Category Archives: City Council

City Council, City of Peoria, Elections

Council to consider keeping elections the way they are

3 Comments

State election law has changed, but the city council has a chance to override the changes and keep everything in Peoria status quo. Here’s the skinny:

The state legislature last year changed the requirements for when a primary election has to be held in municipal nonpartisan elections — things like mayor, councilman, clerk, etc. Under the old rules, you had to have a primary election if there were more than two candidates for each office.

For example, in the mayor’s race, if there were three or four people running for mayor, there had to be a primary to narrow the field to two. Then those two would face off in the general election. In the case of at-large council seats, the issue is simply multiplied. There are five at-large seats, and there can’t be more than two candidates per seat — that means that ten (5 x 2) is the magic number. If there are more than ten candidates for at-large seats, then a primary election must be held.

Clear as mud? Okay, so now the state legislature has gone and changed the numbers. You now have to have a primary election only if there are more than four candidates for each office.

So now, using the same examples above, if there are three or four people running for mayor, no primary needed. They’ll all face off in the general election. That means, of course, that one could win with a mere plurality of voters. And considering how low voter turnout is these days, that means a pretty small number of people could be deciding who the next mayor is. In the case of at-large seats, there can’t be more than four candidates per seat, and there are still five seats, which means twenty (5 x 4) is the new magic number. If there are more than twenty candidates for at-large seats, then a primary election must be held.

Peoria is a home-rule municipality, which means it can set its own rules for holding a primary election. But there’s a catch: they can only do it by referendum. So, on the council agenda for Tuesday (8/26) is resolution that would put that referendum on the November ballot. The question on the ballot would read as follows:

Shall the City of Peoria hold nonpartisan primary elections, to reduce the field of candidates to 2, when more than 2 persons have filed valid nominating papers and/or notice of intent to become a write-in candidate for the office of Mayor, Clerk, Treasurer or District Councilman; and, in the case of At-Large Councilmen, to 10, when more than 10 persons have filed valid nominating papers and/or notice of intent to become a write-in candidate?

YES or NO

My suggestion would be to vote yes. I don’t think we want a mayor to be elected by plurality. A win by plurality would arguably weaken that mayor’s administration. Same for the district council members.

Furthermore, this system seems to me to favor the incumbent. Imagine, for instance, if this had been in place when Gale Thetford, Bob Manning, and Angela Anderson were running in the third district, and Thetford was the incumbent. She probably would have won because the votes against her would have been split. That right there is enough reason to change it back!

UPDATE: I knew I was going to write on this, so I deliberately didn’t read Billy’s post on it until after I wrote my own. I’m amazed at how similar our conclusions were. He’s smarter than I thought…. 😛

City Council, City of Peoria

A snow plan that giveth and taketh away

5 Comments

A new snow plan is on the City Council agenda again tonight. This was first brought up in July, but was deferred because some council members had questions. The current snow plan can be downloaded from the City’s website.

If you look at the current snow route map, you’ll see that there are red routes (primary) and blue routes (secondary). The new plan would, among other things, change all some of the blue routes to red routes; or, to put it another way, it would elevate the status of some secondary routes to primary ones. There are significantly more blue routes in the newer, northern parts of Peoria. So, what this effectively means is that snow removal will be slower in the older parts of town as resources are shifted north.

“What’s wrong with that?” you may ask. It’s less efficient. Efficiency would be clearing the greatest amount of snow for the greatest number of people in the least amount of time. The current primary/secondary route system does that. Promoting all secondary routes to primary ones would decrease efficiency.

How? Because of two things: density and grid streets. There are more homes per acre in the older parts of the city, so naturally plowing a mile there is going to affect more people than plowing a mile in the northern part of the city. And the streets in the older part of the city are laid out in a gridiron pattern, which is also more efficient to plow because it doesn’t require any backtracking. You may recall from the Six Sigma snow study that it takes six times as long to plow a cul-de-sac than a through street.

