All posts by C. J. Summers

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

Impress with success, not new buildings

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I understand the sentiment behind the Journal Star’s recent editorial about District 150. They say, “Somewhere in this debate, those children got lost. It is time for Peoria to find them again, for its own sake.”

I totally agree with that sentiment; I really do. I want to see the community pull together and provide the best possible education for our children. I think everyone wants that. But the editorial board’s prescription is a placebo. They whitewash over the serious issues that have led to the “general unpopularity” of the school’s decisions.

They say, “Hinton and his board have a mandate to try and rescue a declining school district,” and, “With this new school and others, they’re trying to do that.” This is the crux of the problem. What the editorial writers have stated is not the school board’s mandate, nor are the school board’s actions the way to achieve either this or their real mandate. Allow me to quote the oath of office each school board member must take before taking his or her seat on the board (105 ILCS 5/10‑16.5):

I, (name of member or successful candidate), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the Board of Education of Peoria Public School District 150, in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Illinois, and the laws of the State of Illinois, to the best of my ability.

I further swear (or affirm) that:

  • I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district’s assets;
  • I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board, while respecting the privacy of students and employees;
  • I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting; and
  • I shall abide by majority decisions of the board, while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels.

That is the school board’s real mandate. I would submit that one reason residents are up in arms over the school board is because they’ve failed in this aspect: “I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district’s assets.”

How do the school board’s recent actions stack up against this part of the oath? They did not do due diligence in assessing the rehabilitation possibilities of their current property (viz., Glen Oak School) before they decided to build a new school on a different site (adjacent to Glen oak Park). Thus, they started spending taxpayer money on property acquisition, architects and planners without verifying a new building or additional property were warranted in the first place. They have changed the scope of their project from building a replacement school to building a community center, which has added $7 million more to the projected cost of construction. They have taken a building (Blaine-Sumner Middle School) that was slated for closure and sale to save the district money and, instead of disposing of the property as outlined in their own Master Facilities Plan, have rehabilitated it for use as an office building. These are not examples of faithfully protecting the school district’s assets.

So they’re not fulfilling their real mandate, but they’re not even fulfilling the editorial writers’ mandate. Building new school buildings is not going to “rescue a declining school district.” Sorry. Whittier was built in 1914 and is a model school, earning awards and making adequate yearly progress. Sterling was built in 1962 and is on Academic Watch Status.

But here’s what’s really strange. Whenever I mention that there is no correlation between the age of buildings and test scores, I’m always told that no one is claiming that building a new school will improve student performance. So, why build, then? What’s the purpose? Read the editorial writers carefully on this point:

To the degree that the condition of a city’s school facilities makes a statement about the value locals place on their children and their educations, Peoria does not stack up well against other Illinois communities. If there is one thing Peoria really can’t afford in a competitive environment, it’s to leave that impression.

Did you catch it? The key word is “impression.” We need to spend all this money so that we give the impression that we “locals” value our children and their education. Who cares if they actually are educated? Maybe we can fool those out-of-towners into relocating here if we blind them with our shiny buildings in the park.

That’s not a good enough justification for spending $22 million (plus $2-3 more million in acquisition/demolition costs). And it certainly doesn’t constitute finding “those children [who] got lost” in the debate. If we want to find the children, we need to start focusing on root problems instead of secondary issues like new school buildings. If we want to attract people to the city, we need to impress them with our school report cards and high test scores — then when they start moving back into town we’ll have the money to build those shiny new schools.

City Council, City of Peoria

More budget talks tonight

The Peoria City Council will not have a regular business meeting tonight, but rather a special meeting starting at 5:00 to continue discussing departmental budgets. However, there are a couple of unfinished business items on the agenda (health care coverage and janitorial services).

The departments who will be discussing their budgets tonight are Legal, Inspections, City Manager’s Office, Clerk’s Office, and Treasurer’s Office. Not exactly a hot time in the old town tonight.

