I’m standing outside the council chambers because it is completely packed — like a can of sardines. But I’m here and will do my best to bring you a play-by-play of the main agenda, which is:
Continue reading Liveblogging the City Council Meeting 10/13/2009
The new City Manager Scott Moore will have to forego the traditional “honeymoon” period new managers usually enjoy. He gets the unenviable job of reporting this distressing news to the council at his very first meeting:
The Finance Department is now projecting the FY2010 budget deficit to be $14.5 million. This re-forecasting is the result of continued poor performance in City revenues, especially sales tax receipts.
The Finance Department had previously predicted a deficit of $10.5 million, which was already unbearable. The new deficit projection is 38% higher. Ouch.
As an aside, I thought it was interesting that he says, “especially sales tax receipts.” I wonder what effect these “especially” lower sales tax receipts are having (or will have) on a couple of new sales taxes — the Hospitality Improvement Zone (HIZ) tax and the upcoming public facilities (museum) tax. And, conversely, what effect the addition of these new taxes will have on future sales tax receipts. Sales taxes are largely voluntary. If consumers don’t want to pay them, they simply make their purchases in one of the surrounding communities, like East Peoria. As taxes go up, I wonder how much more business Peoria will lose.
But I digress. What does this mean for city services? Read on:
A total of 46 positions have been identified for complete elimination and 14 have been identified for seasonal lay-off…. The Police Department will be faced with reducing its fore by 17 officers. The Fire Department is faced with eliminating 15 positions, including shutting down one fire company. If the Firefighters Local 50 had not conceded their 2010 wage increases, the closing of a second fire company would be facing the department. Other front-line departments like Public Works and Emergency Communications could also expect critical losses in service delivery internally and externally. Information Systems and Legal will lead to serious interruptions and delays that will impact front-line departments and citizens alike.
The report goes on to say, however, “The critical loss of services and the crippling effect of many of these changes is likely unacceptable,” and asks for more direction from the council. I’m not sure what else the council could do to reduce expenses; I think there’s going to have to be some talk about raising taxes — specifically property taxes — to mitigate some of these cuts. Property taxes are not volatile like sales taxes.
With sales taxes, the city sets the rate and then gets revenue based on public purchasing. When people don’t go shopping as much or shop somewhere else, revenue goes down. With property taxes, however, the city starts by determining the amount of money it needs to receive (called a “levy”) and then the necessary tax rate to raise that amount is figured based on the equalized assessed value (EAV) of property within the city. Thus the city is more or less guaranteed to receive the money it requests in this way.
The question is, what will public reaction be? Will they rather see draconian cuts to police and fire, or fewer cuts coupled with an increase in their tax rates to maintain an adequate level of service?
The Dodgers deserved to win the National League Division Series. They simply played better baseball than the Cardinals. They had better pitching, clutch hitting, and much better fielding. These were all things that the Cardinals had about a month ago; I wonder where that team went? After the Cardinals clinched the Central Division title, they just fell apart for some reason and never recovered.
When I found out they would be playing the Dodgers in the NLDS, I was pretty hopeful because, historically, the Cardinals have done very well against the Dodgers. They certainly did well against them in the regular season this year — much better than the Rockies or the Phillies. But surprisingly, it was to the Dodgers that they fell in three straight games.
I’ll forever have nightmares of Holliday missing what should have been the game-ending fly ball in Game 2. A close second to that nightmare is LaRussa putting Rick Ankiel up to bat as a pinch hitter for the final out in Games 1 and 3. Both times, it took just three straight pitches to strike him out. Good call, Tony.
There were a lot of bad plays and missed opportunities, which is too bad, because they really did play well in the regular season, up until the last couple of weeks. Now it’ll be up to the 2010 Cardinals to bring the World Series trophy back to St. Louis. April will be here before we know it.
On the council’s agenda for next Tuesday, October 13, is a recommendation from the Public Works Department to accept Peoria Disposal Company’s (PDC) bid of $5 million annually to collect solid waste, lawn waste, and recycling for the next five years. I did some analysis of the plan last month, but now I’d like to revisit the recycling portion.