Fifth-district councilman Pat Nichting’s response to this argument?

“Remember, taxes pay the bills and not density,” Nichting said. […] “I know Mr. Sandberg wants to focus on density, but does it pay for people’s salary or (generate the taxes) to pay for salary?”

I guess under Nichting’s logic, the primary snow routes should be the streets the rich people live on, and if the poor people aren’t paying enough taxes (in his estimation), then they just shouldn’t get their streets plowed at all. I would point out that while “taxes pay the bills,” property taxes only account for 14% of the city’s revenue. We actually get more revenue from sales taxes, state sources, and other local taxes such as the garbage tax — which, by the way, is a flat fee paid by rich and poor alike. And I might also point out that it was with taxes generated by the older part of Peoria that all that infrastructure in the over-annexed north end was developed — and developed at the expense of maintaining the infrastructure in the older parts of town.

I think Nichting’s longing for oligarchy is not in the best interests of Peoria. An efficient snow removal plan would be better for all. Workers would be able to get to work quicker, which would help the employers/executives, and emergency services would be able to have quicker access to all parts of town. And it should be remembered that everyone’s taxes “pay the bills,” not just those from the fifth district.

UPDATE: Since I don’t get the full council packet, I can only see what is put up on the city’s website. The new snow plan map is in the council’s packet, but not on the website, so the only thing I had to go on was the July 22 council communication and PowerPoint presentation. Based on the wording there that they were recommending to “eliminate ‘secondary’ routes,” and subsequent discussion on the council floor that meeting where at-large councilman Gary Sandberg asked if the blue routes were becoming red routes, I was under the impression that applied to all of the “eliminated” blue routes. Sandberg has informed me that it’s only some of those routes.

The point is still that the routes should be based on density, and changes to the route system should be clearly communicated and justified.

City Council, City of Peoria

Council Preview 8/12/08

8 Comments

What will the City Council be considering Tuesday night? Well, I thought you’d never ask. Here are the highlights:

  • First off, at-large councilman George Jacob will be attending the meeting via teleconference. Do you ever wonder what the person is doing while teleconferencing in to the meeting? Eating dinner, perhaps? Or watching the Olympics? All of a sudden, we hear him shout “GO USA!” because he forgot to hit the mute button…. Okay, maybe I’m the only one who wonders those things.

  • The City is looking to get an electronic storage system for documents and images. By storing scans of documents and pictures in a centralized database, the City can be more efficient both in terms of physical space and retrieval time. One example given in the council communication is building plans. “Planning, Public Works, Inspections and Fire all receive building plans and each department is storing those plans independently. With this system, the plans can be scanned or saved if in electronic format and shared by all departments rather than each saving the large files and taking up additional space for either disk storage or the paper copies.” Sounds like a good idea. Cost: $81,000. Vendor: Advanced Processing and Imaging, Inc.

  • The City is poised to spend $122,446.20 on a .22-mile bike trail extension with its own storm sewer system along Hickory Grove Rd. This is a curious expense. It’s at 100% city expense. The storm sewer portion will correct a drainage problem that has resulted in some flooding of residential backyards. Can someone tell me when the longstanding drainage issues in the fourth district got corrected that would have moved this fifth-district project up on the priority list?

  • New sidewalks will be constructed around Manual High School. This was in response to Manual students walking in the middle of the road, obstructing traffic, ostensibly because sidewalks were in disrepair or nonexistent. What do you think? Will the construction of these sidewalk improvements keep the kids out of the street?

  • It’s been two years since the City’s 20-year cable franchise agreement with (then) Insight Communications expired. Since then, there have been little extensions of a few months at a time while a new franchise agreement is negotiated. There will be another one of those extensions Tuesday night, this time until June 2009. Maybe someday they’ll actually come to terms on a new franchise agreement.

  • The City will raise cab fares to a realistic level.

