All posts by C. J. Summers

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

Hotel news recap

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There were a couple of hotel-related news items over the weekend:

  • Gov. Quinn approved tax credits for the Wonderful Development. Incidentally, the Journal Star reported the bill number as SB2535, but it’s actually SB2534. The gist of Quinn’s comments was that these tax credits will help provide jobs for union workers, and that will spur economic growth that will actually generate more revenue for the state. “You put more people to work,” Quinn is quoted as saying. “They pay income taxes and other taxes. The key thing is more economic growth.” Koehler chimed in: “People say, ‘Doesn’t that drain money out of the state budget?’ No, it doesn’t. By the time you pay all those jobs and you are creating extra real estate value, the community and state are going to replenish all of that.”

    Are we supposed to believe these guys have suddenly converted to Reaganomics? Wasn’t it Gov. Quinn who proposed raising personal income taxes from 3 to 4.5% last year? And after he changed his proposed new rate to 4%, wasn’t it Dave Koehler who lamented, “From everything I’ve heard around the Capitol, there will not be any appetite for the income tax (increase) before the election. That’s too bad. I don’t agree with it, but it’s the decision I hear.” What? Why raise personal income taxes? Why not just cut corporate income taxes so the state can reap millions and millions of dollars from all the new jobs that would be created as a result? Or does supply-side economics only work on union-worker-built hotel projects at Main and Madison in Peoria?

    The paper also stated:

    The proposal potentially could reduce the project’s costs by $8 million, savings that are split between developer EM Properties and the city of Peoria. The City Council last month voted 7-4 in favor of a $37 million bond to assist in the hotel project. The tax credit could potentially drop that obligation to $33 million.

    Looking at it one way, this is good — the City’s obligation could be 12% or so less than originally planned. On the other hand, it’s actually a net increase of $4 million in taxpayer incentives, if one looks at tax incentives from all sources equally.

  • The Grand Hotel will be converted to a senior living center. Why? The hotel’s sales manager, Stan Marshall, explained: “[T]hose capacity needs [groups who come to Peoria for meetings or sports events] just aren’t frequent enough. There are a lot of holes in the calendar. We need a steady source of revenue.” Given that the Radisson (formerly Jumer’s Castle Lodge) closed last year, and now the City’s third-largest hotel is getting out of the hotel business, one would be tempted to think that there’s overcapacity of hotel rooms in Peoria. But I’m sure downtown hotel proponents will pooh-pooh such an obvious conclusion. After all, the whole rationale behind the Wonderful Development is this belief that Peoria’s hotel problem is undercapacity.
Music

The Loudness War

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This isn’t Peoria-related. It’s just something I found interesting, and felt like sharing.

Did you know there’s been a “war” going on in recorded music ever since jukeboxes came on the scene, and escalating with the advent of compact discs and digital recording technology? It’s called the “loudness war,” and it has to do with the ever-increasing compression of dynamic range in professional recorded music.

Producers noticed when jukeboxes came on the scene that the songs that sounded louder were played more. This preference that humans have for loudness has been scientifically demonstrated by neuroaudiologists. So the race was on to try to make the loudest song in the jukebox. However, analog formats had some limitations. For instance, the louder the music on a vinyl record, the larger the grooves have to be; and the larger the grooves are, the shorter the playing time can be on a standard-size disc. But enter digital production, and the invention of compact discs (CDs), and now you have the ability to really manipulate the sound in order to make it as loud as possible. Here’s a great explanation of how this works:

There are a lot of contributing factors to this push for louder music. One is the fact that people listen to music in noisy places (cars, for instance) where dynamic range cannot be fully appreciated, and thus they want the music to be at a constantly high volume level. Another factor is the fact that radio and TV broadcasters compress their audio before it goes out over the airwaves/cable/satellite, and this heavy compression can cause non-compressed mixes to sound terrible. So many recording engineers believe that the answer is to simply compress the song themselves during mastering to mitigate any additional compression from broadcasters. There’s also a competition among advertisers to have their ads be louder than the rest of the programming on a station in order to stand out and (hopefully) sell more of their wares.

Whatever the reasons are, audiophiles decry the loudness war as ruining the sound quality of recorded music. Not only that, but there’s evidence that sustained listening to such compressed music can lead to ear fatigue, even when listening at lower volumes. As a result, there are recording engineers and musicians who are deliberately recording their music at lower levels with more dynamic range, and trying to educate their fans as to why their music doesn’t sound as loud as other recordings.

There’s even an organization called TurnMeUp.org that’s set up to put explanatory labels on CDs instructing listeners to turn up the volume in order to achieve greater loudness, instead of expecting the CD to be recorded at a solid wall of 0dBFS sound. They explain:

…[M]ost artists feel they have no option other than mastering their records to be as loud as everybody else’s. And when everybody is doing this because everybody else is, who’s actually doing it because they want to?

