All posts by C. J. Summers

I am a fourth-generation Peorian, married with three children.
Peoria Public Schools

Peoria Charter School Initiative with some observations

53 Comments

From a press release:

Community Leaders Form
Peoria Charter School Initiative

PEORIA, IL…July 6, 2009…

Please join us Tuesday, July 7th at 10am at the Peoria NEXT Innovation Center at 801 Main Street, Peoria as we announce details on the formation of the Peoria Charter School Initiative (PCSI).

This combined group of business leaders, educators and citizens, led by former Caterpillar Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Glen Barton, hopes to establish the first charter public school in Peoria.

PCSI, a not-for-profit organization, recently submitted its Letter of Intent to the Peoria District 150 Board of Education for consideration as the local entity that will be awarded the charter for the Peoria Math, Science & Technology Charter School (PMST).

Tuesday morning you will be meeting the members of the PCSI and hear more on their plans for PMST.

About PCSI
The Peoria Charter School Initiative is a not-for-profit 501c3 organization established to become the charter public school entity for Peoria Public School District 150. For more information, please visit www.peoriacharterschools.com.

I took a look at the website — here’s a list of people who are on the advisory and steering committees of the proposed charter school:

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

  • Ken Hinton – Peoria Public Schools
  • Dr. David Gorenz – Peoria Board of Ed/OSF
  • Mary Spangler – Peoria Board of Ed/Parent
  • Glen Barton – Caterpillar (retired)
  • Dr. John Erwin – Illinois Central College
  • Dr. Jeff Nelson – Regional Office of Education
  • Dr. John Avendano – Illinois Central College
  • Barbara VanAuken – City of Peoria Councilwoman/Renaissance Park
  • Mike Dugard – Renaissance Park Commissioner/OLLI, Retired Teacher
  • Sue Wozniak – Methodist Medical Center
  • Dr. Cindy Fischer – Peoria Public Schools/Renaissance Park Commissioner
  • James Richmond – E-Serve
  • Alice Price – Methodist Medical Center
  • Dr. Sarah Rush – UNICOMP
  • Dr. John Halverson – UNICOMP
  • Jeff Bennington – CGN
  • Elizabeth Shultz – Caterpillar
  • Carry Wahlfeld – Parent
  • Jeff McCombs – Farnsworth Group
  • Mac Pogue – Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Bradley University; IBM, retired
  • Dr. Bob Bolla – Bradley University
  • Dr. Joan Sattler – Bradley University
  • McFarland Bragg – PCCEO
  • Jim Montelongo – Advanced CAD/CAM, City of Peoria – Councilman
  • Laraine Bryson – Tri-County Urban League
  • Ginger Johnson – PALM/TRICON
  • Patrick Roesler – G&D Integrated and Chamber of Commerce Ed. Comm.
  • Marty Clinch – IBEW and Chamber Education Committee
  • Rob Parks – Chamber of Commerce
  • Dr. Vicky Stewart – ICC/Chamber Education Committee
  • David Henebry – LZT
  • Ray Lees – PSA Dewberry
  • Paul Kouri – PSA Dewberry
  • Ed Berry – Farnsworth Group

STEERING COMMITTEE

  • Glen Barton – CEO Caterpillar, retired
  • Dr. Vicky Stewart – Vice President, Illinois Central College
  • McFarland Bragg – CEO, PCCEO
  • Mac Pogue – Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Bradley University; IBM, retired
  • Jeff McCombs – Marketing and Public Relations Director, Farnsworth Group
  • Roberta Parks – COO, Chamber of Commerce
  • Cindy Fischer – Former Associate Superintendent, Peoria Public Schools; Renaissance Park Commissioner

Hinton, Gorenz, Spangler, and Fischer are all current or former District 150 staff or board members. Roesler, Clinch, Parks, and Stewart are all part of the Chamber of Commerce. Architects are surprisingly heavily represented with five members: McCombs, Henebry, Lees, Kouri, and Berry. Caterpillar, Bradley, ICC, and Methodist each have two to three members on the advisory committee.