  • The City has a chance to put a stop to the proposed three-story office building for Riverfront Village (you know, the big concrete slab on stilts that blocks the view of the river downtown). When the City approved the development back in March 2007, it had a deadline that construction would commence by December 2008. Well, that’s not going to happen, so now the developer wants to extend the deadline to December 2010. The council should be working toward eventually getting that monstrosity torn down, not adding to it. A three-story office building will only exacerbate the problem. This is the perfect opportunity to kill it.

  • There’s a request for the Council to approve a resolution asking the state to raise our taxes supporting the City of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics.

  • There’s a request to put an electronic billboard at the intersection of I-74 and Knoxville Ave. The Zoning Commission recommended denial. It will be interesting to see if second-district councilmember Barbara Van Auken goes with the Zoning Commission’s advice, or if she votes to approve it anyway.

There’s one more item — the snow plan — but I’ll be looking at that in a separate post, coming up next.

City Council, City of Peoria

City wants your input on the 2009 budget

1 Comment

From a press release:

As the City Council begins another year of budget planning, we want to start the process by reaching out to the citizens of Peoria for input on where they would like to see their tax dollars invested.

Mayor Jim Ardis said, “It is vital that citizens have a voice in how their tax dollars are invested. The members of City Council and I are encouraging citizens to give their input at the beginning of the budget process so that their needs and vision are taken into consideration.”

Two open houses have been scheduled to allow the community the opportunity to share their ideas on the 2009 budget. Both meetings are on Monday, August 4, 2008, and are scheduled at two different times to accommodate more schedules. Citizens can drop in during those time periods.

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 Noon
Exposition Gardens
1601 W. Northmoor Road
Peoria, IL 61614

5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p. m.
Peoria City/County Health Department
2116 N. Sheridan Road
Peoria, Illinois 61604

These meetings will give citizens the opportunity to review the operating and capital budgets, ask City Council and staff questions, and give your input on priorities and suggestions.

City Council, City of Peoria, Zoning Commission

Zoning Commission wants to move meetings to 3 p.m.

1 Comment

The Zoning Commission is asking the City Council to move the commission’s meetings to 3 p.m. the first Thursday of each month. Since January, the commission has been meeting at 6 p.m.

This comes as no surprise. Up until January of this year, the Zoning Commission met at 1 p.m. the first Thursday of each month, and they really didn’t want to change. In fact, two commission members threatened to quit if the council changed the meeting time. Those turned out to be empty threats as no one resigned.

The purpose of changing the schedule was to allow more participation from residents who are not able to attend Zoning Commission meetings in the middle of the day because they’re working. Now, the Zoning Commission is saying that attendance is not any different than it was before, and that having the meetings earlier would save the city money in overtime/comp time pay. They offer no hard numbers.

I don’t see how a 3 p.m. meeting is going to be any easier for the first-shift working public to attend than a 1 p.m. meeting. And I would be interested to see some empirical evidence for the commission’s contention that “attendance was always based on whether the topic on the agenda was controversial or not” and that “controversial topics brought out more people whether the meetings were held in the afternoon or in the evening.”

It will be interesting to see the council’s reaction to this request.

City Council, City of Peoria

Snow Response Plan calls for staff increase, fleet upgrade

9 Comments

It’s hard to think about things like snow removal when it’s been in the 90s and humid outside lately. But this is the best time to be talking about it — well in advance of the next snow storm.

On the city council agenda tomorrow is a plan to add staff and upgrade the city’s truck fleet in order to improve what they call “snow response.” Recommendations for change include:

  • Due to growth, the number of snow routes needs to be increased to add one additional route;
  • A slight reconfiguration of the routes on the north side of the City to address the many new areas;
  • The new plan also eliminates what are currently called “secondary” snow routes. (This will allow
    staff to more quickly complete efforts on the major streets during a snow storm, and move into the
    residential streets faster.)
  • Based on the additional route and a review of current staffing levels, the Administration is
    requesting a change in staffing for the Streets & Sewers Division to reduce our reliance on
    “Temporary” workers and move back to using a full complement of full-time staff. This change will
    add 22 full-time employees.
  • A fourth PW [Public Works] Supervisor is also requested, to help monitor the snow response program. In the summer months, this new Supervisor will be able to relieve the Manager from direct oversight of the Seal Coat program.
    • The annual cost for the staff changes is estimated at about $226,000 based on the current
      pay levels. There are several reasons cited for this recommendation in the attached presentation.
  • Staff developed a schedule for accelerating the purchase of trucks to meet their expected useful life (attached) and is recommending an increase in the annual level for truck replacement from about $250,000 in our Capital Fund to about $642,000 (and this amount needs to increase annually for inflation). Since we are behind in our upgrades to the truck fleet, we will need to buy ten (10) trucks in 2009, nine (9) trucks in 2010, and six (6) trucks in 2011 . The schedule shows a need to find additional funds or borrow on a short term basis for these three years in addition to the increased Capital Fund support. The attached spreadsheet provides a summary of this analysis for consideration.
    • The equipment used for snow removal was also evaluated as a part of the program review. There are forty-three (43) trucks used for fighting snow and ice storms. It is estimated that the larger trucks last only about nine years before they become unreliable, and costs for maintenance start to increase to the point where their replacement is more cost-efficient. The smaller trucks only last about seven years. Based on these estimates the City needs to be buying about 5 to 6 trucks annually to keep up with this rate of deterioration. We have only been buying two or three, as funds are made available.

The financial impact is estimated to be $226,000 per year for the additional staffing, $392,000 for fleet upgrades in the current budget, plus a lot of borrowing in future years for more vehicle replacement ($510,000 in 2009, $696,000 in 2010, and $412,000 in 2011).

Why hire so many permanent full-time workers? According to the study that was done, it was determined that the current process of hiring temporary workers is not effective. The presentation attached to the council request states that temporary workers “lack experience,” “don’t know routes as well,” “need more supervision,” and “are paid more than full time staff.” In addition, the “current staffing level provides no back-up.”

It should come as no surprise that more staff is necessary to handle public works needs in a city that continues to increase in size (and continues to add miles of inefficient curvilinear streets). There’s an annexation request on the city council agenda nearly every week, and I have yet to see one defeated. As the city continues to grow, expect other departments to request an increase in staff and equipment as well.

Perhaps the next Six Sigma project could be a process for evaluating annexation requests on a cost-revenue basis. The city currently does no such evaluation, choosing to look only at the potential revenues (increased tax base) and ignore the additional public works and public safety costs.

City Council, City of Peoria

250 more acres to be added to Enterprise Zone

6 Comments

Also on the council agenda for Tuesday, a request for more property to be added to the Enterprise Zone:

ACTION REQUESTED: DIRECT STAFF TO COMMENCE PROCESS TO EXPAND THE CITY OF PEORIA ENTERPRISE ZONE FOR SPECIFIED PROPERTIES ZONED COMMERCIAL AND OFFICE WITHIN THE 4 TH DISTRICT ALONG STERLING AVENUE FROM FORREST HILL TO GLEN AND INCLUDING A PARCEL IN GLEN HOLLOW SHOPPING CENTER, ALSO INCLUDING THE CORNER OF FORREST HILL AND GALE; AND IN THE 2ND DISTRICT SPECIFIED PROPERTIES ALONG UNIVERSITY AND DRIES LANE FROM FORREST HILL TO WAR MEMORIAL DRIVE.

I can’t think of a single store in the Glen Hollow shopping center that is vacant or otherwise needs an EZ incentive. So including that parcel is a complete mystery. And the corner of Forrest Hill and Gale was a thriving shopping area until road projects disrupted traffic for months on end, and ultimately destroyed easy access to the shopping area on the northeast corner where Velvet Freeze used to be.

But perhaps the most ridiculous use of the Enterprise Zone is the area along University St. and Dries Lane between Forrest Hill and War Memorial Dr. You know, where Wal-Mart is. And where Dynasty Buffet just did a major renovation. And where Comcast Cable is located. And Landmark.

