All posts by C. J. Summers

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

“The War”

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The WarI’m looking forward to watching the new documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, “The War.” It’s a seven-part series that starts tonight at 7 p.m. on PBS. Watch it and maybe we can discuss it here on the blog. There’s a viewer’s guide (PDF) available, too, and here’s an excerpt about the first episode from that guide:

After a haunting overview of the Second World War, an epoch of killing that engulfed the world from 1939 to 1945 and cost at least 50 million lives, the inhabitants of four towns — Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Luverne, Minnesota — recall their communities on the eve of the conflict. For them, and for most Americans finally beginning to recover from the Great Depression, the events overseas seem impossibly far away. But on December 7, 1941, their tranquil lives are shattered by the shock of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and America is thrust into the greatest cataclysm in history. Along with millions of other young men, Sid Phillips and Willie Rushton of Mobile, Ray Leopold of Waterbury, and Walter Thompson and Burnett Miller of Sacramento enter the armed forces and begin to train for war.

I watched Ken Burns and Lynn Novick answer questions about the film at the National Press Club (on C-SPAN), and it was very thought-provoking. Burns quoted a statistic that 40% of graduating high school seniors think the U.S. and Germany fought together against Russia in WWII. That’s really sad.

When I was going through school, I had some older teachers who were WWII veterans. I suppose the fact that they’re all retired now is part of the reason education on WWII is so impoverished today. In addition, if you are a retired veteran who wants to venture into another educational path, you might want to consider taking a look at these online colleges for military.

When I was in sixth grade at Rolling Acres School (it was K-8 back then), there were several of us boys who liked to play war. We would draw up battle plans on paper and then try to steal each others’ plans. My friend Jason decided he was going to be on the “bad guys” side and put swastikas all over his notebook. Keep in mind we were only 11 years old and, while we knew it wasn’t a good symbol, we had no idea the real gravity of what the symbol stood for (incidentally, I was on the “good guys” side). I never saw my teacher, Mr. Brunner, more agitated than when he saw Jason’s notebook one day. I don’t remember verbatim what he said (it was a long time ago), but a close paraphrase is, “You have no idea what you’re drawing. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of men died to defeat the evil that that symbol represents? You will not show that symbol in my classroom again.” Even as a sixth-grader, I could tell this was a very heartfelt reaction from someone who had first-hand knowledge of how bad that enemy was. I’ve never forgotten it.

There aren’t many of those men and women with first-hand knowledge left, which is why this documentary was made — to capture their memories before they’re gone.

City Council, City of Peoria

City recommends keeping Fleet Management in house

City Manager Randy Oliver has been looking for ways to save the city money, much to the chagrin of some council members. He suggested outsourcing the city’s Fleet Management services — the mechanics who maintain and repair the city’s many and various vehicles, like fire engines and snow plows. This caused several council members to balk. It also made for a very stressful situation for the mechanics whose jobs were on the line and their families.

That may be coming to an end Tuesday night. The City Manager is recommending that Fleet Management be kept in-house. The reason? It’s not worth the money that would be saved by outsourcing (emphasis mine below):

Cities contract out services generally to reduce costs and/or improve services. Seeking proposals serves as a measure to compare costs between in-house and private service delivery. While a change in service delivery may be justifiable on the basis of any cost savings, as a practical matter, however, the cost savings should be sufficient to justify the organizational change.

The proposals from Penske Trucking and First Vehicle Services are both excellent proposals and would exceed all the City’s fleet maintenance requirements and provide a higher level of service. Based on the financial analysis, however, the improved services do not justify the additional cost in dollars and the organizational disruption caused by changing to a private contractor.

Thus, the recommendation is to reject all bids and keep things in-house. I can’t help but think that this could have gone either way, and what tipped it toward staying in-house was at least partially influenced by all the push-back from certain council members. Nevertheless, I’m glad to see the mechanics won’t be losing their jobs (assuming the council approves this action, which I have no doubt they will) and this will maybe cause considering some alternative ways to use vehicles, like marketing and advertising (somebody, call Fleet Wrap HQ, it’s finally the time!).

