All posts by

Uncategorized

Country Music DJ Bob Grayson Dies

According to Billboard Radio Monitor, local DJ Bob Grayson succumbed to cancer today. He was 60.

In 1998, Bob moved to WXCL Peoria, Ill., for a year and then moved across town to competitor WFYR as OM/PD and morning show host.

Grayson was inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 2000.

Uncategorized

Council Roundup: Water Buyout (Again)

At-large Councilman Chuck Grayeb made a motion last night to direct the city manager to find out what other communities in Illinois would be interested in purchasing their water works from Illinois American Water Company. It passed unanimously.

However, IAWC’s parent company, RWE AG of Germany, has said it will sell all of its American water holdings as a unit, not piecemeal. According to the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader:

Harry Roels, chief executive of RWE, said last week that the company would first try to sell American Water to one buyer. If one buyer cannot be found, RWE will consider spinning off American Water as an independent company through an initial public offering of American Water stock, Roels said.

So, either way, it doesn’t sound like they’re even considering selling off pieces.

Uncategorized

Council Roundup: Heart of Peoria Commission Punts

The preliminary site plan for museum square that was proposed at last week’s council meeting was approved by the council tonight with surprisingly little discussion. Van Auken, the most vocal council person tonight (Gary Sandberg was absent), expressed her disappointment that the Heart of Peoria Commission didn’t make a recommendation, but just supplied council with their comments.

I agree with her on this one. The council commissioned these people to look at the site plan and make sure it fit with the Heart of Peoria Plan and the goals of New Urbanism. Did it or didn’t it adequately do that? Do they not know the answer to that question? Are they trying to avoid responsibility? Was it just too much work to write up a recommendation, so they just copied their notes for the council? Were they too busy “appreciating the complexity of the task”?

What they gave the council was a list of eight conditions that would bring the site plan into conformance with the Heart of Peoria Plan. Next to each item, the committee rated how well the site plan met that criterion. The scores were as follows on a scale of 0-24:

1. The axis of Fulton Street must be visually received by the Museum, and the axis must be continuous, either as a street or a pedestrian passage, through the Sears Block from Wasthington Street to Water Street. Score: 7.

2. The Sears Block must contain a mix of uses complimentary to the Museum, specifically retail and residential, in order to enhance of the Sears Block and encourage the vitality Peoria’s efforts to become a city that is active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Score: 10.

3. The street frontages of the buildings of the Sears Block must be active. Water Street should have the highest level of pedestrian activity; Main and Liberty should provide support in their pedestrian connection between the Downtown and Riverfront; and Washington Street should allow a proper location for service areas while remaining pedestrian-friendly. Significant gaps in the street edge, low-laying structures, service uses and blank walls at the street edge all contribute to hostile environment unsuitable for street life. Score: 9.

4. All parking must be contained within the block in order to remove inactie deck facades from street level frontage. Score: 24.

5. Residential plots for any future private development must provide an attractive footprint size and orientation and allow for efficient layout of requisite parking facilities. Access to both Washington and Water Street is necessary; Washington is a B-grade street that will provide car and service vehicle access, while Water Street is planned to become an A-grade street offering a high quality pedestrian environment. Score: Not Applicable.

6. At a minimum, the height of the building(s) must be the equivalent of two stories in order to relate in scale to the urban fabric of downtown Peoria. Score: 24.

7. All open space must be designed to be complimentary to the urban context of the surrounding buildings and uses. Any natural areas, no matter their size, must be contained within hardscape and must be programmed to remain active during non-business hours while still facilitating the Museum’s needs. Score: 20.

8. The chosen architect of the Museum must be an acknowledged master, appropriate to the scale and importance of this civic site. Score: 24.

Total score: 118 out of 192, or 61%. Does that sound like a ringing endorsement? If you don’t include item 5, which the commission inexplicably rated “not applicable” instead of 0 (is it important or isn’t it?), then the score is 118 out of 168, or 70%.

