All posts by C. J. Summers

I am a fourth-generation Peorian, married with three children.
2008 Campaign

Darin LaHood to Create an Urban Advisory Committee

Leave a comment

From a press release:

LaHood to Create an Urban Advisory Committee to Improve Communication
State’s Attorney candidate cites disconnect between community and the Courthouse

Peoria, IL – Since launching his candidacy last October, Darin LaHood has been touting the importance of ‘partnering with community leaders from our urban and high crime areas to rebuild a level of trust.’ The challenger for Peoria County State’s Attorney has taken another step in fulfilling that proposal by announcing his intention to form an Urban Advisory Committee (UAC) made up of leaders and activists from Peoria’s African American community that would meet with and advise him on a regular basis in addressing issues of concern. The Committee is a way for LaHood, as State’s Attorney, to be pro-active instead of re-active on issues and concerns facing the African American Community

LaHood hosted a gathering of over 60 community members, predominantly African Americans, on Thursday at Chef Leo’s Bistro 320 in Peoria to announce the plan and to begin the formation of his UAC. Patti Polk, a longtime leader in Peoria’s African American community said the LaHood plan is needed to provide residents better access and ability to be heard by County government and specifically the State’s Attorney’s Office.

“Too often, the community voices are shut out of the process,” said Polk referencing the relationship between citizens and the local government. “Darin LaHood has made a concerted effort to be available to all Peorians and to listen to their concerns about the criminal justice system. His commitment and attention to these issues as a candidate will undoubtedly translate to an accessible and attentive State’s Attorney’s office – something sorely needed. I am honored to assist Darin with his efforts and when he is elected in November I will proudly serve on the UAC.”

Discussing the disconnect between the present States Attorney’s office and the Peoria African American community, LaHood told those assembled at Chef Leo’s that there has been a ‘collapse of trust.’ He said to rebuild that trust, it is important to have a diverse office staff, provide citizens accessibility and to simply ‘show up’ and let the residents know that you care about the issues that affect them.

“Law abiding citizens in many parts of our community have lost faith in the local criminal justice system,” said LaHood. “It is critical that we re-establish this level of trust and the obvious, simple first step is to improve communication. That’s what I intend to do with the UAC and I am very excited about the positive response this announcement has received.”

Darin LaHood, 40, was born and raised in Peoria. He is a former Chief Terrorism and Federal Prosecutor who served four years with the U.S. Department of Justice in Las Vegas, Nevada. LaHood was also an Assistant State’s Attorney in both Tazewell and Cook counties. LaHood and his wife, Kristen, returned home to Peoria in 2005 to raise their three children: McKay, Luke, and Teddy. LaHood currently practices with the Peoria law firm of Miller, Hall, & Triggs. Darin and Kristen are active in numerous Peoria charitable and civic organizations and are members of St. Vincent de Paul Church. Visit www.DarinLaHood.com to learn more about Darin, volunteer opportunities, or to contribute to the campaign.

City of Peoria

City launches on-line budget questionnaire

Leave a comment

From a press release:

The Mayor and City Council are seeking public input into the 2009 budget. In previous years, public comment was limited, at least formally, to the night that the budget was adopted. This year, the Council has made it a priority to educate citizens on the budget and seek their priorities, thoughts and ideas.

Two open houses are being held on August 4th: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. at Expo Gardens and 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. at the Peoria City/County Health Department. These open houses are designed to allow citizens to drop in, learn more about the budget, and talk with Council Members and City staff. Attendees will also be asked to complete a brief questionnaire that will gather input about budget priorities, revenue sources and cost-saving ideas.

For those citizens who cannot attend one of the open houses, an on-line questionnaire is available at www.peoriabudget.com. This questionnaire will be open from August 1 through August 10. The website will also contain information about the City’s budget, revenue sources, staffing levels and operating indicators so that visitors can be well informed about the process.

Staff will compile the answers from both the paper and on-line versions and present a summary to the City Council at their September 9 meeting.

I thought at first that I couldn’t make it to one of the open houses, assuming they were both in the evening. Upon closer inspection, I realized that one of the open houses was in the morning! So, I just wanted to point out to anyone who may have skimmed that part like I did, the open house at Expo Gardens is from 10 a.m. to noon.

Yeah, I know, how could I have missed it, right? Well, sometimes when you get a lot of press releases, you just don’t pay close enough attention. 🙂

Amtrak, Dick Durbin, Nation/World

Durbin introduces Amtrak fleet improvement bill

18 Comments

U. S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the “Train Cars Act” (S.3360) on Tuesday in the Senate. The State Journal-Register explains what the bill proposes:

Durbin’s bill provides funding to encourage manufacturers currently supplying passenger rail cars overseas to open modern facilities here. And it provides a tax incentive for private domestic businesses to re-enter the passenger rail equipment business and rebuild facilities and train cars in the United States.

