As usual, I’ll be updating this post throughout the evening, so be sure to refresh if you’re following this live. Here’s tonight’s agenda for the Peoria City Council Meeting:
All posts by C. J. Summers
News Summary 8/24/2009
Good morning! It’s Monday, August 24, and this week District 150 school kids go back to class. Mothers all over Peoria are rejoicing. In other news:
- School Board member Rachael Parker is planning a run for Bud Sous’s Peoria County Board seat. The election is in 2010, and if elected, Parker would have to give up her seat on the School Board.
- The City of Peoria is going to intervene in the Illinois American Water rate case, protesting the rise in water rates. According to a recent Issues Update from the city, the cost to intervene and monitor the process is “minimal,” but “to hire an ICC Utility Attorney and present expert testimony, that would likely cost $60,000 to $80,000.” So the city is going to look at mitigating that cost by possibly partnering with other nearby cities, like Pekin and Champaign. “Certain issues may be different but other issues, such as return on investors’ equity, would be common to all.” Illinois American Water is asking state regulators to let them raise water rates by more than 28% in Peoria.
- In a previous post, I mentioned that someone was polling residents with questions about the city and school district. Renee Charles of the Heartland Partnership said the company is aware of the poll, but after calling their subsidiary organizations (including the Chamber of Commerce), she went on record saying she does not know who is conducting the poll. The city and school district have also denied running the poll. So the identity of the pollster remains a mystery.
- A press release last week announced, “Senate Bill 1512, sponsored by State Senator David Koehler (D-Peoria), authorizes the Secretary of State’s office to issue false identification to undercover law enforcement agents.” But the most interesting part of the release was this statement (emphasis mine): “For years the Secretary of State’s office issued false identification to the police with no real authorization or clear guidelines. The new law ensures that these fake IDs are properly distributed and used only for undercover investigations.” I wonder what else is being done with “no real authorization.”
- At a press conference today, Democrat Carl Ray will kick-off his campaign to run against Congressman Aaron Schock for the 18th Congressional District of Illinois. There are two locations and times for his announcement: 10 a.m. at Five Points Washington (360 N. Wilmor Rd., Washington), and 2 p.m. at the Springfield Public Library (Carnegie Room South, 326 S. 7th St., Springfield). “There will be a 10-15 minute address, followed by time with the media and supporters.”
- The proposed downtown museum still has a “several million dollar gap” in funding, and they’re still negotiating a contract with IMAX.
- Invitations went out last week for the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Peoria Public Library North Branch. The event will be held September 10, 2009, 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. on Grand Parkway in Medina Plains Corporate Park off Townline Road.
The KCDad World View Discussion Repository
Here it is, folks: This is the place for all things KCDad. Here you can discuss communism, KCDad-style. Or you can discuss the teachings of Jesus as interpreted by KCDad. Perhaps you want to just sit and soak in the profound teaching of KCDad himself. This is the place. Now is the time.
But from now on, if the conversation on any other post strays away from the post’s original topic into KCDad-Land (which will be determined at my sole discretion), the comments will be moved to this post for that discussion to continue (hence the “repository” moniker). I’ll leave a little note in the comments section of future posts if the discussion is redirected here.
That doesn’t mean that all of KCDad’s comments (or responses to KCDad’s comments) will be moved here. He isn’t being quarantined. This is simply an attempt to keep posts on topic. As long as the comments are related to the original topic, they’re fine. It’s only when they veer into the “communism vs. capitalism” or “The Gospel According to KCDad” or similarly-recurring motifs that they’ll be moved to this thread for further argument and development.
This is no day for blogging
It’s a beautiful day outside. Watch this classic Victor Borge act to get you laughing, then go outside and play:
🙂
IDOT passes over Peoria, puts a quarter million in Morton’s coffers
You be the judge. Which sidewalk and curb do you think is in worse shape? (Both images are courtesy of Google Maps.)
Is it number 1:
Grundy Elementary School, Morton, Ill.
Or is it number 2:
Trewyn Middle School, Peoria, Ill.
If you picked number 1, then you probably work for the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT). That’s the one they picked, too. They decided the sidewalks and curbs at Grundy Elementary were crumbling and in disrepair, and allocated part of a $253,460 grant to help repair them. For Trewyn Middle School in Peoria? Zip. Zero. Nada. Not a penny of grant money for that fine piece of well-maintained urban fabric.
Here’s the bad news from a recent Issues Update released by the City of Peoria:
The City received notice that it was unsuccessful in its grant application request for a Safe Routes Grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation…. The Infrastructure portion of the grant application included $235,000 for sidewalks and curbs around Trewyn Middle School and Rolling Acres Edison Junior Academy…. Communities in the area that were successful in their grant applications include Morton, which received $253,460.