First, there has been a new development. According to the most recent council communication, alley collection of recycling will be restored and protected:
If a customer currently places their refuse and landscape waste in their alley for collection then recyclables will be collected from the alley. If a customer currently places their refuse and landscape waste at the curb for collection then recyclables will be collected from the curb. Any changes in set out location will need to be approved in writing by the City during this agreement.
That’s great news! It will reverse a unilateral change in “set out location” (as they call it) by Waste Management, and is a big victory for older neighborhoods.
However, I think it might be helpful at this point to ask what the goal is in offering recycling collection. I’m not sure what it is, but I can tell you what it is not: it’s not to incentivize recycling. There are a couple of big disincentives to participating:
Local environmental activist David Pittman recently sent me this information:
Peoria Heights has achieved a 50% participation rate with their curbside bi weekly residential recycling program within 6 months. People usually want to recycle if it is easy and convenient and free. Normal is around 40%. Elgin is nearly 60%. Springfield about 40%.
I doubt we’re going to see participation rates that high under the proposed contract. But his comment got me thinking: Why not bid out the recycling separately? That’s how Peoria Heights does it. G & O Disposal takes care of their refuse while Eagle Enterprises takes care of their recycling.
If we bid it out separately, we might get more bids on the recycling portion than just PDC and Waste Management (WM). Perhaps a company that wouldn’t be able to handle all of Peoria’s waste hauling needs could handle just one portion, if you are now considering to start recycling check cheap skip bin hire Melbourne.
Here’s one thing I don’t want to hear when this is discussed Tuesday night: “We can’t afford any more than this.” It’s inevitable that someone (possibly everyone) will argue that the current proposal should be accepted because (a) it’s the cheapest and (b) it fulfills all the criteria they wanted. While that’s true as far as it goes, it’s worth noting that if PDC had suggested once-a-month pickup of lawn waste, the council likely wouldn’t have approved it due to the inconvenience factor. So it will be interesting to hear how much of a priority the council gives to recycling.
Some might protest that it is a priority, but that we simply can’t afford a robust recycling program right now, given the dire economic crisis we’re facing. I would point out that the dire economic crisis is not stopping the council from raising taxes and handing the proceeds over to a private developer so he can build a downtown hotel. I know I’m starting to sound like a one-string fiddle here, but facts are facts. As long as they continue to pursue and defend this non-essential and risky hotel scheme, I’m not buying any argument that says we “can’t afford” this or that. We can afford it, if it’s a high enough priority.
The following email was sent out to District 150 staff members at the end of business today (this is copied and pasted with no omissions, not retyped):
It is with a heavy heart that I announce my retirement effective December 2, 2009. This decision to retire earlier than my established date of June 30, 2010 is my determination.
It is because of personal and family reasons that I have decided to retire in December of this year as opposed to June, 2010. For too long I have not taken care of my health and not given my family the time that they so richly deserve. It is time for me to concentrate on getting my health back and spend time with my wife, children, and grandchildren.
our school district has in place most competent individuals who will continue to lead the district going forward. Our Board, the Administration, and entire district staff are committed
to our students and their success.Ken Hinton
Superintendent
Peoria Public School District 150
3202 N. Wisconsin Avenue
Peoria, IL 61603
(309) 672-6768
A special meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday, October 14, to appoint an interim superintendent. My sources say that retired Morton School Superintendent Norm Durflinger will be appointed. Durflinger recently served as District 150’s interim Controller after the departure of Guy Cahill.
Merle Widmer has an update on the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum:
No Museum construction this year. No Caterpillar Visitors Construction this year. Why not? The private sector hasn’t come up with the money they promised the county before the county agreed to put the issue on a referendum. Now officials are saying that no ground on either project will be broken until the middle of 2010.
They’re still short on funds, and negotiations between the city, county, and museum group aren’t going very well. Gives you a lot of confidence that this thing will really be successful if it ever gets built, doesn’t it?
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Barack Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said in its citation. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”
At best, this seems premature to me. He’s only been in office nine months, and he has no diplomatic accomplishments (as even the New York Times acknowledges), only rhetoric. Has the Nobel Peace Prize become nothing more than a global popularity contest?
