvantage? Oh, woe is Wal-Mart! Is there no justice for this poor, persecuted store? Boo-hoo-hoo!
Circular reasoning on downtown parking
The City was poised to raise special event parking rates in downtown Peoria parking decks by one dollar last night — from $5 to $6. But it got deferred. Why? Evidently because they want to make sure such a supposedly draconian increase is warranted; to assess whether parking attendants are capable of making $4 change when presented with a sawbuck; to survey the cost of parking in private decks to make sure they’re not going to lose parking patrons. They’re going to do a study and come back with a report in May.
Oh brother.
The City is operating their parking decks at a loss. They are subsidizing downtown parking by setting their rates artificially low. So if they find that private parking decks are matching the City’s parking rates, that’s going to mean one of two things: either the private decks have figured out how to run a profit at that rate (in which case one should ask why the City is running such a huge loss), or else the City’s low rates are artificially depressing the rates private parking decks can charge. I can guarantee you it’s the latter. It has caused several private parking decks to close since the city started getting into the parking business.
So the City’s plan is, apparently, to base its rates on the rates of private parking decks, whose rates are artificially low because of the subsidized rates charged at City decks. Brilliant! A perfect defense for further parking subsidies downtown that the City can ill afford.
Here we go again: Guilt by association
To listen to talk radio these days, you’d think that Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago are the same person. They think the same thoughts, and they have the same motivations. And if Obama gets elected, he’s going to advocate for Civil War reparations.
Right. And Mitt Romney was going to spread Mormonism across the U.S. and advocate polygamy. And John Kennedy was going to let the Pope tell him how to run the country. Haven’t we been through this gauntlet enough times that we don’t have to keep rehashing it every election… multiple times?
I guess not.
We’ve got to remember that we live in postmodern times. Just because someone attends a particular church is not necessarily an indication that they believe or practice what that church teaches — at least, not in toto. John Kerry was Catholic, but pro-choice. Bill Clinton was a Baptist, but, well, we all know what Clinton did.
People attend church these days for any number of reasons — because they were raised in that church, because they are rebelling against the church in which they were raised, because they are seeking God or what certain religions are about, because they feel that the church is authentic even if they don’t agree with everything that’s being preached, because it’s politically expedient, because their wife/husband wants to go there, etc. Some people even attend church because they believe the doctrine the church teaches, but that isn’t as prevalent as it once was.
So, I think this whole thing about what church Obama attended and what his pastor said is a big bunch of nothing. He’s denounced the things Rev. Wright said that were extreme and inflammatory. Let’s take him at his word and move on. He’s not Rev. Wright. Rev. Wright isn’t running for President.