Category Archives: City Council

City Council, City of Peoria

Peoria City Council 4-12-2011 (Live Blog)

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Hello, and welcome to Council Chambers at Peoria City Hall. It’s 6:32 p.m., and the mayor is making several proclamations at the outset of the meeting before we get into the meat of the agenda. It looks like all the council members are present (except George Jacob), plus the two new council members — Beth Akeson and Chuck Weaver — are in the gallery.

As usual, I will be blogging live throughout the meeting, so refresh your browser every so often to see the latest updates. Here’s tonight’s agenda:

Continue reading Peoria City Council 4-12-2011 (Live Blog) →

City Council, City of Peoria

Urich to start with City five days early

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Patrick Urich’s first day as Peoria’s City Manager will be Wednesday, April 13, instead of Monday the 18th as originally agreed, if the Council approves the change next Tuesday. The approval is just a formality, and the City has already scheduled Urich’s official swearing-in ceremony for 9:00 a.m. April 13 in Council chambers. No reason was given for moving up the date.

Business, City Council, City of Peoria

Sex club ban on Council agenda

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On Tuesday, the City Council will consider a ban on live-sex-act businesses in the City of Peoria. If the ordinance is passed, it will make Club 307 — a sex club located at 801 SW Adams 307 Oak St. — illegal and subject to being shut down. From the council communication:

Concerns have been raised on the Council Floor by citizens complaining about the existence of a so-called swinger’s club in the City of Peoria. The attached Ordinance, based on an ordinance from Phoenix, Arizona which has been upheld by the Court there, makes it illegal to operate a business which charges admission to view and/or participate in live sex acts…. [A]ctivity unprotected by the First Amendment, which Council can find to be harmful to the health and wellbeing of Peoria, including but not limited to contributing to the spread of diseases, takes place in these establishments.

Club 307 is right next to Brown Bag Video, an adult bookstore. The council recently rejected a request from the owner to convert the bookstore into a 4 a.m. bar. The council declined to grant the 4 a.m. liquor license, although they approved a 4 a.m. liquor license four blocks north of this location to accommodate Big Al’s strip club. Many citizens expressed concern about Club 307 when the council was considering the adult bookstore’s liquor license request, and that’s what prompted this proposed action by the council.

In 2005, 62 percent of voters in a non-binding referendum said the city should “impose a ban on full nudity in new and existing adult cabaret clubs and strip clubs,” but no action was ever taken by the Council, even though the proposed ban was based on existing Indiana law that the courts upheld. City Attorney Randy Ray at that time expressed concern over any action that would impact an existing business, saying the first thing he would do if the Council acted on it was hire an outside lawyer to handle objections to the ban on constitutional grounds. The Journal Star opined, “When governments impose new rules that threaten businesses, they enter a legally dangerous area called an ‘illegal taking.'” Yet the council communication for shutting down Club 307 states there is “no direct financial impact,” and there is no indication that an outside lawyer would need to be hired. So, perhaps now the time is right to revisit the public nudity ban that was supported by the majority of Peoria citizens.

Census 2010, City Council, City of Peoria, Redistricting

Mayor to appoint redistricting committee

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The boundaries of the five City Council districts will have to change due to population shifts within the City. It’s a process called redistricting, and Mayor Ardis wants to employ a more “inclusive” method than the one used in 2001. The request from the mayor is on next Tuesday’s council agenda:

I am requesting the Council to concur with my recommendation to appoint a Redistricting Committee comprised of the District Council Members, chaired by Council Member Bill Spears. The Committee will be charged with a public process of drafting changes to the Council Districts and making a recommendation to the City Council regarding those changes.

Note that Redistricting Committees, comprised of District Council Members, were used in 1981 and 1991. I think the public process will be more inclusive than our internal process used in 2001.

The district council members are Clyde Gulley (Dist. 1), Barbara Van Auken (Dist. 2), Tim Riggenbach (Dist. 3), Bill Spears (Dist. 4), and Dan Irving (Dist. 5).

The 2010 Census shows the City’s population grew to 115,007 overall, but that growth was not evenly distributed throughout the City. Thus, the boundaries have to be redrawn such that each district includes approximately 23,001 residents (one-fifth of the total population). Here’s a chart that was provided in the council communication showing how many residents are currently in each council district, and how many need to be added or removed to reach the target number:

Council
District		 2010 District
Population		 Target Change
1 20379 23001 2622
2 20615 23001 2386
3 21305 23001 1696
4 21381 23001 1620
5 30624 23001 -7623

The new boundaries also have to meet federal standards for minority representation, and meet the requirements of the State of Illinois’ municipal code, which says that each district shall be “nearly equal in population,” “of as compact and contiguous territory as practicable,” and be created so that “no precinct shall be divided between 2 or more [districts].”

State law also requires that the redistricting process be completed “not less than 30 days before the first day set by the general election law for the filing of candidate petitions for the next succeeding election for city officers.” That means it would have be complete by October of 2012, but it usually gets done sooner so the Election Commission has time to redraw the precinct boundaries.