To address this we’ve created Turn Me Up! Certification, which would allow records meeting our criteria to display the Turn Me Up! Certified label to inform the consumer nothing is wrong, this record is simply more dynamic and all they need to do is Turn Me Up! Our goal is to create an environment where artists will feel comfortable making the creative choice to release a more dynamic record – without the fear of it being misunderstood by the consumer.

They haven’t finalized their certification criteria yet, but they’re working on it.

It’s funny, when audio recording first started, the race was toward greater and greater fidelity — that is, making the recording sound as close to the original sound as possible. Nowadays, fidelity has been abandoned and replaced by pseudo-perfect performance and brutal loudness. There is so much digital processing that goes into modern recording that many recordings bear little or no semblance (i.e., fidelity) to their original live sound.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why vinyl records, independent recording artists, and other alternatives to mainstream, major-label recordings are seeing a surge in popularity.

City of Peoria, State of Illinois, Taxes

Come watch the rich get richer

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From my inbox, this notification from the City Clerk’s office:

WE HAVE JUST BEEN ADVISED AND YOU ARE HEREBY NOTICED THAT A MAJORITY OF A QUORUM OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF PEORIA, ILLINOIS, HAVE BEEN INVITED AND MAY ATTEND TO WITNESS ILLINOIS [GOVERNOR] PAT QUINN SIGN THE HISTORIC TAX CREDIT FOR THE PROPOSED HOTEL PROJECT ON MAIN STREET ON SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 2010, AT 9:15 A.M., AT THE PEORIA MARQUETTE, CHEMINEE BALLROOM, 501 MAIN STREET, PEORIA, ILLINOIS.

Please note this is not a meeting and no official action will be taken.

Tax credits for a guy making $9 million on this Wonderful Development, after he’s already received a $37 million gift from the city. That’s capitalism?

Thanks, State of Illinois. At least you can afford it. Oh, wait….

Business, City of Peoria

Kinseth pulling out of Peoria

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The Journal Star reports that Kinseth Hospitality, owner of the Holiday Inn City Centre downtown, is bidding farewell to Peoria. The hotel will be managed by Pyramid Hotel Group of Boston. It’s unclear at this time who will actually own the property.

Kinseth was critical of the city of Peoria, which provided EM Properties Ltd. with a $37 million bond to reconstruct the Hotel Pere Marquette into a Marriott Hotel structure.

About a year ago, he wanted the City Council to support a $10 million City Centre renovation project with $8 million in assistance. That, however, did not go anywhere.

“Obviously, the city is not willing to support this hotel at this time,” Kinseth said. “In 10 years, we haven’t made a dime and spent tons of our money and worked very hard. We’ve never made any money on the hotel and worked very hard and care deeply about the hotel and staff. At this time, we can’t do it anymore. It’s time to move on.”

The assistance Kinseth sought from the City would have upgraded their property from a Holiday Inn to a Crowne Plaza Hotel. The plan was remarkably similar to the Wonderful Development, though far less costly. Yet the City wouldn’t even entertain Kinseth’s proposal, despite the supposedly dire need for more quality rooms downtown to support the Civic Center. Instead, the City is using the Holiday Inn’s property taxes and sales taxes to fund their competition to the tune of $37 million. It’s hard to blame Kinseth for giving up on Peoria under those circumstances.

Peoria Public Schools

Residency requirement for District 150 employees?

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District 150 Board of Education member Rachael Parker wants to see a residency requirement enacted for district employees who will start to receive their payment with an instant paystub generator. In other words, she wants everyone who works for District 150 to live in District 150. There’s one little problem with that idea, though: it’s currently prohibited by law to require teachers to reside in the district.

The Illinois School Code states in 105 ILCS 5/24-4.1, “Residency within any school district shall not be considered in determining the employment or the compensation of a teacher or whether to retain, promote, assign or transfer that teacher.” There are different rules for cities with a population over 500,000 (meaning Chicago). Currently, Chicago teachers are required to live in the city. But Senate Bill 3522, which passed the Illinois Senate in March of this year and is under consideration now in the House, would end residency requirements for teachers in Chicago as well. The Chicago teachers’ union supports the bill.

But state law is not written in stone. If there’s political support for an idea, state law can be changed relatively easily, in fact. For instance, it was against state law for school districts to access the Public Building Commission, but thanks to Aaron Schock and George Shadid, District 150 was given five years to rack up millions of dollars in bonded debt for new school facilities via the PBC. Perhaps Dave Koehler and Jehan Gordon can get legislation passed allowing District 150 to require residency for teachers.

In the meantime, the law appears to only protect teachers from residency requirements, not all district employees. It looks like the district could require all employees except teachers to live within district boundaries without having to get any state legislation passed. It would require bargaining with other unions, however.

