All posts by C. J. Summers

I am a fourth-generation Peorian, married with three children.
Peoria Public Schools

Winner: Current Glen Oak School site

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WEEK-TV reports:

The District 1–50 school board tonight voted to designate the current Glen Oak Primary School site as the new birth through eighth– grade school building.

Finally. I’m sure there’s a huge sigh of relief from East Bluff activists this evening. If you went to the school forums, you know that this was the site preferred by most people, including neighbors, parents, the City of Peoria, and the Chamber of Commerce. Even the Community Forum Report acknowledged this was the most popular site. The school board made the right decision.

Now comes the big push from the school board to try to get as much money out of the city as possible. The line will be, “Hey, this is where you wanted us to put the school, now you’re obligated to give us whatever money we ask for to make this happen.” Oh, look, it’s started already:

Martha Ross said, “The citizens in that area have said they want us in this site so we’re going to help us figure out how we’re going to pay for a lot of this in addition to the city of Peoria.”

But the last line of WEEK’s report is most troubling to me. It reads, “The price tag for the new school is upwards of $60 million.”

$60 million?

Where on earth did that figure come from? Last I heard, a new school was going to cost around $21 million. How did the cost triple in three months? Surely this is an error. Perhaps WEEK meant the cost of building both new schools (above and below the bluff) plus the cost of property acquisition is “upwards” of $60 million. But just the Glen Oak School replacement building is going to be $60 million? I’ll need to see an itemized accounting of that.

UPDATE: As PeoriaIllinoisan pointed out, the Journal Star reports that the cost of the school is “estimated at $25 million,” which is still higher than the $21 million previously reported, but nowhere near $60 million. Don’t forget, the reason they’re replacing the building is because STS Consultants determined that the cost to replace the building was less than the cost to renovate, but they determined the replacement costs at only $115.36 per square foot. If the replacement cost is now $25 million for a 120,000-square-foot school, that’s $208.33 per square foot. Gee, think they could have renovated for less than that? I bet they could have.

2008 Campaign

On substance, McConoughey wins the debate

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The Peoria Area World Affairs Council sponsored a foreign policy debate with the three Republican candidates for the 18th Congressional District seat being vacated by Ray LaHood. It was broadcast live on WCBU (you can hear the debate in its entirety by clicking here), and was moderated by Jonathan Ahl. The questioners were Ahl, Illinois Central College President John Irwin, and Peoria Journal Star editorial writer Mike Bailey.

I finally got around to listening to the whole debate Sunday evening. The only way I could stay awake through the whole thing was by taking notes and eating Fritos. The notes came in handy afterwards, however, when I was trying to decide who won the debate. I developed a little scoring system and rated each of the answers, then summed the scores to see who came out on top. To my surprise, it was McConoughey.

It was a surprise to me because McConoughey is not a very effective speaker. I don’t mean that as an insult. He’s just kind of quiet and doesn’t come across on radio as particularly engaging like Morris or Schock. His opponents have a lot better delivery and poise. But when that was stripped away and I looked at what each of them had to say in response to the questions asked, I thought McConoughey came out on top overall. Schock came in second, and Morris last.

Naturally, each candidate had his pluses and minuses. One of Morris’s best answers was in response to Jonathan Ahl’s question about whether there comes a time when the U.S. should decide that democracy isn’t possible in a given country. Morris responded that he believes, like the Declaration of Independence says, that all men — not just Americans — are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that freedom is the destiny of the world. He also had good responses to questions regarding immigration and determining the accuracy of intelligence information.

But as the debate went on, Morris became less and less effective. His answers on Taiwan, Canada, and Lebanon were all weak — meaning he didn’t really answer the questions posed. He’s for free trade to a fault; he favors limiting trade only in “extraordinary circumstances,” such as “hot war” and “gross violations” of trade agreements. Only McConoughey cited human rights violations as a trigger for restricting trade. Finally, several of Morris’s answers bordered on jingoism (some questions were answered with nothing more than “I’m an American” and “I will vote in America’s best interests”).

Schock had a terrific answer to Bailey’s question about immigration — the one where he asked how the candidates reconciled their immigration stance with their family/religious values. He said, “God is a God of order,” and “Locking your door at your home and requiring that someone get permission to enter before coming into your house does not make you a bad neighbor.” An apt analogy. He also had the best answer as to how the U.S. can improve its relationship with Lebanon, which was to deal head-on with the Hezbollah problem and its Iranian funding.

Some of Schock’s answers, coupled with other statements he’s made, gave me the impression that he’s been reading up on former president Reagan and sometimes gets the past confused with the present. One example is his infamous suggestion (now retracted) that we sell Pershing missiles to Taiwan, even though Pershing missiles were destroyed by the early 1990s. In this debate, he evaded Ahl’s question about whether democracy is possible in some countries by talking about U.S. missteps toward Iran in the 1970s. A curious reference.

