Category Archives: City Council

City Council, City of Peoria, HOPC

Heart of Peoria Commission lives on

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The City Council on Tuesday approved the compromise agreement that will leave the Heart of Peoria Commission intact. The compromise agreement had three parts:

  1. Approve the Heart of Peoria Commission Work Plan — The council approved this work plan with one exception: the money that’s listed in the capital budget column was not approved Tuesday, but will be requested through the normal capital budget process.
  2. Expand the Planning Commission by two positions — There are no openings currently on the Planning Commission, but it’s important to infuse New Urbanism principles into that commission since they are responsible for the Comprehensive Plan, which is the city’s vision document. Thus, in order to appoint a couple of Heart of Peoria Commission members to the Planning Commission, two new positions needed to be created, expanding the size from seven to nine members.
  3. Appointing several HOPC members to other commissions — This is what was suggested in the Committee on Commissions report: that HOPC members would be dual-appointed to other commissions in order to instill the principles of New Urbanism into the existing committee structure. The appointments that were made were:
    • Joe Richey — Planning Commission
    • Dick Schwebel — Planning Commission
    • Nancy Biggins — Zoning Board of Appeals
    • Pat Sullivan — Traffic Commission
    • Bill Washkuhn — TBD

Mayor Ardis was on WCBU’s “Outside the Horseshoe” program with Jonathan Ahl Tuesday night before the council meeting. He explained that, while he originally planned to expand the Planning Commission by four members, there was some concern from current Planning Commission members about that, and that reducing the expansion to two members was part of the compromise agreement. WCBU will eventually put that program up as a podcast, so you can check this link to see if it’s there yet.

The next Heart of Peoria Commission meeting is scheduled for Friday, August 24 at 8:00 a.m.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Housing Authority, Peoria Public Schools

City to consider intergovernmental agreement with D150

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Peoria Housing Authority LogoDistrict 150 — the district that recently spent $877,500 to acquire properties it can’t use on Prospect, let them be stripped and then subsequently had to start razing a few of them for thousands more dollars; the district that has hired four highly-paid superintendents to do the job of one; the district that owns the Meyer building in the Warehouse district but allows it to fall further into disrepair, lowering property values in that area; the district that refused to cooperate with the city’s good-faith effort to work with them on placing a replacement school on the site of the current Glen Oak Primary School — that district is unhappy that the city is trying to raise property values in the older part of town through the use of a TIF. They want an intergovernmental agreement that gives them some of the money if property values go up.

So, city staff has worked with them to hammer out a proposed agreement — which, interestingly only affects the Eagle View TIF, not the Warehouse District TIF. In the agreement, the city would reimburse District 150 $1.5 million to be used toward the cost of infrastructure improvements around their new Harrison Primary School they want to build, only if/when the fair-market value of improvements within the TIF equals or exceeds $95 million. The city would also agree that if/when $250 million in new construction is completed, the city will stop incentivizing with TIF funds and instead pay off any debts/bonds and retire the TIF.

It would also include the new Harrison Homes Primary School in the TIF. At least, that’s what I believe the language is stating. But I’m a little concerned about the wording. According to item 3 of the proposed agreement, it says that the two governments would agree that “the Harrison Homes site shall be included in the Eagle View TIF redevelopment project area.” Not the Harrison School site, notice, but the Harrison Homes site.

Now, it’s possible that “Harrison Homes Site” could have been defined earlier where it says, “WHEREAS, District 150 plans to construct a community school in the Eagle View TIF redevelopment project area at the Harrison Homes Site, bounded by Krause, Griswold, Folkers and Grinnell Streets;” but it’s vague at best.

You see, back in December, the Peoria Housing Authority asked for all of Harrison Homes to be included in the Eagle View TIF. But in January, the city council said “no.” In fact, they said “no” to a lot of requested additions. I wouldn’t put it past someone over at the PHA to come knocking on Peoria’s door if this agreement is approved and say that they should be included in the TIF because of it. Perhaps the wording should be clarified.

It’s sporting of the city to play nice with the school district, but honestly, I hope the council rejects this agreement. You’ll notice that it benefits the district, but not the city, as usual. The city should require the school district to agree to put an East Bluff replacement school on the site of the current Glen Oak Primary School as part of the bargain. There shouldn’t be any more of this one-directional, so-called “cooperation.” The school district needs to start giving back to the city. Right now they’re doing nothing but driving people away.

City Council, City of Peoria, HOPC

New Heart of Peoria Commission proposal submitted

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Mayor Ardis had proposed decommissioning the Heart of Peoria Commission back in May. His proposal then was to take the HOPC members and place them on other commissions. Most notably, he wanted to increase the size of the Planning Commission by four members and put four HOPC members in those newly-created seats.

However, the HOPC discussed the Mayor’s plan at their next scheduled meeting and communicated to the council that the commission believed it could be more effective continuing as a city commission rather than as an independent advocacy group, but that it fully supported the proposed dual appointments. When the issue came up for a vote in June, it was deferred a couple of times, most recently until July 24. So it’s on Tuesday’s agenda.