Peoria Police

HOI follows up on camera question

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Kudos to HOI News for asking the Peoria Police Department about the effectiveness of their surveillance cameras. I was pleased to see they got reaction from Officer Ann Ruggles, the police department’s spokesperson. I e-mailed Ofc. Ruggles with my questions about the cameras Thursday morning and have yet to receive a reply.

They also got statistics on the number of police calls there have been to the two camera locations from 2004 to present. It looks to me like the number of calls dipped initially, but is now rising again. Perhaps the old saying is true: “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Peoria Civic Center

Another new scoreboard? So soon?

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ScoreboardBeginning Monday, workers will start assembling and then installing a new video scoreboard that Bruce Ashley promises will be a crowd-pleaser.

”It’s going to reach out and grab them,” says the Civic Center’s operations director.

The $850,000 scoreboard by TransLux Corp. will hang in the center of the arena, as the current one does, but it will have four sides of high-resolution, full-color video, capable of showing live shots.

That was written by Jenni Davis and appeared in the Journal Star just five years ago, on August 20, 2002. What’s in the Civic Center budget for FY2008? A new scoreboard to the tune of $700,000.

Why? Does an $850,000 scoreboard only have a lifespan of 5-6 years? Is it even paid off yet? I notice one of the entries on the Statement of Cash Flows is “Long Term Liabilities,” which includes “principal amount of scoreboard debt, land acquisition debt, and club room / suites debt.” And according to their financial statement from 2004, “The Peoria Civic Center has a note payable with final payment due November 2007 for the scoreboard purchase.”

In looking up information on the Civic Center scoreboard, I found pretty wide-ranging opinions. Bradley’s website praises it in this statement from 4/21/2007: “In recent years, the arena has undergone some major renovations benefiting Bradley Basketball. A multi-million dollar scoreboard with a four-sided jumbo video panel was hung in 2002 and the Braves are playing on a court that is only three years old.” They obviously exaggerated the price, but seem to be happy with it nonetheless.

On the other hand, the Rivermen hate it. The Rivermen Fan Advisory Board had this stinging criticism in January 2007: “The video scoreboard quality is very poor, and the images and voice are out of sync. (The Civic Center is looking at the possibility of purchasing a rear-projection system.)” In fact, their dissatisfaction goes back at least until July 2006. That was less than four years after the $850,000 scoreboard was installed.

If the scoreboard is that terrible, then I think it’s fair to ask why the Civic Center spent so much money on such a poor product. That’s a lot of money to flush down the toilet. Also, what steps are being taken to make a better purchase this time?

It’s probably just coincidental, but I did happen to discover that former Rivermen Vice President of Sales/Marketing Mike Nelson, who worked for the Rivermen in 2003, “served two years as the Midwestern Regional Manager for the Trans-Lux Scoreboard Co.” before he worked for the Rivermen. The current scoreboard was purchased from Trans-Lux.

Update: Some commentators over at the Peoria Pundit are saying the Civic Center purchased the scoreboard used and got it for a bargain. I have no way of verifying that information at this time. But if they did, then I would have to assume the “new” $7 million scoreboard they want to get is used, too. And is this really better than buying new and getting more life out of the scoreboard? Is buying a used scoreboard more analogous to buying a used car or a used computer?

Peoria Civic Center

Civic Center FY2008 Budget

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You may remember that I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Peoria Civic Center to get a copy of their “itemized budget.” Here’s the response I received from them in today’s mail:

PDF Link PCCA FY2008 Budget (PDF, 1.3M, 35 pages)

Actually, I got it in a nifty blue report cover with colorful dividing tabs. One page is even in color. What you will see, though, is a black and white PDF copy of it with the dividers removed (however, if you use the “bookmarks” feature on Adobe Acrobat, you can see where the divisions were and what they are titled).

The original information the Civic Center Authority gave the City Council included:

  • Budget Highlights
  • Statement of Income
  • Schedule of Events
  • Capital Expenditures Budget

The information I received today has all of that, plus this information:

  • Budget Ordinance
  • Budget Narrative by Shaun Schoonover, Director of Finance
  • Statement of Cash Flows
  • Indirect Expenses
  • Capital Expenditures Budget [Detail]
  • Fiscal Year 2008 Business Plan Narrative

It certainly is more detail than was disclosed before–especially the “Indirect Expenses” page. Take a look at it and let me know what you think. Have they come clean and vindicated themselves?