The only questions McConoughey didn’t have a good answer for were Ahl’s question on what the U.S. needs to do for Canada on issues such as sovereignty of the Arctic Ocean and air pollution from midwest coal-burning plants and Bailey’s question about ideas to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians. However, none of the candidates had good answers to those questions. McConoughey’s “new” idea on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was using Turkey as an intermediary to try to negotiate peace, but in fact Turkey is already a partner in that effort.

On the rest of the questions, however, McConoughey did well, showing a good understanding of our economic ties to other countries (including Canada), how to strengthen the dollar, and free trade theory.

2008 Campaign, Radio

WCBU debate online

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If you missed the 18th Congressional District candidates’ foreign policy debate last night, you can hear it online. WCBU has an mp3 of the entire debate on their site. By the way, Schock did end up attending. Kudos to him for not chickening out. The other candidates are former city councilman John Morris and Heartland Partnership CEO Jim McConoughey.

Too bad there’s no Democratic candidate in the primary. It would have made the debate a lot more interesting.

City Council, City of Peoria

Deferred items are back

2 Comments

Also on Tuesday’s agenda are two items that were deferred from last year:

  1. A recommendation to deny a gate blocking a public street between The Cove of Charter Oak (new McMansion development) and Vinton Highlands.
  2. A recommendation to change the city’s code so that Elliott’s strip club on University can get a liquor license. This is being recommended because of a recent court case that has led the city to believe that they are vulnerable to litigation if they don’t change the code.
City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan

Traffic consultant on Tuesday’s council agenda

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I am so in the wrong line of work. I need to become a traffic consultant and get in good with IDOT.

The city wants to narrow Washington Street, add on-street parking, and widen the sidewalks as part of the effort to spur mixed use development in the Warehouse District. Now you might think that the city could just narrow the street, add on-street parking and widen the sidewalks, but you’d be wrong.

Why? Because Washington Street is a state route — Route 24, in fact. That means the Illinois Department of Transportation has to approve any changes, and they have procedures that require streets to always get wider and more pedestrian-hostile. So you can see what the city is up against.

One option is to move Route 24 to Adams and Jefferson streets, but then that causes other problems, such as the fact that Adams and Jefferson are one-way streets, and there’s a desire to convert them to two-way. If Route 24 moves there, then IDOT would have to approve the conversion there, so you’ve just traded one problem for another.

The good news is that there’s a process to try to change IDOT’s mind: Hire a consultant. For $525,000. Yes, a little more than a cool half a million. To put that in perspective, that’s like the equivalent of five assistant city managers.

First of all, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that this process is moving forward — it shows that there’s a commitment to the plan for the Warehouse District. And secondly, you should know that Peoria doesn’t have to pay all of that — in fact, IDOT will pay $325,000 of the cost, and the council may decide to restrict the scope of the project so that it doesn’t exceed the IDOT-covered amount. So it might not cost Peoria anything (which makes you feel better until you realize that it’s just coming out of the taxes you pay to the state).

But still, whether a third or half a million, doesn’t that seem a bit crazy? Here we employ engineers at state and local levels. One would think they are more than capable of figuring out how to handle street drainage, or widen sidewalks, or change the painted lines from dotted white to double yellow. But in addition to the salary and benefits we pay for these engineers, we also need to pay over $300K to a consultant, and there’s no guarantee that his results will sway IDOT in the city’s favor.

Oh well, the important thing is that progress is being made… if the council passes the agenda item next Tuesday.

Music

LPs becoming popular again?

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LP on the turntableI’m trying not to get my hopes up, but I’m starting to see more and more positive articles about the return of vinyl records. NPR gave their spin on it last April. Wired Magazine waxed eloquent about its resurgence last October. Amazon.com has banded together all its vinyl product into one section of its online store. Bloggers are even turning their attention to it. Maybe all the press about vinyl is right; maybe it is making a comeback.

There are evidently a couple of interesting things helping people get back in the groove of buying record albums. One is a new type of turntable that is equipped with a USB cable, thus allowing you to easily convert the songs to mp3 format for portability — without any DRM hassles. Another is the even easier option given by some bands — buy the LP and you get a coupon that allows you to download the songs in mp3 format for free. Thus, you can have the easy portability of the music when you’re on the go, and the warmer sonic quality of the LP for home listening. Not a bad strategy.

I personally like LPs, both for nostalgic and auditory reasons. A well-crafted album is really something to experience. Growing up, I always loved to listen to a new album straight through from beginning to end (loudly, of course) while reading the liner notes, evaluating the artwork, and figuring out the lyrics (some albums even printed the lyrics out for you). I think they sound better, by and large, than digital music, too. Even with its imperfections, vinyl just sounds more — authentic.

Well, I’m not holding my breath, but I’ll be happy if vinyl grows in popularity and more album titles become available. That would be just… nah, I’m not going to say it; enough with the puns.

City of Peoria

Is Peoria a sinking ship?

