Daily Archives: March 31, 2009

2009 Campaign

Second district race heats up

26 Comments

These anonymous flyers started appearing on porches in neighborhoods surrounding Bradley University today.

The flyer implies that Second District City Council candidate Curphy Smith and his campaign chairman Paul Wilkinson are in cahoots with attorney Jeff Hall who represents the Sigma Nu Fraternity in their lawsuit against Second District incumbent Barbara Van Auken. The unsigned flyer says the lawsuit has “become a driving catalyst for for Curphy Smith’s campaign waging Bradley students against regular citizens of the Second District.”

The flyer goes on to quote an e-mail from Jeff Hall to Bradley students encouraging them to vote for Smith and alleging that Van Auken will “exact revenge on the Greek system at Bradley” if reelected. Finally, it states that the Smith campaign is providing free rides to the Election Commission for early voting and alleges “impermissible electioneering may be occurring . . . within 100 feet of the Election Commission.”

When asked for his response to the flyer, Smith stated via e-mail, “While Councilwoman Van Auken’s decision to run a negative campaign is unfortunate, by no means was it unexpected. I fully expected these types of tactics and expect she will continue them. I have committed to an issue-based campaign against Barbara VanAuken as a city council representative. Instead of distracting the residents the 2nd district with negative attacks and muddying the waters with lies, I would like to discuss how we can make the 2nd district and the city of Peoria a better place for all of us.”

Van Auken, however, said via e-mail that she had not seen the flyer before I e-mailed a copy of it to her. She went on to say, “It was not authorized by my campaign or it would have so indicated. I have no idea who may have sent it. The only message I agree with or endorse is the one stating my desire to continue the progress that’s been made in the Second District as outlined in my authorized campaign literature.”

I talked to Wilkinson on the phone, and he stated in response to the charges on the flyer that the Smith campaign is “not involved in the lawsuit.” They are not trying to pit Bradley against other Second District residents, he continued. “We’re trying to bring people together.” He also said that Jeff Hall is not a member of the campaign staff, and that Hall acted on his own when writing the e-mail asking Bradley students to support Smith.

Hall did not return a request for comment.

I checked with Peoria’s Election Administrator Tom Bride, and he said there was nothing illegal about giving people a ride to a polling place. He also wasn’t sure that a car could get within 100 feet of the entrance to the room where early voting takes place.

My take: I take Barbara at her word that she didn’t authorize this flyer. But it’s obviously a Van Auken supporter that created and is distributing it. Van Auken should condemn the flyer as dirty politics and make it clear that she does not approve this kind of “help” from her supporters. I’m sure she would expect the same of Smith if the tables were turned.

Likewise, Hall’s e-mail, assuming it is quoted accurately, is objectionable. I would also like to see Smith condemn the personal attacks on Van Auken as dirty politics as well.

It’s unfortunate that the person who created this flyer has decided to make the Bradley issue even more polarizing than it already is. Note the choice of language: “Bradley students” versus “regular citizens of the Second District” (emphasis added). I guess Bradley residents are irregular citizens, eh? Or second-class citizens, perhaps? That’s not the way to win friends and influence people. I know it can be challenging living near college students, but I don’t believe antagonizing them, marginalizing them, or being condescending toward them is going to improve things.

And, this probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: the person who created and distributed this unsigned, anonymous flyer is a coward. It’s easy to sound tough when you hide behind anonymity.

Peoria Public Schools

District 150 going deeper in debt

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Things are not looking good on Wisconsin Avenue:

Despite borrowing $30 million over the past three months using tax-anticipation warrants, the school district is again facing dire straits and according to the latest financial statements will not be able to meet payroll in May, much less a significant loan payment due in June. In order to remain solvent, district officials on Monday proposed restructuring its debt by seeking $35 million in working cash bonds, a loan structured to be paid back over several years.

Translation: property taxes for District 150 are going to go up, more teachers are going to get laid off, and more schools are going to close. District 150 needs to be reorganized from top to bottom.

State of Illinois

Redistricting reform long overdue

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I am so glad to see that a reform panel is working on the issue of redistricting. My preference for reform is this one:

One recommendation would be to model the process after Iowa, which turns redistricting over to an independent body and a computer programmed to be blind to party and incumbency. Iowa doesn’t use the number of Democrats or Republicans who live in an area in redistricting. As a result, its districts are much cleaner, compact, contiguous and politically competitive.

They say a picture paints a thousand words, so just take a look at the congressional districts in Illinois and compare them to Iowa:

il_cd2002

ia-congress-color

I rest my case.

