All posts by C. J. Summers

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

Council roundup: We have an understanding

The city council approved a “memorandum of understanding” between the Renaissance Park Commission and District 150 school board “in order to research and develop a project proposal for a math, science and technology academy for Renaissance Park.”

This was an easy thing to vote on, frankly, since there is no financial obligation to any of the parties involved. It just says that they’re all in agreement on the goal. There was a lot of love to go around, and only one minor controversy.

That controversy was the last three words of the action requested: “for Renaissance Park.” Gary Sandberg objected to this wording because he felt it was a “hard boundary” that was unnecessary. He suggested that Peoria Central High School would be a good location to house a math/science academy, even though it’s not within the boundaries of Renaissance Park.

Van Auken amended her motion to strike the last three words of the action requested, and the motion passed unanimously.

Grayeb had a good point during the discussion of this item. He cautioned against focusing too much on science and technology in the younger grades because grade school children need a more balanced, liberal education, including history, social studies/government, literature, handwriting, etc. He felt the upper grades were the time to gear curriculum more heavily toward math, science and technology.

And, he had a little zing for the Journal Star. He intoned through his usual Tuesday-night grimace, “We have an excellent school district despite cartoons that appear in our monopoly newspaper.” Ha! Look out, Journal Star — he may ask the council to look into buying out the city’s newspaper of record. It’s owned by out-of-state investors, you know.

Just before the council voted, Gulley expressed concern about the school being built within Ren Park. Apparently he fell asleep during the first 15 minutes of the discussion when the council addressed that issue. Even the usually unflappable Ardis sounded exasperated as he explained to Gulley the council already talked about that, and quickly called for the vote.

City Council

Council Roundup: New car wash approved for Sterling Ave.

On the consent agenda, a portion of the agenda that is believed to be items of little controversy but consistently has items removed from it each council meeting, there was an item to approve a special use permit to allow a new car wash in the 3100 block of Sterling.

At-large councilman Chuck Grayeb was indignant that it was included in the consent agenda.  When he asked why it wasn’t a separate item, City Manager Randy Oliver replied that in staff meeting he was told no one on the council objected to it and there was no public opposition.  Apparently Grayeb missed that meeting.

He turned out to be the only one who was against it.  His concern was that the car wash would be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but would only be supervised from 9-5 each day.  He believes that, based on other car washes he’s approved in the past, loud music and other detriments to nearby residents will result.

The item passed, 10-1.

City of Peoria, Renaissance Park

Council Roundup: Ren Park marketing elicits most discussion

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The Ren Park Commission got approval to hire Converse Marketing for “various initiatives” to market the area. This resulted in no small amount of discussion regarding what should be included in that marketing material. The adjacent neighborhoods didn’t specifically enter into the discussion, as Monday’s Word on the Street column suggested.

It was kind of funny. First-district councilman Clyde Gulley complained that the marketing pieces were limited to areas within the Ren Park boundaries, but then second-district councilwoman Barbara Van Auken pointed out that Gulley was invited to present his concerns to the commission and never showed, use social media to get sales. Then at-large councilman Gary Sandberg pointed out that areas outside of the Ren Park boundaries in fact are included in the Ren Park marketing materials. Gulley, not one to let the facts confuse him, continued to complain about the same thing and voted against the item.

Sandberg also voted against the item, although I never could figure out why exactly. At-large councilman George Jacob was the last dissenting vote. He wasn’t against this marketing per se, but felt that the council needed to have a more comprehensive approach to marketing — that they weren’t spending limited tax dollars in the most strategic way.

Still, the motion passed 8-3. I was taking notes during the meeting and, just for fun, I’ve included them here for those of you who like stream-of-consciousness blogging. Just click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below.

Continue reading Council Roundup: Ren Park marketing elicits most discussion →

Bradley University, City Council

Happy Bradley Week

The City Council this evening unanimously declared that this week is Peoria Bradley Week in honor of the Braves’ advance to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.

Mayor Ardis also issued a friendly challenge to the mayor of Memphis that we’ll be hearing more about tomorrow.  Instead of betting Memphis a pizza in Peoria that Bradley will win Thursday, Ardis wants to set up a competition between Peoria and Memphis to see who can raise the most money for St. Jude.  The more money that can be raised for charity, the better.  I like the way Ardis looks for these kinds of opportunities.

Elections

Report: New Voting Machines

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I used one of the new voting machines today after work. I found the machine itself easy to use, and don’t have any complaints about it. It was actually quite intuitive. I imagine that older people and others who aren’t as computer-literate as I might take a little longer to have a good comfort-level with this new machine. But, overall, I don’t think there’s much of a learning curve.

I don’t know if this is the way my new precinct has always been or if this has to do with the new machines, but I noticed that the line went pretty slowly. There were only maybe four to six people there to vote, but it took about 15 minutes to go through the line. It never took me more than 5 minutes to vote at my old precinct, under the old system. Anyone else experience delays compared to past primaries?

I still maintain that there was nothing wrong with the old system, and that this was a case of solving a problem that didn’t exist.

Elections, Peoria Journal Star

JS really shines when it comes to election coverage

Have you ever gone to a political candidate’s website? Usually, they’re terrible. Oh, they’re good if your goal is to give money to their campaign — it’s easy to find your way to the contribution page. But if you’re looking for information — detailed information — on what they plan to do if elected, forget it. If they have anything, it’s usually little more than platitudes: improve schools, stop corruption, create jobs. All the candidates want to do those things.

In contrast, go to the Journal Star’s election guide, and there you’ll find a wealth of information on the candidates. For governor, there are video clips of the Journal Star’s interview with each candidate. There are links to many other election resources, too. But my favorite part is the questionnaire. The Journal Star mailed questionnaires to each candidate in contested races and published their answers. I find these to be the most valuable.

