Monthly Archives: January 2009

City of Peoria, Comcast

Tell Comcast what you think of them

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I have to laugh whenever I hear Comcast commercials “warning” people that satellite TV service may pixellate or completely lose its signal when there’s inclement weather. I laugh because Comcast can do that in all types of weather! Not only that, some channels may disappear because they’ve moved them from an analog channel to a digital one. And if you call to complain, you don’t get to talk to anyone locally, you have to call an 800 number and deal with some completely unhelpful wage slave in Who-knows-where.

Why not cancel Comcast service, you ask? A couple of reasons. First, they’re the only place you can see local access channels, including the Peoria City Council meetings and school board meetings. Second, they can be the cheapest service you can get, if you get Basic Cable. I only pay about $15/month. But just because I don’t pay big bucks for a digital cable package doesn’t mean I should get shoddy reception and poor service.

So, I think I’ll be attending this meeting:

The City of Peoria and Comcast Cable will hold a public meeting on Tuesday, February 3, 2009, at 6:30 p.m. The meeting will take place at Peoria City Hall, in City Council Chambers (Room 400).

The purpose of the public meeting is to discuss the current contract with Comcast and the services provided by them. This will be an opportunity for the public to make comment and voice any concerns regarding Comcast.

The public is welcome and encouraged to attend.

City of Peoria, Peoria Mayor

Words most used in Ardis’s speech

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I saw the Chicago Tribune use this feature called TagCrowd on Blagojevich’s speech, so I thought I’d use it for Mayor Ardis’s State of the City speech. It’s not a particularly meaningful feature, but it’s a fun novelty:

created at TagCrowd.com

Peoria Public Schools

Counter proposals offered for D150

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While Ken Hinton continues working on his plans to close schools and cut expenses, others have been trying to come up with counter proposals. There are two so far that I’ve been told. The first one comes from Board of Education member Jim Stowell:

Proposal

Purchase homes on Perry that front Lincoln

  • Build out a birth through sixth facility – beautiful new back entrance (or North end entrance to Woodruff campus)

Push up into Woodruff 7th and 8th from Lincoln

  • Mirror academy model @ Manual
  • Use best practices and cut contract and cost
  • Focus on technology (CISCO bias)

Close Peoria High; immediately begin:

  1. utilizing Peoria High as the much needed alternative school
  2. empanel group of Admin., etc. to begin planning for a better Peoria High

Planning and completion would take 3 probably 4 years – while it is being done – facilities are temporarily used as alternative school. Other programs might co-exist, but primary purpose is for much needed alternative school

Planning Part and Vision

Collaboratively with City and Park District acquire land from Peoria High North St. to Nebraska, and Nebraska to Herke Field

With city help – vacate maintenance and the two lane cut through to create Center Bluff Campus

Acquire homes on North St. to stop light. Close through traffic on North. The 74 overpass becomes gateway to new Campus.

Seen from I-74, it replaces cafeteria area and becomes a beacon on the hill.

Design curriculum to align with UIC College of Medicine and hospitals needs – have it be the choice school for a Medical Career path.

City concurrently working in planning phase to engage in the Impact Zone concept – on both sides of interstate.

North to Richmond becomes park like one-way exiting out on Knoxville.

Park-like campus helps shape revitalization of Sheridan North.

For 3 – 4 years we gain control over our costs by consolidating to 3 full service high schools.

We begin preparing what Peoria High School becomes.

oundaries for entering could be changed to south of Nebraska (McClure)?