None of these areas need these incentives. They’re only getting them because EZ status has been so egregiously abused. The first line of the council request’s justification states: “Businesses have been moving to the northern boundaries of the city and what was once an area with thriving businesses now holds some vacant buildings that are in decline.” Yes, businesses have been moving to the northern boundaries of the city because the city has been incentivizing it. Just recently, the Enterprise Zone was used as a tool to promote annexation along Willow Knolls road.

The Enterprise Zone was created to help blighted areas — to give businesses an incentive to locate in those areas that are truly disadvantaged. The council could have used it to help, for instance, South Peoria, a place that is truly blighted and sorely underserved. But the council didn’t use it for that. The irresponsible use of Enterprise Zone status means they’ve squandered an opportunity to help a part of Peoria that desperately needs help and, to make matters worse, given the benefits instead to areas of the city that don’t need any incentives.

Furthermore, Enterprise Zone status gives businesses a sales tax break on construction materials — and sales taxes are the biggest source of income for the city. For a city that’s cash strapped and looking at huge projects like the CSO project in the near future, it’s irresponsible to cut our income by injudicious use of the Enterprise Zone.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Police

Police looking to get Segways

7 Comments

On the city council agenda for next Tuesday is a request by the Police Department to purchase two Segway Personal Transport vehicles to be used by parking enforcement officers and police patrolling congested public events. Here’s the justification as it appears in the council request:

The Peoria Police Department has been attempting to find better ways to provide service in the downtown area and in areas where there are large crowds of citizens gathered, such as public events. Parking Enforcement Officers and Police Officers often must commute through the congested geographical areas while making frequent stops. The Parking Enforcement Officers in the Downtown area must park their vehicles and repeatedly enter and exit their vehicles to conduct business. During public events, currently the only mode of transportation inside the event area is by foot. Officers often are called to respond to calls for service which are a sizable distance to travel by foot in a short period of time. Officers utilizing a Personal Transport would be able to respond much more quickly and would not need to physically exert themselves before arriving at the call by sprinting through the area. Multiple police departments throughout the State of Illinois are currently utilizing the Segway Personal Transport with positive results and are reporting the Segway has been positive for public relations. It is also anticipated that there will be a significant savings in fuel consumption for the downtown Parking Enforcement officers. The Personal Transports get the equivalent of anywhere between 250 and 500 m.p.g. depending upon how they are equipped. It is fair to say that the Segway’s energy consumption will cost at least 1/10th of the current cost in the Ford Focus utilized by the Parking Enforcement Officers.

The accessories that will be included in the purchase of the (2) x2 Police package Segways are: 2 parking stands, 2 police lights and sirens, and 1 commercial cargo carrier.

Cost for two Segways: $13,775.03. I’ll admit my first reaction was to be skeptical; there is something comical about a police officer racing after someone at 12 mph with sirens blaring on a Segway. But a quick search of the Internet shows that Segways are indeed being used by police departments in cities big and small, and the devices are proving to be helpful and effective. Nevertheless, I got a kick out of this post comparing other alternatives. The Chicagoist has a more positive spin.

City Council, City of Peoria

Time for City to start thinking about budgets

Leave a comment

There’s a special City Council meeting this coming Tuesday. There’s only one item on the agenda, and no final action will be taken. It appears to be the beginning of birth pangs for next year’s City budget process:

DISCUSSION Regarding the City of Peoria Financial Overview of 2008 Year-to-Date Projections and 2009 Preliminary Revenue Projections; Including 5-Year Projections, and Operating Budget Guidelines. No Final Action will be Taken.

We’re entering the season where priorities will be set, new projects will get funded, old projects will get defunded, compromises will be made, the garbage tax will be defended (again), and more revenue will be raised in some creative way they will define as anything other than a “tax increase.” Budget hearings from departments won’t roll around until October, if last year’s schedule is any indication. But that’s just around the corner, believe it or not — only six regular council meetings away.