All posts by C. J. Summers

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

Response to George Burrier and the RTA

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“This issue has dragged on long enough,” said George Burrier, president of both Recreational Trail Advocates and Friends of the Rock Island Trail.

He wonders why Carver Lumber Co. doesn’t withdraw its complaint and cooperate with the city, which has constructed a $2 million rail line to the company’s site from the west.

Customers of the Kellar line enjoyed city-subsidized service for years, Burrier said, because the city leased the line for $1 a year.

“And what is the definition of ‘adequate’?” asked Burrier, a retired lawyer.

That quote is from today’s Journal Star. I’d like to answer Mr. Burrier’s questions.  First of all, Carver won’t withdraw its complaint and “cooperate with the city,” because it tried that route once already and it cost them $60,000.  The city promised in writing that service would continue over the Kellar Branch until the western spur was completed. That service did not continue, and Carver had to truck its lumber for several months at great expense.  That’s what they got for their “cooperation.”  They’re not complaining out of spite, but to protect their business and the jobs of their employees.

Burrier’s claim of city-subsidized service shows a profound ignorance of the history of the city’s involvement in the rail line.  The city paid $856,000 for the rail line in 1984.  To recoup that investment, the city charged user fees of $175 per car, plus every business on the line had to pay a special assessment, whether they used the line or not.  The city eventually dropped the per-car user fee when one of the companies on the line went out of business.  Businesses along the line have not had a free ride, as Mr. Burrier implies.

As for the definition of “adequate,” we need only read the city’s very own contract with DOT Rail (parent company of the Central Illinois Railway which replaced Pioneer Industrial Railway).  This contract was signed June 26, 2000, and says in Article 2 (emphasis mine):

DOT shall use all commercially reasonable efforts to [secure] an interchange agreement with UP [Union Pacific] under terms that will not materially increase the rates charged the Rail Line’s customers or significantly alter the service level presently provided over the Kellar Branch.  Commercially reasonable efforts shall include, if necessary, the duty to pursue all available remedies through the Surface Transportation Board (“STB”) (or other regulatory agency or body having jurisdiction) to obtain such interchange agreement.

It’s only reasonable that the new service over the western spur be tested to make sure it meets these requirements before the Kellar Branch is removed. Remember, Carver has access to eight major rail lines via the Kellar Branch, but only one (UP) via the western spur.  If UP charges them an exorbitant tariff to provide service to the spur, they will have little or no recourse.

Burrier’s statements indicate he is either ignorant of the complexities surrounding this issue, or that he is apathetic to the plight of Carver Lumber.

City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

You be the judge: is this a news report or an editorial?

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The Journal Star has posted a midday report on the Surface Transportation Board decision from two weeks ago (reported here on April 25).

The headline says “Rails staying on trail for at least 90 days.” I know reporters don’t write headlines. I’m sure the person who wrote it was looking for a clever turn of phrase. However, it reveals the newspaper’s bias — notice they already consider the Kellar Branch a trail. The rails, which have been there for over 100 years, are made to sound like an evicted tenant who refuses to leave his apartment.

If you read the whole story, you’ll notice a couple of other little biases. While they interview George Burrier, president of both the Recreational Trail Advocates (RTA) and Friends of the Rock Island Trail, and Bonnie Noble, executive director of the Peoria Park District, they don’t interview Carver Lumber Company. Isn’t that interesting?

They talk about the grants the Park District has had on hold for twelve years waiting to build the trail, but don’t mention the $55,000 Carver Lumber had to spend on additional transportation costs when the city broke their promise to provide uninterrupted rail service via Central Illinois Railway.

They talk about trail advocates (like the RTA) being unhappy, but don’t mention rail advocates (like the Illinois Prairie Railroad Foundation) being thrilled.

In short, it’s an editorial masquerading (poorly) as an unbiased news report.

UPDATE 5/6/06: They’ve run a lengthier article in today’s paper that does interview Carver Lumber and has a different headline (“Trail delays drag on“). This article is much better than the original one in the “midday report.”

Blogosphere, Peoria County, Peoria Disposal Company

Whither goest the civic-minded?

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Not too long ago, I was doing some research on the Richwoods Township annexation back in 1964. During the time leading up to the referendum, there was a lot of heated rhetoric, and when the vote came around, the citizens were split almost right down the middle. The annexation passed by a mere 336 votes.

Yet, when it was all over, I was struck by a comment made by one of the opposition leaders. He expressed his disappointment over the loss, but then he added that he was a civic-minded man and wanted to see Peoria succeed, so he would get behind the annexation and do what he could to make sure the transition went smoothly. He wanted what was best for Peoria. This man was a true statesman.

