All posts by C. J. Summers

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

District pays top dollar for Prospect properties

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It’s just a formality, but the District 150 school board is slated to approve the purchase of eight properties on N. Prospect totalling $877,500 at Monday’s board meeting. The contracts are already signed, the money spent, but this action will just make it legal.

Here are the properties the district has purchased, along with their fair market value according to the Peoria County website (based on their assessed value):

Address Sales Price 2005 FMV Tax ID #
2102 N. Prospect $140,000 $114,360 1434378004
2126 N. Prospect $98,000 $60,150 1434332012
2138 N. Prospect $82,000 $54,780 1434332009
2142 N. Prospect $90,000 $56,280 1434332008
2144 N. Prospect $89,000 $63,750 1434332007
2206 N. Prospect $120,000 $86,850 1434332017
2208 N. Prospect $133,500 $89,190 1434332016
2212 N. Prospect $125,000 $84,180 1434332001
TOTAL $877,500 $609,540

And here’s where all those properties are in a satellite photo, courtesy of Peoria GIS and Photoshop:

The school district really jumped the gun on these purchases, and the near million dollars they’ve spent will make it harder for them to back out of their plans to put Glen Oak school on this property. Instead of merely putting down earnest money on these properties until after the school board approved them, they went ahead and signed purchase agreements.

It’s understandable that they would pay more than fair market value for the homes, since the district initiated the sale and the owners want to make enough to pay for relocation and get a comparable house somewhere else. But now if the district abandons its present course of action, they would end up having to resell the property — at a significant loss. The $267,960 over fair market value they’ve spent won’t be easily absorbed by a district that’s already running in the red.

However, as expensive a mistake as it was, it would be a bigger mistake to spend another $15 million to build a school on the corner of Glen Oak Park. The district should listen to the residents, parents, city leaders, et al., and either renovate or raze and rebuild Glen Oak School on its present site. If they would just give up their crazy delusion that they need 15 acres in the middle of a dense urban area to build a new school, they could actually renovate/rebuild Glen Oak for a lot cheaper than what they were going to spend to put it in Glen Oak Park, and that would mitigate the loss from the properties for which they paid top dollar.

City Council, City of Peoria

Ardis: Status quo is not acceptable; Peoria must become more business-friendly

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Peoria has a reputation for not being especially business-friendly, but Mayor Ardis wants to change that. He’s proposing the city implement nineteen specific changes and/or improvements in a six-page Business Task Force Report (read it here) that was placed on the council agenda for Tuesday. The report was a collaborative effort with Third District Councilman Bob Manning, Fifth District Councilman Patrick Nichting, and local businessman Lee Graves.

The changes are placed under four major categories, or action items:

  1. Better information and communication regarding the development process.
  2. Reduced time frames for permits and zoning certificates.
  3. Changes in codes and/or policies that will facilitate development and redevelopment.
  4. Customer service and friendly, helpful attitude is a priority and goal for all city employees and departments.

Some of the highlights of the plan: The city is working to develop a “Developer’s Handbook” that would be “a guide to assist customers in the development process, containing regulations, processes, and policies related to development approval.” They would publish it in hard copy and also digital form, presumably to put on the city’s and/or Chamber of Commerce’s website. The goal is to have this project done by September this year.

The report also calls for “a complete rewrite of the city’s comprehensive plan.” This plan hasn’t been updated since 1992. The first phase of that rewrite is happening this weekend — the development of a form-based code for the Heart of Peoria. The rest of the comprehensive plan is tentatively scheduled to be completed by January 2008. That may sound like a long time, but if you’ve ever seen the comprehensive plan (it’s huge), you know that’s a pretty ambitious goal.

City employees would receive customer service training under this plan in order to improve their attitude and professionalism in dealing with city customers. I’ve never had to work with the departments a developer would need to consult, so I can’t comment on their attitude or professionalism. However, the city employees I have dealt with, both in the treasurer’s office and the city clerk’s office, have all been friendly, helpful, and professional.