I support residency requirements for school district employees. It would ensure that teachers and other district employees are personally invested in District 150 and its success. When they bargain for salary and benefit raises, they would be personally invested in contributing to those increases through their own property taxes. They would live in the same community as the students they serve. It would improve the tax base of the city overall and help stem the hollowing out of the middle class from the city — and that in itself will help the educational climate in District 150.

As to whether that could mean losing out on some candidates, Parker said: “I don’t believe that, that you’re not going to be able to recruit a teacher just because you want them to live within the school district boundary.”

This is the biggest argument given against residency requirements: the idea that you will get fewer or inferior teacher candidates if you require residency. I don’t buy it. Large urban school districts like they have in Chicago have these kinds of challenges because housing in the city is so expensive and/or unsafe. That’s not the case in Peoria, where housing within district borders is safe and cheaper than surrounding school districts such as Dunlap, Morton, or Germantown Hills. Given the salaries that teachers (and especially administrators) receive in proportion to housing prices, I think you’ll still have a healthy pool of qualified candidates who would be happy to live within district boundaries.

Some would say that teachers don’t want to live within District 150 boundaries because they don’t want their children going to District 150 schools. I can’t see that argument as anything less than self-indicting. That’s like a chef saying, “Oh, I’d never let my kids eat at my restaurant! The food here stinks!” It also kind of defeats the argument that the teaching is better when you don’t have a residency requirement.

In short, I haven’t heard a coherent argument against residency requirements for district employees, and there do appear to be numerous benefits.

Museum Block

Ransburg is going to try raising money for the museum…again

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Peoria Riverfront Museum Chairman and former mayor Dave Ransburg was on the WMBD morning show. He was lobbed softball questions (“It’s going to be really exciting once construction starts, wouldn’t you agree?”) and generally fawned over by Greg. I realize it’s not a news program, but sheesh, he could have asked the guy a mildly challenging question.

Like, how about this one: Your group is charged with raising the remaining money needed to build the museum, which is estimated to be at least $7 million. Why do you think you’ll be more successful now when you were unsuccessful as part of the “Circle the Square” group of former mayors that tried to raise money four years ago?

Or how about: “Why should this project continue to go forward when it can’t raise sufficient start-up capital even after a $40 million taxpayer infusion and a decade of fundraising efforts?”

Or even better: “Given your history of being untruthful with the public, why should we trust anything you say in this interview?”

In fairness, I did hear one question that was slightly challenging — from Dan, of course — and that was when he asked if there was going to be an IMAX. Ransburg danced around it, using a typical political trick: “The plans call for an IMAX.” Yeah, yeah. Thanks for telling us what we already know.

City Council, City of Peoria

Tonight’s special council meeting has been canceled

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From the City Clerk:

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT THE SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING TO HOLD A POLICY SESSION REGARDING THE SANITARY SEWER REHABILITATION PROGRAM AND THE COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOW LONG TERM CONTROL PLAN SCHEDULED FOR 6:15 P.M. ON TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2010, AT CITY HALL COUNCIL CHAMBERS, ROOM 400, 419 FULTON, PEORIA, ILLINOIS, IS CANCELED.

The meeting was canceled due to a lack of a quorum, according to the city’s Communications Manager Alma Brown.

Amtrak, Peoria MSA

Help bring passenger rail back to Peoria

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As you may have read in today’s Journal Star, I’ve started a grassroots organization for the purpose of advocating for passenger rail service between Peoria and Chicago. It’s called the Peoria Passenger Rail Coalition, and it’s free to join.

I talk to a lot of people who would like to have train service in Peoria, but there doesn’t seem to be any kind of organized effort to quantify the demand. That’s a problem, because if our elected officials think there isn’t much demand, they won’t appropriate the money for renewed rail service. So, the purpose of the organization is to raise public awareness of the benefits of passenger rail service to the Peoria region, gain public support for passenger rail service, and successfully persuade state and federal lawmakers to appropriate the necessary funds to make passenger rail service to Peoria a reality.

Here’s some more information from an article I wrote last year for InterBusiness Issues:

Why Bring Amtrak to Peoria?
Amtrak ridership is up nationwide, and Illinois is no exception to that trend. Amtrak reports that ridership on trains between Chicago and St. Louis “was up 16.5 percent in Fiscal 2008 over 2007. Ridership increased 18.5 percent on the Chicago-Carbondale route, was up 19.8 percent on the Chicago-Quincy route, and grew 25.9 percent on the Hiawathas.” This trend continues in 2009. In January, ridership between Chicago and St. Louis was up 12 percent over the same period in 2008, according to figures released by IDOT. [Update: The trend continues even in 2010, with monthly ridership levels 11 to 20 percent higher than 2009.]