Compare that response to the hazardous waste landfill proponents after the county board denied PDC’s application for expansion:

  • Hazardous-waste enthusiast Bill Dennis said on his blog, “The NIMBY […] crowd think they won last night. I’ll let them savor their ‘victory.’ After the lawsuits start and the bills rack up […] and the unemployment claims are filed, I’ll try not to gloat about being right.”
  • County board member and expansion supporter Merle Widmer wrote similarly, “This highly Christian community denies they are of the NIMBY crowd. Good Christians are compassionate and willingly accept other people’s problems, they say. We’ll see. The businesses leaders of this community see why the closure of this disposal site could prevent waste creating companies from coming here like, say medical laboratories….”
  • A pro-expansion commenter on Bill’s blog added, “The Peoria County Board reacted in cowardice because they are politicians and their chief responsibility is to ensure that they get re-elected. Had more of them looked at the facts, and had the virility to make the right decision even though the vocal minority of the public wouldn’t like it, the vote would have been to approve by a good margin.”

You get the feeling from reading some of the blogs and comments that these proponents actually wish the county would lose an appeal, or PDC would lay off a bunch of workers, or some other ill-will, just so they can spitefully say “I told you so.” Where are the statesmen today who lose gracefully and wish the best for the community?

The only comment I could find that had a hint of graciousness was, in all places, the Journal Star’s editorial: “Though we endorsed the landfill’s expansion, with conditions, for the community’s sake we hope there is no reversal.”

If proponents are correct that a reversal would mean PDC could expand the landfill without any of the conditions or safeguards the county requested, including their offer not to add to the oldest part of the landfill, I would hope proponents wouldn’t really be wishing the worst on Peoria just because the vote didn’t go their way.

Caterpillar, Peoria County, Peoria Disposal Company

Landfill expansion soundly defeated; time to move on

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Last night, the Peoria County Board voted 12-6 to deny Peoria Disposal Company’s (PDC) hazardous waste landfill expansion application.  Opponents cheered, proponents were disappointed (if not a little bitter), PDC is planning to appeal to the Illinois Pollution Control Board.

But I think regardless of how the appeals come out, it’s time we all got on the same team and started seriously researching alternatives to burying hazardous waste.  It can be done.  I found this interesting piece of information (PDF) on Caterpillar’s website.  On page 11 of this document, it says:

We can set the example for others to follow.  In 1997, an employee team at our Sumter, South Carolina, facility set out to develop a process that would, for the first time ever, recycle 100 percent of hazardous waste and totally eliminate landfill. They succeeded. It cost half-a-million dollars to do it, but the new process also saves Caterpillar more than $400,000 every year. It was the right thing for the environment. It saved Caterpillar money as well.

The first thing that struck me was the fact that this happened in 1997 — that’s almost ten years ago.  Has this process been refined/improved?  Marketed?  Is this something that PDC and other hazardous waste landfills could employ?  Or that Keystone could employ?

The second thing that struck me is that it cost “half-a-million dollars to do it.”  Converting that to 2006 dollars, that’s still only $631,000 (approx.).  It doesn’t sound like it takes a tremendous amount of money to find these solutions, does it?  Compare that to the million dollars PDC spent just on their expansion application — let alone how much it’s going to cost to appeal the board’s decision.

I don’t think one has to be a rabid environmentalist to see the value of recycling this waste versus encasing it in concrete and burying it in the ground.  Even if you’re a proponent of the landfill expansion, wouldn’t you still rather live in a world where there’s no need for such landfills?

Blogosphere, Immigration

Mahkno has the low-down on immigration

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If you haven’t read it yet, check out Mahkno’s blog entry on immigration. He’s done a lot of research and it’s a very interesting read. I fall into the category of those who are not anti-immigration per se, just anti-illegal-immigration. I have to admit, though, Mahkno is right — I didn’t have a clue how difficult it is to get into this country legally. It’s no wonder we have an illegal immigration problem, given all the red tape we’ve created. I’m still not in favor of amnesty, but I do think our legal immigration process needs serious reform, and quickly.

Television

Just imagine if it were “Mohammedtown”

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I’m not Catholic, but this story from the Sydney Morning Herald bothers me. MTV plans to air a blatantly sacrilegious cartoon called Popetown, “which depicts the Pope […] bouncing through St. Peter’s in Rome on a cross-like pogo stick and satirizes religious ceremonies.” Non-Catholic Christians might actually chuckle a bit at that, but they’ll stop laughing when they see the advertisement for this series that shows “Jesus apparently getting down from the cross to sit in an armchair and watch the program. The advert’s tagline read: Have a laugh instead of hanging around.”

Not surprisingly, Catholic bishops — especially those from the Pope’s home state of Bavaria — are outraged. As well they should be. If this were a send-up of another religion (for example, Islam), you can bet no one would even consider airing it. Why do broadcasters have no respect or common decency? Didn’t their mothers teach them not to mock other people’s religions? In our supposedly sensitive, tolerant, and politically-correct society, it seems that the only religion no one is required to be sensitive or tolerant toward is Christianity.

City of Peoria, East Bluff, Peoria Public Schools

District 150’s missteps not uncommon

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One of the most surprising things I learned from reading the resources available at the National Trust for Historic Preservation website is how common District 150’s missteps are from a national perspective.  Reading the NTHP publication “Why Johnny Can’t Walk to School” (PDF file), published in 2002, is like reading our morning paper lately.

