A new 88-room Country Inn & Suites will be built close to TGI Friday’s on War Memorial Drive near the Grand Prairie mall if the council approves the rezoning request tonight. Doug Currier got unanimous approval from the zoning board, and his request is part of the consent agenda for tonight’s meeting. The hotel will include banquet facilities and meeting rooms and, amazingly, is not requiring any city funds to be built.
Category Archives: City of Peoria
Piano teachers may be permitted to forego permit
Tonight’s council meeting includes an item to allow piano teachers (and other music instructors) to work out of their homes without having to pay $90 for a home occupation permit, but they can’t have more than four students at their house at the same time, and they can’t amplify their equipment. Other home businesses that are not required to have a permit: “computer operation, . . . sewing machine operation, telephone operation, typing, and writing.” I could think of a few other occupations that shouldn’t require a permit, but at least they’re finally exempting musical instruction. I hope this passes unanimously.
City hiding details about service on western spur
Pioneer Railcorp filed a “Motion to Compel” with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) yesterday. They want the STB to order the City of Peoria to make all documents, communication, and other information they have about their Kellar Branch dealings part of the public record. You can read the entire motion here.
For instance, they want the facts and information the city has on CIRY’s derailment to be part of the public record. And they also want the city to produce hard evidence that a deal has been made with Union Pacific to have deliveries made to the newly-built western spur that is supposed to replace rail access when the Kellar Branch is dismantled. If the Kellar Branch is removed, the western spur is the only rail access that will be available to Carver Lumber. The removal of the Kellar Branch has always been predicated on Carver’s ability to get comparable rail service via the western spur.
It seems reasonable that the STB should know that the city has an agreement with UP in hand in order to make an informed decision about whether to allow the Kellar Branch to be permanently removed, don’t you think? But the city refuses to provide this information. They’d rather keep it a secret.
What do they have to hide?
My guess is they have no deal with Union Pacific, or if they do, it’s a deal that does not give Carver Lumber service that is comparable to the service they received over the Kellar Branch line. That would put their plan to dismantle the Kellar Branch in jeopardy, so it’s better for the city to just give the STB vague assurances that they have everything under control.
The city should voluntarily provide the information Pioneer requested. But since they won’t, the STB should compel them to provide it. Carver Lumber deserves to know whether the city is trying to railroad them.
Random act of kindness . . . from the city
I found something almost heartwarming in Tuesday night’s city council agenda.
First, a little background: There are some sewers in older parts of Peoria known as “wildcat” sewers. These are sewers that were developed privately and do not conform to city code. The city has a program, known as the Wildcat Sewer Program, that helps residents abandon their wildcat sewers and connect to the city’s sewer system by paying half the cost of connection.
Well, some Peoria residents on North Machin were connected to a wildcat sewer that had collapsed and was completely useless. But these people were unable to afford even half the cost of connecting to the city’s sewer system, and had resigned themselves to living with the consequences. The city decided to go ahead and connect them to city sewers anyway and pay the whole cost of connection. You can read a more detailed version of the story here.
I’m impressed that the city has been willing to treat this as an emergency repair and help these residents out. Kudos to the city for their random act of kindness!
Cable franchise agreement update
I decided to go straight to the source and ask City Attorney Randy Ray what the status is of the cable franchise agreement. He was kind enough to write me back this evening:
We have a meeting scheduled with Insight next week. We hope to have an agreement by April 15. Our biggest local concern is to end the payments by the City for televising Council meetings live. Thank you for the question.
One of the pitfalls of using sarcasm as I occasionally do is that you always have to qualify when you’re being serious. This is one of those times. So, seriously, thanks to Randy Ray for responding to my e-mail and providing this update. Some may complain it wasn’t that newsy, but I know there isn’t a lot he can share while the city and Insight are still negotiating. Hope the negotiations turn out well and in the city’s best interests.
Question for council: How are cable negotiations going?
I wonder what the status is of the city’s negotiations with Insight Communications for a new cable franchise agreement. Last June, the City hired the Varnum Riddering firm from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to help them negotiate a new agreement. The current agreement expires on April 15. It looks like these negotiations are not exactly a walk in the park, at least if Decatur is any indication.
According to the Decatur Herald & Review, the Decatur city council is still negotiating their cable franchise agreement, also with Insight, even though their previous agreement expired in 2003. The sticking point appears to be over how much money Insight should be forced to spend for public, educational, and governmental programming:
Brian Gregory, regional director for government relations for Insight . . . said a proposal calls for about $76,000 for new cameras and equipment for the council chambers. The city hopes to expand programming for other governmental and community groups, which could cost up to $300,000.