Now, the Sears block is the crown jewel of downtown Peoria, right? And the Heart of Peoria Plan is supposed to be our blueprint for downtown renewal, right? Do you think 61% compliance with the Heart of Peoria Plan is a good precedent to set for downtown redevelopment?

Let’s call a spade a spade. The Heart of Peoria Commission didn’t do their job. They should have sent this back to the council with a recommendation to deny the site plan and continue working to conform it to the Heart of Peoria Plan. Instead, they’ve tacitly endorsed a site plan that in four out of eight areas identified as the most important design principles is significantly deficient.

In the absense of any recommendation from the Heart of Peoria Commission, the site plan passed unanimously.

Uncategorized

Council Roundup: Civic Center Expansion

At tonight’s city council meeting Mr. Dan Silverthorne gave an update on the Civic Center expansion construction and costs.  He’s been reading the papers and wanted to clear up some misconceptions about the changes that were made to keep things within budget. 
 
First he claimed he never had any intention of asking the council for more money, but always planned to stay within budget.  Yeah, right.  Well, I guess we can’t judge his intentions without being cynical, but I do seem to remember Dan Daly quoted in the paper as saying they may need to ask the council for more money.  So maybe Silverthorne is saying he personally never intended to ask for more money, even though other officials did.
 
Silverthorne also said that plans for more parking, a food court, and women’s restrooms are not out of the plan, as reported in the press, just “on hold.”  He believes they will somehow “find a way” to add those things back into the plan sometime over the next 22 months.  I can understand budgets being somewhat fluid, over budget on some items and under on others.  But the expansion was reportedly millions of dollars over budget requiring some major cuts.  I’m not exactly sure where he thinks that money’s going to magically reappear.
 
Councilwoman Van Auken didn’t let Silverthorne off the hook without a good tongue-lashing for cutting the very items that most impact the people who pay those HRA taxes:  food and toilets.  Go get ’em, Barbara.
 
Received and filed.

Uncategorized

Peoria Disposal Company presentation could spark controversy

I received an e-mail from a resident who is concerned about Peoria Disposal Company’s planned presentation at the city council meeting tonight.  According to the e-mail, they are going to request tripling the size of the landfill and accepting toxic waste from 15 states.
 
Anyone heard any other information on this?  I checked the city council agenda for this evening and there were no details on this presentation.
 
At a minimum, I expect there to be PDC opponents voicing their opinions during the citizens’ requests to address the council.

Uncategorized

Water buyout proponents look at regional model

The Journal Star reports that water buyout proponent Chuck Grayeb will ask the city manager at tonight’s council meeting to see if other communities would be interested in partnering with Peoria to purchase part of Illinois American Water Company from RWE AG.  Expect this request to sail through easily.
 
I wonder how far Grayeb has thought this through.  There are cerainly advantages to a regional model like he’s proposing.  Potentially, it could give the region more leverage in negotiating with RWE.  It would also give partnering cities the ability to spread out the costs of infrastructure improvements.  However, this raises some questions, too.  How would rates be set under a regional scenario?  How would a water management company be chosen?  What recourse would customers/voters have if they’re dissatisfied with their service?  (Water buyout proponents have long held that customers could simply vote council members out of office if they’re unhappy with water rates; under a regional system, it doesn’t appear that kind of recourse would be effective.)
 
Finally, and this is no small consideration, can the city of Peoria get along with other cities in a regional partnership?  Right now, the city is at odds with the county over $200,000 in booking fees for prisoners.  Imagine the contention over a $200 million asset for Peoria alone, determining how to spread out the costs of infrastructure improvements, and setting rates for the communities.
 
As city officials say, it doesn’t hurt (or cost anything) to gauge the interest of other communities.  But while they’re gauging interest, they should start considering some of these issues as well.

