All posts by C. J. Summers

I am a fourth-generation Peorian, married with three children.
City of Peoria, Illinois American Water

French may buy American Water Co. from Germans

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Bloomberg reports that the French water company Veolia Environnement SA is “considering bidding for RWE AG’s water business in the U.S.,” which is American Water Co., of which Illinois American Water is a part.  This is the first company to consider purchasing American Water since RWE put it up for sale last November.

Veolia is a supplier of water to about 110 million people.  They have a presence on every continent.  In the U.S., they currently provide water for certain municipalities in Indiana, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon, Texas, Florida, and even right here in Illinois — in Edwardsville.

Board of Election Commissioners, Peoria County

Pens too difficult; must have computers

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I got a card in the mail yesterday from the Board of Election Commissioners. It was instructions on how to use the new voting equipment.

I’ve been voting for a while now in Peoria. My first ballot was on those “butterfly ballot” machines where you punched a hole in a computer punchcard. I was only 18 when I used that for the first time, and even at that tender age, I was able to figure out the complex system of names and punch-holes.

Later, they started using a plain paper ballot and a felt-tip pen. All you had to do was complete the arrow; essentially the instructions were “draw a line next to the person’s name for whom you want to vote.”

Now, we have computers to make our lives easier. So here are the six simple steps for casting a ballot with our new voting equipment. This is verbatim from the Board of Election — I’m not making this up:

  1. Turn the SELECT wheel to highlight your language and press ENTER.
  2. Turn the SELECT wheel to highlight the first number of your ACCESS CODE. Press ENTER. Repeat for each number.
  3. Turn the SELECT wheel to highlight your ballot choice. Press ENTER. The box to the left of the choice changes to red. Repeat for each contest. You can turn pages on the ballot with PREV or NEXT.
  4. Read the Ballot Summary Page carefully. Only after you have made all of your desired choices, press CAST BALLOT from the final Ballot Summary Page to proceed to Ballot Verification.
  5. Read the Paper Verification Page carefully and verify your selections on the printed record. Only after verifying the printed record, turn the SELECT wheel to highlight Accept Page and press ENTER.
  6. After you have verified and accepted all printed pages, press CAST BALLOT to finish voting.

You have finished voting when you see the waving American flag. The printer displays “Ballot Accepted” and scrolls to a blank page to ensure voter privacy.

Pressing the CAST BALLOT button after you have verified all printed pages completes the voting process and records the ballot.

Oh yeah, that’s soooo much easier to understand and execute than drawing a line with a felt-tip pen. Thank goodness for modern technology.

City Council, City of Peoria

There will be a new hotel in Peoria, but not downtown (yet)

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A new 88-room Country Inn & Suites will be built close to TGI Friday’s on War Memorial Drive near the Grand Prairie mall if the council approves the rezoning request tonight.  Doug Currier got unanimous approval from the zoning board, and his request is part of the consent agenda for tonight’s meeting.  The hotel will include banquet facilities and meeting rooms and, amazingly, is not requiring any city funds to be built.

City Council, City of Peoria

Piano teachers may be permitted to forego permit

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Tonight’s council meeting includes an item to allow piano teachers (and other music instructors) to work out of their homes without having to pay $90 for a home occupation permit, but they can’t have more than four students at their house at the same time, and they can’t amplify their equipment.  Other home businesses that are not required to have a permit:  “computer operation,  . . . sewing machine operation, telephone operation, typing, and writing.” I could think of a few other occupations that shouldn’t require a permit, but at least they’re finally exempting musical instruction.  I hope this passes unanimously.

City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

City hiding details about service on western spur

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Pioneer Railcorp filed a “Motion to Compel” with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) yesterday. They want the STB to order the City of Peoria to make all documents, communication, and other information they have about their Kellar Branch dealings part of the public record. You can read the entire motion here.

For instance, they want the facts and information the city has on CIRY’s derailment to be part of the public record. And they also want the city to produce hard evidence that a deal has been made with Union Pacific to have deliveries made to the newly-built western spur that is supposed to replace rail access when the Kellar Branch is dismantled. If the Kellar Branch is removed, the western spur is the only rail access that will be available to Carver Lumber. The removal of the Kellar Branch has always been predicated on Carver’s ability to get comparable rail service via the western spur.

It seems reasonable that the STB should know that the city has an agreement with UP in hand in order to make an informed decision about whether to allow the Kellar Branch to be permanently removed, don’t you think? But the city refuses to provide this information. They’d rather keep it a secret.

What do they have to hide?

My guess is they have no deal with Union Pacific, or if they do, it’s a deal that does not give Carver Lumber service that is comparable to the service they received over the Kellar Branch line. That would put their plan to dismantle the Kellar Branch in jeopardy, so it’s better for the city to just give the STB vague assurances that they have everything under control.

The city should voluntarily provide the information Pioneer requested. But since they won’t, the STB should compel them to provide it. Carver Lumber deserves to know whether the city is trying to railroad them.

Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Police

PJS throwing stones in their glass house

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The Journal Star, apparently trying to give police chief Settingsgaard a taste of his own “shaming” medicine, slapped the word “GUILTY” in bold red letters across his face in today’s editorial. His crime? “[W]anton disregard for basic fairness by continuing to post the name and photo of a Bloomington man on the city’s prostitution Web site, even though he was acquitted of sex solicitation by a jury of his peers.”

In contrast, the Bloomington man, whose name is Samuel T. Clay, has printed next to his name on the Peoria PD’s website in bold red letters, “Not Guilty.” You see, as has been pointed out by others already, the pictures on the PD website are pictures of those arrested for solicitation, not those convicted.

This is something the Journal Star itself does regularly. For instance, just today they printed the names of several individuals who were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. Even if the charges are dismissed, they still print the person’s name and state that the charges were dismissed. What’s the difference between that and what the Peoria PD is doing on their website?