Peoria Park District

Casual Comment II

15 Comments

Faithful reader Karrie suggested I also post when the Peoria Park District trustees’ terms expire. I think that’s a fantastic idea:

Park District Logo

Timothy J. Cassidy 2007
Stanley P. Budzinski 2007
James A. Cummings 2007
Jacqueline J. Petty 2007
Roger P. Allen 2009
Robert L. Johnson, Sr. 2009
Matthew P. Ryan 2009

They’re not as well-known as the school board members. You don’t see them in the newspaper much. But they spend a lot of your tax money and have made some questionable decisions. For instance, they’re the ones who want to toss a $565,000 rail asset in the garbage and drive Carver Lumber out of business so they can ride on a taxpayer-funded bike path on warm summer days.

Note that four out of the seven board members (including President-at-Large Tim Cassidy) come up for reelection next year.

Peoria Public Schools

Casual Comment

5 Comments

Just a reminder of when the District 150 School Board members’ terms expire:
Peoria Public Schools logo

Alicia Butler 2007
Sean Matheson 2007
Martha Ross 2008
Mary Spangler 2009
David Gorenz 2010
Jim Stowell 2011
Debbie Wolfmeyer 2011

Within the next three years, over half the board could change. It’s something to think about.

Peoria Public Schools

Renovation never seriously considered for Glen Oak School

1 Comment

The Word on the Street column today has an interesting segment on the need for a new building in District 150’s Woodruff attendance area:

The biggest question that taxpayers should demand an answer to is this: Does District 150 know for sure it needs a new building?

Because, according to Hinton himself, the district only did a preliminary review of whether the school could cost-effectively be renovated.

“Glen Oak had a preliminary one, but not a final one,” Hinton said Friday.

Did you catch that? The school district has purchased eight houses at over $800,000, hired planners and architects to start designing a new school, made overtures to the park district toward a land-sharing agreement, etc., etc., and they’ve only done a preliminary review of whether the current Glen Oak School could cost-effectively be renovated.

If that sounds familiar, it could be because on April 19th, I took an in-depth look at the basis for the school district’s building plan, and concluded the same thing:

Yet, based on this “analysis,” the [Master Facilities Plan] report confidently concludes (emphasis mine): “The District has or will soon have the necessary match of funds derived both from available restricted reserves and the sale of a health-life-safety bond (for the replacement of a minimum of two and as many as six buildings the cost of which to remediate is greater than the cost of replacement).”

The report gives no justification for the statement in bold.

Nowhere in the report do they give a breakdown of what it would cost to renovate/expand the current buildings versus what it would cost to do a new construction (including acquisition, demolition, legal, and other hidden costs). There’s no feasibility study. All they’ve really done is identified which schools they feel (subjectively) are in greatest need of repair. That’s no basis upon which to start tearing down schools and building new ones on different sites.

Five months later, Mr. Hinton has confirmed my conclusions. I wonder when Hinton, et. al., were planning to do a “final” review. After the new school was completely built, perhaps? And what are they planning to do if it turns out the result is, “Well I’ll be dogged, I guess it is more cost-effective to renovate this building”? Will they renovate it and turn it into another office building, like they did with Blaine-Sumner Middle School?

What happened to the district’s efforts to save money? That’s how this whole thing started, you know. Closing 11 schools and building 6 new ones was supposed to save the district a bundle of money. Yet cost estimates for the new school in the Woodruff attendance area are already $7 million over budget, property acquisition costs are already over budget, and the $500,000 they were supposed to save by closing Blaine-Sumner has evaporated as they’ve instead put money into renovating it and keeping it open as an office building.

This is no way to run a school district, folks.

Television

“Marie” at 10 p.m.: Much ado about nothing

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Steve Tarter writes about the “chilling effects of censorship that loom down the road,” as tacitly prophesied by WTVP’s decision not to air a special on Marie Antoinette until 10:00 p.m. due to “risque drawings and depictions of the Queen of France” that are shown.