More people are choosing to travel by train, and more communities are requesting passenger rail access. Amtrak recently completed studies on adding train service to Rockford and the Quad Cities. Peoria, with the third-largest metropolitan statistical area in the state—over 370,000 residents—would be a natural addition as well.

Restoring passenger rail service to Peoria would connect our population to the national rail transportation system. Travelers from Peoria could go anywhere in the U.S. that Amtrak serves—and just as importantly, travelers from all over the U.S. could come to Peoria. Peorians traveling to Chicago by train would benefit from low fares (significantly cheaper than the cost of driving to and parking in Chicago) and no traffic congestion. By leaving the “driving” to Amtrak, transit time can be used for work or leisure. Likewise, college students, businessmen and women, and tourists will find Amtrak to be a convenient way to travel to Peoria and enjoy our community. Bringing Amtrak and its ridership into the community will have a positive economic impact on the region.

There are also environmental benefits to passenger rail service. The U.S. Department of Energy found that Amtrak is more energy-efficient than either automobile or commercial air travel. “Amtrak energy intensity was 2,935 British Thermal Units (BTUs) per passenger-mile and commercial airlines were 3,587. Commuter rail was 2,751 and automobiles were 3,549 BTUs,” according to the DOE’s Transportation Energy Data Book. By taking the train, we can lower the carbon footprint of our trips. It is simply more energy-efficient to take the train directly from Peoria than to drive to Chicago, or even Normal or Galesburg, to catch the train there.

Nationally, a greater emphasis is being placed on sustainable transportation networks—with less dependence on the automobile, and thus, less oil consumption and dependence on imported oil—and passenger rail is part of that national strategy. Last October, Congress passed and the president signed the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, which authorized $13.1 billion for Amtrak over the next five years. The recent stimulus bill included $1.3 billion in additional Amtrak funding, as well as $8 billion for high-speed rail. Locally, Senator Durbin has been supportive of adding new service to Illinois cities and improving existing service, and the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission’s long-range transportation plan lists as a top priority: “connect with Amtrak.”

Finally, consider that transportation is an essential service, imperative for the safety and mobility of Illinois citizens. Improving our transportation options improves our overall infrastructure, and our economy benefits from the jobs brought by infrastructure improvement. The economy is also helped by making our city more attractive to potential employers and employees, who are increasingly looking for greener cities in which to live and work.

I’m hopeful that we can convince community leaders to settle for nothing less than reestablishing direct rail service between Peoria and Chicago. Unfortunately, the trend lately has been toward a lesser goal: connecting Peoria with Normal. It seems the community leaders are now seriously considering train service that would simply go from Peoria to the Normal Amtrak station, at which point passengers will have to disembark and wait for a connecting train to complete their trip. That’s a recipe for failure.

There are many benefits of taking a train to Chicago: it’s cheaper than parking and avoids a lot of traffic congestion, just to name a couple. But what benefits are there of taking a train to Normal? Parking is free and there’s no congestion between our two towns. Instead of saving time, it would actually add time to the trip. That alone will depress ridership. But ridership would also be low because there’s not much population on the Norfolk Southern line that runs between Peoria and Bloomington. A train from Peoria to Chicago could hit many underserved communities, picking up much needed ridership.

The fact is, people don’t want to take a train to Normal. They want to take a train to Chicago. You wouldn’t want to take a flight to Bloomington’s airport and switch planes to continue on to Chicago, but that’s exactly the kind of service that’s being considered for passenger rail. I hope this disastrous plan for new rail service is abandoned, and direct rail service to Chicago is once again pursued.

If you feel the same way, I would encourage you to add your voice to the coalition.

Peoria Journal Star, State Journal-Register

Springfield paper offers exclusive content ‘first in print’

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The State Journal-Register is now publishing some of its content in print before it publishes it on the web. The lag time is unspecified.

Called First in Print, the move aims to increase the value of the print edition for readers, many of whom pay to read the newspaper. Many of the articles appearing first in the print edition will appear on the newspaper’s website after a delay….

The First in Print effort is a change from how the newspaper traditionally has treated publication of news items. For years, nearly all of the newspaper’s content has been placed on the website where it could be read for free.

“That meant that readers of the print edition, who pay for information, got less advantage for their investment,” Broadbooks said. “This change means that those readers who pay for the paper have the opportunity to see select features first. We believe it enhances the value of the print edition.”

The Springfield paper is owned by GateHouse Media, the same company that owns the Peoria Journal Star. I wrote to the Journal Star’s managing editor John Plevka to ask if his paper will be following suit. I received no response.

Personally, I think “First in Print” is a good idea. Right now, I receive no added value as a subscriber of the Journal Star. Non-subscribers get all the same content for free over the internet, while I’m paying over $200 a year for it. So why shouldn’t I cancel my subscription?

Come to think of it, I might just do that.