Monthly Archives: September 2010

Museum Block

What did they promise the children?

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Here’s another Build the Block ad from the days leading up to the referendum. It really tugs at the heartstrings as children are brought in to sell the referendum:

Did you hear that part where it says, “An IMAX theater will put viewers into the action right downtown,” and the excited child says, “That’s big-city stuff”? I hope the PRM people take a good look at that same child at the end when she says, “build it for me.” She’s talking about an IMAX. That’s what she was promised. Are the PRM people going to take it away now?

Museum Block

What’s that sign say?

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I was downtown today and took a picture of a sign on the exciting and inspiring ExploraFence around the old Sears block. I was shocked — shocked! — to find this sign:

Can’t read it? I’ll get a little closer:

Did you see that last sentence? “IMAX-like cutting-edge technology is coming right here.”

Okay, you caught me. That’s not really what it says. It says, “3-D IGST cutting-edge technology is coming right here.”

No? Still not right? Well, Tim Riggenbach said they never promised us an IMAX, so I’m sure it doesn’t say, “3-D IMAX cutting-edge technology is coming right here.”

Museum Block, Peoria County

Urich memo raises questions about museum bonds

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If you pick up a Journal Star this morning, you’ll see a “First in Print” article about the museum bonds debate:

Delays in issuing bonds, coupled with changes in the public financing of the Peoria Riverfront Mu­seum, could result in $1.6 million to $3.4 million in additional taxpayer costs, according to a memo is­sued by Peoria County Administrator Patrick Urich on Thursday…. According to Urich’s memo, feder­ally backed Build American Bonds will rebate 35 percent of taxes paid on the bonds issued before New Year’s Day. Urich projects any stall on issuing those bonds until next year could cost $2 million to $2.5 million.

The rebate could be extended at a lesser amount, which would potentially reduce taxpayers’ savings.

“It will cost the taxpayers money if we have to delay,” Urich said Friday.

The type of bonds has been the subject of debate since last week. General obligation bonds, according to Urich, save taxpayers money over a longer period of time because their interest rate is lower. With revenue bonds, the interest rate — and the risk to the bond holder — increases.

Question: Why didn’t Urich tell the voters about all the glories of G. O. bonds before the April 2009 referendum? Just to refresh your memory, here’s what the County said during the weeks leading up to the referendum in town hall meeting after town hall meeting:

If the referendum passes, the County Board has committed to issuing up to $40 million in Revenue Bonds for the museum…. Only money collected from the sales tax increase can be used to pay the Bonds off each year. If the annual payment cannot be met with the sales tax collection, the bond holders bear the burden, not Peoria County or the tax payers…. Why would anyone take the risk to invest in Bonds that may not be paid off annually? As with all investments, the higher the risk, the greater the return. A diverse risk portfolio is a prudent investment strategy, and Revenue Bonds represent a component of that strategy.

Note that the County didn’t say “general obligation bonds” or “Build America Bonds.” They said “Revenue Bonds.” They were very clear and specific. They acknowledged then that Revenue Bonds carry a greater return (that means a higher interest rate) for the bond-holder, but that the trade-off is that the bond-holder carries greater risk. The made it a selling point to the community that “the bond holders bear the burden, not … the taxpayers” if sales tax receipts were insufficient to cover the bond payments.

Now I want to know what has changed since the town hall meetings? Don’t tell me that Build America Bonds are new since then, because they’re not. Build America Bonds were established as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which President Obama signed into law on February 17, 2009. That was before the referendum, and before the town hall meetings which took place in March and April of that year.

If Revenue Bonds are such a bad, expensive funding mechanism, why did the County promote it in March and April 2009? Why did they sing the praises of mitigating risks to the taxpayer then, but now claim there are no risks to mitigate?

One last question. How can Build America Bonds be used on this project in the first place? The rules for these bonds specifically exclude “private activity bonds,” which are defined as bonds where “more than 10 percent of the proceeds of the issue are to be used for any private business use,” including non-profit businesses. The preamble to the County’s bond ordinance makes it clear that the bonds will “finance the acquisition, construction, and installation of facilities and improvements constituting the art, science, and education components of a new Peoria Riverfront Museum, and related facilities, improvements and costs.” The Peoria Riverfront Museum is a private, not-for-profit organization incorporated June 7, 2010, in the State of Illinois. It’s unclear to me how this project qualifies for Build America Bonds.

City of Peoria

Caterpillar puts local pharmacies out of business (also, some thoughts on incentives)

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From the Journal Star:

After 50 years, Tingleff Pharmacy will close permanently at 1 p.m. Saturday.