Note that they’re still showing this program, just not at 7:00 when kids could be watching. Apparently, that’s what’s defined as “censorship” nowadays.

But this is the line that really got me: “We look to public television for bold reporting on issues. Will that be curbed now that there’s a threat that the finished product may be too hot to handle for some stations?” This country had much, much stricter decency standards thirty years ago and earlier, yet television was still able to take down McCarthyism and bring Vietnam into our living rooms every night. Don’t tell me TV can’t do “bold reporting” without showing naked pictures and playing unedited four-letter words.

Speaking of which, Tarter adds this: “Kevin Harlan, general manager over at WMBD-TV […] heard rumblings from some groups about some of the language used in the ‘9-11’ documentary run by CBS two weeks ago. New York firefighters had the gall to utter four-letter words while describing the devastation at the World Trade Center.” Tarter apparently is unable to grasp the subtle distinction between “live” and “taped” programming. If the firefighters are on live TV and reacting to a tragedy like 9/11, that’s one thing. No one is arguing that they should somehow have the presence of mind to censor themselves as they watch thousands of people die before their eyes.

But the program he’s talking about is a documentary; all the footage is on tape. The director and editor know exactly what is going to be said and when, and they are completely capable of bleeping out any offensive words at that point. Not only is it technically possible, but it also would not diminish the emotional impact of the program in any way. Who is the person who, upon hearing bleeps or audio dropout during that segment of the broadcast, thinks to himself, “I wonder what those fellows said when that plane smashed into that building?”

We all know what they said. We all know what we said when it happened. Not editing those words out is just the networks’ way of callously exploiting a national tragedy to push the envelope of what kind of language is allowed on broadcast television.

But the point is you’ve got a growing cable/satellite universe unfettered by federal restrictions while over-the-air networks cower in fear lest a community zealot cry foul.

In addition to having to fight for funding, now PBS also must battle with Animal Channel, TNT, History Channel and all the rest on a playing field not even close to being level.

And when was the last time you saw nudity or heard four-letter words on “Animal Channel” (did he mean “Animal Planet”?), TNT, or the History Channel? Hmm? If PBS is getting beaten up by these networks, it’s not because they’re “cower[ing] in fear” over federal decency standards.

Peoria Journal Star

Funniest Headline of the Year

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I hope this doesn’t appear in the print edition like this:

Scary Headline

In case you can’t see the image: the headline says “Most voters say governor should live.” The subhead says, “63 percent say it’s ‘very important’ or ‘somewhat important.'”

Well, it’s gratifying to know that most voters say the governor should live, but I’m a bit concerned about the 37% who don’t think it’s even “somewhat important.”

I can’t tell you how confused and appalled I was before realizing that this story was about the governor living in Springfield; not about the governor living in general. Once I figured it out, I couldn’t stop laughing. The headline isn’t as funny by itself, but coupled with the subhead, it cracks me up every time!

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Did Hinton act without authority?

18 Comments

As many commenters have pointed out, there seems to be a controversy brewing over how District 150’s counterproposal was handled, especially by the district, but to some extent by the city.

First, the Journal Star reported on Friday that “Hinton told [school] board members about the proposals before he delivered them [to Mayor Ardis], but they all declined comment Thursday. Many said they looked at a draft document and didn’t feel comfortable discussing it.”

As one of my readers pointed out, “Final authority for all matters concerning the District lies with the Board of Education,” according to District 150’s Board of Education Policy Manual. So one wonders why Hinton is giving the board a draft document, then presenting it to the city as the school board’s official counterproposal before the board even has a chance to discuss it.