  • go to Manual – Manual 1100, Richwoods 1400 and Woodruff 1400
    (Manual has been land-locked)

Redraw once new Central opened

  • also with academies
  • but potentially aligned with proposed Math and Science, which, should take on a lower priority currently than the needed alternative school environment

Back fill permanent alternative program into a vacated building that could be renovated

The other counter proposal comes from District 150 teacher Scott Donahue and is based on the 2005 Structural Budget Imbalance Task Force report. The SBI Task Force was made up of community members, D150 support staff, school principals, and board member David Gorenz. Many of the savings opportunities outlined in this plan were never implemented:

SBI Task Force Recommendations:
District chose to ignore these potential savings
Item Savings Recommendation
RIF Administrator $234,000 RIF Minimum 2-3 Administrators
Three Tier Bell Schedule $525,000
Eliminate Edison Contract $3,825,000 (2009-2014) Figuring district would pay $135,000 for benchmark testing each of the five years
Eliminate Department Heads @ HS $160,000
Eliminate Controller-Treasurer $150,000 Re-assign responsibilities to other central office administrators
Reduce Admin in Buildings $1,014,000 $78,000 per person for 13 positions
Eliminate Alternative High School $525,000
Eliminate Adult Education $171,000
Eliminate Transition to Success $184,000
TOTAL Savings: $6,788,000

This did not count more administrative cuts that could be made for additional savings if reducing programs and buildings.

Questions for the board:

  1. If most items from the SBI Task Force Document were implemented then where is money/savings?

    • Administration claimed to get a “Freeze” only to receive retroactive pay later on
    • The District got better than projected savings in union’s insurance package
    • The District got better than projected savings in previous teacher contract
    • The District got better than projected savings by limiting professional development for teachers thus no advancement on payscale

  2. What cuts has the District made to reduce the deficit?

My guess is that more questions and counter proposals will be coming forward in the next few weeks.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Sales tax referendum for museum will be on April ballot

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From Peoria County’s website:

Peoria County Board Approves Sales Tax Referendum for April Ballot

At a special board meeting earlier this evening [Jan. 27], the Peoria County Board approved the following resolution to place a referendum on the Consolidated General Election ballot this April that asks voters to raise the county’s sales tax rate by 1/4 of 1% to help fund public facilities. If approved by the electorate, the sales tax increase would be applied on retail sales of non-titled goods and would be the equivalent of twenty-five cents (25¢) for every $100 purchased. The referendum includes a sunset clause setting the tax increase to expire twenty (20) years from its effective date of January 1, 2010. Money collected from the increase would be used to help fund construction of the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

Peoria County’s role through the April 7, 2009 consolidated election is not to advocate for or against the passing of this referendum, but rather to educate the public on the sales tax increase and its intent. County Board Members Andrew Rand and James Dillon will host an informational town hall meeting on March 9 at 6:30 p.m. at Bradley University’s Baker Hall Auditorium, Room B51. More information regarding this town hall meeting will be forthcoming.

The resolution is available for download here: www.peoriacounty.org/county/files/get/Jan09PRMrefe.pdf

For more information regarding the referendum, please call County Administration at (309) 672-6056.

I’m especially intrigued by the statement, “Peoria County’s role through the April 7, 2009 consolidated election is not to advocate for or against the passing of this referendum….” Does that mean that they will publish the pros and cons of the sales tax, the way the State published the pros and cons of holding a constitutional convention? Or does it mean that they will give multiple opportunities for the museum to sell the supposed benefits of the tax increase (without any counterargument offered) under the pretense of “providing information”?

Oh wait, I think I have the answer to that question:

Town Hall Meeting re Riverfront Museum Financing

Peoria County Board Members Andrew Rand (District 4) and James Dillon (District 7) will be hosting an informational town hall meeting regarding the Peoria Riverfront Museum and a county-wide temporary sales tax referendum at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, March 9 at Bradley University, Baker Hall Auditorium B51.

Jim Richerson, CEO of Lakeview Museum, will explain the Museum Project, and Erik Bush, CFO, County of Peoria, will explain public and private financing efforts. Scott Sorrel, Assistant to the County Administrator, will present as well. The intent of this town hall meeting is two-fold: to raise awareness of the Museum Project and to educate the public about a county-wide sales tax referendum that will appear on the Consolidated General Election ballot this April. All interested persons are encouraged to attend.

Nope, no advocacy there.

