According to this Journal Star article, the City of Peoria is looking for ways to cut basic services like sidewalk and sewer improvements due to a nearly “flat projection” in sales tax growth. Meanwhile, according to this other Journal Star article, developer Gary Matthews is still pitching his hotel plan which relies on $37 million in TIF and sales tax revenue. That figure is down from the $39.3 million originally proposed (and approved), but the project is smaller now, too. There are 70 fewer rooms and “[i]t will be designed so that another 100 rooms can be added later, if needed,” according to Matthews.

“It has taken me a lot longer to reach this point than I expected. I didn’t see the recession coming, especially one that deep. Even so, I never thought it would be so tough to finance a project that is 50 percent equity,” Matthews said.

He didn’t see the recession coming when he submitted this project for council approval in December 2008? Really? That’s funny, because the recession started in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Yet despite this striking admission, we’re still supposed to trust his judgment with our $37 million in tax money. And the City has such a great track record of choosing economic winners and losers… well, at least losers. Cub Foods. Firefly Energy. A few more “self-supporting” projects like those, and we’ll be completely bankrupt.

It’s time the City stopped acting like a bank for entrepreneurs who can’t get private financing because their projects are too risky, and started doing what they’re supposed to be doing, which is providing basic services for the residents of the City. It’s past time, actually.