Category Archives: City Council

City Council, City of Peoria

Council preview 7/8/08

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At tonight’s council meeting, at-large councilman Jim Montelongo will be attending via teleconference. Some notable items:

  • River Trail Drive Plan — This is Economic Development Director Craig Hullinger’s brainchild to build townhouses along the riverfront from the Riverplex north to Spring Street, along with a Grandview-Drive-type road that goes by it. The townhouses would be on the west side of the road, and the river side of the road would remain parkland, giving drivers, bikers, and pedestrians an unobstructed view of the river. I attended one of the public meetings for this project and heard some discontent from environmentalists in attendance due to the fact that some parkland would be taken away in the course of this project. Apparently, their objections weren’t very strong because there’s been no formal opposition mounted, and this request to seek a developer appears on the consent agenda. Looks like a shoo-in.

  • More land for the Enterprise Zone — I’ll let this agenda item speak for itself (emphasis mine):

    On June 10, 2008 Council directed staff to commence the process to expand the City of Peoria’s Enterprise Zone to include certain properties bordered by Sheridan, Glen, University and Lake and the Sheridan Village Shopping Center. Since that time staff has received suggestions and requests that the entire commercially zoned area within those boundaries be included in the Zone. Staff is now requesting that all properties zoned commercial/office within the Glen/Sheridan/Lake/University area be included with the original expansion application…. The new development has not been completely planned, and the exact dollars [financial impact to the city] cannot be determined at this time. The City would lose the portion of sales tax on building materials purchased within the City for these projects. However, the City will gain additional sales tax from the new retail development that occurs due to this expansion. Additionally, a number of new jobs will be created both from the construction as well as from the retail stores. And the investment would help revitalize and stabilize the area.

    This illustrates just how haphazardly we throw around enterprise zone status in Peoria. Some businesses surrounding a proposed enterprise zone want in on the action, so the council reflexively complies, even though these additional businesses have no plans and the city cannot even evaluate the financial impact of adding them to the enterprise zone. The city gets most of its revenue from sales taxes, so discounting sales taxes from such a large swath of Peoria without considering the impact on city revenues is injudicious. Yet it’s on the consent agenda.

  • Making CHDO’s rehab older homes, not just build new — This is second district council member Barbara Van Auken’s idea. An example of a Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) would be Habitat for Humanity (although there are others, of course). Ideally, they build new homes (in-fill development) and renovate older homes for low-income people. However, in Peoria, these organizations always build new. I personally find nothing wrong with that, as we have plenty of need for in-fill development in our older neighborhoods. But Van Auken would like to see one out of every three projects be a renovation. Since these organizations get federal money through the city’s CHDO funding program, the city can add those strings to the money if they wish. The CHDOs oppose this proposal basically because of the “unpredictable costs associated with rehab” (e.g., lead paint abatement, asbestos, etc.). The risk is that CHDOs may just decide not to do any more projects, in which case the city would lose the grant money and the development that CHDOs provide. The city staff is nevertheless recommending approval, with a promise that they will report back after a year on how well the policy is working. My only fear is that as many exceptions to the Land Development Code will be made in these rehab projects as have been made in new construction.

  • Closing loopholes in the payday loan store moratorium — In response to criticism of her plan to put a moratorium on zoning certificates for payday loan stores, Van Auken has proposed this additional ordinance that would extend that moratorium to building permits. With the moratorium on zoning certificates, it only would stop standalone payday loan stores, but not stores in strip malls. This ordinance is designed to close that loophole.

  • Van Winkle is back — Former public works director Steve Van Winkle is being appointed to the Traffic Commission. This won’t require much of a time commitment from Van Winkle since the Traffic Commission cancels most of its meetings. Also, recently retired city engineer Gene Hewitt is being reappointed to the Board of Local Improvements.

  • Firefighters get a new contract — A new three-year contract has been negotiated between the city and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), giving firefighters a raise of 3.5% and other benefits.

  • Methodist Hospital expansion — This is probably the biggest item on the agenda; there are actually three separate motions on this project; here, here, and here. Methodist wants to put their entire campus under institutional (N1) zoning, plus make modifications to Hamilton Boulevard; that latter item is resulting in the Historic Preservation Commission attempting to designate the boulevard an historic landmark. I’m confident this plan will sail through the council with very few questions. It’s amusing to me how I’ve heard about how “new urban” and pedestrian-friendly this design is, yet they want to get out of the West Main regulating plan (form-based code) and have requested numerous variances to the Land Development Code. Both of those codes are designed to ensure that the principles of new urbanism are followed, resulting in pedestrian-friendliness. And, incidentally, neither Methodist nor city staff have shared these plans with the Heart of Peoria Commission, not that anyone cares.