Uncategorized

Something to watch

The mayor of Lexington, Ky., Teresa Isaac, will be heading a committee that will put together an offer to buy Lexington’s water works from RWE AG of Germany according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.  RWE AG is the parent company of both Lexington’s water company and Peoria’s.  I can’t help but wonder if Peoria buyout advocates are plotting to do the same thing here.  I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that PAAG and others were already working on it.  If Lexington manages to put together an offer that RWE accepts, then I’m positive Peoria will try it, too. 

Uncategorized

School board delays facilities vote

As WEEK predicted, the Peoria District 150 School Board voted unanimously to defer a vote on the closure of eleven school buildings and construction of six new buildings until the next scheduled meeting because board member Garrie Allen was not present due to illness.  The next scheduled board meeting is November 21. 

Uncategorized

Why RWE is selling

RWE AG of Germany is selling not only its American Water Works subsidiary, but also its British water company, RWE Thames Water.  But why?
 
Reuters reports the reason is to “allow RWE to focus on its more profitable electricity and gas businesses.”  Specifically (emphasis mine below):
“The concept of a global water player has not really worked,” [RWE Chief Executive Harry] Roels said, pointing to limited synergies between North American, UK water and European energy business.
 
But the firm said Thames Water’s continental European activities, excluding Pridesa in Spain, would be integrated into its energy unit because they offered cost-efficiency synergies.
 
“Scale and synergy effects in the water business are regional not global,” Roels said.
 
He said the sale of its water business would make the company less capital intensive and provide more financial flexibility with substantially improved free cash flows.
 
RWE Thames Water’s operating profit dipped 4.8 percent to 619 million euros in the six months to June. The unit accounted for about 18 percent of RWE’s group operating profit, and about a quarter of RWE’s estimated enterprise value.
 
Thames Water and American Water, its U.S. water unit, face high infrastructure investments in the coming years, but the ability to raise prices to pay for it are limited by regulators.
These statements raise questions for Peoria as its next opportunity to purchase the water company approaches in a few years.  How much of the “high infrastructure investment” is needed in Peoria?  And will water bills be lower under public ownership by a cash-strapped city in such circumstances or under ownership of a large private company that has the leverage to make up for those costs in other, more profitable communities?  Roels said that “scale and synergy effects in the water business are regional not global,” and, we could add, not local either.  For Peoria to afford the purchase price and infrastructure investments, will not rates be prohibitively high?  And will that be one more reason families and businesses will choose not to live or locate in Peoria?

Uncategorized

Water company takeover attempt not unique

The [city] council’s vote to abandon takeover [of the water company] should have settled the issue. [V]oters went to the polls and changed the makeup of the city council. That new council said no to local ownership.  Even so, local ownership advocates continued to push for a city takeover.
The story sounds so familiar, but that quote isn’t from any Peoria publication.  It’s from the Kentucky Kernel in Lexington, Ky.  The water company in Lexington is Kentucky American Water, owned by the same German company that owns Illinois American Water, RWE AG.  A lot of the same arguments are made there as here.  Proponents of public ownership label RWE “as some German army massed to sack Lexington and take away the water entirely,” while opponents point out that “city governments are not subject to [commission] rate checks, and so a city government determined to use water revenue to enrich government coffers for other programs . . . would be unchecked.”
 
The big difference is the way each community is trying to take over the company.  In Peoria, there’s a contract that gives the city the right to repurchase the water company.  In Lexington, they’re trying to take over the utility using eminent domain.  That means they’ll have to condemn the water works in order to take it over.
 
Now that RWE has decided to put its American subsidiaries up for sale, Peoria and Lexington are thinking along similar lines.  “Maybe we can get this at a cheaper price,” third district councilman Bob Manning said in yesterday’s Journal Star article.  According to the Louisville Courier Journal, Lexington Urban County Councilwoman Linda Gorton said, “If they would be willing to sell by pieces, it would be a golden opportunity.”
 
And that is the question: will RWE sell all 83 water systems to a single owner, or will they sell some or all of them separately?  That decision will have a big impact on the next step Peoria and Lexington make.  Reuters reports, “In a statement RWE said options for the water business include an initial public offering and a sale to financial investors.”