Here is the vision for this new charter school:

Peoria Public Schools is seeking an MST Charter School that will provide students with an innovative, world-class education rich in math, science and technology, focused on preparing students to become bold inquirers, problem solvers and ethical leaders, skill-ready for post-secondary education to meet the challenges of a competitive global workforce.

Note the first three words: Peoria Public Schools. This charter school is getting its vision from District 150, and District 150 appears to be in the driver’s seat, despite its long list of advisory committee members.

And here are the “elements of the school design”:

The MST Charter, unique to the Peoria community, should:

  1. Prepare students for a demanding workforce and competitive world by offering an innovative, world class education with a strong academic foundation infused with math, science and technology.
  2. Provide a challenging, engaging and integrated environment that utilizes creativity, inquiry, discovery, problem solving, critical thinking, project-based learning and best practice.
  3. Focus on student learning that consistently makes connections between the school world and the dynamic real world job opportunities in the Peoria community and beyond.
  4. Establish and maintain a culture of excellence and accountability, where student success is defined through academic progress, relationship building and strong character.
  5. Graduate students with a strong sense of civic responsibility, a passion for learning and an eagerness to assume leadership positions in an increasingly scientific and technology based society.
  6. Demand a research-driven, highly qualified, energized leader and faculty with deep pedagogical knowledge and extensive field experience, total commitment to the guiding principles of the school and a desire to serve as daily role models and mentors to students.
  7. Be a research-based, innovative model school, including a Professional Development Center that becomes a beacon of teaching excellence and professional development for the District and beyond.
  8. Engage partners in the local community that will support the mission and design of the school.

In short, this will be a vocational school, with the goal being to produce workers for companies like Caterpillar and Methodist. Note all the references to the “workforce” and “job opportunities.” The purpose of education at this school appears to be, in the words of the late Neil Postman, “economic utility” (i.e., the ultimate reward of education is a well-paying job).

City of Peoria

Want to help set Peoria’s budget priorities?

2 Comments

There are several opportunities for you to meet with Peoria City Council members and staff to discuss your ideas for the 2010 budget. Two of those opportunities are this week:

  • Monday, July 6, 2009
    4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
    Woodruff High School, Common Area
    1800 NE Perry Avenue
    Timothy Riggenbach (Third District) and Jim Montelongo (At-Large)
  • Thursday, July 9, 2009
    4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
    Neighborhood House
    1020 S. Matthew Street
    Clyde Gulley (First District) and George Jacob (At-Large)

There will be five opportunities altogether.

Uncategorized

Open Soapbox Monday

29 Comments

I hear tell the major television networks are going to carry Michael Jackson’s memorial service live, as if he were a head of state or something. It seems the public has an insatiable desire for celebrity news, but little interest in the mundane matters that affect their everyday lives. All we need now is for Elton John to rewrite “Candle in the Wind” again….

But you don’t have talk about that — it’s Open Soapbox Monday, so feel free to write on whatever topic you would like.

Uncategorized

The Declaration of Independence

6 Comments

The reason we celebrate today:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Continue reading The Declaration of Independence →

City of Peoria, Economic Development

Enterprise Zone answers raise more questions

2 Comments

Back in May, Peoria’s Economic Development director Craig Hullinger asked District 150 to be a part of the Enterprise Zone for the Main Street Commons project, and I wrote this post in response. Craig, who is a really nice guy and very communicative, wrote me and we had an interesting e-mail exchange. He asked me if he could post it on his blog (did I mention he’s very communicative?), and I said that was fine with me, so here it is. I’m not sure why his post is dated September of 2008 because we didn’t have our discussion until just the last couple of months. Perhaps he just updated an old post.

Anyway, I was rereading it today, and now I have some more questions. For example, Craig says:

Any development is risky. The safest developments are on undeveloped land (green grass sites). It is easier to buy a large tract of land. Less likely to have costly environmental problems hidden underground. Urban redevelopment is always more difficult. It is harder to assemble the land – usually multiple owners. Older areas have more poverty and crime.

I think you can see that this is true by comparing the level of development in the suburban areas of Peoria versus the older areas. More development takes place in new areas. It is always a struggle to get investment in older areas. We try to equalize the difference between new and old with incentives.