77 Comments

Peoria LogoEditor’s note: “George” wrote this as a comment on a previous post and garnered some response, but many readers may have missed it, so I’m reprinting it here as its own post. Let me know what you think of George’s assessment of Peoria:

Peoria may be a sinking ship and I think the Titanic is a good analogy. The affluent are dancing merrily without knowing (caring?) about the underlying problems the ship is facing. The ride seems fine from their vantage point- all is well. If they were to mix with the poor or question why we haven’t had any population growth in fifty years-they would certainly sense danger ahead.

I would argue Peoria has been sinking in a more gradual way compared to the Titanic, but we are sinking.

Look at the facts:

• Peoria is no longer the second largest city- we are the seventh. Obviously the growth cells have not produced the population growth or revenue streams projected. The Civic Center and Ball Park (while nice and impressive) also-have not produced the spin off downtown renaissance they promised. I would argue the Museum project is similarly flawed.

• Our largest school district, District 150, is now primarily serving minority and impoverished students. Superintendent Hinton has no prior superintendent experience and the current school board is insistent on maintaining the status quo.

• Racial tension in Peoria seems to be at an all time high and there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight- unless you really believe prayer is a solution, and if so, that notion may be part of the problem. Haven’t Peorians been praying daily for generations and with what success?

• Our tax base is not sufficient to pay for necessary city services, much less provide money for enhancing public space, professional development or providing other amenities needed to attract scalable enterprises. The newly built residential housing units (north of Pioneer Parkway) and those planned for the future will never ever support themselves. When you do the math you will discover we are annexing ourselves into destitution. If you disagree then please explain why have there been increased city budget cuts and why are we likely looking at higher city taxes in the years to come?

• Developers claim they are simply responding to the market as they build ugly development after ugly development. Meanwhile, the most desirable cities, regardless of size, do just the reverse. The best cities drive the market by laying out their vision and getting it built. They do not take what ever is brought before them (schlock strip malls and cookie-cutter subdivisions) – they do not act desperate. Peoria has behaved desperate beginning with Dick Carver’s administration and it has become worse through the terms of Maloof, Grieves, and Ransburg. The precedent has been set and with the current set of developers it appears impossible for Ardis to reverse this trend. Our current City Council members are weak and lack vision- and so it goes.

• Young talented people are not flocking to Peoria because it is not the type of place they want to live. Some think we need more late night bars, but 24/7 does not mean having a plethora of sleazy bars and taverns. We do not have the appropriate housing destiny, enough downtown retail, adequate transportation options, and variety of downtown restaurants to make Peoria an exciting place to live. Good grief- we do not have a grocery store, dry cleaner, or drug store within walking distance of the city center. If you want to go to breakfast in the city where do you go? If you want well planned green space in the city center where do you go? Peoria generally has done a bad job of creating and maintaining a great place.

• Additionally ask yourself: How is life for our pre-teens and senior citizens who are unable to drive? Social scientists judge a city’s quality of life by how easily the young and old move around independently. When your pre-teens want to do something or go somewhere independently- where do they go and how do they get there? Are they walking out their doors and taking off on their own? No, most likely you are driving them someplace. Our children and our elderly citizens are forced to be dependent on someone with a car. In most cases they can not comfortably or safely walk or use alternate transportation to have fun or take care of their daily needs.

I think we are at risk of becoming the next East St. Louis or Detroit if the citizens do not start paying attention and demand that the City Manager and elected officials start doing their best to create a safe and great place to live. Keep a tally of their votes on issues- they repeatedly say they are for neighborhood revitalization but their votes prove otherwise.

If Randy Oliver leaves Peoria it is no great loss. He is not a visionary- but neither are members of the city council. Ok I give- pray for us!

— “George,” December 30th, 2007

City of Peoria

That is one good recruitment firm

4 Comments

Randy Oliver almost got another job without even realizing it. I don’t know about you, but I find it fascinating that a guy can be a finalist for a job in another city simply by having his name in with a recruitment firm. No interview. No knowledge he was even being considered. But, theoretically at least, he could have been chosen as the new city manager of McKinney, Texas.

What would have happened then? Would the recruitment firm have come to Mr. Oliver’s house (well, apartment, I guess) ala Publisher’s Clearing House with a camera crew, balloons, and a large foam-core-mounted W-2 form? “Surprise! You’re the new city manager of McKinney, Texas!”

Oliver is kind of like the bizarro-Ray-LaHood. LaHood, you’ll recall, was clearly not a finalist for the Bradley University president position, but claimed he was still potentially in the running. Oliver was a finalist for the Texas job, but claims he knew nothing about it.

According to WCBU (via Jonathan Ahl’s blog), “McKinney’s Media Manager confirms Oliver interviewed for the position about two weeks before the holidays.” But Oliver told the Journal Star he didn’t interview, although he had previously admitted to being in Texas at the time. I am not going to call anyone a liar here. But I will say it’s the darndest coincidence I’ve ever seen. Perhaps this recruitment firm is like the Impossible Missions Force and orchestrated a very elaborate scheme — utilizing hypnosis, disguises, and holograms — to make McKinney officials think that this interview took place.

One thing is for sure, though. I need to get my name in to that recruitment firm. Maybe they can make me a finalist as a new editorial writer for the Journal Star.