  • Elliott’s strip club gets a liquor license — …and a bunch of taxpayer money, as expected. They’ll get a Class A (tavern) with a subclass 1a (2 a.m. closing) and subclass 2 (live entertainment) liquor license as part of a settlement agreement between the city and the owners of Elliott’s. Also in the covenant: a promise that the city will allow an “adult cabaret” in that location for at least ten years, and the payment of $50,000 in attorney’s fees to Elliott’s. That’s right! Thanks to the city fighting this, Elliott’s will get everything they wanted in the first place, plus $50,000 in your tax money! On a positive note, it could have been worse; $50,000 is significantly lower than what was predicted.
City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Library

Council to give library board $28 million

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I realize I’m going to get criticized for never being happy no matter what the outcome, but nevertheless, the city council’s vote tonight to give the library $28 million with no strings attached left me scratching my head.

First of all, how did they come up with $28 million? One of the concerns about the library’s plan was that $35 million was too much in light of the city’s (and, ultimately, the taxpayers’) other obligations. Apparently, $28 million is not too much, since it was approved. But why? Why not $29 million? Or $6 million? Or $34.5 million? How did $28 million become the magic threshold?

Well, I confirmed after the meeting what I suspected was the reason: The $7 million reduction is the cost of upgrading the Lakeview branch. You may recall that several council members suggested that the library board wait to upgrade Lakeview until the effects of a new northern branch on Lakeview’s patronage could be determined. Fair enough.

But cutting the full $7 million pegged for Lakeview was rather simplistic. Lakeview is still going to need some upgrading. The library board isn’t going to just leave it to rot and they’re thinking: is it time to replace your ac unit? Even without expansion, it still needs capital improvements, such as air conditioning repair and technology upgrades. Professional AC Repair Services in Boca Raton can help achieve this.

So what should have happened? The item should have been deferred until after the library board met, put together a revised proposal — basically the same plan as before, but with the Lakeview expansion removed — and presented it with the new price tag to the council. I don’t know what that price tag would have been, but it’s a safe bet it would have been more than $28 million and considerably less than $35 million. Then the council should have voted on that.

Instead, we have a rather artificially-set limit that guarantees cuts will have to be made elsewhere in the plan, but no one knows exactly where yet, nor how little or how drastic those cuts must be. First district councilman Clyde Gulley realized this and asked if the cuts were going to come out the plans for the south side (Lincoln branch). Despite the equivocal answer he received, he voted for the plan anyway, just like almost everyone else.

I feel confident that the library board will make good decisions about where to cut, but just find it a bit boggling that the council wouldn’t vote for a $35 million plan with plenty of detail, but would happily vote for a $28 million plan that lacks some potentially significant specifics.

City Council, City of Peoria

Hurrah! Moratorium on payday/title-loan stores on the agenda

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There are 27 payday and/or title-loan stores in Peoria, and almost all of them are south of War Memorial Drive. See for yourself:

Payday and Title Loan Stores in Peoria

I know, I know. It seems like there can’t possibly be that few, right? I was surprised, too. I thought we surely had over 100. And we might, too, unless something changes.

And change is just what the city council will consider at their next meeting, Tuesday, June 24. Here’s what they’re planning:

Payday Loan establishments, also known as Title Loan establishments, have proliferated within Peoria as may be seen by the attached map. Concentration of these businesses in one area appears to have an adverse effect on the neighborhoods where they are established. In order to pursue reasonable regulation of available locations for payday loan stores or establishments and/or title loan stores or establishments, it is recommended that the Council adopt a moratorium on granting zoning certificates for new establishments while the City considers reasonable regulations.

The proposed moratorium would be for 180 days. I wish it were a permanent moratorium, kind of like the death penalty moratorium in Illinois. These payday loan places are nothing but loan sharks who loan money to the poorest among us at usurious rates (cleverly labeled “fees” so as not to break any laws regulating interest rates). I think they ought to be altogether illegal. I’m glad to see the council is looking for ways to slow down and/or manage the proliferation of these places in Peoria.