One story I heard through the grapevine (so this is all hearsay) is that Clare Jellick of the Journal Star actually got a copy of the district’s counterproposal on Wednesday (no one will admit to leaking it), and so Hinton hurriedly delivered it to the city on Thursday afternoon. Supposedly he didn’t want city officials to learn about it by reading it in the paper Friday morning. But that just sounds odd to me, for some reason. Hinton’s been around a while. Surely he knows he could have just told Jellick that it was a “work in progress” and said he couldn’t comment on it until the board had a chance to discuss it, right? It’s not like this guy has never worked with the media before.

There seem to be two possibilities: (1) Hinton acted completely on his own in presenting this draft document to Mayor Ardis, in which case the board could declare the proposal void and come up with a new, board-approved proposal to present to the city; or (2) the board approved this document, but not in a public forum — in which case I’m pretty sure that’s a violation of the Open Meetings Act — and Hinton accidentally acted on it before the board legally approved it. Either way, one would think Hinton would get some sort of reprimand for acting without authority.

Moving on to the city…. On Friday, the Journal Star said, “Councilman Bob Manning said internal talks [on the proposal from District 150] likely won’t start until next week.” But then, at 11 a.m. Friday, there was a press conference where the Mayor and Councilman Manning announced the city was rejecting the offer and would not offer any further counterproposals. That was a quick change of plans.

“First District Councilman Clyde Gulley said he didn’t understand why the City Council didn’t discuss the proposals Thursday night, when it was already gathered for a budget meeting,” the Journal Star reported today.

Now, I personally don’t see this as being that big of a deal. This is a third-district issue and up to Manning’s discretion if he wants to pursue it further. It’s never been brought before the council, and there’s no law saying Manning has to pursue this or get council approval to abandon the idea. The $500,000 Manning was proposing giving to the school for land acquisition would have come out of money earmarked for third-district projects, but had not been formally proposed to the council yet. If Manning decides to drop the issue and not bring a proposal before the council for a vote, then that’s his prerogative.

Based on the proposal he received, I’m sure Manning saw no other option than to end negotiations. The district’s counterproposal wasn’t any different than what they’ve been pursuing all along; one would be hard-pressed to find any kind of compromise in their counteroffer. The district essentially asked for three times as much money as they were offered by the city and a larger site. Manning had already offered all the money he had to offer, so he has no wiggle room to come back with a counteroffer on funding.

Worse, the district knows full well that the city has only been pursuing this explicitly because they don’t want the new school built at Glen Oak Park. So why is one of the counteroffers from the district to give the city the old Glen Oak building in exchange for $500,000 for property acquisition at the park site? Talk about a slap in the face! Hello — if the city were willing to consider putting the school in the park, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. How could Manning conclude anything other than that the district isn’t really interested in trying to find a workable solution?

Peoria Park District

Trial date set for Park District’s Open Meetings Act violation

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Park District LogoWhen the Peoria Park District (PPD) met in executive session to discuss partnering with District 150 on a new location for a school building for the Woodruff attendance area, they violated the Open Meetings Act (OMA). Only if they were discussing a sale price for land could they make such plans away from the public eye. That’s the gist of the suit being brought against the PPD by neighborhood activists Karrie Alms and Sarah Partridge.

Alms reports that their attorney recently went before Peoria County Chief Judge John Barra “to see if our original complaint could be amended to capture the new admissions of the PPD deleting the tapes from the March 8, 2006 PPD Executive Board Meeting. Judge Barra moved that our complaint was so amended. In addition, a trial date has been set for 7 December 2006.”

Their attorney is William Shay of Howard & Howard. He says the deletion of the March 8 closed session tape is a separate violation of the OMA; the Act states that the tape must be retained for at least 18 months after the meeting.

There’s not a lot of litigation over OMA violations, Shay said, because there’s not much in it for the complainant. Typically, by the time one of these cases makes it through the courts, it’s a moot point because either the public body has subsequently ratified any questionable actions in open session, or the plans have already been carried out (for instance, in this case, it could be decided after the school district has already broken ground).

