The Peoria City Council will be meeting tonight (Tuesday, Dec. 14) to approve the final 2011 budget and dispose of other regular business. Here’s the agenda. You can hear the meeting on 89.9 FM (WCBU) tonight at 6:15 p.m., either on the radio or live-streamed over the Internet. The meeting will also be broadcast on Comcast Cable channel 22. Past meetings can be viewed online here.
Category Archives: City Council
No choice but to tax us more, Turner says
The Peoria City Council endorsed the creation of yet another tax Tuesday night. This time, the tax is on natural gas:
By a 7-2 vote, the council endorsed a “hybrid tax” in which two different assessments will be levied on natural gas users. The first, which will affect residential, commercial and industrial customers, is a 3.5 percent tax on gross receipts resulting in about $33 to $34 more for the typical residential user each year.
The second is a $0.0035 (35 hundredths of a penny) per therm tax on larger consumers who purchase natural gas on the open market.
The tax is expected to generate $2.2 million in 2011, and $2.4 million in years thereafter. The 2011 tax will be assessed on February’s Ameren bills.
So now, during the coldest month of winter, the City is going to start taxing everyone for their natural gas usage. Councilman Eric Turner said (according to the Journal Star), “There is no one around this horseshoe who wanted to do this. (But) we did not have a choice.”
I suppose it’s true enough that the council had no choice but to raise revenue in some way, but that’s not really the whole story, is it? The truth is that the council left itself with no choice because of prior poor decisions.
For instance, there was the Firefly loan guarantee that cost the City over a million dollars. There was the $2.8 million-appraised Kellar Branch rail line that the City gave to the Park District for $1. And the $10 million Sears block that the City gave to Peoria County for another dollar. Let’s not forget the $55 million the City spent to overbuild the Civic Center and the $34 million they’re poised to spend on a hotel to connect to it (this amount includes a developer fee of $9 million).
Some of that money was in assets that could have been sold. Some of it is debt that we are or will soon be paying. And some of it is in cold hard cash. But all of that money is flying out of our pockets due to poor decisions. Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and we suddenly do “not have a choice” but to raise taxes on Peoria residents.
It’s like a guy who spends his paycheck on cigarettes, alcohol, and poker games coming home and telling his wife, “Gee, honey, we have no choice but to pay our bills with the credit card this month.”
No choice, indeed.
City Manager fired after council meeting
After the Peoria City Council meeting, the council went into executive session for a long time. After an hour or so, Scott Moore emerged from the room alone and went up to his office, never to be seen again. The council met another half hour or so, then the meeting broke up.
Mayor Ardis announced that Scott Moore had tendered his resignation, and there will be an announcement Wednesday morning as to who will be the interim City Manager. The mayor was asked if it was a performance issue; he replied, “It’s an issue of us accepting his resignation.” In other words, he’s not commenting on the reason for the resignation.
However, he did confirm that Moore will get six months severance pay. Per the City Manager’s contract, “If the Manager resigns following an offer to accept resignation, whether formal or informal, by the City as representative of the majority of the governing body that the Manager resign, then the Manager may declare an involuntary termination as of the date of the suggestion.” In other words, the fact that Moore is eligible for severance means that the Council asked for his resignation, which is a nice way of firing someone.
No one is saying for the record why Moore was fired, but I think it’s fair to speculate that it was poor performance. You don’t generally fire someone if you think they’re doing a wonderful job.
Moore has been City Manager for a little more than one year. His annual salary is $165,000, and he gets six months salary ($82,500) as severance pay.
Liveblogging the City Council 11-23-2010
Hello everyone. I just realized tonight — if I were to get elected to the council, I would no longer be able to liveblog the council meetings. Billy Dennis will have to stop sloughing off and cover the meetings for the blogosphere again.