Peoria Police

Cameras don’t cow mob violence

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Peoria LogoIn the “Police and Courts” section of the Journal Star today (couldn’t find it online to link to it), there’s this story:

Customers at Peoria store attacked by about 12 men

PEORIA — A group of about a dozen men attacked three customers at an East Bluff convenient store with metal poles and a bottle Wednesday night, according to police and witnesses at the scene.

Three young men were inside the Short Stop Food Mart, 1302 E. Frye Ave., about 10:05 p.m. when the group rushed inside and began beating two of the the three, a witness said. During the fight a display of candy and food near the cash register was knocked over and bits of glass were left upon the floor.

The third victim, believed to be the youngest of the trio, ran to the back of the store and was reportedly unharmed. After the brawl, the dozen or so men left the store and drove off in two vehicles in unknown directions. Police and witnesses said the two older victims suffered what appeared to be nonlife-threatening injuries.

This story caught my eye because it’s one of only two locations in Peoria where police surveillance cameras have been deployed. In fact, if you click here, you can see a live picture of the Short Stop Food Mart. These cameras are supposed to deter crime and assist the police in solving any crimes that might occur.

I don’t think anyone expected that all crime would stop once the cameras went up, but now that there has been some blatant violence right in front of one of them, I wonder how the camera will play into the investigation of this crime. It apparently isn’t sharp enough to help officers know exactly how many perpetrators there were (“A group of about a dozen men…”), or which direction they made their getaway (the men “drove off in two vehicles in unknown directions“). Another question is, was police response any quicker because of the camera?

General News

I’ve been hyphenated

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Maybe I’m just sheltered, but last night was the first time I had heard white people seriously described as “European-Americans” (although I’ve heard it before in jest). The term was used several times by District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton at the joint city council and school board meeting.

“European-American” is not listed on the U.S. Census, but I did find an interesting article about the term on (where else?) Wikipedia. Perhaps it’s a common designation in educational research and literature.

I’m sure there are wonderful arguments for this particular appellation, but I’d prefer not to be hyphenated. There were a few days right after 9/11/01 when all the hyphens were gone, and we were all simply Americans, united as one people. That’s the way it should be.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Meeting of the minds reveals division

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The Peoria City Council and District 150 Board of Education met at Valeska-Hinton School Tuesday evening to reopen the lines of communication that had become strained over the past seven years. It’s easy to see why — the two bodies are working from different philosophies of school design.

District 150

First, we’ll look at District 150’s point of view. School Board President David Gorenz and District Superintendent Ken Hinton kicked off the meeting by giving a “State of the District” address. In the course of that presentation, it was explained that the single biggest challenge the school district has right now is poverty. Seventy percent of the students in District 150 are considered to be at poverty level, and that’s just the overall number. Some schools have a poverty rate over 90%, leading Gorenz to observe that our schools are more segregated today than they’ve ever been — not racially, but economically.

Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between poverty and achievement; i.e., as poverty goes up, achievement goes down. This was compellingly illustrated using a scatter chart.

The School Board concludes that the course of action they need to take is to “strive to eliminate high-poverty schools.” They want to accomplish that by offering “school choice” within the district through the use of larger magnet schools. Each school would have a “strong core curriculum with specialized programs at individual schools.” Specialized programs are things like math/science/technology, fine arts, Edison, career tech, university lab, and language studies. Parents would have the choice of sending one child to the school that specializes in Fine Arts, and another to an Edison school, etc.

This would allow children from wealthier areas of town to attend school in poorer areas and vice versa. The model for this strategy is Valeska-Hinton Early Learning Center. Superintendent Hinton mentioned that there’s still a waiting list to get into that school, and that they at one time even lost their Title I funding because the level of poverty had dropped so low — even though the school is located in a high-poverty area.