In June and July, the HOPC met a couple of times and hammered out a work plan to aid the council in considering whether to keep us or not. On the agenda, the Mayor has submitted a new recommendation. This one would have the Heart of Peoria Commission remain a commission, provided that capital funding in the work plan go through the normal process for all commissions (fair enough).

However, now the Mayor is suggesting only two seats be added to the Planning Commission instead of four. The two HOPC members who would be appointed to Planning would be Joe Richey and Dick Schwebel. Beth Akeson and I would not receive dual appointments until there’s an opening on an applicable commission (e.g., zoning, planning, ZBA, etc.). There’s no explanation given in the council communication as to why this change was made, but it’s the Mayor’s prerogative to appoint or not appoint people to commissions, so I don’t have any beef with it. After all, two is better than none, and I’m pleased that the Mayor has agreed to allow HOPC to remain (if it’s approved by the council, of course).

I’m a little concerned about whether HOPC will be able to complete its work with only six meeting per year, but we’ll see how it goes.

City Council, City of Peoria

City trying to keep Northmoor widening to three lanes

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The July 24 Peoria City Council Agenda has been posted on the city’s website. There are a few items of interest on the docket next week.

One of them is a funding switcheroo from the Northmoor Road project to the Sheridan Road project. The city wants to widen Northmoor Road between Allen and Knoxville to three lanes. But since they would be using IDOT funds, they have to get IDOT approval. Well, IDOT insists that if we’re going to use their funds, we have to make it a minimum of four lanes. So the city staff is requesting that we delay that project for the time being while we keep trying to persuade IDOT to change their mind and let us make the road three lanes and pedestrian-friendly.

In the meantime, in order not to lose state money, they would like to use those dollars to fund another project: widening Sheridan from Notre Dame (near Glen Ave.) to Giles/Knoxville. They don’t believe they’ll have any trouble getting IDOT to agree to three lanes there. I’m glad to see the city staff proposing this action, and I hope the council concurs.

City Council, City of Peoria, Museum Block

Council Roundup: Museum bits

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PRM LogoJim Richerson, President and CEO of Lakeview and Project Leader for Museum Square, gave a presentation to the City Council at last night’s meeting formally requesting a one-year extension of time on their agreement with the city a smaller-sized museum.

The reason for the extension is because fundraising efforts have not gone as planned, and now they’re putting a lot of their hope for funding in the New Market Tax Credit program. However, they won’t hear whether they’re approved for that funding until October, which is after one of their contract deadlines.

The size change is because construction costs have escalated significantly. Richerson said when they started this project, they were projecting construction costs rising at a rate of 4% annually based on historical data. What they’ve found is that costs are actually rising at a rate of 2-4% quarterly instead. They’ve decided to stay within their $65 million overall budget and instead reduce the size of the building.

However, Richerson went to great lengths to show that this reduction only minimally impacts the programming of the museum itself. He points out that while the total square footage is being reduced from 96,562 to 80,784 square feet (15,778, or 16%), the usable space is only being reduced from 64,400 to 57,955 square feet (6,445, or 10%). Auxiliary space (which includes offices, classrooms, store, lobby, support areas, etc.) is being cut from 32,162 to 22,829 square feet (9,333, or 29%).

It was also pointed out that when you look at the block as a whole — that is, including Caterpillar’s visitor center and their monetary commitment — you’re looking at a $130 million project that is 63% funded. From Lakeview’s standpoint, this “puts things in perspective.” However, the reality is that only 37% of the museum’s funding has been raised ($24.5 million out of $65 million), and Caterpillar’s contribution is contingent on the museum officials raising their funds.

The council received the report and then immediately started debating when it would vote on the issue. The original motion was to vote on it at the July 24 meeting, but Councilman Sandberg is going to be out of town. Normally just having one councilman be out of town would not necessarily be sufficient reason to delay a vote, but Gary’s been very involved in this issue and essentially asked for the courtesy of a deferral. After much wrangling, the council decided to discuss it at their August 14 meeting. That’s in five weeks.

City Council, City of Peoria

Almost 3/4 of a million dollars for parking deck repairs on agenda

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The City of Peoria owns a number of parking decks downtown and outsources the management of them to National Garages. According to the 2007 City Budget, the city owns about 4,600 parking spaces in decks and surface lots. The city isn’t making any money on these lots. Between the debt service, the cost to manage the decks, and the artificially low rates, the city is heavily subsidizing downtown parking.

But there’s more than just operational costs to owning parking decks — there’s also maintenance costs. According to the budget document, National Garages takes care of routine maintenance as part of their contract. Structural upkeep, however, is the city’s responsibility. Structural repairs for the Jefferson Street and Twin Towers parking decks are on the agenda for tomorrow night’s meeting, and the cost is a whopping $738,437.

Peoria should sell these decks to the businesses that use them and let those businesses maintain them for their own patrons at their own expense — just like every other business in Peoria does that isn’t located downtown. Then Peoria could use the money it saves for services that benefit all Peorians, like fire and police.