Blogosphere

“Journalism of regular citizens … alongside that of professionals”

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In my last post, I referenced an article on a Seattle website called Crosscut.com. Here’s a little bit about that site:

Based in Seattle, Crosscut is a guide to local and Northwest news, a place to report and discuss local news, and a platform for new tools to convey local news. The journalism of regular citizens appears alongside that of professionals. News coverage with detachment, traditionally practiced by mainstream media outlets, coexists with advocacy journalism and opinion.

  • Crosscut finds and highlights the best local journalism and the best local commentary, whether it’s the work of the biggest metropolitan daily newspaper or a part-time blogger. There is a multitude of worthy sources of information on the Internet, but few people have time to navigate them all.
  • Crosscut publishes its own journalism and commentary. These are stories and angles others have missed or ignored. Our news coverage aims to complement that of other providers, to extend exploration of events and issues, to possibly encourage resolution.
  • Crosscut embraces new tools and tries new things as technology evolves, mindful of the relative strengths of textual, photo, audio, and video journalism.

Is this a model that would work in Peoria? Imagine if we could aggregate the best of this area’s citizen journalism and put it up on a site along with professional journalists from the Journal Star and Times-Observer, among others. What a great resource that would be!

Peoria Journal Star

Peoria Journal Star wants out of GateHouse

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I have a soft spot in my heart for the Journal Star. My grandfather worked there. My dad has read it every morning since before I was born. It’s been a part of my life for a long time, and I love it despite some of the ridiculous editorials that they’ve published. So when I write posts like the one I wrote a few days ago, it’s with a heavy heart. I don’t want to see the paper go down the tubes.

So I was very encouraged to hear that the Peoria Newspaper Guild is looking for a way to improve the Journal Star — by getting it away from GateHouse Media, the corporate giant that bought it from Copley Press and proceeded to run it into the ground. Billy Dennis found this article on the Seattle blog Crosscut.com. The Seattle City Council has set up a committee under council member Nick Licata to look at ways to save Seattle’s newspapers.

But the committee will hear one intriguing possibility now under consideration in Peoria, Ill. That Illinois city is wrestling with its own newspaper problems, with the Peoria Journal Star and its owner, Gatehouse Media, on the financial ropes. Peoria Newspaper Guild official Jennifer Towery will describe for Licata’s committee how a community coalition is pushing legislation to turn her city’s struggling privately owned paper into a “low profit” L3C community-owned operation.

That’s a tax term for a new hybrid business model that meets the IRS’s definition of a charity, but operates like a for-profit corporation. [… Peoria] has put together support for L3C legislation that includes four state legislators, local businesses, and a handful of bank presidents. “Their goal,” Licata says, “is to get their paper back on track.”

So it sounds like the first step is to get legislation passed in Illinois that allows for these L3C operations. Then they have to raise the money to buy the paper off of GateHouse, which means they have to convince GateHouse to sell. It’s a long row to hoe, but well worth the effort. Especially since I heard last night that the Journal Star only has eight reporters left to cover the 22 counties in their readership. Something needs to change.

Go for it, Jennifer!

City Council, City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan

LDC continues to go unenforced by Council

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Tuesday night, the Peoria City Council decided twice not to enforce the Land Development Code (LDC). They made decisions that weren’t just minor variations to the LDC, but decisions that were a fundamental affront to the very intent of the LDC. In fact, they showed an ignorance of and contempt for the intent of the LDC. They have evidently never read the LDC nor the Heart of Peoria Plan on which it was based.

The two items on the Council’s agenda were:

  • New Taco Bell. The Taco Bell restaurant at 1811 N. Knoxville is going to be rebuilt. The developer is going to tear down the building and put up a new one. This would be the perfect opportunity to bring the property into compliance with the code. Yet Second District Council Member Barbara Van Auken moved to approve the developer’s request to comply with none of the LDC — to be completely non-conforming. Why? Because he’s reportedly spending $1.8 million and because she thinks there are “problems” with the LDC. That latter reason is the latest rage, don’t you know. Just declare something “broken” or “a problem” (like the Historic Preservation Ordinance, for instance) and then you can completely disregard it until it’s “fixed.” What does Van Auken think is wrong with the code? Wait till you hear.