2011 Election, City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Election Results 4/5/2011

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Here are Tuesday’s election results for City Council and District 150:

Peoria City Council

# Candidate Votes Pct
1 Chuck Weaver 14,784.5839 24.95%
2 ♦ Ryan M. Spain 10,071.9164 17.00%
3 ♦ Gary Sandberg 8,390.0000 14.16%
4 ♦ W. Eric Turner 6,911.3335 11.67%
5 Beth Akeson 6,040.0832 10.20%
6 Charles V. Grayeb 5,559.3335 9.38%
7 Jim Stowell 2,402.7500 4.06%
8 André Williams 2,261.2499 3.82%
9 Christopher (C.J.) Summers 1,812.4167 3.06%
10 George Azouri 1,011.3333 1.71%

District 150, Ward 2

Candidate Votes Pct
♦ Debbie L. Wolfmeyer 1,150 55.66%
Mike Mitchell 916 44.34%

District 150, Ward 3
(All candidates were write-in candidates)

Candidate Votes Pct
Rick Cloyd 2,120 67.11%
Janice K. Deissler 759 24.03%
Jody Pitcher 181 5.73%
Phillip E. Cline 99 3.13%

♦ = Incumbent

2011 Election, City Council, City of Peoria

Please vote for me on Tuesday, April 5, and then come to the party!

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Tomorrow is the election. There are ten candidates for City Council, and the top five vote-getters will be our at-large council members for the next four years. I’m asking for your vote so that I’ll be one of those five.

Here’s my radio ad which has played the past several business days on WMBD (1470 AM), WSWT/Lite Rock 107 (106.9 FM), and WPIA/KISS-FM (98.5 FM); it explains what my priorities will be if I’m elected:

[audio:https://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Audio/Summers-for-Council-2011_192K.mp3]

I would like to thank everyone who has supported me, those who have already cast their vote for me during the early voting period, those who have endorsed me and given me advice, those who have put my sign in their yard, those who have encouraged their friends and family to vote for me, and all those who will be voting for me tomorrow.

You’re all invited to join me at the G.A.R. Hall, 416 Hamilton Blvd., on Tuesday night starting at 7 p.m. for an election night party. (In the spirit of consolidating services, Beth Akeson and I will be having our election night party together.) I hope you can all attend!

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Van Auken begs school board for what the Council denies

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I about spit out my soda when I read this in an article about District 150’s board meeting Monday night:

Some, including City Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken, asked the board to halt any decisions.

“I’m here to beg you — defer these decision until you have some community outreach,” said Van Auken, who represents District 2, which includes Columbia Middle School, 2612 N. Bootz Ave. “If you have a bad process, you’re going to have a bad outcome.”

Well, I agree with that statement 100%. But I have a few questions: Where was Council Member Van Auken when the City Council rammed through a $39 million hotel deal with only a single business day of public notice and no “community outreach” whatsoever? Where was her concern over “bad process” then? Why didn’t she “beg” the council to defer that decision?

Van Auken’s admonishment kind of reminds me of the Heart of Peoria Plan: something that’s adopted in principle but ignored in practice.

2011 Election, City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

The District 150 conundrum

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I find it really interesting that, as a City Council candidate, I regularly get asked about what the City can do (or what I can/will do as a City Council person) to help District 150. Oftentimes, the questions go beyond the support areas over which the City has control, and gets into school board policy — concerns over school closures, returning schools to a K-8 configuration, and similar things. In fact, from the questions I get asked at forums and in personal interactions, it looks to me like the state of District 150 is, if not number one, at least the number two priority of Peoria residents.

And yet…

Not a single person circulated petitions for the third ward school board seat. As a result, all the candidates there are write-in candidates. The third ward school board member vacating his seat this year is running for City Council instead. In the second ward, there’s only one challenger to sitting school board president Debbie Wolfmeyer. The last time Martha Ross was up for reelection, she ran unopposed. If I were to judge the public’s concern for District 150 by their efforts to change policy by getting on the board and challenging the status quo, I’d have to say it’s not a very high priority at all.

How are we to explain this strange phenomenon?

2011 Election, City Council, City of Peoria

Last scheduled Council candidates forum tonight

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There’s a candidates forum for the Peoria City Council at-large race tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the G.A.R. Hall, 416 Hamilton Blvd., downtown Peoria. The event is sponsored by the Central Illinois Landmarks Foundation (CILF), so there will certainly be questions about the candidates’ views on historic preservation. However, the questions will not be limited to that topic. Any city- or council-related issues are fair game.

City Council, City of Peoria

Peoria City Council 3/22/2011 (Live Blog)

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Good evening, everyone. I’m live-blogging from home tonight, as I have had a terrible head cold the last couple of days — especially last night and this morning. So, I’ve got my Kleenex handy and lots of fluids nearby, and my radio tuned to WCBU 89.9 FM. This is probably a good time to encourage everyone who appreciates WCBU’s live coverage of the Peoria City Council meetings to make a donation to them — you can pledge online here.

This is the last council meeting before the April 5 at-large election. There are a couple of controversial issues on the agenda tonight: the low-income elderly housing facility proposed near the corner of War Memorial Drive and Sheridan Road (Item 3) and the East Village Growth Cell and Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district (Items 4-6). If you’re following along live, be sure to refresh your browser every so often to get the latest updates. The meeting starts at 6:15, and begins with a few proclamations, so it will be a few minutes before we get into the agenda.

One of the proclamations was a touching commemoration of the life of Les Kenyon. May he rest in peace.

And now, without any further ado, here’s tonight’s agenda:

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