City Council, City of Peoria, Museum Block

Honey, I shrunk the museum

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Shrinking museumI hear tell the museum folks are wanting to modify their agreement with the city to make the proposed museum even smaller than it already is. It may come before the council on July 10.

My sources say they want to reduce the gross floor area from 96,000 to 80,000 square feet. I wonder what that will do to the display space. Considering they were only going to have about 70,000 square feet of display space before, this reduction could potentially leave less than 60,000 square feet for the public.

And, of course, a reduction of square footage demands architectural changes to accommodate the smaller space. No word yet on what those changes will be, although I’m still hearing rumors that it will involve reducing or eliminating the second floor.

I would suggest that they follow the sage advice of philosopher C. S. Lewis: “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

City Council, City of Peoria

Council to citizens: be quiet

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Minute MinderThe council is installing something new this week for Peoria citizens: a timer. Those pesky citizens take up a lot of the council’s time on Tuesday nights, so in addition to reducing by half the number of opportunities to address the council (the council’s now meeting only twice a month instead of four times), they’re also going to start strictly enforcing the five-minute rule when citizens take to the microphone.

To facilitate the new rules, they need to buy a timer. But not just any timer:

The $2,675 electronic timer is supposed to tell citizens when their allotted five minutes to address the council is up. The timers – one mounted on the public lectern, one on the back wall and two behind the mayor’s desk – will use green, yellow and red lights to guide speakers on how much time they have remaining.

A $2,675 timer? Are you kidding me? The timer pictured above can accomplish the same thing for only $7.99 from Bed Bath and Beyond. For $14.99, you can get a digital timer that will allow you to have your one-minute warning beep, if that’s important.

That’s not all. The council is also going to require that anyone wishing to address the council fill out a card — before the meeting — in order to be recognized. Since there are fewer meetings, they will undoubtedly be longer. So now we’re going to require citizens to get down to City Hall before 6:15 to fill out a card and then sit in council chambers for the whole meeting, which may go until 10:00, just so they can speak for five minutes at the end and, presumably, get cut off if they speak too long.

Now tell me this isn’t an effort to try to discourage citizen comments.

City Council, City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan, HOPC

HOPC meeting to be continued Friday

The Heart of Peoria Commission last Friday started working on our proposed work plan for 2007-2008. We will be finishing our work plan at another special meeting this Friday at 8 a.m., in the conference room in the Planning & Growth department. The meeting is open to the public, as always.

So far, the commission has expressed interest in focusing on implementing New Urbanism principles in transportation and the public space, continuing to assist with the implementation of the Land Development Code and the four Form Districts, and developing marketing materials for the Heart of Peoria Plan area to generate interest in reinvestment. These are subject to change and/or further refinement at this Friday’s meeting.

When the work plan is completed, it will be submitted to the City Council for consideration during their July 24 meeting. They’ll decide at that time whether to keep and fund the commission, or decommission us.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Housing Authority, Peoria Public Schools

Time to shame Peoria’s most notorious slum lords

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Remember when the City of Peoria tried shaming slumlords by putting a sign in front of their rundown properties with the name and number of the owner? Maybe the city should put one of those signs in front of these properties:

Meyer Building small

Harrison Homes

Know who owns these properties? The top one is the old Meyer building in the Warehouse District, and it’s owned by the illustrious District 150, which is terribly concerned about losing tax revenue from the Warehouse TIF. Of course, their neglected property isn’t contributing to lower property values down there, right? Margaret Hanley, who owns A. Lucas and Sons right next door, called District 150 out on the condition of their property at a recent council meeting, and rightly so. I wish I could say this was an isolated case, but alas, it isn’t. The district has lots of neglected properties (not to mention their school buildings). They recently demolished one property on Prospect and plan to demolish two more. And they own about 10% of the property in the Warehouse TIF District, which was passed by the council tonight. So put up the sign in front of the Meyer building and others with District 150’s name and number; label it “slumlord.”

The bottom building shows a very small sample of the boarded up windows adorning Harrison Homes, owned by the Peoria Housing Authority. If you’ve ever been by this low-income housing complex, you will notice that just about every building has at least two windows boarded up, often many more. And if you saw the map I posted earlier, you may have noticed that a number of homicides and lots of aggravated discharges of a firearm take place within Harrison Homes. We’re not paying taxes for these people to run a ghetto. They’re supposed to be providing decent transitional housing for people. Allowing their properties to fall into this state of disrepair is egregious. Council members Gary Sandberg and Barbara Van Auken called PHA out on the state of their properties at tonight’s council meeting, and rightly so. Put up the sign in front of Harrison Homes with the PHA’s name and number; label it “slumlord.”

It’s time for these public bodies to step up to the plate and take responsibility for their role in lowering property values and providing havens for crime. If they don’t, then the city should go after them just like they would any other slumlord. If these public bodies moan and complain, the city can explain that they’re just cracking down on crime and trying to raise property values, for the betterment of all Peorians.