Caterpillar, Museum Block

Cat encourages remaining employees to vote for museum tax

27 Comments

A source who wishes to remain anonymous forwarded me this e-mail that was sent to Caterpillar employees today:

Dear Team Caterpillar:

In 2002 my predecessor, Chairman Glen Barton, committed Caterpillar’s support to a new regional museum. Since then the company has supported this project to revitalize the downtown Peoria community. Our involvement has grown from a relatively simple presence in the new museum to the current concept — a separate facility housing a corporate visitor center, called the Caterpillar Experience.

This new riverfront development along with the proposed renovation of the Hotel Pere Marquette and the recent expansion of the Civic Center, should transform the landscape of downtown Peoria. The Museum project specifically will offer tremendous educational and entertainment opportunities to residents throughout Central Illinois.

Peoria County voters now have an opportunity to support the Museum project through a countywide referendum on April 7. The proposed 0.25 percent county sales tax increase will provide critical public funding for the new Museum. As federal and state funding sources have disappeared, this local funding initiative has become the last opportunity for moving this project forward.

If you live in Peoria County and can vote on this referendum, I encourage your support. Without a doubt, this project will make Peoria a better place to live, will make downtown Peoria a better place to work and will help us attract the best and brightest employees for the future.

Please remember to vote on April 7. You’ll find the issue as the last item on the ballot which references “public facilities sales tax.” If you’re going to be out of town on election day, you can take advantage of early voting between March 16 and April 2.

Thank you for your support. This is an important opportunity for the members of Team Caterpillar to make a difference in Peoria.

Sincerely,
James W. Owens

There’s nothing wrong with Cat encouraging its employees to vote a certain way, of course. I post this merely to show what Cat’s thinking is on the issue. Several things stood out to me:

  • “…educational and entertainment opportunities…” — Meanwhile, District 150 can’t make payroll, and county school districts need to make facilities improvements. And as for entertainment — it’s not enough that we just spent $95 million expanding the Civic Center and adding an attached hotel? How many more millions can the public afford for “entertainment”?

  • “As federal and state funding sources have disappeared…” — I thought we just heard yesterday at the Build the Block news conference that these funding sources have reappeared. Aren’t they hoping to get $14 million in stimulus money now? Didn’t Illinois Secretary of Transportation Hannig say that the state is “committed to this project” financially? Sounds like the tap has been turned back on.

  • “…this local funding initiative has become the last opportunity for moving this project forward…” — I thought the New Market Tax Credits were the last opportunity to move the project forward. And before that, I thought extending the redevelopment agreement was the last opportunity to move the project forward. How many “last opportunities” are there?

  • “…this project will make Peoria a better place to live…” — For whom? How many Cat executives live in Peoria? How many live across the river? How many live on the south side?

  • “…will make downtown Peoria a better place to work and will help us attract the best and brightest employees for the future.” — And where are those future employees going to live? The east bluff? South Peoria? Averyville? If not, why not? I thought this museum was supposed to make Peoria a better place to live. Why wouldn’t they want to live here? What’s wrong with these parts of town that a new museum doesn’t cure?

  • “This is an important opportunity for the members of Team Caterpillar to make a difference in Peoria.” — The members of Team Caterpillar who are left after all the layoffs, that is.
Museum Block, Peoria County

Stimulus money sought for “The Block”

4 Comments

As has been mentioned before, the museum group has two funding goals — a private funding goal and a public funding goal. The $40 million county tax is supposed to plug the public funding goal, but that will still leave the museum $11 million short on the private funding side. Whenever they’re asked about this at town hall meetings, the answer heretofore has been that the CEO Roundtable had committed to raising $8 million of the remaining money from private sources, and that the museum group is “confident” that they can raise the remaining $3 million not covered by that.

Now, it appears they’re trying to plug the private funding gap with (drum-roll, please) more public funds! Stimulus funds, to be exact. There was a press conference yesterday that featured state senator Dave Koehler and Illinois Secretary of Transportation Gary Hannig.

There might yet be additional state and federal money available for the $136 million Build the Block project, maybe enough to close the funding gap that would still exist even if voters approve the sales tax increase next week. At least that’s the hope of state Sen. David Koehler, D-Peoria. He said Monday he would try to help procure $4 million of federal economic stimulus money for an underground parking garage and an additional $10 million from a state capital bill to close the funding gap.

Isn’t that interesting? If we were to get, say, $14 million additional from state and federal sources, the plan is to use it to plug the private funding gap, not lower the local tax commitment. The reason the museum is coming to the county for funding is because they didn’t receive as much in federal/state funds as they originally thought they were going to get. Now that they’re possibly going to get more federal/state funding, it should go to reduce the local tax burden, not prop up private funding shortfalls.