There are also several items that involve regularly-scheduled meetings between different departments to improve communication, and several very specific items that were undoubtedly brought up by developers as being pet peeves of theirs when working with the city. Many items have already been completed. My favorite is item 2A: they reduced the time it takes to get residential building permits from one day to one hour. Now that’s process improvement!

This is a big step in the right direction. Peoria should be more business-friendly, and this document shows the city is aware of the problem and working to correct it. Kudos to the Business Task Force for their work on this plan.

City Council, City of Peoria, Parking

Free riverfront parking on the council’s agenda

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You may soon be able to park two hours for free — during the day — at the city-owned lots along the riverfront.

On the city council agenda this coming Tuesday is a proposal to change the way fees are charged for the Michel/Edgewater/Liberty and Riverfront Village parking lots. Currently, these lots are staffed during the day with parking attendants and you pay a set rate for every half hour you’re parked weekdays during working hours.

Under the proposed fee structure, there would be no gates or attendants and you would be allowed two hours of free parking at these lots weekdays during working hours. If you parked longer than two hours, you would get a parking ticket. (Incidentally, if you don’t pay your parking ticket, the city approved an ordinance at their last meeting that authorizes the city to send unpaid parking tickets to a collection agency instead of through the courts.)

The Peoria Riverfront Association requested the parking fee change as a way to increase patronage of riverfront businesses and save the city money. The city incurred a net loss of $2,235 in 2005 because the cost of staffing full-time attendants exceeded revenues from parking fees. Much of the revenue comes from businesses who pay for their customers’ parking through ticket validation.

The city would enforce the two-hour limit by having a part-time city employee monitor the lots using a handheld license plate scanner from ParkTrak which basically allows the monitor to do “electronic tire chalking.” Barney Fife would have loved this gadget:

With ParkTrak Pro’s handheld License Plate Recognition technology, a flick of the chalkstick is turned into a click of the trigger. Each click records plate, date, time, and location, while simultaneously comparing duration of stay, distance moved (if any), and scofflaw status. Officers are automatically prompted to issue a ticket when a vehicle reaches overtime status. Flexible software allows for an individual license number’s total time duration to be calculated by stall, block face, street, programmable distance or zones. Added benefits include capturing a wealth of parker statistical data, and best of all electronic chalk marks… THAT CAN’T BE WIPED AWAY…

But before you get too excited about that free two-hour parking, it’s only being proposed on a one-year trial basis, so it may not last long. In any case, it will be done away with when the new museum is built. City Manager Randy Oliver says, “This is a short term solution and will not work upon completion of the Museum project.”

City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan

Studio H.O.P.: Open government at work

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Recently, Peorians have been up in arms about some decisions that were made by a certain government body without adequate input from the citizens. It made us feel left out, undervalued, like our opinion doesn’t matter about issues that affect us and our neighborhoods.

Well, if you felt that way, then you need to be at these “Studio H.O.P.” charrettes this weekend. The city council and staff are going out of their way to show you that they do value you, they want your opinion, and they want you to have a say in something that will directly affect you.

The charrette (or “citizen collaboration,” for those of you who don’t like French words) process is “to focus and record the political will of the citizens,” according to consultants Geoffrey Ferrell and Mary Madden who kicked off the Studio H.O.P. charrettes tonight (5/19) at the Civic Center. To successfully determine the “political will of the citizens,” they need as many citizens as possible to be there — to collaborate on this project.

What’s taking place this weekend is nothing less than a rewriting of the city’s comprehensive plan for the Heart of Peoria (roughly defined as the area of the city south of War Memorial Drive — think of it as the pre-Richwoods-Township-annexation area). The city will essentially be throwing out the Euclidian zoning laws which require strict segregation of commercial and residential land uses, and replacing them with something called “form-based codes.”

One website defines form-based codes as “a land development regulatory tool that places primary emphasis on the physical form of the built environment with the end goal of producing a specific type of ‘place.'” What the charrettes try to determine is just what type of “place” Peorians want to have, and then codify those desires into a regulatory document.

The charrettes will cover the entire Heart of Peoria area, but will give special emphasis to the Sheridan/Loucks triangle, the Prospect Road corridor, and the Warehouse District.