Now look at this map of the current Enterprise Zone:

EZ map 2 28 09

Notice the big red area up in the far north part of town? Up there where there are green grass sites? Where it is easier to buy a large tract of land? Where it is less likely to have costly environmental problems hidden underground? Up where they, in short, need no incentives?

Why is the Enterprise Zone up there?

And furthermore, doesn’t that just step all over the theory of “equaliz[ing] the difference between new and old with incentives”? If a developer can get the same incentives up where there’s a green field, doesn’t that kind of “equalization” work against redeveloping the older parts of town?

One more question, for the record. Craig said:

There is a good market. We hired the premier market research firm, Tracy Cross, to assess the market for new close into downtown housing. They said the market was strong, for creative class young professionals, but that renters lead the urban renaissance, and that the rents had to be about $1.00 a square foot. It is hard to build a quality brick building that will rent for that rate without incentives.

So, we can expect this development to be a “quality brick building” now that these incentives are in place? And that rents will be competitive? So noted. I’ll be referring back to this post when the construction materials are made public. When I asked at the public meeting what materials would be used, I was told they hadn’t decided yet.

Uncategorized

Who follows fireworks laws?

5 Comments

Every year around July 4, area newspapers run articles on fireworks safety (like this one), including the reminder that nearly all fireworks are illegal in the state; and those that are legal are probably illegal in your city. And every year, hundreds of area residents light sparklers, shoot off bottle rockets, and set off firecrackers anyway.

Next to speed limits, the most blatantly disregarded laws are arguably those against fireworks. Where I used to live, one of my neighbors would set off roman candles right on the street. And he was a police officer.

Since the states surrounding the Land of Lincoln have fewer restrictions on fireworks, Illinoisans can easily get an arsenal of pyrotechnics — in Missouri, especially. In fact, there are huge retailers that sell nothing but fireworks, and part of their marketing is to encourage Illinois residents to get their explosives before crossing the border.

And that’s apparently just what Illinoisans do. Every July 3, both before and after the Park District’s big fireworks display in Glen Oak Park, there are all kinds of skyrockets going off in the surrounding neighborhoods. And every July 4, you can hear all kinds of firecrackers going off until well into the evening. There seems to be a tacit consensus among residents that, as long as you’re not keeping your neighbors up at night, we’re not going to snitch on you.

After all, it is ironic that fireworks are iconic of American independence and freedom, yet are illegal. Perhaps that cognitive dissonance is what makes people so accepting of fireworks scofflaws. On the other hand, some will point to those who have been seriously injured or killed by fireworks as a justification for outlawing them. Fair enough. But generally speaking, injuries and death (and property damage, for that matter) occur because people are misusing fireworks (for example, shooting them off inside a house underneath the door to a fraternity brother’s room), and if we outlawed everything that could lead to injury or death if misused, we’d have to outlaw a whole lot of things, starting with bathtubs.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not advocating breaking the law. I’m just acknowledging reality. On Independence Day, people are going to shoot off fireworks. They do it every year, despite media reminders that it’s illegal.

That said, have a fun and safe Fourth of July holiday weekend! I would encourage you all to enjoy legal fireworks displays at Glen Oak Park tonight and the Peoria Riverfront tomorrow. They’re better than anything you can buy at that big retailer in Missouri anyway.

Happy birthday, America!

City Council, City of Peoria, Zoning Commission

Main Street Commons to go before Zoning Commission (UPDATED)

32 Comments

I attended a quasi-public meeting Tuesday night regarding the proposed Main Street Commons project that is slated to go in where the old Walgreen’s is at the corner of Main and Bourland.

The meeting was held at the PeoriaNEXT building (which incidentally has doors that face Main Street, but they’re all locked; all pedestrians have to walk around the back of the building — by the parking lot — to enter the building, which is symbolic of the lip-service Peoria gives to pedestrians). Pat Landes and Kimberly Smith from the Planning and Growth Department were there, along with Thomas Harrington and Shawn Luesse representing the developers, and second district council person Barbara Van Auken theoretically representing the district, although she appeared to be only representing the University East neighborhood Tuesday night.