First of all, the questions are very good — no softball questions here. And secondly, you get a feel for what’s really important to each candidate. Some have long, detailed answers on one or two questions, then gloss over the other ones; that says something about their priorities. Others are flippant, almost like they don’t take the questionnaire seriously; and that says something about the value they put on communicating with the public.

For example, Republican gubernatorial candidate Andy Martin answers a question about school funding by simply saying, ” This is a complex issue and there are no easy answers. I would press the legislature to consider alternatives.” Wow, thanks for that insight, Andy. I had no idea it was so complex. Glad to see your “plan” is to push this one off on the legislature.

I was most disappointed to see that 2nd-district school board candidate (and incumbent) Garrie Allen didn’t even bother to fill out his questionnaire. I wasn’t especially impressed with his opponent and was leaning toward voting for him until I saw that. Why should I vote for him when he doesn’t have time or think it’s important to answer a few questions for the public?

But I digress. My point here is that the Journal Star consistently does an excellent job at election coverage. I’ve been voting since 1988 and have found the Journal Star’s election guide to always be one of the best sources, if not the best source, of detailed information on the candidates’ positions.  It’s an invaluable service, and I think they should be highly commended for it.

And if you haven’t gotten out to vote yet, the polls are still open as of this writing. Check out the Journal Star’s election guide and then do your civic duty.

Uncategorized

Where’s the wheelbarrow black market around here?

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I got an e-mail today from a neighbor working in her yard. She just went inside for a few seconds to get a drink, and when she came back her wheelbarrow was gone. That’s the second wheelbarrow in a month that’s been stolen from my neighborhood.

Am I the only one who thinks that’s a strange item to steal? Is there a large black-market demand for wheelbarrows in this city? Are the folks attending March Madness downtown being approached near shady alleys by guys in trenchcoats who say, “Psst! Hey buddy, wanna buy a wheelbarrow?” Or, to think the best of my fellow man, could there have been two recent gardening emergencies that demandeded the immediate commandeering of a wheelbarrow?

What’s the cash value of a wheelbarrow? Maybe we should call the pawn shops and see if there’s a trend — a spike in hot wheelbarrows. We could set up a sting operation. I wonder if it’s the work of a single bandit or if stealing wheelbarrows has become a new gang-initiation ritual. There are so many possibilities….

I really don’t mean to make light of this situation. I would be ticked off if someone stole my wheelbarrow. But I still think it’s the strangest item I’ve ever heard of being stolen.

Uncategorized

Mr. Mom

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My wife is at a “Hearts at Home” conference this weekend in Bloomington. It’s like a mini-vacation for her. She gets to hang out with grown-ups, not carry a diaper bag, talk about grown-up things instead of trying to arbitrate tinker-toy disputes, and eat in restaurants without having to cut up anyone’s food for them.

Meanwhile, I’m watching the three little urchins for a couple of days (right now it’s nap time). It’s been fun spending time with the kids, but it never ceases to amaze me how much time is spent preparing meals and cleaning up after them. I think if I had to stay home all day every day, I would accomplish little more than feeding my children and cleaning the kitchen. How my wife accomplishes anything else is a mystery to me.

As kind of a corollary to that, I don’t know why my wife’s hands aren’t chapped, cracked, and bleeding most of the time. After doing dishes all day and constantly having to wash up after wiping noses, changing diapers, and cleaning up poopy bottoms, my hands are raw.

After listening to my 5-year-old chatterbox all day, I also understand why my wife wants to call me at work frequently to have an adult conversation. It reminds me of Dave Barry’s contention that becoming a parent makes you stupider. He gave this example:

Albert Einstein Shortly Before The Birth Of His Son: “To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.”

Albert Einstein Shortly After The Birth Of His Son: “Daddy’s gonna EAT THESE WIDDLE TOES!”

With a 5-year-old, you get peppered with questions that seem to come out of nowhere: “If you go to jail, do you have to stay there forever?” “Do bugs think I’m a giant?” “Can I poke you with this tinkertoy?” After you answer a couple hundred of those questions, you long to hear a grown-up question, like “you wanna beer?”
Well, I never doubted for a second that my wife was superwoman, but my belief has been reinforced once again. I think I’ll take her out to dinner more often.

And, I hear footsteps… I fear nap time is over….

Thank goodness the grandparents have taken pity on me and offered to have the clan over for supper last night and tonight. One less meal to prepare.

City Council, Peoria Disposal Company

A couple thoughts on the landfill issue

I’ll have more to say about this issue later, but I wanted to say a couple of things now.

First of all, thank you to my council representative Barbara Van Auken for taking the time to voice her opposition to the landfill expansion on behalf of the second district. Also thanks to at-large councilman Gary Sandberg for voicing his concerns as well. I don’t know if any other council members spoke, but I didn’t see any mention of it in this Journal Star article if they did.

Secondly, I’m not buying this argument from Les Bergsten:

But Les Bergsten, chairman of the Peoria City/County Landfill Committee which has taken no stand on the expansion, argued the county cannot afford to lose the business connected with the PDC landfill. American companies without convenient waste disposal will move elsewhere, he said.

If that’s true, then Peoria should be booming with new business, especially industrial business. I mean, PDC is one of only 15 such toxic waste dumps in the country. Why haven’t companies been knocking down our door the last fifteen years so they can be close to our coveted toxic waste dump?  PDC is accepting toxic waste from several other states — why haven’t the companies in those states moved to Peoria to be nearer the landfill?  That argument just doesn’t wash.