I can find no better article on the Roman Polanski rape case and the film industry’s reaction to it than this one by Dennis Prager. Here’s part of the article:
As virtually no one has ever suggested the girl lied, it is universally acknowledged that at age 43, Roman Polanski raped a 13-year-old girl.
One would think that anyone with a functioning conscience would condemn the terrible act. Or to put it another way: If a middle-aged man raping a 13-year-old girl is not obviously terrible, what is?
Yet, leading members of the film world in Europe and America world do not see it that way.
As Britain’s Guardian newspaper wrote: “The list of supporters giving Polanski their impassioned support read like a Who’s Who of the cream of the movie-making world. It included, among many others, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Harvey Weinstein, Pedro Almodovar and Ethan Coen.” […]
As noted by many observers, imagine if Polanski were a Roman Catholic priest — or a Republican politician — accused of the same crime. All hell would have fallen on the man’s head. The Boston Globe cited the Rev. James Martin, associate editor of America magazine: “If Polanski were in a collar there would be no boo-hooing about his recent plight. There would be zero pity for him. … Can you imagine a petition being circulated among actors, directors, and producers in the United States to have a Catholic priest reinstated in his parish after he had abused a 13-year-old child? If you believe this about Polanski — that his good deeds offset his guilt and that enough time has passed — do you believe the same about pedophile priests?” […]
We have reason to be grateful to the Polanski affair. It offers that most needed of virtues: clarity. It has made the average citizen aware of how broken the cultural elite’s moral compass is. [… T]he next time you see the Hollywood elite come out on behalf of or against some public issue, you can most likely assume the opposite is the morally correct position.
I was disappointed to see that Tilda Swinton also signed the petition supporting child-rapist Polanski. Swinton played the White Witch in the recent Chronicles of Narnia films.
It’s interesting that some in Hollywood are protesting that critics are painting with too broad of a brush. Screenwriter Josh Olson wrote a piece quoted on this Los Angeles Times blog lamenting the hasty generalization of some reporters who imply or state outright that “Hollywood” is supporting Polanski. I found this bit entertaining:
As a rule, when I read the news that a fugitive from justice has been caught, my standard response is to think, “How nice,” and turn the page. If it’s a particularly interesting story, I might tell my girlfriend about it, but until this moment it never occurred to me that I was supposed to alert the media as to my feelings on the subject. It’s hard enough keeping up with all the injustice in the world. Now we have to stand up and shout every time it goes the way it’s supposed to? No offense to Ms. Silverstein, but some of us have jobs. […]
But as far as Hollywood’s concerned, we’re not rallying behind anyone, and it sure would be nice if folks could find a way of discussing this issue without creating ridiculous and childish caricatures of people who have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Right. What was the plot of American Beauty again? How many Oscars did it win? How does Hollywood feel about Elia Kazan? How did they feel about George W. Bush? No, no, they never alert the media as to their feelings on a particular subject, especially about a specific injustice. And far be it from Hollywood to ever take part in ridiculous and childish caricatures.
I think Dennis Prager got it exactly right.
Election update:
That’s the happy news of the day, delivered in a news conference attended by Mayor Jim Ardis, Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard, Peoria County Sheriff Mike McCoy, and U.S. Representatives Aaron Schock and Mark Kirk.
Meanwhile, Kirk said, the city of Peoria is able to dedicate just 20 officers to anti-gang units. “We need to make sure a local city or town is not overwhelmed by the resources of a gang,” Kirk said.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the City is still contemplating laying off police officers while concurrently planning to fork over $39.5 million to a private developer for a new downtown hotel. You see, Peoria’s Mayor and City Council don’t mind raising taxes for risky private ventures, but balk at tax increases for public safety.
Kirk pointed out that the average age for a gang member involved in a shooting is the equivalent of an eighth-grade student; that the combined size of U.S. gangs would create the fifth-largest army in the world, with at least 1 million members; and that state sentencing in court is not significant enough to use for leverage.
I wonder if any of these teenage gang members attend Peoria Public Schools, and if combining a couple of urban high schools will lead to any violence among said gang members. It’s a good thing we’ll have extra officers on hand when this happ– oh, wait…..