All posts by C. J. Summers

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

City should raise taxes, not cut costs

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The City of Peoria is in a world of hurt. Because of the recession, revenues are down. Way down. In fact, according to a report prepared for Tuesday night’s council meeting, “Staff is anticipating $3,334,129 less revenue than previously forecasted, which would result in a budget deficit of an equal amount.”

As a result, staff is trying to figure out a way to make up the difference. Curiously, they’re trying to do so through fiscally conservative methods, such as contract adjustments, expenditure reductions, revenue-generating activities, and reserve funds. In other words, they’re trying to save money without raising taxes.

But why? If the recent election has shown us anything, it’s that the vast majority of Peoria residents don’t give a hoot whether their taxes are raised. Most of them couldn’t be bothered to drag themselves downtown for early voting, or out to their polling place on a beautiful sun-shiny day. A majority of those that did voted to raise their own taxes for a non-essential project in the middle of an economic recession — some would say depression.

You know what that tells me? That tells me that the city council should stop stressing out about cutting costs and looking for other forms of revenue. In fact, they shouldn’t change a thing about their operating budget. They should simply figure out how much additional revenue they need, and then raise taxes to cover it. Done.

After all, the museum group didn’t look at any other alternatives to downsize their project, or to increase revenue-generating activity, or renegotiate contracts (like using non-union, but prevailing-wage labor), or any number of things that would have made their project more affordable. Yet, the majority of the few registered voters who turned out voted to give them $40 million anyway with no strings attached.

Not just the voters, either. Caterpillar, the Chamber of Commerce, almost all elected officials, District 150, the Peoria Association of Realtors, etc., etc., etc. — they were all for raising taxes. How could any of them complain if the city were to do the same for essential services, such as police, fire, streets, and sidewalks?

I’m calling on all those who supported and voted for the sales tax referendum to write their city council members and demand that they not cut spending, but increase taxes instead. Since we’re all so flush with cash, let’s start using it in the areas that are the most needy.

St. Louis Cardinals

In happier news….

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Cardinals LogoBaseball season started again this week. That’s right — the boys of summer are back!

Whitey’s recently got new high-definition televisions, too. That will make watching the Cardinals go to the World Series this year all the better. Do you realize the last time the Cardinals won the World Series was 2006? That’s three years ago! It’s time to go back.

And hey, the All-Star Game is in St. Louis this year! Maybe this will be the year the National League wins and gets home-field advantage for the World Series.

2009 Campaign

Other election results

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Other returns of interest:

  • Jim Ardis won the mayoral race with over 90% of the vote.
  • Barbara Van Auken won reelection in the Second District with 58% of the vote.
  • Dan Irving is the new Fifth District representative, raking in a commanding 80% of the vote.
  • Laura Petelle won over 55% of the vote in a three-way race for District 150 Board of Education. She will replace Mary Spangler in the third board district.
  • Patrick Nichting will succeed Reg Willis as the City’s Treasurer. He bested Gary Shadid 62% to 38%.
2009 Campaign

Negative campaigning plays in Second District

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Over the weekend, city council candidate Curphy Smith sent this mailer to residents in the second district. It can only be characterized as a negative campaign piece. It sets forth in detail all the ways incumbent Barbara Van Auken broke her campaign promises, with some personal attacks thrown in for good measure.

This mailer was regrettable, especially considering Smith had, up to that point, run a pretty positive campaign. While I think the piece makes some valid criticisms of Van Auken, it steps over the line a little too much. Specifically:

  • Overall, the piece reads as a response to the unsigned anti-Curphy flyer that was distributed to neighborhoods surrounding Bradley. In fact, an image of the flyer appears on page 3 of Curphy’s mailer, and Curphy attributes the flyer to Van Auken’s campaign.

    “Only one week before Election Day, Barbara Van Auken sent out an alarmist flyer urging people to vote on 7th,” the Smith mailer says. However, as I reported in a previous post, Van Auken denies any knowledge of the flyer, and says it was not authorized by her campaign. Unless Smith’s campaign has some sort of proof that it came from Van Auken, they shouldn’t be accusing her of sending it.

  • The mailer heavily criticizes Van Auken’s success in building a new arbor at Rebecca and Main street completely at city expense. While pointing out that Van Auken didn’t fulfill her promise to repeal the $6 per month garbage fee, the mailer states, “She had other ideas to spend the money to make her look good as a council member — such as her monumental and extravagant arbor.”

    Construction of the arbor was a one-time cost of $143,287.66. The garbage fee brings in approximately $2.3 million in revenue annually. Was the arbor expense extravagant? One could argue that it was. But one cannot argue that it would have been more than a drop in the bucket to fill the revenue hole if the garbage tax were eliminated. A better criticism would have been that, in 2006, the council considered replacing the garbage fee by raising the city’s portion of property taxes 14 cents per $100 valuation. They didn’t, opting instead to approve a budget that didn’t raise taxes and left the garbage tax in place. Van Auken voted in favor of that budget.

  • The mailer also makes this allegation: “People who have had to deal with Barbara Van Auken over the years invariably describe her as ‘vindictive,’ ‘mean,’ ‘divisive,’ and ‘abrasive.'” This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to voters. It’s a personal attack. It’s hyperbole (“invariably”?). And it’s unnecessary. There is sufficient reason to vote against her without resorting to name-calling. It just makes Smith appear mean-spirited. That’s unfortunate because, in my dealings with Smith, I had not found him to be mean-spirited.