Well, here we are in Council chambers, and here’s tonight’s agenda (below). As always, I’ll be updating this post throughout the evening, so refresh your browser if you’re following along live. The time is 6:37 p.m., and former mayor Bud Grieves is speaking — he’s just received a proclamation celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Mark Twain Hotel, which he owns. Congrats to him. The proclamation was notable because it pointed out that he received no public funding, but made it into a successful hotel with all private investment. Just remember that the next time some developer comes to City Hall saying they can’t be successful without $40 million of your tax money.
When they voted to approve the minutes, Sandberg’s light didn’t illuminate, as it’s apparently burned out. Mayor Ardis said, “Due to non-use, Councilman Sandberg’s green light does not work.” That got a laugh from everyone.
Why I’m running for Peoria City Council
What do people want from city government? They want their streets to be plowed quickly after it snows so they can get to work on time. They want to feel safe when they go outside at night. They want the fire department to respond as quickly as possible when there’s a fire or other emergency. They want their garbage picked up, and their streets and sidewalks maintained. They want zoning and code enforcement policies that protect their property values and provide a fair and predictable investment climate for their business and residence.
In short, they want basic services delivered in an efficient and cost-effective manner. That’s the reason we have city government in the first place. That’s why we pay taxes.
I’m afraid the City Council has lost its focus. Instead of putting our tax money toward essential services first, it has opted instead to put large amounts of our tax money toward dubious investments, such as backing a loan for the ill-fated Firefly Energy and committing upwards of $40 million to build another downtown hotel, just to name a couple. Worse, it cuts these deals in secret, giving citizens no opportunity for meaningful input before they’re enacted.
This is not a recent phenomenon. Past council decisions have also compromised our ability to maintain the basic services the City is obligated to provide. MidTown Plaza alone is costing us a half million dollars a year to bail out. As a result of poor decisions such as these, in combination with the recent economic downturn, the City is looking at structural deficits and has had to cut core services each year. Our debt service already accounts for 17% of our budget, and will increase once bonds are issued for the proposed hotel.
I believe it’s time we got back to the fundamentals. We need to get our focus back on our core services — services that benefit all Peorians, not just a privileged few; services that will set the table for economic development without having to resort to developer welfare. And we need to get our focus back on the citizens of Peoria. Perfunctory public hearings have led to a dispirited and jaded public; this is not healthy for our City. Citizens should have ample opportunity for meaningful input, and that means asking for public comments as early in the policy/project development process as possible.
We need more council members who are committed to putting basic services first. And that’s why I’m running for Peoria City Council. I want to see the City focus our resources on our core services, work toward lowering our debt, and take the secrecy out of City government. This is the surest way to make the City an attractive place to live and do business.
A word about The Peoria Chronicle
One of the questions I get asked most frequently is what will happen to The Peoria Chronicle if I’m elected. I have no plans to change anything about the blog. It’s not unprecedented for elected officials to have active blogs (Merle Widmer is but one example), so I see no problem with continuing this site as is. In fact, I think it would be an asset. One of the things I love about the blog is the opportunity to discuss issues and get different points of view. The more civil discourse we can have as a community, the better.
No primary for City Council election
Ten candidates have filed for five at-large Peoria City Council seats. They are:
- Ryan Spain (incumbent)
- Chuck Weaver (chairman of Zoning Board of Appeals)
- Chuck Grayeb (former council member)
- Eric Turner (incumbent)
- Jim Stowell (D150 School Board Member)
- George Azouri (ICC Student)
- Beth Akeson (former Heart of Peoria Commission member)
- Andre Williams (local businessman)
- C. J. Summers (I’ve heard of this guy somewhere before)
- Gary Sandberg (incumbent)
Since there are no more than ten candidates, there will be no primary election. The primary would have been on February 22, 2011. Having no primary saves the taxpayers the cost of holding an election, which I believe amounts to about $75,000. The candidates will face off in the general election on April 5, 2011.
More details on my candidacy to follow. Stay tuned.