All they really want to know is how you want Peoria to look. How do you want the streets to look? The blocks? The neighborhoods? The special places? There will be a lot of ideas generated, and undoubtedly some contradictory ideas — they all get considered. When the idea gathering is done, the consultants will try to synthesize the ideas as much as possible, although there will obviously need to be some compromise on the most divergent ideas.

In the end, we’ll have a code that tells homeowners, developers, et al., what kind of physical form we want in our neighborhoods and business districts so that when they are developed and built out, they maintain the character and consistency we enjoy and expect.

And you have the opportunity to have a voice in writing this code. If you can make it, even for part of the day, it will be well worth your time to attend. The charrette goes from 8:30-Noon on Saturday, May 20.

City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan

Charrettes start tonight

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The charrettes start tonight, and they have an updated schedule:

  • Friday, May 19, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
    Heart of Peoria Charrette Kick-off Reception
    Location: Peoria Civic Center. Rooms 221 and 222
  • Saturday, May 20, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
    Charrette session for Sheridan Road-Loucks Corridor, Prospect Road Corridor, and Heart of Peoria Neighborhoods.
    Location: The Design Studio, 2nd floor of the Iron Front Building, 424 S.W. Washington Street. Free parking under the Bob Michel Bridge.
  • Sunday, May 21, 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
    Charrette session for Warehouse District.
    Location: The Design Studio, 2nd floor of the Iron Front Building, 424 S.W. Washington Street. Free Parking under the Bob Michel Bridge.
City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Park District, Peoria Public Schools, Ray LaHood

WWRD: What Would Ray Do?

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U.S. Congressional Representative LaHood is taking time away from representing our interests in Washington to try to broker a compromise between several local units of government and concerned citizens, according to the Journal Star today.

LaHood said he attended a meeting Monday where Mayor Jim Ardis and state Sen. George Shadid asked him to organize a future meeting with District 150 officials. At issue is the specific location for the school.

“I’m going to convene a meeting of all the parties to see if we can resolve whatever problems exist with the proposed project,” LaHood said Wednesday from his office in Washington, D.C.

Why?  I remember going to a debate between LaHood and his Democratic challenger in Metamora several years ago.  At issue for Metamorans at that time was the widening of Route 116.  A local farmer got up and wanted to know which candidate was going to do something to stop them from widening the road and taking part of his farmland.  Both of the candidates, to their credit, said that was a local issue and not within the scope of the office for which they were running.

How is the Glen Oak School situation different?  What compelling reason is there for escalating this to a U.S. Representative? Have we exhausted all options locally?  Are we at such an impasse that we need to bring in an arbitrator?  At best, this course of action seems premature.

City of Peoria, Peoria Police

Shooting too close to home

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A man was shot in the Rolling Acres subdivision on Wednesday, the Journal Star reported.  WEEK’s website reports that the man has died.

I attended Rolling Acres school for Kindergarten through seventh grade (it was a K-8 school back then), and I had many friends who lived throughout the Rolling Acres, Sherwood Forest, and Joanne Manor neighborhoods.  Hearing about a shooting should be shocking to us no matter where it happens, but I’ll be honest, it’s more shocking to me hearing that it happened in the neighborhood where I grew up.  I guess it just hits a little too close to home.

Nation/World

Britain looks to nuclear power; what will U.S. do?

According to the Times Online (London), “Britain is to build the first new generation of nuclear power stations for 20 years to avoid becoming dependent on foreign gas imports.” Right now, nuclear power accounts for 22% of Britain’s electricity, similar to the United States where nuclear power provides about 20% of our nation’s electricity. No nuclear power plants have come online in the U.K. since 1988 or in the U.S. since 1996, according to the Times and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, respectively. In contrast, France relies on nuclear power for 80% of their electricity.

With natural gas prices high and local electricity prices forecasted to go up 20-35% in 2007, is the U.S. planning to exploit nuclear energy as an alternative? The President wants to explore it, apparently. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has published a nice summary of U.S. nuclear policy which includes this information on the administration’s stand:

The Bush Administration has called for an expansion of nuclear power. For Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear energy research and development, the Administration is seeking $632.7 million for FY2007, an 18.1% increase from the FY2006 appropriation.