The pharmacy at 3617 W. Harman Highway lost 60 percent to 65 percent of its customers after Caterpillar Inc. instituted a new prescription drug plan in January. The plan designated specific national pharmacies instead of allowing employees to choose their own pharmacy, said owner and pharmacist Rick Tingleff, the son of founder Dick Tingleff.

“Caterpillar was the catalyst when they pulled benefits from the independents and gave WalMart and Walgreen’s the business,” he said.

Hometown Pharmacy, with offices in Creve Coeur, Morton and Chillicothe, was another local pharmacy that cited the Caterpillar change as a reason for closing earlier this year, Tingleff said.

In a somewhat related story, the Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal recently reported that, despite that city, county, and state giving Cat a combined incentive package worth just under $75 million to locate a manufacturing plant there, Cat didn’t allow any local general contractors to bid on the construction of the plant. A local TV personality there also criticized the deal because of Cat’s prescription drug policy:

…CAT isn’t opening its doors freely to local stores and vendors. For example, Caterpillar has an exclusive contract with Walgreens and Walmart to fill employee prescriptions. That leaves other chains like Target and Rite Aid out in the cold, and excludes local mom-and-pop drug stores from doing business.

The author, Jim Longworth, also criticized economic incentives in general as “nothing but corporate welfare, legalized extortion.” I found this paragraph particularly interesting:

And so, for now, at least 40 states are entrenched in the incentives game where they feel obligated to offer perks, lest they lose to a competing state. But according to UNCG professor Andrew Brod, that fear isn’t justified. “It’s hard to conclude that a company that is getting incentives from State X, wouldn’t have gone to State X anyway.” So why offer incentives? Brod theorizes, “Offering incentives to lure large companies gives politicians the chance to claim credit with little risk they’ll be blamed for a deal that falls short of its promise. It’s very important for them especially in times like these, to appear to be doing something. It’s easier to do something whose rewards and benefits are hard to assess, than to just do nothing.” [emphasis added]

How many times have we heard in Peoria that “something is better than nothing”? The question that should be asked when that statement is made is, “better for whom?” The answer according to Dr. Brod is “politicians.”

Peoria Public Schools

Always winter but never Christmas at District 150

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[Note to the humor-impaired: This post is all tongue-in-cheek.]

We just got the official District 150 school calendar. Now I know we haven’t had “Christmas Vacation” for a long time now. I understand the religious sensitivities that led to changing it to “Winter Vacation.”

Nevertheless, the calendar has nearly every conceivable religious and non-religious observance listed on it. There’s “Islamic Ramadan” (Aug. 11), “Jewish Rosh Hashanah” (Sept. 9), “Patriot Day” (Sept. 11), “Leif Erickson Day” (Oct. 9), “All Saints’ Day” (Nov. 1), “Groundhog Day” (Feb. 2), “Chinese New Year” (Feb. 3), and even “Dr. Suess Birthday” (Mar. 2). “Palm Sunday” and “Easter” (Apr. 17 & 24) are listed, as well as “Jewish Pesach” (Apr. 19-25).

But what holiday is printed on December 25? “National Children’s Day.”

National Children’s Day?

What’s even more strange is that this particular holiday is printed twice on the calendar — once on Dec. 25, and once on Oct. 8. Any holiday that’s celebrated twice a year must be something special. So I Googled “National Children’s Day” to find out more about it. It has its own official site, naturally: http://www.nationalchildrensday.us/. It even has an official song (“I Love Being a Kid” by a guy who calls himself “Mr. Nicky”). However, the site says it’s celebrated on the second Sunday in June. (I checked the school calendar to see if perhaps “Christmas” got printed on June 12. Nope.) So, District 150 put this holiday on their calendar twice and were wrong both times?

I had to investigate further, so I checked out Wikipedia. (I know Wikipedia is reliable because I looked up “Reliability of Wikipedia” on Wikipedia, and it said it was reliable.) The Children’s Day entry explained that this holiday “is celebrated on various days in many places around the world, in particular to honor children.” I’m glad they added that last part, because I was wondering who, in particular, was being honored on Children’s Day. It appears the holiday was aptly named. “Major global variants include an International Children’s Day on June 1 as adopted in the former Communist bloc, and a Universal Children’s Day on November 20, by United Nations recommendation.” (This was established during the height of the Cold War, so the adjectival escalation should come as no shock; I’m surprised Khrushchev didn’t counter with a Multiversal Children’s Day.) So far, still no Oct. 8 or Dec. 25. But wait: “Many nations declare days for children on other dates.”