The whole report is fascinating and a highly-recommended read, but I just want to point out a few highlights from the section titled “How Shortsighted Policies Undermine Historic Neighborhood Schools”:

  • “Many state education departments either mandate or recommend a minimum number of acres for schools. […] Sites as large as those recommended today are hard to find in older cities and towns, where older schools typically occupy only two to eight acres, are surrounded by densely developed neighborhoods, and have no room to expand. […]  In Massachusetts, older communities have had to give up precious parkland and farmland so schools could meet acreage standards.”
  • “In some cases, state acreage standards are actually more flexible than they are represented to be. However, some school districts treat recommendations as if they were regulations, particularly when they want an excuse to tear down and build new. When citizens working to save older neighborhood schools try to distinguish between what’s required and what’s merely recommended, they sometimes run into a brick wall, buck-passing between state and local officials, or both.” Peoria is suffering from this: Ken Hinton went on WMBD radio and left the impression the state mandated 15 acres for a new school, when in fact Illinois has no minimum acreage requirement. And even at the meeting Monday night, school officials were applying the erroneous 15-acre standard to the current Glen Oak School site, protesting they’d have to demolish 60 houses to get that much space at the corner of Wisconsin and Frye and conlcuding, “the district simply doesn’t have the money to build there.” Yet the 15-acre standard is completely arbitrary and impractical for an inner-city school.
  • When comparing the costs of renovation vs. new construction, “certain new construction costs — items such as land acquisition, water and sewer line extensions, transportation and road work, for example — may not be factored into the comparison. […] The rules also trivialize other values, such as a community’s desire to maintain a school as a neighborhood anchor or to have a school to which children can walk.”
  • The costs of busing children longer distances as a result of building schools in remote locations are sometimes ignored, even though these costs can be substantial.
  • “Because of insufficient operating funds, many school districts […] have to defer needed building maintenance.  In other cases, school boards have been criticized for allowing older schools to deteriorate, knowing it will then be easier to garner voter approval for new buildings.”
  • And finally, this is my favorite: “Although many school boards are models of inclusiveness and openness, other boards act in secrecy and make citizens feel shut of the planning process.”

Regarding that last point, the Journal Star correctly pointed out in a recent editorial that the board’s actions weren’t technically secret.  They did disclose that Glen Oak Park and Morton Square Park were potential sites back in October 2005, even saying explicitly that the Glen Oak Park site was “preferred.” However, the final decision-making process was not what one would call “inclusive.”

According to the master facilities planning document, the committee held forums September 5-16, 2005, before the document disclosing specific sites was released.  After the document was released, no further input from neighbors, parents, the city, or other concern citizens was solicited until this past Monday night’s meeting.  But I think everyone’s pleased they provided Monday’s forum, belated as it was — let’s just hope it results in some positive changes from the school board.

City of Peoria, East Bluff, Peoria Public Schools

Quiet school board members not a bad thing

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There’s been a lot on the news about the format of the District 150 public forum last night at Woodruff High School.  There was no real dialogue — the board gave their presentation and the residents gave their presentations.  The board chose not to respond to questions or comments from the audience, but instead post responses on their website at a later date, after they’ve had a chance to discuss them.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  The natural tendency would be for the school board members to be defensive in the face of questions and comments from the audience, and want to explain themselves.  Had they responded directly in the forum last night, a lot of time would have been spent with the school board talking, and talking, and talking.  The format they chose allowed the maximum amount of time for East Bluff residents and other concerned citizens to voice their concerns and for the board to do the best thing they could do:  listen.

Of more concern to me was the fact that not all the school board members were there.  According to the Journal Star, the board members who attended were Alicia Butler, Sean Matheson, Steve Morris, David Gorenz and Mary Spangler.  That means Garrie Allen and Martha Ross didn’t show up.  Why not?  Where were they?  Did they have a good excuse to miss such an important meeting?  Or did they not feel listening to residents was important?

Property Rights, Town of Normal

Normal bans private property rights… er, smoking

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The Normal City Council last night approved a smoking ban in just about all public places, including private businesses like restaurants and pubs. It’s set to take effect Jan. 1, 2007.

I’m a non-smoker. Never have smoked, probably never will. But I still think bans like these infringe on private property rights. If a business wants to let people smoke in its private establishment, why shouldn’t it be allowed? This seems like a blatant case of government overreaching — a back-door approach to prohibition.

Why don’t they outlaw alcohol as well? If people were only allowed to drink alcohol in their homes and not in public places, then you’d have fewer drunk drivers on the roads, and wouldn’t that improve public health and safety?

It’s very simple. Everyone knows the health risks of smoking with a minirig and second-hand smoke. If people don’t want to be subjected to it and don’t want their kids subjected to it, then they shouldn’t go to establishments that allow smoking. There are lots of restaurants that are smoke-free, so it’s not like there are no options for these people. If businesses that allow smoking discover they can get more business — make more money — by going smoke-free, they will.

Instead, we just keep chipping away at private property rights.