    The code calls for buildings to be built close to the street — preferably right up to the sidewalk — so that they’re more pedestrian friendly and so that they’re pushed further away from the residential neighborhoods that are behind the businesses, among other reasons. When the code was enacted, buildings that didn’t conform to the code (like Taco Bell) were grandfathered in. They could even make minor additions and renovations without having to bring the building into compliance in an attempt to be “business friendly.” But if they were to make major renovations — like tearing down and reconstructing the building — then they would have to bring it into compliance. Makes sense, right? They’re rebuilding the thing anyway, why not build it in compliance with the code? No doubt the code would have been roundly criticized if it required a building to be torn down and rebuilt (i.e., brought into compliance) whenever the owner wanted to make any minor change.

    Yet Barbara Van Auken turned that reasoning on its head Tuesday night. She said the code was unfair to require major renovations to trigger full compliance, but not minor renovations. It rewards those who slap up shoddy additions, but penalizes those who want to invest $1.8 million to put up a “state-of-the-art Taco Bell,” she explained. That wasn’t her intent when she voted to enact the LDC, she said.

    Thus, she voted to approve a brand new building construction that completely defies the LDC, not just in siting, but also the buffering from the neighborhood. Under the LDC, a masonry garden wall would have been required as a buffer. The Council said a repaired wooden fence was sufficient.

  • Expanded pet clinic. Demanes Animal Hospital at the corner of Wisconsin and Forrest Hill has bought up four properties around it and wants to expand. They’re not tearing down their building, but instead adding on to it. However, they want to site the addition in such a way that it doesn’t conform with its current zoning, called CN (neighborhood commercial). The CN district requires that the building addition come right up to the sidewalk and that parking be put in the rear of the building. Where the existing building does not front the sidewalk, a street wall that can be as short as 3 feet tall would need to be built to establish the street edge and provide buffering.

    Instead of asking for a variance from these requirements, the decision was made to do a complete end-run around the requirements by asking for the property to be rezoned CG (general commercial). There is no legal justification for rezoning this property CG, as I outlined in my letter to the Zoning Commission, which I forwarded to Third District Councilman Bob Manning as well.

    You see, when you ask for a zoning change, the Zoning Commission and Council need to consider that request apart from the current use or current plans. Why? Because once the zoning is changed, it applies not just to the current owner, but any future owners. If Mr. Demanes were to decide to move his practice, or if (God-forbid) he got hit by a bus and the clinic needed to close, the next property owner could use that property for any permitted use under CG zoning, which includes such neighborhood-friendly uses as a pawn shop, oil and lube shop, and car wash. The zoning designation requested is the most intense land use designation available under the LDC. This is clearly inappropriate in a densely-populated residential neighborhood. It’s also completely contrary to the City’s Comprehensive Plan.

    But the appropriateness of the zoning proper was never discussed. Instead, Mr. Manning tore a page form Ms. Van Auken’s playbook and criticized the CN requirements, saying they weren’t appropriate for this part of his district. They may be okay for Main Street (in the second district), but they’re not “one size fits all,” he said. So the Council decided to continue a pattern of development that has proven over the past 50 years to deteriorate the third district. The Council decided to continue a pattern of development that the citizens found so undesirable that they wanted to change the zoning code. The Council decided to continue a pattern of development that has been proven to destabilize neighborhoods, not revitalize them.

The Council decided to repudiate the Land Development Code. They apparently think change will come by doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. These aren’t isolated incidents, nor are they minor variances. Beginning with St. Ann’s right after the LDC was adopted, right up to the actions Tuesday night, the Council has consistently undercut the Land Development Code at every turn.