The proposed project is due to go before the Zoning Commission on Thursday at 3:00. Here’s the information that has been submitted.

There’s a lot to like about the project. It hides most of the parking in a ground-floor garage under the building. It includes retail shops on Main and Bourland. They’ve pledged to adhere to the approved building materials outlined in the code, although they apparently haven’t decided which materials they will be using.

But there are ten variances they are requesting from the Zoning Commission, and ultimately, the City Council. Many of them are minor. A few of them are troublesome:

  • Fulfilling open space requirement by demolishing a home on the corner of Bourland and Russell and leaving it as a vacant lot (albeit landscaped). (This actually involves a couple variance requests.) Instead, they should simply reduce the size of the building. This would also remove the need for another variance to approve a longer building than allowed by code. It would preserve a single-family home on the corner, thus providing a better transition to the neighborhood and removing the need for a street wall.

  • Speaking of street walls, another variance requests approval for a street fence instead of a street wall. While this seems relatively innocuous, it continues a precedent trending toward removal of the street wall requirement completely. That’s not a good thing. Street walls serve several functions, one of which is to help prevent exactly what’s going on here — leaving an entire corner vacant.

  • The code requires that “no window may face or direct views toward a common lot line.” The developers want this waived “to allow living room windows on the west elevation of the south building, for proposed units on the second through fifth floor, (overlooking the Jimmy John’s parking lot) to be located 7′-4″ behind the common lot line.” The concern here is that, eventually, we hope that the Jimmy Johns property will be redeveloped. It currently has a one-story building with a parking lot in front (suburban siting), so overlooking the parking lot is not a problem. But what happens when that lot is redeveloped? Will the Main Street Commons development negatively impact efforts to redevelop the Jimmy Johns property? Keep in mind that the code will require that any redevelopment of Jimmy Johns’ property be a multi-story building sited next to the street and abut the Main Street Commons property. Will this cause problems from a fire-fighting standpoint? Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to the question of its impact on future development because it was disallowed by Councilperson Van Auken at the meeting; the question was “theoretical” and besides, I’m not an immediate neighbor to the project. This kind of myopic thinking (ignoring both the regional impact of projects as well as the future implications of developments) is most unfortunate from a sitting council person, but not particularly surprising.

On a positive note, it’s great to see mixed-use development being proposed for Main Street. Having residents will provide more natural surveillance of the surrounding streets, and will provide a larger market for the retail shops that will go in on the ground floor. Overall, this is the kind of development we want to see. My only caution would be to consider the unintended consequences of variances to the code; as Councilman Sandberg pointed out at the meeting, the developers already know they will get 100% occupancy, so they’re just trying to maximize profits at this point. There’s no reason they can’t meet the requirements of the code, especially on the points above. The Zoning Commission and City Council should seriously consider enforcing the code at these points for the long-term good of the city.

UPDATE: It passed the Zoning Commission with next to no deliberation. Marj Klise was the only “no” vote. One of the commissioners said that provisions in the Land Development Code were “open to interpretation” — which is to say, meaningless. That was enlightening. Another commissioner said he was all for it because of all the revenue it’s going to bring to the city at a time when the city is facing a $10 million deficit. Too bad he evidently wasn’t aware that this project has been added to the Enterprise Zone and is getting its sales and property taxes abated… and that the City is asking the state to extend the Enterprise Zone past the 2013 expiration date. This project isn’t actually going to bring any revenue into the City, but it’s going to make a whole lot of money for the developers!

Nation/World

Who said it? (Updated)

14 Comments

Regarding the global economic crisis:

We must not revert to isolationism and unrestrained economic egotism… Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence is another possible mistake. True, the state’s increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent… In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive….

Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.

And one more point: anti-crisis measures should not escalate into financial populism and a refusal to implement responsible macroeconomic policies. The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.

Who is warning the world of the dangers of statism?