Believe it or not, Illinois leads the nation in nuclear capacity (source: EIA). In fact, our state has almost as much nuclear capacity all by itself as the United Kingdom. There are 11 reactors among the six plants located in the Land of Lincoln. Those plants are located in Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, Dresden, LaSalle, and Quad Cities. All the plants/reactors are owned by Exelon Corporation, the parent company of AmerGen, Commonwealth Edison, and other power companies in Illinois.

The plant in Clinton, however, cost over $4 billion to build, “leading the plant to produce some of the most expensive power in the Midwest.” And there are also concerns over safety and radioactive waste. CRS reports that “each nuclear reactor produces an annual average of about 20 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel and 50-200 cubic meters of low-level radioactive waste.” Where does it all go?

Spent fuel and other highly radioactive waste is to be isolated in a deep underground repository, consisting of a large network of tunnels carved from rock that has remained geologically undisturbed for hundreds of thousands of years. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (42 U.S.C. 10101 et seq.), Yucca Mountain in Nevada is the only candidate site for the national repository.

So there are trade-offs. Do the pros outweigh the cons for using more nuclear power in the U.S. to reduce our dependence on gas and oil? Or would we just be trading one problem (scarcity, emissions) for another (safety, radioactive waste), at a negligible economic advantage?

Caterpillar, City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

Caterpillar to acquire Progress Rail

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PEORIA, Ill. – Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) has reached an agreement to acquire Progress Rail Services, Inc. (Progress Rail) for $1.0 billion in cash, stock and assumption of debt. Progress Rail is majority owned by One Equity Partners, a private equity affiliate of JP Morgan Chase & Company, Inc.

Based in Albertville, Alabama, Progress Rail is a leading provider of remanufactured locomotive and railcar products and services to the North American railroad industry. With 2005 sales of $1.2 billion, the company has one of the most extensive rail service and supply networks in North America. It operates more than 90 facilities in 29 states in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with about 3,700 employees.

Wouldn’t it be great if a new facility were to open in Peoria, say maybe in Growth Cell 2?  As long as Peoria keeps trying to kill the Kellar Branch and rely solely on Union Pacific service from the west, it ain’t gonna happen.

Peoria Journal Star, State of Illinois

Preemptive amendments only protection against activist courts

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The Journal Star’s editorial board either hasn’t been paying attention to recent events or simply can’t put two and two together.

In their editorial today, “Same-sex marriage referendum a divisive distraction,” they observe, “Illinois already has a law that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, so this is redundant.” But the newspaper of record surely knows that in an age of judicial activism, passing laws is not enough. Massachusetts had a law defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, too, but the courts overturned it. So the only way to safeguard this law from judicial activism is to make it part of the constitution itself.

The editorial does mention that a constitutional amendment is the ultimate goal: “The November referendum is only advisory, intended to pressure Illinois lawmakers to put another referendum on another ballot to change the state constitution.” This is what happens when judges start legislating from the bench. The only recourse citizens have is to start writing laws directly into the constitution. And because this is such a long process, traditional marriage advocates don’t want to wait until the laws have been overturned to get started, like they did in Massachusetts.

The editorial goes on to say, “It’s a shame that petition organizers didn’t put their substantial grass-roots skills toward other family-friendly issues…,” as if the the definition of marriage is merely one issue in a litany of equivalent causes. Actually, marriage is the foundation upon which our definition of family is built, so “family-friendly issues” are dependent on our society’s view of marriage, not equal to it.

The editorial concludes with this admonition: “What Illinois is ready for is a focus on issues that make a real difference in people’s lives, not unnecessary and divisive distractions.” It’s actually quite practical to firmly establish the definition of marriage in Illinois. The very issues the Journal Star thinks are more important — health insurance, pensions — would be seriously impacted if same-sex marriage were legalized through some sort of court action, and Illinois would be ill-prepared for it.  Laws would need to be rewritten, financial projections would have to be completely refigured, and all within a short period of time.  Settling the issue of marriage by putting the definition in the constitution will provide stability both for families and the government.