The Heart of Peoria Plan was adopted “in principle” in 2002, but it has yet to be adopted in practice, despite having been codified in the LDC.

Museum Block, Peoria County

County re-crunches museum numbers

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Earlier this month, Peoria County administrators crunched the pro forma numbers submitted by the Museum Collaboration Group and found that it was a money-losing proposition. The museum folks objected to that analysis, saying it wasn’t accurate. They got together with the County and re-crunched the numbers, and now the County shows the museum will make a tidy profit.

Erik Bush, the County’s Chief Financial Officer explains what changed:

The first analysis actually showed a dire projection. When discussing the revenues with PRM staff, it became clear that in developing their background materials, PRM had established discounts on their revenue projections, from which I assumed as 100% projections. In reality, these numbers were in some cases 70% of their true projections. In tum, I was discounting discounted figures. A line by line narrative of these changes may be found at the end of this memorandum.

I asked PRM to provide me with the 100% revenue estimates and proceeded to run the second iteration.

The results are summarized as follows:

a. Based on the PRM’s assumptions, their projections could be off up to 9% and still operate in the black over a 20-year period.

b. In using their 100% revenue projections it appears revenues annually meet or exceed 100% of expense projections. The margin of actual to budget has historically been 1-2%; therefore, I find a 9% cushion to a structural deficit reasonable.

c. A key item missing from their pro-forma is the cost of future capital investment. A common benchmark for capital investment is 10%. Based on an expected expense base of slightly more than $4 million, it can be reasonably expected the museum is not showing close to $400,000 in potential annual future costs to properly maintain its assets. This figure is a benchmark and can be driven by annual needs.

d. In the 100% scenario, roughly $100k of the endowment will be necessary to cover the cost of capital investment and break even annually. In the 95% scenario, an endowment ofroughly eight million dollars would be needed to generate the necessary interest (assuming 4% annual return, compounded monthly) to cover the annual cost of capital investment, combined with the projected excess of revenues over expenditures.

The changes are all well-argued, but I still have a problem with a couple of key assumptions:

  • Gallery admissions still based on projected 240,000 visitors per year. On their pro forma, the museum changed some parameters: they raised the average ticket price from $5.25 to $7.50, and they assumed 40% of the 240,000 visitors to the museum would buy a gallery admission, up from 33%. Those changes raised their projected revenue for gallery admissions from $420,000 to $718,000. However, if we use a more realistic estimate of 180,000 visitors per year, the revenue would be $540,000 — $178,000 less than the county/museum projection.

  • Planetarium tickets and attendance projected to go up. I’m stumped as to how the museum folks think they’re going to raise the admission price for the planetarium from $1.50 to $4.00 per student, yet end up having more students (19,000 vs. 16,000) visiting the planetarium, especially with schools in as bad of financial shape as they are these days. Nowhere do they explain how they came up with their number of students or how their number compares with historical attendance numbers. In my opinion, they have to assume at the very least that the number of students won’t increase. So take 16,000 students times $4 and you get $64,000, $12,000 less than the county/museum projection.

So, that’s a total difference of $190,000 from the proposed pro-forma, which would bring their projected revenues down to $4,298,000. That would still cover their projected expenses, but would only give them about a 4% cushion instead of 9%. Also, it would mean they’d have to use roughly $270,000 of their endowment for capital investment instead of $100,000. I don’t know how big of an endowment that would require, but to get $303,750 interest earned takes $6,750,000 of investable funds according to the previous pro-forma analysis available at the county’s website. Do they have that much in their endowment?

Here’s the other thing. The money raised by a county sales tax would have to go toward capital purchases, according to the statute:

For the purposes of this Section, “public facilities purposes” includes, but is not limited to, the acquisition, development, construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, improvement, financing, architectural planning, and installation of capital facilities consisting of buildings, structures, and durable equipment and for the acquisition and improvement of real property and interest in real property required, or expected to be required, in connection with the public facilities, for use by the county for the furnishing of governmental services to its citizens, including but not limited to museums and nursing homes.