I could think of no more fitting way to conclude this post than with PeoriaIllinoisan’s montage of Peoria’s payday loan stores:

Read also: www.evergreenfunders.com

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Library

Library discussion included good and bad questions

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Tuesday’s city council meeting included a time of questions and answers between the city council and Peoria Public Library board. There were some good, pertinent questions asked, and then there were some that left everyone scratching their heads. Here are the highlights:

  • Mayor Ardis — The mayor didn’t actually ask any questions, but did make some opening comments. He said that the federally-mandated combined sewer overflow (CSO) project is right around the corner and will cost $100 million or more, so he is most concerned about the $35 million price tag for this library proposal. He wants to see lower-cost options presented. He also said he’s “not drinking the Kool-Aid on the 72%” of voters who approved the library referendum. Taking into account the low voter turnout, that really means that only 15% of registered voters voted in favor, and the council has a responsibility to look at the bigger picture and represent all residents whether they voted or not. My take: In his attempt to downplay the results of the library referendum, he has repudiated all election results in the process. When was the last time any candidate was elected or referendum passed by a majority of all registered voters? That’s an insurmountable and inconsistent standard. Ardis’s stronger argument was affordability of the plan, not validity of the advisory vote.

  • Barbara Van Auken — Van Auken used her time mainly to chastise the Journal Star for criticizing the council. She said all the council is doing is asking questions and making sure this is the best plan for their constituents. My take: If that were true, there would be no controversy. In fact, the council has been trying to influence the location of the proposed northern branch by questionable means. First they tried to bribe (with their votes) the library board into putting the northern branch on the site of Elliott’s strip club. When that fell through, they started actively pursuing a site near Expo Gardens and Richwoods, showing a complete disregard for the due diligence done by the library board. That’s the point of controversy. Van Auken and others on the council (and even other bloggers) misrepresent the argument when they say critics of the council were expecting a rubber-stamp approval. Everyone expects the council to provide proper oversight of the board and the process.

  • Bob Manning — Perhaps the most adversarial council member to question the board, Manning had two major objections: (1) He said the library’s plan “should be titled ‘Field of Dreams,’ or ‘If you build it, they will come.'” In other words, he thinks the library’s proposal is completely bogus. Upgrading/expanding will not draw more patrons. (2) The council’s “responsibility is looking at the bigger picture,” and that includes a $47 million airport expansion, $100+ million CSO project, $40 million in new school construction, possibly $40-50 million for a new museum, and now up to $35 million for a library expansion — all planned to be paid for through tax increases. Thus, we can’t afford the library upgrades right now. My take: Although I don’t agree with Bob, I do at least appreciate his honesty. He doesn’t like the plan or the expense. Since Manning was not one of the council members who endorsed the plan or the referendum, I think it’s fair for him to reiterate his objections to it and try to sway his fellow council members. In response to his first point, he’s stating an opinion evidently based on his belief that current trends in library usage are going to continue no matter what the library does or doesn’t do; the library’s professional consultants hold a different opinion based on their research and experience. They believe the trends can be turned around if some modernization takes place as they have seen in other communities. And in response to his second point, it doesn’t make sense for the city alone to sacrifice its needs because other taxing bodies evidently don’t look at the bigger picture. I would submit that library services are more important than the proposed museum, the new zoo (which Manning didn’t mention, but will raise the park district’s levy), and the new airport terminal. If we’re going to have to sacrifice something, let’s put some of those other projects on hold before we kill the library upgrade. (And lest you think the city has no control over those other bodies, remember that they have control over one of them — the museum. The museum contract would have to be extended by the council for that project to go forward; if the council is concerned about the tax burden, and if the only way the museum will be built is if it can access tax dollars, then the city should do the responsible thing and not extend the contract.)

  • Clyde Gulley — Gulley agrees with my assessment — that is, that the library is a priority at least equal with the other items Manning mentioned. He also really likes the plans for combining and expanding the south side library services. He wishes that the south side plan could at least be implemented, even if the north side plan is delayed or killed. My take: I agree.

  • Ryan Spain — Spain’s big hangup is the site selection for the northern branch. He believes they should have a site selected and a contract signed contingent on the issuance of bonds before the council votes on it. He also would like the Lakeview expansion piece taken out until we can see what impact the new northern branch would have on traffic at Lakeview. My take: I don’t have a problem with the proposed compromise of holding off on the Lakeview expansion until we can evaluate the impact of a northern branch; that sounds like a reasonable compromise. As for having a contract on a northern branch before the city votes on it, I think that’s kinda silly. The council could just as easily approve the bonds with $X used for the northern branch contingent on site approval. I don’t think approval of the whole plan should be held up for the sake of one part of it.