Here’s another example. When DOT Rail owner Donny Lee Gibson was arrested for allegedly trying to hire someone to kill his wife, the Journal Star didn’t have any qualms about printing that arrest, even though he was never convicted of that charge.

Apparently the only arrests that are verboten by the Journal Star are solicitation arrests. Why should these be treated differently than every other arrest? Stigma? I think murder-for-hire carries a pretty bad stigma, too. I wouldn’t want to be accused of either.

In my opinion, the Journal Star should get off Settingsgaard’s back. If those prostitutes were anywhere near where the editors of the PJS live, they’d be singing Settingsgaard’s praises for cracking down hard on them and their customers instead of boldly holding up a double-standard.

Blogosphere

Bloggers of Peoria unite

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I like to read the technology journal The New Atlantis, and this issue there is an excerpt from Glenn Reynolds’ (Instapundit.com) new book, An Army of Davids. I encourage you to read it. The article is titled “The Rise of Guerrilla Media,” and it’s full of intriguing ideas, like this one:

An organization that put together a network of freelance journalists under a framework that allowed for [a] reputation rating [like Amazon.com’s], and that paid based on the number of pageviews and the ratings that each story received, would be more like a traditional newspaper than a blog, but it would still be a major change from the newspapers of today. Interestingly, it might well be possible to knit together a network of bloggers into the beginnings of such an organization. With greater reach and lower costs than a traditional newspaper, it might bring something new and competitive to the news business.

The inherent limitation in blogging, as I see it, is the fact that it’s just me, or just you, out there trying to gather facts and information and publish as a hobby. We don’t have reporters we can send out, and no one has figured out a way to make money at it, although Bill Dennis has certainly tried.

This would probably never work, but I had this crazy idea. Imagine several local bloggers uniting to form a freelance journalistic cooperative. I know we all have links to each other now, but suppose we had a single site — a meta-blog, if you will — where we all submitted original news copy and analysis about Peoria. For the masses who don’t have the time or inclination to go blog-hopping, this would provide a one-stop source for alternative Peoria media (or “we-dia,” as Jim Treacher calls citizen journalism).

If it became a popular source for news, we could sell advertising and split the revenue in some mutually-agreeable way (number of hits like Reynolds suggested, or number of contributions, or something). Why, it would almost be like having a second newspaper in town, only we wouldn’t have the overhead of newsprint and distribution.

Like I said, it’s a crazy idea, but fun to kick around just for the heck of it. What do you think? Potentially workable or laughably implausible? “Strength in numbers,” or “too many cooks spoil the broth”?

Blogosphere, Peoria Disposal Company, Peoria Park District, Uncategorized

PDC and PPD: The plot thickens

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Remember when I called up Bonnie Noble because I was surprised that the Park District came out in favor of the proposed PDC landfill expansion?  Well, apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was surprised by that — so was the Park Board.

The Journal Star today reports that Noble’s letter, even though it was on Park District letterhead, did not reflect the park district’s view:

The Park Board voted at its Feb. 22 meeting not to take a position on the proposed landfill expansion. Trustee Jim Cummings said then that Noble’s letter doesn’t represent the official position of the park district.

That actually makes me feel better about the park district as a whole. If Noble wants to express her own opinion, that’s fine — she made some interesting points.  However, to print her personal feelings on park district letterhead misrepresents the Park Board to Peoria County.

I hope county board members are aware that Noble’s letter is not a park district endorsement of the landfill expansion.

(P.S. In the category of “things that may be of interest to other bloggers,” my blog was actually quoted in this Journal Star story.   If they’re reading my little opinion columns, you can bet they’re reading other Peoria bloggers, and it’s gratifying to know they’re listening to us.)

City Council

Council Roundup: Mulligans settlement

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The city of Peoria settled their lawsuit with Mulligans tonight for $163,000 with very little comment.  The lawsuit stemmed from the city prohibiting Mulligans from holding wet t-shirt contests.  Sandberg mentioned that the amount of money in the settlement would pay for three firefighters — to which someone (couldn’t tell who) added “with their clothes on.”  That was a pretty funny line.

City Council, Homelessness

Council Roundup: 10-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness

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Emily Cahill of the Heart of Illinois Homeless Continuum of Care (HOIHCOC) presented their 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness tonight. Why do we have an HOIHCOC and a 10-year plan?

In 2001, President George W. Bush set a national goal to end chronic homelessness within 10 years. In response to that goal, and a mandate from Congress, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued direction to all recipients of HUD grants, including local jurisdictions and all Continua of Care, to develop a local plan to end chronic homelessness.

In other words, it’s a federal requirement. This was a long, but interesting presentation and discussion with the council. Some of the interesting facts they presented:

  • Families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population
  • 30% of homeless persons are homeless with their families—one-third are children
  • At least 20% of homeless children do not attend school
  • Over half of the homeless people in Illinois live outside of Chicago
  • 41% of homeless are single men
  • One third of homeless persons experience a mental illness
  • Less than one-third are addicted to drugs or alcohol

To combat chronic homelessness*, they want to see 250 more safe and affordable housing units by 2016, implement a data-collection system so they can track their progress, improve the emergency shelter system, increase public awareness of the 10-year plan, and most importantly, focus on prevention.

They request that the community do three things:

  • Review the Plan
  • Share your comments, suggestions, and concerns in writing (by March 15 — e-mail comments to the Continuum at hoihmis@mtco.com – Subject: 10-Year Plan, OR mail comments to HOIHCOC, c/o Emily Cahill, P.O. Box 3855, Peoria, IL 61612.
  • Attend March 23 Homeless Breakfast (sorry, I have no further info on this event)

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