The legislation also would create a trust fund to replace the nation’s train cars by transferring one-quarter cent of the per-gallon motor fuel tax into the trust fund for three years. That would generate about $400 million a year, Durbin said.

It’s good to see more funding being proposed for passenger rail service. Whereas the federal government provides tens of billions of dollars for highways and airports, Amtrak has been treated as the redheaded stepchild, getting a mere $1 billion each year, even as they stave off annual efforts from the White House to cut off funding altogether. With gas prices on the rise, rail ridership is rising dramatically, and more funding is being proposed both in Congress and at the state level.

Amtrak and IDOT are currently studying the feasibility of Peoria-Chicago passenger service.

General News

Wasn’t Sandberg just joking about this?

22 Comments

The Los Angeles Times reports:

A law that would bar fast-food restaurants from opening in South Los Angeles for at least a year sailed through the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday…. The council approved the fast-food moratorium unanimously….

When the Peoria City Council was discussing a moratorium on payday loan establishments here, Gary Sandberg joked that maybe we should put a moratorium on Starbucks coffee joints under the same theory. Starbucks isn’t what one would label a fast-food restaurant, but I thought it funny that Sandberg was joking about it, and then just a few days later L. A. does something very similar.

2008 Campaign

Ballot access challenged in 10th Congressional District

4 Comments

Independent candidate for Congress Allan Stevo has filed suit in U.S. District Court (Springfield) against the Illinois State Board of Elections. Although he submitted over 7,200 valid signatures, the Board of Elections removed him from the ballot because he fell short of the statutory requirement of 10,285 signatures — “5% of the total number of persons who voted in the last general election within the congressional district.”

Stevo is challenging that requirement. He claims it’s “unnecessary, discriminatory, and unconstitutional.” On that last point, he claims it specifically violates the first and fourteenth amendments.

“Established parties,” as defined in the Illinois Election Code, only need 0.5% of the total persons who voted in the last general election — a significantly smaller requirement. And just to make things completely weird, the 5% requirement for independent candidates only applies in election years that do not immediately follow a federal census. (Yeah, try to make sense of that.) In election years that do immediately follow a federal census (1972, 1982, 1992, 2002, 2012, etc.), independent candidates running for Congress need only collect 5,000 signatures. Stevo uses this fact as proof that the 5% requirement is unnecessary.

Stevo is asking the court to declare Illinois’ ballot access restrictions unconstitutional, put his name on the ballot, and reimburse his attorney’s fees.

Museum Block

Prepare to be inspired by the ExploraFence

39 Comments

Have you seen “Museum Square” lately? Well, if you haven’t, maybe a look at this will inspire you to come downtown and take a look for yourself:

Yes, that’s right — these are the slogans that officials hope will “attract riverfront and Downtown visitors to the site and increase awareness of the project.” It’s a little something I like to call the “ExploraFence” — an homage to one of the museum’s rejected names, “ExploraSphere.” Aren’t they inspiring? Don’t they fill you with a sense that the museum project is “moving forward and that this project is going to happen”?

Yeah, me neither. It’s a fence. Whether you put amateur artwork or professional artwork on it, it’s still a fence around a big concrete slab that should have been developed four years ago. The museum officials are holding the block hostage until we pay the ransom to the tune of some 30 million dollars in sales tax money.

Here’s the thing — the museum folks have missed the deadlines specified in their redevelopment agreement with the city. They’re going to miss them again at the end of this year. In the past, the city has extended the deadlines. But the time has come for the city council to put the kibosh on this project at the end of this year.

Why? Well, I could go on and on, but let’s just limit things to three reasons:

  1. The project design is not what was originally presented. What started out as a museum of 110,000 square feet has dwindled to 81,000 square feet. That’s a 26% reduction in size from the original plan. The Journal Star reported in October 2003, “The 110,000-square-foot museum is expected to open in 2007 with areas for Caterpillar Inc., art, history, science and technology, a Childhood Discovery Center, a large-format theater, domed planetarium, auditorium, cafe and outdoor park with sculpture garden.” Now Caterpillar is no longer part of the museum, but will be building a separate visitors center. And the children’s museum is also a separate project now, in a different location, overseen by a separate organization. There have been a couple of smaller components added in the meantime, but nothing of the size and scope of the Caterpillar or children’s museum components. Despite these reductions, the price is going up.
  2. Costs are significantly higher than originally estimated, and still rising. Even though they’ve cut the square footage by 26%, removed two large components of the project (Cat and the children’s museum, as mentioned previously), and redesigned the exterior to lower costs (by making it uglier), the price of the project is going up. The original price tag in October 2003 was $65 million. In February of this year, Lakeview Museum CEO Jim Richerson said the price tag was estimated to be “$65 million to $75 million,” which means it’s most assuredly more than $65 million at this point. Museum officials attribute this to rising construction costs. Perhaps they should look at redesigning the museum to save money instead of looking for ways to confiscate it through raised taxes.
  3. The funding mechanism is not what was originally proposed. The plan was to raise the money through private donations, state and federal grants, and city perks (such as TIF funding, lease of the Sears block for $1/year, city-funded infrastructure improvements, etc.). Now they want to add a county sales tax to their public funds ledger. That’s not part of the deal. We already pay a never-ending sales tax to the Civic Center; we don’t need a new one for the museum.