In my opinion, this piece wasn’t necessary. Van Auken had brought enough bad press on herself, and the Journal Star had endorsed Smith. The unsigned anti-Curphy flyer was already counterbalanced by the release of embarrassing police reports and video of Van Auken from last September. The candidates themselves had successfully distanced themselves from these negative attacks on each other.

On the other hand, negative campaigning has a long and often successful history. I guess Smith’s campaign will just have to hope the tactic doesn’t backfire on them as voters head to the polls today.

2009 Campaign, City of Peoria

Peoria Chronicle Endorsements — Mayor: Ardis, Treasurer: Shadid

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Two other races on the ballot Tuesday are for Mayor of Peoria and Peoria City Treasurer. Here are my endorsements for each of these:

  • Mayor of Peoria: Jim Ardis — Running against incumbent Mayor Ardis is local activist General Parker. Unfortunately, under current state law, Parker is ineligible to serve if elected. Thus, for all practical purposes, Ardis is running unopposed. He is endorsed.

  • City Treasurer: Gary Shadid — City Treasurer Reginald Willis is retiring and two candidates are vying to succeed him: Fifth District Councilman Patrick Nichting and local CPA Gary Shadid. Nichting offers little more than his fifth district representation as experience, whereas Shadid has been a CPA since 1983 and has experience in governmental accounting and auditing. Shadid is the more qualified of the two. He is endorsed.
2009 Campaign

Peoria Chronicle Endorsements — Peoria City Council: Smith, Akeson, Irving

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All the City of Peoria district representative positions are up for election Tuesday, but only three are contested. First District Councilman Clyde Gulley and Fourth District Councilman Bill Spears are unopposed. Here are my endorsements for the other three offices:

  • Second District: Curphy Smith — When incumbent Barbara Van Auken ran for office four years ago, she promised to have a more inclusive leadership style than her predecessor, Marcella Teplitz. Regrettably, that has not come to pass. Secrecy on the council has gotten worse, and Van Auken is right in the thick of it. From the Marriott Hotel plan to spend $40 million that was kept secret from the public until the eleventh hour and passed nearly unanimously, to plans for cutting the city’s budget deficit that were kept secret even from other council members, Van Auken has not distinguished herself as “inclusive.” Her other campaign promises — restoring Fire Station 11 to “full service” and eliminating the $6 per month garbage fee — have also gone unfulfilled, although Van Auken supporters will point out that she followed the advice of the Fire Chief on the former issue. She said she supported the Renaissance Park plan, but after doing a traffic study on Main Street, she asked for no funding in 2009 to actually make improvements. It should come as no surprise that some of her biggest supporters also favor no changes to Main Street.

    Beyond that, I’m disappointed in Van Auken’s voting record. She has consistently voted to make exceptions to the Land Development Code that favors developers over residents. She has gotten few concessions from institutions wishing to expand, whether it be Bradley University encroaching into the Arbor District or Methodist Hospital taking over Hamilton Boulevard and inching closer to the Randolph-Roanoke District. A publicly-funded arbor is little compensation for destabilizing an older, mature neighborhood and worsening traffic issues by allowing two important thoroughfares to be vacated. She has nullified two historic preservation requests because she didn’t like the timing of the requests. She ran on a fiscally-conservative, essential-services-first platform, yet supports the proposed museum, the Marriott Hotel plan, the Civic Center expansion, and other so-called “progressive” issues.

    Curphy Smith is not the ideal candidate. He doesn’t have the grasp on city issues that I would like to see. But he’s open-minded and willing to listen to both sides of an issue in an unprejudiced way. From what I’ve observed when he was an officer in the Uplands Residential Association, he was not afraid to bring controversial ideas to the table. He could have a spirited debate, but not hold a grudge against those who didn’t vote his way. Since he’s a banker, he would also bring his financial skills to the table, which will offset the loss of Bob Manning who isn’t running for reelection. The second district needs a change, and Smith has a lot of potential. He is endorsed.

  • Third District: Beth Akeson — I wrote a lengthy endorsement before the primary election in support of Beth Akeson (read it here), so I’ll just reiterate my summary statement here:

    Motivational speaker Joel Barker once said, “Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with vision is making a positive difference.” This is what sets Beth Akeson apart from the other candidates: She has that rare combination of action with vision. And she will make a positive difference for the citizens of Peoria, especially in the third district. […]

    I sincerely believe that Beth Akeson is the candidate that will make the biggest positive difference for her district and the city at large.

  • Fifth District: Dan Irving — There’s no incumbent in this race, as Patrick Nichting is pursuing the City Treasurer’s job instead. So the candidates are Dan Irving and Gloria Cassel-Fitzgerald, both of whom ran unsuccessfully in the last at-large election (coming in sixth and ninth, respectively).

    I endorsed Irving in the at-large election because of “the priority he puts on core services (fire, police) and his support for older neighborhoods (through the Heart of Peoria Plan and other initiatives).” I haven’t heard him talk about those issues so much now that he’s running for fifth district, which is understandable. The Heart of Peoria Plan doesn’t cover the fifth district, and the economy is quite a bit different these days, so more focus is put on economic development.

    Both candidates favor the museum tax and the $40 million subsidy for building a Marriott Hotel, even though neither of these are core services and are hardly affordable in the city’s current economic condition. That’s disappointing, but not surprising coming from the fifth district.

    Cassel-Fitzgerald, just like in the at-large campaign, sounds more like she’s running for school board rather than city council. In fact, education is one of the main planks in her platform, even though the city can do little about those issues.

    Overall, Irving has a better grasp on city issues. Two years later, I still find him to be informed, level-headed, and realistic in his approach. He is endorsed.