  • Patrick Nichting — Nichting had three talking points. First, he had the board state unequivocally that a final site for the northern branch had not been chosen yet (he had been getting calls from residents insisting that the library board had settled on the Festival Foods site). Second, he wanted to point out changes that had been made to the decision matrix since it was first given to the council. Evidently another plot on the Sud’s property had opened up that was the more preferred plot, so it was added to the matrix and the matrix recalculated. Third, he said that the proposed sites were so far to the northeast of the city that it would be just as far to drive there as to Lakeview from the northwest part of the city. The library board conceded that that was one of the cons of those locations. My take: I see nothing objectionable in these observations or questions. Indeed, this is exactly the type of questioning I was expecting. It goes to the heart of the issue — the criteria. The unstated but obvious point is that the library board should be considering proximity to the east and west parts of far north Peoria, not just north and south proximity.

  • Bill Spears — Spears asked how many meetings the board had with Ken Hinton, the “highest paid public servant” in Peoria. Have they had any conversations about libraries and schools interfacing? He pointed to a March 2006 article in the Journal Star that spoke of Hinton’s “dream” of seeing libraries locate close to schools. Library director Ed Szynaka responded that he has a good collaborative relationship with Mr. Hinton and that Hinton’s views have changed since March 2006. My take: What the heck was that all about? I have nothing against public officials leveraging the needs of other public bodies when spending public money. But Spears’ justification seemed to be merely the fact that Hinton is paid more than any other public official, as if that had anything to do with the price of eggs in China. It was a weird question mainly due to the way it was asked, but also because it’s a bit hypocritical. I mean, did Spears talk to Peoria’s “highest paid public servant” before voting to explore a new TIF for downtown? TIFs affect the school district more than the locations of libraries.

  • Jim Montelongo — After using the library board as a proxy to express his misgivings about the Expo Gardens site, Montelongo then asked for an analogy. What are we getting for this $35 million? Is it a Cadillac? McKenzie said we were not getting a Cadillac, but didn’t answer with a car analogy. He said we were getting a “good, modern library,” and went on to say that the board had been “extremely cost conscious” and is simply asking to “build what the city needs for the future.” Szynaka said he would use the analogy that the library today is like Caterpillar trying to sell 1960s tractors in 2008. My take: This was a good business-sense question. As Jonathan Ahl said in his remarks at the top of the council meeting, not everything is black and white; there are lots of shades of gray. Montelongo is looking for a way to lower the overall costs without defeating the purpose of the upgrade.

  • George Jacob — Jacob focused on the numbers, especially operating costs. He questions whether the library can afford the increase in operating costs that this expansion will bring, and he questions the operating cost projections provided by the library. Specifically, he pointed out that the full plan would increase the library’s overall square footage by 45-51%, yet projected only a 1.5% increase in utility costs. Szynaka and McKenzie asked for more time to answer this question because the person who crunched those numbers was not in the chamber Tuesday night and they wanted to find out how those numbers were determined before answering. However, Szynaka did mention that part of the renovation was to replace multiple old HVAC systems with more modern, efficient systems, adn that would have a big impact on the utility costs. My take: Fair questions. The library should be able to defend their numbers. If they’re not justifiable, they must be fixed before the council goes any further.

  • Gary Sandberg — Sandberg just used the library board as a proxy to answer other council members’ objections. Since he was the library’s liaison throughout the process, he already knew the answer to every question he asked.

There was no final action taken; the question and answer time was for informational purposes only. The issue is up for action at the next council meeting, June 24.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Library

City council gives library board the silent treatment

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This week’s Word on the Street is especially snarky, and for good reason. Open government is highly valued by most voters (but not everyone), so reporters generally get miffed when government officials deliberately try to skirt the Open Meetings Act in order to conduct the public’s business in secret:

They didn’t break any rules, but definitely skirted the intent of the Open Meetings Act. There were only three councilmen, two School Board members, two District 150 administrators and two representatives from the Library Board there. Clever.

After the meeting, it was the library board president who was the most candid, reports Karen McDonald. She wasn’t surprised by that, and neither am I. I was, however, surprised by this:

When the City Council deferred the issue, it said it would be submitting questions to the Library Board. Council members came up with the now-renowned list of 49 questions, which only made it into library officials’ hands after they went searching for them. Said the Library Board’s spokeswoman, Trisha Noack, “Actually, we got our questions from the city Web site, as they were not sent to us.”

I expect better from this council. Even if official protocol didn’t dictate that the council communicate directly to the library board, common courtesy should. Whether or not the council agrees with the library board’s recommendation, they should at least treat the board with some respect. As has been pointed out by the Journal Star and others, the library board has done everything that’s been asked of them. They’ve done their due diligence. Where is the city council’s?