Money provided for additional cameras or equipment would raise rates, and Insight cable customers in Decatur would “bear the burden” of those costs, Gregory said . . . . City Manager Steve Garman said there is “nothing that we have asked for that is not ordinary and common for cities of our size.”
Peoria is expanding its own programming slightly — adding a new show called “Inside the City” which starts March 2 on channel 22. But, according to the Request for Council Action last June, they were only looking to save $32,000 when they hired Varnum Riddering. So maybe things will go better for Peoria. Still, it would be nice to hear an update.
Pittsburgh paper pokes at Peoria
Peoria made the Pittsburgh paper today. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s “Morning File with Peter Leo” listed the winners in a Great Britain contest for the craziest parking tickets issued. After giving the five winners, including “Four cars in a funeral cortege [who] were ticketed for stopping while mourners paid their respects,” Mr. Leo turned to America. In a section titled “Dead man parking,” he had this to say:
Meter maids in Peoria, Ill., recently did the Brits one better: ticketing not a funeral but a dead man. They issued three parking tickets and a tow-away sticker to a black Mercedes SUV parked outside a hospital emergency room. Apparently, they were all business and didn’t take a close look. On Feb. 9, a passing pedestrian noticed the body of a 46-year-old man inside and notified the hospital, the Peoria Journal Star reported. He had been missing for three days. Cause of death is still a mystery.
Council Roundup: Boring
Hey, not every meeting can be filled with exciting and/or controversial issues worthy of blogging. Tonight’s meeting was a pretty big yawn. They are looking at the city’s health insurance benefits, trying to determine if they’re comparable with other municipalities. Riveting.
The Heart of Peoria Commission received council support to ask for $500,000 in federal funds from the Economic Development Initiatives Program. These funds would be used for infrastructure improvements in the Warehouse District, marketing for the Heart of Peoria Plan area, and possibly the establishment of a design studio. Basically, passage of this tonight means that they’ll send a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin asking for the money. It passed unanimously.
The last thing on the agenda was approving an ordinance that prohibits people under 21 years old from serving alcoholic beverages. Gary Sandberg clarified that this would still allow under-age wait staff at restaurants to deliver alcoholic beverages to tables. It passed unanimously.
Barbara Van Auken mentioned that some Bradley students are going to be doing their senior project on improving the Sheridan-Loucks business corridor. That will actually be pretty cool. I’d like to see some updating along that stretch — and attracting some new businesses. It’s a nice area.
And finally, the only mildly-exciting moment was when Michael Langley addressed the council and got into a little sparring match with Patrick Nichting that Mayor Ardis had to break up. That was entertaining.
I don’t want to depress you, but it will be another whole week before we get to have another fun-filled evening in council chambers.
“Inside the City” debut scheduled for March 2nd
I just received the following announcement from Alma Brown, Public Information Officer for the City of Peoria:
Dear Neighborhood Associations,
Inside The City is a new 30-minute talk show that will begin to air on cable channel 22 on March 2nd at 6:30 p.m.
This show will give the City an opportunity provide citizens with information about issues and programs.
I also want to use this time to also give neighborhood associations an opportunity to highlight events or programs. Please let me know if you are interested in being interviewed for the show by sending me an e-mail. Please include all of your event information so that it can be displayed during the show.
I would also like to encourage you to send me letters that you would like to have read during the program.
If you should have any questions, please let me know.
Alma
March 2nd is a Thursday. I live in a glass house on this issue, so far be it from me to throw stones. But I can’t resist asking how interesting it will be to watch Alma Brown read letters from neighborhood associations on TV…. On the other hand, no matter what she did, she’d be hard-pressed to surpass the entertainment value of the city council meeting on Tuesday nights.
Time to redistrict again?
I was thinking about all the annexation that’s been happening on the north and north-western fringes of Peoria and it got me thinking, might it be time to redraw the council district boundaries again? Here’s the most recent map I can find:
If you click on the map, it will display a larger version from the City of Peoria website. Is the fifth district starting to look disproportionately large to anyone else? And this map doesn’t include the extra square-mile-plus that was just added. To the naked eye, it looks as if the fifth district is larger than the second and fourth districts combined.
As far as I can determine, the last time redistricting occured was in October of 2001. What’s the trigger for doing it again?