If the Park District is found guilty of violating the OMA, Alms and Partridge could be awarded their attorneys fees, but that’s it for damages. As far as what relief they can get from a successful suit, they are asking for three things: (a) declaration that the PPD did, in fact, violate the OMA, (b) admonishment by the judge for said violation, and (c) prohibition of the PPD from having any further discussions with District 150 regarding sharing Glen Oak Park land. Of those, (c) seems to be the least likely outcome, but is a legal remedy under the OMA if a judge would choose to impose it.

Even if Alms and Partridge get the first two outcomes and nothing more, it will still send a strong message to the PPD not to play fast and loose with the Open Meetings Act. Shay would like to see that strong message sent to all public bodies — that we all have a right to hear public business discussed in public.

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

City to D150: Thanks, but no thanks

5 Comments

At a joint press conference today, the City officially responded to District 150’s counterproposal regarding the site of a new school for the Woodruff attendance area: “We respectfully decline.” Bob Manning explained that there was really very little room for negotiation to begin with.

“From day one, we put together our best-faith effort,” Manning said, referring to the City’s offer of $500,000 in property acquisition costs if the school board would build the replacement school at Frye and Wisconsin, site of the current Glen Oak Primary School. He added the City wouldn’t be making any further counterproposals.

It’s practically certain that the school district will now continue their pursuit of building the school at the corner of Prospect and Frye, adjacent to Glen Oak Park, and resume acquiring that property. But Ken Hinton, District 150 Superintendent, wouldn’t confirm that. He said he didn’t have the authority to make that statement because it’s a school board decision.

Mayor Ardis didn’t want today’s events to be characterized as “talks breaking down,” but rather that “we’ve agreed to disagree” and are moving forward. In fact, the catchphrase for the press conference was that both parties are “moving forward.”

“The important question is, ‘Where are we going?'” Hinton retorted when asked if it was easy for him to speak of moving forward when the district got everything it wanted. He called the school siting debate “a learning experience,” called attention to all the other ways the school board and City are working together, and stressed the school board and City have the same goal — to work together to provide the best education we can for the children of this community.

When asked if the city would cut any funding they currenly provide to District 150, Manning responded that there would be “no retaliatory strikes.” George Jacob congratulated Manning on his leadership on this issue and stressed that the City’s and community’s concern is rebuilding neighborhoods, and they would like to partner with District 150 and other governmental bodies (PHA, neighborhood associations, etc.) in the future in that effort.

My take: It was clear to City officials that the school district has no interest in compromising, so they figured it’s not worth pursuing any further. I hate to say “I told you so,” but I did predict this would be the outcome way back on July 17. It was clear from day one that the school district had no intention of seriously considering the city’s offer. One wonders why it took them two whole months (Manning gave them the City’s offer July 15) to respond.

I appreciated the conciliatory tone of the press conference, but let’s be honest — there is a rift between the city and the school district. Even though there may not be any “retaliatory strikes,” I believe that school projects are not going to be as high a priority now when it comes to budget-cutting time for the city. If the police department needs more officers on the street and there’s no money in the budget to hire more officers, do you think the truancy officers on loan to the school district might get reassigned? You bet.

So, while I’m sure there will be no capricious cutting of the city’s support for District 150, I don’t see the school board getting the level of cooperation and funding that they would have if they’d cooperated with the city on this school siting project.

But hey, the school district apparently doesn’t need money anyway, right? I mean, the whole premise of closing schools was to shutter the buildings and sell them, saving $500,000 per building according to their Master Facilities Plan. Yet when they closed Blaine-Sumner Middle School, they didn’t sell it or save a half-million dollars. They retrofitted it with air conditioning and turned it into an office building for the district’s special education workers. What about the health/safety problems? What about the asbestos? What about the $500,000 they need to save, which is the whole reason they’re closing buildings in the first place?

District 150 continues to lose credibility, and now they’re probably going to lose funding, too. If only their commitment to solvency and cooperation were as strong as their commitment to putting a suburban-style school at Glen Oak Park.