Journal Star hypes Kellar Trail; ignores hidden costs
The Journal Star reports:
A group of 30 or so dedicated proponents of Kellar Trail gathered on a dreary Sunday afternoon at West Marietta Avenue and North Prospect Road and ventured onto the rail-less trail, marking the first time an organized group has walked it since the rails-to-trails conversion was finished…. Smiles abounded as cameras clicked and flashed, capturing the excitement of the moment that many of them had been working toward for more than a decade.
What’s missing from this report? The cost.
The cost of this conversion is not disclosed; my guess is the Journal Star didn’t bother to ask. We know the cost of acquisition was $1,250,969, and the estimated cost of conversion as of 2006 was about $6.5 million. That money is expended by the Peoria Park District.
But perhaps the most significant number is the value of the Kellar branch right-of-way: $2,872,500 was its appraised value. The City gave this nearly $3 million right-of-way to the Park District for $1 to make this trail possible. Combine that with the $10 million Sears Block that the City gave to the County to make the proposed museum possible, and we now have nearly $13 million in assets the City has generously donated to two non-essential projects.
That generosity comes with a price. Instead of selling these assets and having the money to use for basic services such as firefighters or police officers, the City Council is instead poised to impose up to a $0.035 per-therm tax on natural gas in order to raise $5,565,500 in revenue. That means that, for all practical purposes, any new utility tax the City imposes will really be a tax to pay for a trail and a museum.
You won’t hear the budget trade-offs characterized in those terms in the press or on the council floor. The new tax will be portrayed as paying for basic services, of course: “It will help us keep firehouses open and police on the streets!” But it’s all a shell game. It could just as accurately be said that the tax is to cover the cost of giving away assets to the County and Park District.
Historic landmark could be delisted
On the City Council agenda for Tuesday is a request to strip the Roanoke Apartments building of its historic landmark status. The Journal Star reports:
Second District City Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken said all sides in the issues have been involved in discussions about the fate of the property, including members of the Central Illinois Landmarks Foundation, the grass-roots pro-preservationist group that would prefer to see a reuse of the apartments.
Van Auken also described the request to remove the landmark status as a one-time thing.
“The preferred route is to go to the (historic preservation) commission that recommends things to the council,” Van Auken said. “(The request) presented the opportunity to get a longstanding problem resolved. I would like to see the council take the opportunity to use it.”
The current City Council has been weakening the historic preservation ordinance ever since 2008 when they denied landmark status to the historic Duroc building and began a comprehensive review of the ordinance. This is just another nail in coffin. Despite Van Auken’s assertion that this would be “a one-time thing,” if the Council caves on this landmark, which has withstood legal challenges and been reviewed multiple times, they’ll cave on anything.
New utility tax proposed for Peoria
The Journal Star did a good job of covering this:
By a 9-1 vote, the City Council approved a tax on natural gas usage, which would equate to roughly $24 to $25 a year for the typical residential customer of Ameren Illinois….
Originally, the council had planned to approve a 3.5-cent-per-therm – a measurement of gas use – tax that would generate $6 million a year, resulting in $32.97 more in annual residential bills.
Fourth District Councilman Bill Spears, though, recommended a cheaper 2.5-cent-per-therm tax [which could generate roughly $4.3 million annually].
Proponents of the new revenue stream say it will allow the City to keep those police and firefighter positions that were threatened to be eliminated. They also point out that the tax applies to all natural gas users, including non-for-profit institutions like hospitals and churches, thus spreading the pain among a larger base than other proposed taxes. Critics say it protects wasteful spending that should be cut first before new revenues are added. They also say it will present a hardship on many households, especially those on a fixed income, and at the worst possible time — as we’re heading into winter.
19-year-old to run for Council
A 19-year-old Illinois Central College student is the sixth person to seek election to an at-large seat on the Peoria City Council. George Azouri of 3638 W. Cassadaga Ct. in the City’s fourth district filed his petitions with the Peoria Election Commission on Tuesday. He’s a student member of ICC’s Board of Trustees, and was recently appointed to the Mayor’s advisory committee on police-community relations.