Yes, Morton — because we all know how run down and short of funds Morton is. According to the Journal Star, they wanted the money to pay for “replacement of crumbling sidewalks, curbs and gutters, installation of new sidewalks, and new crosswalks in an area that includes Grundy Elementary School, Blessed Sacrament School and Bethel Lutheran School.”
Apparently the grant award process didn’t include a physical site inspection.
Scroggins: Deficit could be $12 million
At the policy session Tuesday night, Finance Director Jim Scroggins was speaking and casually said something about a “$10 to $12 million deficit.” Councilman Sandberg stopped him mid-sentence after that and said, “Did you say $12 million?” Scroggins: “Ten to twelve.”
Can I just state the obvious here? The difference between ten and twelve million dollars is not trivial. Two million dollars can pay for a lot of city services. The council has been proceeding on the assumption that the deficit is going to be $10 million, and there’s already rhetoric that budget cuts are going to have to be made “with a chainsaw, not a scalpel” and it’s going to be “bloody.” I shudder to think how much worse it will be if the deficit grows another twenty percent.
One thing we can be sure of, though, is that the city will continue to protect unnecessary and expensive developer welfare like the $39.5 million they’re planning to give Gary Matthews to build a huge addition onto the Pere Marquette and affiliate with Marriott Hotels. They’re going to continue to protect money-losing “quality-of-life” amenities like the Civic Center and the proposed downtown museum, neither of which have been asked to sacrifice a penny. And they’re going to continue to annex more land to the north and west even though four decades of annexation has never produced the gravy train of revenue that was promised.
Instead, they’ll cut basic services, like police protection, code enforcement, animal and litter control, road maintenance, and the like. In tough economic times, it’s important to have priorities, you know.
No lack of notice of registration day
Today is registration day at District 150 schools. I know this because we’ve gotten three automated calls from District 150 (the last one coming in at 8 a.m.), plus multiple mailed notices. If anyone claims they didn’t know registration day was today, they either don’t have a phone or mail service, or they’re just not very attentive.
Liveblogging the City Council 8/18/2009
I watched part of the council meeting at home on channel 22 (meeting started at 6:15 p.m.), then came downtown to see it in person. So, here I am! I’ll be updating this post throughout the evening, so check back. So far, you haven’t missed much. Department heads are simply getting up and reiterating the cuts they’re recommending in this document:
(09-343) CONTINUATION of a POLICY SESSION Regarding DISCUSSION and REVIEW of the CITY’S SERVICES.
Council policy session tonight
The Peoria City Council is meeting tonight, but it’s not a regularly-scheduled meeting. It’s a special policy session during which they will be discussing cuts to next year’s budget. Comcast cable channel 22 is carrying it live. WCBU (89.9 FM), which carries regularly-scheduled meetings live, is not carrying the policy session live tonight.
Why are teachers only required to work six and a half hours?
The 2006-2009 teachers contract with District 150 specifies that teachers’ “hours of work” are “six (6) hours and thirty (30) minutes for primary and middle schools,” and six hours thirty-five minutes for high schools. By comparison, Pekin District 108 teachers’ work day includes the six and a half hours of the school day, plus thirty minutes before and twenty minutes after those hours, or about seven and a half hours. Dunlap schools have a similar requirement.
At Monday’s District 150 board meeting, union president Bob Darling spoke to the board during the “audience presentation” portion of the meeting, and among other things he defended the hours of work by saying, “I don’t know any teacher that only works six and a half hours.” The implication is that, even though they’re not contractually required to work longer, most teachers put in much more time than the minimum. I have no doubt that his assertion is true.
Nevertheless, because of the contractual limitation on hours, the school board only has six and a half hours to work with when scheduling the day. If they want to add teacher collaboration time to the day, they can’t tack it on before or after school, nor can they require teachers to use their prep periods (use of the prep period is also restricted in the contract). The board’s only options are not to add teacher collaboration time, or to take time away from the students. The latter is exactly what they did when they established so-called “wacky Wednesdays.”
I think critics have a point when they ask what other full-time job requires only six-and-a-half-hour days (32.5 hours per week), 180 days a year. I’ve never heard of it anywhere else. Full-time jobs usually require eight hours a day (40 hours per week). If teachers worked a standard full-time shift each day (or even seven and a half hours per day) with teacher collaboration time and a prep period(s) built in, then the district wouldn’t have to take time away from the students and the collaboration time would improve instructional quality, right? And since they’re already working those extra hours anyway, why would they object to making it part of their contractual work day, especially when it will greatly benefit the students and not obligate teachers to any more time than their peers in other districts?