If the museum doesn’t meet their revenue projections, I think it’s logical to expect them to scrap the capital investment fund, especially since they didn’t have it in their pro forma in the first place. Without infusions of capital, the place will get out of date pretty fast, and then you know what will happen? They’ll be back asking the taxpayers for more county tax money under this statute for “durable equipment” and “improvement[s].” And then the taxpayers will really be over a barrel because the project at that point will be “too big to fail,” if you know what I mean.

I still believe that a more compact, urban design would be significantly less expensive to build while still being an attractive civic building, plus it would free up the rest of the block (outside of Caterpillar’s visitor center, of course) for private development (retail, residential components), which will bring in property and sales tax dollars to the city and county. Plus, it would be what the public said they wanted on that block, and what professional city planners over the past several decades have said is needed on that block. Why is this option not being pursued?

County board member Merle Widmer has written extensively on the topic of the museum. I encourage everyone who’s interested in this topic to take a look at his blog, Peoria Watch.

The county votes tonight (County Board Room 403, 6:00 p.m.) on whether to put a sales tax referendum on the April ballot. No other counties of which I’m aware are planning similar measures to support this “regional” museum.

Peoria Public Schools

Mayoral candidate opposes high school closing

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Parents and teachers gathered at Godfather’s Pizza again Sunday night to further discuss ways to keep Central and Woodruff high schools from being closed. General Parker, candidate for Mayor of Peoria, assured those in attendance that he will “stand behind [them] all the way”:

[flashvideo filename=http://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Video/WHS-Protest-01252009.flv /]

Parker distributed copies of a summary report from the House Appropriations Committee on the proposed stimulus package known officially as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009. The summary stated that a large amount of funding will be going toward education:

Education for the 21st Century: To enable more children to learn in 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries to help our kids compete with any worker in the world, this package provides:

  • $41 billion to local school districts through Title I ($13 billion), IDEA ($13 billion), a new School Modernization and Repair Program ($14 billion), and the Education Technology program ($1 billion).
  • $79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cutbacks to key services, including $39 billion to local school districts and public colleges and universities distributed through existing state and federal formulas, $15 billion to states as bonus grants as a reward for meeting key performance measures, and $25 billion to states for other high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education.

Parker emphasized that last bullet point, implying the closing of a high school would qualify as a “[cutback] to key services.” Thus, he encouraged everyone to write their senators and congressmen asking them to pass the stimulus bill, and then ask their school board representatives to pursue some of that stimulus money to help them through these tough economic times instead of closing schools.

Parker also criticized city employees — especially [acknowledged that many city employees, including] our “most highly paid city workers,” such as police officers and firefighters — who don’t live in Peoria. By living outside the city, the school district loses revenue that would come from their property tax dollars, he said. [Parker states in the comments section of this post that another quote from last night better summarizes his feelings about this: “We need to make District 150 the best school district in the area to make the firefighters and police want to move back into the district.”]

Others who spoke at the meeting questioned whether the school district’s plan to redraw attendance area boundary lines is legal. In the state’s school code, there is a section (105 ILCS 5/10?21.3) also known as the Armstrong Act. It says the school board has the duty:

To establish one or more attendance units within the district. As soon as practicable, and from time to time thereafter, the board shall change or revise existing units or create new units in a manner which will take into consideration the prevention of segregation [emphasis added] and the elimination of separation of children in public schools because of color, race or nationality. All records pertaining to the creation, alteration or revision of attendance units shall be open to the public.

The argument is that Peoria’s schools would become more segregated if Hines and Von Steuben students are sent to Richwoods, as is currently proposed, and that is illegal under the school code. A legal opinion on the matter is being sought.

Several people opposed to the school closings are also getting together to go over (1) Treasurer Guy Cahill’s deficit projections to verify their accuracy, and (2) the district’s budget to see what other cuts could be made instead of closing a high school.