Next, all the countries are listed with their various dates for celebrating Children’s Day. Searching through them, I did discover that Children’s Day is celebrated on Oct. 8 in one country: Iran. Well, the U.S. did celebrate Children’s Day on Oct. 8 one year. “Children’s Day was proclaimed by President Bill Clinton to be held on October 8, 2000.” However the next year, in a show of partisan eye-poking, newly-elected President Bush officially moved it to the first Sunday in June. My guess is he thought the kids would have more fun if the could celebrate their day at the beginning of summer vacation. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, ever the non-conformist, “issued a proclamation proclaiming the second Sunday in June as Children’s Day…” [emphasis added]. Well, that will show the federal government they can’t push our state around! We’ll just have our Children’s Day on the second Sunday of June and see if Obama tries to stop us.

Getting back to Christmas, there are some countries that celebrate Children’s Day on December 25, according to Wikipedia. They’re all in central Africa: “In Congo, Congo DR, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Chad, Central African Republic, São Tomé and Príncipe Children’s Day is celebrated on December 25 to honour all the children there.” But how many countries celebrate Christmas on December 25? Just about all of them. Even Orthodox churches that celebrate Christmas in January by the Gregorian calendar are actually celebrating on December 25 on the Julian calendar.

Finally, I decided to get an authoritative answer instead of all this Wikipedia stuff. I asked District 150 board member Laura Petelle why District 150 didn’t print Christmas on their calendar. Her answer: “I am forced to assume typo.”

Oh, sure, give the obvious answer! 🙂

City of Peoria

New construction projects on the rise in Peoria

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From the recent “Issues Update”:

The Building Division of the Inspections Department continues to see strong growth in new construction projects in the City of Peoria. With four months remaining in 2010, permit revenue has already surpassed the total amount collected in 2009.

Illustrated in the table below is a comparison of Building Permits/Permit Revenue through August of the last five years. Permit revenue is up 62% in 2010 compared to this time last year. In addition, new construction is up 27% in 2010 compared to this time last year.

YTD 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
New Residential
Total Residential

New Commercial
Total Commercial		 238
578

44
202		 216
601

44
189		 167
556

29
172		 86
409

14
151		 100
430

27
170
Residential Fees
Commercial Fees
Other – Mechanical Fees		 $229,954
$153,842
$134,738		 $351,436
$1,150,629
$175,594		 $260,492
$584,426
$227,855		 $131,827
$213,419
$150,430		 $162,416
$514,342
$127,870
Total Fees $518,535 $1,677,659 $1,072,773 $495,676 $804,628
City of Peoria, Peoria County

Firefly bankruptcy hearing date set for Sept. 9

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Last week’s “Issues Update” from the City Manager’s office has the latest on how things are progressing with the Firefly bankruptcy:

The Bankruptcy Court has set a hearing on the City’s and County’s settlement with the Bankruptcy Trustee for September 9, 2010. Negotiations continue with Electrotherm, the company from India who has expressed interest in acquiring Firefly’s assets. In order to move that negotiation forward, the City Manager and the County Administrator have executed an agreement that the City and County will not market the assets of Firefly to any other party than Electrotherm until September 14, 2010. It is anticipated that a purchase agreement will be on the City Council Agenda on September 14, 2010.

In related news, one market for the batteries in India would be to power two-wheeled scooters:

The electric two-wheeler industry in the country is struggling for survival, as manufacturers are making huge losses. …[T]he fledgling e-scooter segment has failed to join the bandwagon of the Indian automobile industry, which is on a high growth trajectory. From 60 players in the electric two-wheeler business, including small time assemblers, only 10 remain in contention now….

The dependence on imports for key components such as battery, motor and charger also pose a challenge for the industry. Major players such as Hero Electric and Electrotherm are looking at developing local battery manufacturing capabilities. [emphasis added]

How’s Electrotherm doing these days? Here’s a recent report:

Electrotherm (India) disclosed a steep drop in standalone net profit for the quarter ended June 2010. During the quarter, the profit of the company declined 27.28% to Rs 123.43 million [US$2,633,460] from Rs 169.74 million [US$3,621,514] in the same quarter previous year.

The City and County of Peoria guaranteed a bank loan of $6.6 million for Firefly Energy in 2007; the company went bankrupt in March of this year. The municipalities have been trying to mitigate their losses by selling the company’s assets.