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Library, Peoria Pundit

Prominent blogger defends subjective, secretive plans to squander taxpayer money

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It’s not every day that a blogger comes right out and scoffs at objective, public processes for spending taxpayer money. But one prominent blogger has done just that. Billy Dennis says that making decisions via an objective, rational process is ludicrous and will result in poor decisions, like the failed “New Coke” formula.

That’s right. An open process like the one the library board has employed for more than the past year — including over 40 public meetings and an advisory referendum — is worthy of scorn by Mr. Dennis. In contrast, a closed-door summit between the city and school district, “held at the District 150 administrative offices with only a few elected members of each board so that the press and public could be excluded from the meeting,” is worthy of applause! The site near Expo Gardens was already publicly considered against objective criteria and discarded. For personal reasons not fully disclosed, the site is now being resurrected and pursued by the council, but behind closed doors.

I’m sure you’re wondering why Billy would take such a strange stance — against transparency, for special interest interference. For one thing, he thinks it’s good policy. Since council members are elected and answer to the people, he thinks that gives them carte blanche to discard any and all processes, no matter how well-researched or documented, in order to pursue their own personal pet projects. After all, if the people don’t like it, they’ll just vote that person out of office… after the money’s been squandered, unfortunately.

Another reason Billy stands up for arbitrary decision-making: he believes it might save $8-10 million. It has a great ring to it, doesn’t it? “Saving” $8-10 million? Where does that figure come from? Has it been verified? And are we really “saving”?

The figure comes from Mayor Ardis. The Peoria Times-Observer reported: “Ardis said closing the Lakeview Branch could potentially trim $8 to $10 million off the price tag of the library’s expansion and renovation project, projected at $35 million.” See, if they build a new library at Expo Gardens, less than two miles from Lakeview, there would be no need to keep the Lakeview branch open. Closing that branch, and thus not sinking any money into expanding or renovating it, would drop the price of the library’s renewal plans to $25-27 million (at least, by the Mayor’s calculations); hence, the $8-10 million in savings.

To my knowledge, neither the Mayor nor anyone else has released any detail on how they arrived at that figure. Not knowing the sale price of the land by Expo (it’s not for sale), the environmental clean-up costs, or a host of other variables, I don’t know how the figure could be verified.

As far as whether it’s “saving” anything, that’s kind of a backwards way of looking at things. If I say I’m going to spend $25,000 on a car, and then I decide to buy a $15,000 car instead, did I just save $10,000? No. I spent $15,000. Now, suppose the $25,000 car could seat six people, so my family of five could fit comfortably, but the $15,000 car only seats four. Have I made a wise decision to spend $10,000 less when the car I bought doesn’t meet the needs of my family?

This library upgrade works the same way. A new northern branch will cost about $11 million to construct, based on the experts at BCA (the library consulting firm that’s been working on this project who have a pretty good track record estimating library construction). Wherever we put it, it’s going to cost around $11 million. The question we have to ask ourselves is where the wisest place is to build the new branch. If we spend $11 million to build it in the wrong place, was that a wise use of that money? Is that being fiscally responsible?

Billy evidently thinks so. He’s admitted that it doesn’t matter to him where the new branch is built, which is tantamount to saying he doesn’t care whether the city council squanders $11 million or not. He’ll just be happy that the council “saved” $8-10 million, even if $11 million is wasted in the process.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Library

Library answers the City

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If you haven’t already seen them, you can read the library’s answers to the City’s questions here (large PDF file). It’s over 40 pages long, so I’m not going to paste the text into this blog entry like I did for the questions. I did like this answer, though:

There is a desire to achieve the goals arrived at after extensive study by expert consultants and input from the Peoria public, including over 45 public meetings, and web, in-house and mail comments. However, since building a consolidated branch at Exposition Gardens does not address those goals, we set aside this idea after applying the same tests we did to all other sites. One of the main goals of our building program is to be sure that we are not just doing a temporary fix on our libraries but building for the future.

Here you can see an example of what I said in my previous post. They got public input, they utilized expert consultants, and they ran the Expo Gardens site through an objective criteria. It’s also nice to see that the library is thinking about long-term solutions and not temporary fixes. That way, they won’t have to come back asking for more money in just a few years.

It will be interesting to hear the discussion that ensues Tuesday night at the council meeting.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Library

Library quiz

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Q: How many members of the council currently sitting around the horseshoe endorsed the library’s plan and urged voters to support the $35 million referendum in April 2007, and who are they?

