There are a couple of items regarding the Sears block on the City Council’s agenda for Tuesday night, Dec. 9.
The first one is a six-month deadline extension of the Museum Block Redevelopment Agreement. The original redevelopment agreement was signed way back in 2004, and the deadline for the agreement was December 2006. Each year since then, the deadlines have been pushed back as the council waited for the museum group to get the funds they needed; there was always one more avenue that was sure to bring in the money. Each attempt to secure the needed funding has failed.
The latest plan is to ask Peorians in the midst of a recession to voluntarily raise sales taxes on themselves via referendum to pay for the construction and ongoing maintenance of the proposed museum. The county board will be discussing this ballot question soon, even as Caterpillar contractors are being laid off, and other local bodies (such as the school board) are realizing dramatically lower tax revenues due to the current economic climate. Could the museum folks and our elected officials from the city and county be any more out of touch? Why are they continuing to pursue this?
No doubt there will be a fourth amendment on the agenda for June 2009 after this latest plan fails and all the players look for a way to get that tax money anyway by circumventing the voters (anyone want to take bets that they’ll be asking the Public Building Commission for the money?). That seems to be the M. O. of our “public servants” these days.
Even if the museum project folds up after June, we’re still going to have a big parking lot on the Sears block because the council will also be approving an agreement to extend Caterpillar’s lease of the block for use as a parking lot until December 31, 2009. Why not extend it only until June 30, just like the redevelopment agreement? Under this parking plan, the city would potentially be unable to pursue other development projects for this block until 2010.
Both of these items are on the consent agenda, which means there will be no discussion on them unless a council member asks for them to be voted on separately.