City of Peoria

The council was not unanimous in their opinions. Several of them simply asked for more data and information so they could study the issue more closely. First District Councilman Clyde Gulley was in total agreement with the school board, and said that not only was Valeska-Hinton a success, but so was the development that grew up around it (the Southtown urban renewal project begun in the ’80s). He feels that it should be the model for the city to follow.

But several council members felt that neighborhood schools should be the model in the city’s older neighborhoods, and they pointed to Whittier School as the model that should be replicated. Strong neighborhood schools stabilize neighborhoods, they argued. Second District Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken explained, “We’re not going to have middle class families moving into areas without strong neighborhood schools,” and that busing kids into and out of high poverty areas of town isn’t a true solution, nor does it fit with the city’s vision for its older neighborhoods.

Mayor Jim Ardis didn’t mince any words when he said, “We acknowledge there already is school choice and one of those choices is the one to leave,” and “we need to change the choice that we’re seeing.”

My Take

The School Board never misses an opportunity to remind everyone that “it’s all about the kids.” This is usually used as a trump card during discussions to imply that all opposing opinions are merely self-interested whereas the school board is focused on the children and what’s best for them. But I question how “eliminating poverty schools,” per se, helps the children individually. It doesn’t make their parents any more involved — in fact, it could potentially mean the school is too far away for a poor parent to be able to attend parent/teacher conferences and other events. It doesn’t change the negative influences in the neighborhood where the student spends his or her non-school time. In fact, if they lose a neighborhood school because of the consolidation, the neighborhood is further destabilized, which is arguably worse for the students. On the other hand, I can see how it would help the school in the aggregate — by diluting the number of poor students in each school, you can raise overall achievement on standardized tests. But how does it help those poor children individually?

Superintendent Hinton mentioned several things the school board is doing to try to reach individual children (education geared to needs of the individual student, build upon volunteer partnerships to provide a mentor to each student, teach behavioral and social skills, etc.). These are excellent interventions that can all be done in neighborhood schools just as easily as they can be done in community magnet schools. The only advantage of the magnet schools appears to be to improve school aggregate test scores so the district can meet Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) as defined under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Next Steps

The school board and city council will be establishing two subgroups that will work on these two issues: (1) The effect of choice/magnet schools on District 150 and neighborhoods, and (2) community school sitings and facilitating community development around them.

General News

A couple of interesting reads

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A couple things I read over the weekend that are worth passing on to anyone else who would be interested:

  • The Jane Fonda Effect — This is an article on nuclear energy written by “Freakonomics” authors Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, and published in the New York Times. It’s pro-nuclear-energy, in case you’re wondering. Although they mention it in passing at the end, the article left me wondering whether, for all its pluses, if the bugaboo in nuclear energy is what to do with all the waste. It still seems to me that the cleaner-burning coal would be a better solution.
  • Working to Reduce Sewer Overflows to the Illinois River — If you want a clear, easy-to-read explanation of what the whole Combined Sewer Overflow, or “CSO,” problem is about, look no further than Gene Hewitt’s article in this month’s Interbusiness Issues. Well-written and informative, it left me with only one question: why can’t they just enlarge the interceptor sewer or create some sort of temporary retention area for those 28 days it overflows? I’m guessing such a thing would be too large and/or expensive to build, but it seems like the obvious answer at first blush. I’d love to see a follow-up article on what the possible solutions are, and the pros and cons of each.
Peoria Journal Star

Goodbye Jenni, Hello John

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Also from today’s Word on the Street column is the big announcement of who will replace Jenni Davis on the City Hall beat:

“Word on the Street” first appeared in the Journal Star on Oct. 11, 1999. City Hall reporter Jennifer Davis has been the column’s only constant face, but she is moving on to a new position as Lifestyles Editor for the Journal Star.

John Sharp will take her place covering the City Hall beat, and his face and voice will appear in this column shortly, joining political reporter Karen McDonald.

My congratulations to both Jenni and John on their new posts. I’ll miss seeing Jenni at the city council meetings and reading her excellent reports, but I’m happy she’s gotten a promotion at the paper. As for John, I wish him the best of luck as he works to get up to speed on his new assignment.