Click on “Read the rest of this entry” below to see the answer. (If you’re reading an RSS feed or the permalink for this post, don’t cheat by reading ahead — see how many you can name without looking.)

Continue reading Library quiz →

City Council, City of Peoria

Council preview 6/10/08

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Next Tuesday the City Council will meet. The agenda is online here. Notable items of discussion:

  • There’s a request to give Enterprise Zone status to all of Metro Centre, Sheridan Village, and Evergreen Square shopping centers. Big plans are in the works for all three, and the city wants to provide incentives. Metro Centre’s plans are fleshed out the most in the request — they’re planning to spend one- to three-million dollars on renovations and a mixed-use retail/residential development that will overlook the Lakeview nature preserve.

  • The Kellar Branch rail/trail feasibility study comes up for approval. This is specifically a request to hire T. Y. Lin International, an engineering firm, for a flat rate of $20,000 to give an independent analysis as to how much it would cost to build a trail next to the Kellar Branch rail line. Peoria Heights would pay $5,000 toward the cost, and the City of Peoria would pick up the remaining $15,000.

  • The request for a liquor license for Elliott’s strip club comes up for a vote again. It had been deferred while the City and club owners worked with a mediator. I have no idea if they reached a resolution or if this item will be deferred again.

Also of note, I believe this will be Jonathan Ahl’s last time covering the Peoria City Council and hosting “Outside the Horseshoe.” I hope he’s planning to have a “goodbye” episode that will feature his favorite interviews and clips over the past several years. I also hope he leaves the longest pause ever between “WCBU” and “Peoria” when he signs off.

City Council, City of Peoria

Council preview 5/13/08

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The agenda for tonight’s meeting isn’t too exciting, although there are a few potentially volatile issues. There’s a really long consent agenda (A through GG, or 33 items), which is to be expected after the council hasn’t met for three weeks.

District 150 is on the agenda — there’s an item requesting the creation of a Neighborhood Impact Zone (NIZ) around Glen Oak School and revision of the timeline for implementing other such zones. You may recall that the NIZ plan is a partnership between the City of Peoria and District 150 (and possibly Tri-County Regional Planning) to “collectively provide resources to stabilize and enhance the two square block area surrounding the school site to provide a safe, vibrant, attractive neighborhood.” I wonder if any council members will take that opportunity to question the school board’s shortening of the school day for 12 primary schools. I mean, the city has committed no small amount of time, effort, and money toward this initiative, the idea being to stabilize neighborhoods and ultimately draw more families into District 150. If the D150 administration is going to undermine those efforts by reducing teacher contact time and arts and music programs, one has to wonder if this is the best use of the city’s funds after all.

The “Knoxville Crossing” strip mall is going to be taken off the table tonight. This project is way out north on the west side of Knoxville/Route 40, north of Alta Rd., south of Wilhelm Rd. It had been tabled a few weeks ago because the neighbors opposed the project. According to the Journal Star, they’re still unhappy about it, but feel the development is inevitable:

Liverpool Drive resident Tim Sander said on Wednesday, “I don’t think anyone really wants it. (Neighbors) know they can’t stop it, but they’re trying to get the best they can as far as keeping their quality of life.”

Developers have the public trained well, don’t they? Neighbors don’t even put up a fight anymore. They have plenty of reasons to believe such a fight would be futile (Glen Hollow, Midtown Plaza, to name just a couple).

One might question why we need more big box stores and strip mall storefronts when we have so many empty ones already. Does the city ever do any kind of cost/revenue analysis to see if this is going to be a net gain or loss for the city? This will put pressure on the city to use limited funds to upgrade the infrastructure in that area, and yet what new businesses will it be bringing into the area? How much tax revenue will it generate? If businesses are just going to move from one area to another within the city leaving vacant storefronts in their wake, the city ends up losing money because they’re not gaining enough net sales tax revenue to sustain all the northern growth.

Of course, the big thing on the agenda tonight is Elliott’s strip club asking for a liquor license again. If the council denies it as the Liquor Commission has recommended, you can bet that the taxpayers will end up paying dearly for it. I actually agree with the Journal Star’s editorial on this issue. The fact is, the strip club isn’t going away even if they don’t get a liquor license, and it will undeniably lead to a lawsuit that the city will almost assuredly lose. I’d rather not add insult to injury by having my tax money go to Elliott’s. Let this one go and work on some sort of ordinance that will keep this sort of thing from happening in the future.