UPDATE: Commenter “Time for a Change” wins the challenge. It was indeed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, speaking at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 28, 2009. After stating (as quoted above), “In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive,” he added, “This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

City Council, City of Peoria, Waste Management

Talking trash

33 Comments

The city’s solid waste removal contract with waste removal solutions for households expires at the end of this year. This contract has been in place since about 1992. Now, if you’re just an average person, you might think that the city had plenty of time to start the process of rebidding this contract. After all, they knew when it was due to expire, and they know how long it takes to negotiate contracts such as these, so logically they should have been able to work backwards from the deadline to determine a time line for the rebidding process.

But they didn’t do that. No, here it is June 2009, six months before the end of the contract, and they’re just starting the year-long process. Naturally, they are requesting an extension to the existing contract that has been in place for 17 years already to allow them extra time to negotiate a new contract. That request was on last week’s (June 23) agenda, but was deferred for a month.

Meanwhile, they managed to engage a consultant to get some advice on rebidding the contract. I don’t know exactly how city departments are allowed to spend their budget, but it seems to me that every other consultant that has been hired by the city had to be approved by the council; this consultant contract never came before the council. However, it must be no big deal because the council didn’t seem to care.

The consultant made a bunch of recommendations on how the city can lower the cost of waste removal. Of course, all those suggestions mean worse service for residents. For instance, they’re recommending that everyone be provided a 90-gallon tote, and that all other garbage containers be outlawed. You wouldn’t be able to buy your own tote, of course — you’d have to essentially rent it from the disposal company. And they want to do away with alley collection of garbage, even though that’s one of the reasons alleys exist, and many older neighborhoods were designed for garbage collection from the alleys, not from the curb.

To their credit, the city council has so far been pretty adamant about keeping the alley collection of garbage, but city staff is trying to convince them to change their minds. They want to big the contract with all-curbside pickup as an option so the council can see how must more expensive it is to include alley collection. There’s only one reason for splitting out these costs: to try to persuade change. One wonders why it’s more expensive to run a truck down an alley rather than a parallel street 130 feet away. Waste Management says their trucks are too big for our alleys (solution: use smaller trucks). City staff says the heavy trucks damage the alley surfaces (question: wouldn’t moving the trucks to the streets just move the damage to the streets as well? Or is this an admission that alleys are poorly maintained in the city?).

The consultant is also suggesting that the city limit or do away with picking up anything that doesn’t fit inside one of the recommended 90-gallon totes. So, whereas now you can throw away that old couch or cabinet (what they call “bulky waste”) — the consultant says that should stop, be reduced to just once or twice a year, or charged an extra fee, such as $10 or $15 per item.

The biggest issue, however, is going to be how to include universal recycling. There is a lot of popular support for alleyside/curbside recycling as part of the base contract. Currently, anyone who wants to recycle has to pay extra and are billed directly by the hauler. That means that a household like mine that recycles pays three times for garbage service: once on our property taxes, once on our water bill, and once directly to Waste Management. Most households are not willing to pay three times for garbage hauling, so they just throw all their recyclables away in the regular trash. In other words, our current system incentivizes people not to recycle. That needs to be changed.

However, that will cost more money. So the question becomes how to pay for such service. One idea is to do the opposite of what we’re doing now: make recycling pickup free, but charge a fee for regular garbage. The way they do this in Morton is by selling trash stickers. However, in a more urban area, there is concern that this might lead to more illegal dumping or other unsanitary conditions as some people attempt to avoid the fee. So another idea is to make all collections every-other week. Regular garbage would be picked up on odd weeks, and recycling would be picked up on even weeks, for instance.

One other change that has been recommended in order to save money is switching to a sticker system for yard waste. Right now, unlimited yard waste disposal is included in the base contract. The cost of that service could be offset or possibly covered completely by charging residents a fee per bag of yard waste. On the other hand, this would be yet another reduction in services city residents already enjoy and for which they already pay twice.

Who would have thought garbage could be so complicated?

Nation/World

Cato Institute analyzes Obama’s health care town hall meeting

79 Comments

The Cato Institute, a non-profit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C., takes a look at the President’s health care town hall meeting that was broadcast on ABC recently:

With the nationalization of some of our largest companies, the recently-passed Waxman-Markey bill, and Obama’s health care proposal, it sounds like we’re well on our way to socialism in America, and I’m not throwing that term out lightly. How else can it be described?