And then there’s the fact that under the original plan, they were only going to use a portion of the block, leaving the rest for mixed-use development. They slowly chipped away at that over the years, until now they have the whole block, except for a proposed tiny strip of retail storefronts along Water Street, which they’re also trying to quash. And I haven’t even mentioned the Heart of Peoria Plan, which is a whole separate topic.

It’s simple. The museum didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. They didn’t meet the deadlines. They didn’t raise the money. Case closed. Five years is long enough. They don’t need more time; they need a new plan. If they are unable or unwilling to come up with a new plan, then it’s time to move on.

City Council, City of Peoria

City wants your input on the 2009 budget

1 Comment

From a press release:

As the City Council begins another year of budget planning, we want to start the process by reaching out to the citizens of Peoria for input on where they would like to see their tax dollars invested.

Mayor Jim Ardis said, “It is vital that citizens have a voice in how their tax dollars are invested. The members of City Council and I are encouraging citizens to give their input at the beginning of the budget process so that their needs and vision are taken into consideration.”

Two open houses have been scheduled to allow the community the opportunity to share their ideas on the 2009 budget. Both meetings are on Monday, August 4, 2008, and are scheduled at two different times to accommodate more schedules. Citizens can drop in during those time periods.

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 Noon
Exposition Gardens
1601 W. Northmoor Road
Peoria, IL 61614

5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p. m.
Peoria City/County Health Department
2116 N. Sheridan Road
Peoria, Illinois 61604

These meetings will give citizens the opportunity to review the operating and capital budgets, ask City Council and staff questions, and give your input on priorities and suggestions.

2008 Campaign

Callahan: Pundit optimism vs. PJStar pessimism

38 Comments

Billy Dennis admits he’s optimistic about Colleen Callahan’s chances of winning the 18th Congressional District seat in the U. S. House of Representatives this November:

Think about it: More than 700 people crowded into a basement of a tiny building on the outskirts of Kickapoo, Ill., to show their support for a woman whom all the experts say cannot win…. Laugh at my optimism if you must, but this has the makings of a people power movement, right here in the River City…. Election day is three months and two weeks away. A lot can happen in that time.

On the other hand, Monday’s Word on the Street (written this week entirely by Karen McDonald) offers a not-so-rosy picture of Callahan’s campaign:

Former Journal Star assignment editor Terry Towery was hired as Democratic congressional candidate Colleen Callahan’s press secretary, but now her news releases list him as campaign manager…. A changing of the guard so close to an election (it’s in November) is not common. In fact, it’s practically unheard of unless the campaign is in trouble….

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee named Callahan to its list of 20 “emerging races” where candidates have generated excitement in their districts and are being watched…. But DCCC still doesn’t appear to be terribly interested.

DCCC recently…targeted three House seats with significant television ad buys at more than $1 million each…. The 18th Congressional District was not one of them.

Love him or hate him, Schock is going to win this election. Callahan is not a strong enough candidate to overcome the Schock juggernaut of money, gerrymandering, and demonstrably superior campaign strategy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m no fan of Aaron Schock, but if the kid can seriously suggest selling nukes to Taiwan and skate to a majority win in a three-way race, might as well start printing up stationery…. unless the Democrats put up a strong contender with a lot of national backing. Callahan is not that contender.

General News

Get the cliche right

54 Comments

It was only a matter of time, of course. But someone finally couldn’t resist the urge any longer and published the first “Bush plays Peoria” story of the day. Except they got the cliche wrong:

It’s the ultimate political cliche: “How’s it playing in Peoria?” President Bush will find out today.

No, no, no. It’s “Will it play in Peoria?” Not, “How’s it playing in Peoria?” If you’re going to be so unoriginal as to drag out that tired old cliche, at least say it right. Sheesh.

By the way, as long as we’re on the subject, did anyone go? What did the President have to say?

Uncategorized

Posting will be light

Leave a comment

Big family reunion this weekend, including my brother and nieces coming to stay at Peoria Chronicle Headquarters for a few days. So, I won’t have much time to blog. Hope you all have a great weekend! Feel free to use this post as (yet another) open thread to comment on whatever you’d like.