Recently seen in downtown Peoria (photos courtesy of Gary Sandberg):
All well and good. Let’s just head over to the other side of the street:
Oh look, there’s a fence, and no place to walk! So, what’s a pedestrian to do?
Walk down the middle of street, of course.
I have been endorsed by the Journal Star for Peoria City Council.
The East Bluff Neighborhood Housing Service (EBNHS) gets its funding from taxpayers living in a special service district on the East Bluff. Because of past problems with the EBNHS, the City Council decided to approve levying the tax on an annual basis hopefully to increase their performance accountability.
The FY2011 tax levy was approved in November 2010 after the EBNHS gave an update to the Peoria City Council showing all the progress they had made. Their accomplishments included having a “full and complete EBNHS board — all 13 positions filled,” publishing the monthly minutes and agendas on their new website (http://www.ebnhs.com/), and having a “loan committee actively meeting and pursuing creating proper loan criteria and documents with object to begin loan process again in near future.”
Upon reviewing the website, it’s interesting to note that the last minutes published were December 2010, and the last agenda published was January 2011. It seems that after they received the tax money, their diligence in keeping the site up to date waned almost immediately. It kind of makes it difficult to determine if they’re following through on their commitment “to begin [the] loan process again in [the] near future.”
There are now three vacancies on the board according to the website, so the “full and complete EBNHS board” was rather short-lived as well. In fact, the EBNHS gave their report to the City Council celebrating their full board in November, then created two vacancies as of the very next meeting, according to their December 2010 minutes. It appears those vacancies have yet to be filled.
What we do know from the website is this:
Speaking of the Executive Director, as the only employee of the EBNHS, and the one who has “general direction over the operations of the Corporation” according to the bylaws (including the responsibility to “keep the permanent minutes of the meetings” and “see that all notices are duly given”), one would assume it would be her responsibility to keep their website up to date with the latest minutes and agendas. However, there is no requirement in the bylaws that the website be kept up to date.
My guess is that the website will eventually get updated — at least by November, when it’s time to ask the City Council for more tax money.
Here are some upcoming Peoria City Council candidate forums:
Come on out and meet the candidates, hear all our speeches, and ask us your questions! The future of Peoria is in your hands.
Editor’s Note: The following editorial was written and submitted by Frederick E. Smith, a resident of the East Bluff. Fred has recently started his own blog called Take Back Peoria. The views expressed by guest contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor.
Yeah, apparently the old puns are the best ones. The City Council of Peoria apparently thinks so. Last night, amid a select few voices that chose to once again offer the opinion that moving Big Al’s in such close proximity to Myah’s Day Care, CityLink Bus Depot, Peoria Rescue Mission, and the Box Office of the Peoria Civic Center was an unsound idea, the City Council voted to allow a city parking lot to be sold to the owner of Big Al’s for the bargain basement price of $7.00 a square foot. Interesting, since Councilman Sandberg (the sole opponent and the only member of the Council who seems concerned with the desires of the people who elected him) pointed out that it cost the City of Peoria $8.00 a square foot to build the parking lot.
This Council is, with the sole exception of Mr. Sandberg, totally indifferent to the needs and desires of their community, opting instead to do things “For our own Good”. Funny how that kind of thinking always seems to get people in trouble. Manzinar was “for their own good”, or at least that is what we told the Japanese Americans during the second World War. Segregation of Blacks and Whites in the Southern United States and Apartheid in South Africa were “for their own good.” Here in Peoria, it seems, we citizens, taxpayers, and VOTERS are no more than children, who need to have things done FOR OUR OWN GOOD!
Perhaps it is time for us poor, simple, small town folks to wake up and smell the indifference and the corruption. Do you really believe that no one is making anything on the side for this sweetheart deal? Do you really believe that the Councilpersons at Large (with the exception of Mr. Sandberg, who continues to rail against the corruption and the greed) care about what is best for Peoria? This latest decision, like so many to date, is about money, pure and simple. It is another statement by the City Council that says, “WE DON’T MIND, ‘CAUSE YOU DON’T MATTER.” to the people of Peoria.
So what do we do about it? How about we choose to say WE MATTER with our votes on April 5th. There are several candidates who are NOT a part of the political network, candidates like C. J. Summers, George Azouri, Beth Akeson, Chuck Weaver, Chuck Grayeb, and Andre Williams are all viable, honest candidates who deserve our notice and attention. Personally, I am voting for Gary Sandberg, C.J. Summers, Beth Akeson, and George Azouri. Since there is one more position left, so I will be looking to the other candidates to see what they offer. I will not be voting for Turner or Spain.
IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE PEORIA, YOU NEED TO VOTE THIS ELECTION. TELL YOUR FRIENDS, TELL YOUR NEIGHBORS, TELL YOUR PASTORS AND YOUR CO-WORKERS. YOU NEED TO VOTE AGAINST CORRUPTION, INDIFFERENCE, AND ARROGANCE. YOU NEED TO VOTE!!!
If you ever wonder why Peoria is always broke, just take a look at how it has handled the Wonderful Development. It’s poised to give $37 million to EM Properties — $11 million of which will be used to buy a half-acre of buildings along Main Street. But that’s where the World Famous Big Al’s strip club is, so apparently we have to bend over backwards (pun intended) to find them a new place to locate.
The mayor and others constantly make a big deal out of the fact that “they didn’t choose to move; they were asked to move” — the implication being that they decided to move out of the goodness of their heart as a favor to the city. Call me cynical, but I think the $11 million might have had more to do with the decision than mere altruism. It’s one thing to be asked to move, and quite another to be paid handsomely to move.
Most people consider the eleven million taxpayer dollars to be sufficient incentive to move. But not the City. Not by a long shot. First, they changed the adult use ordinance, expanding Big Al’s “grandfather” status to the point that it can move absolutely anyplace it wants. One would think with $11 million, Big Al’s could find someplace in the City that complies with the adult use ordinance as it was, but the City felt this additional incentive was necessary.
But that wasn’t enough, either. Rather than giving Big Al’s the money and letting them find another home like the City did for the residents of Dechman when they were thrown out of their homes to make way for MidTown Plaza, the City took on itself the job of finding another location. The council and, presumably, city staff spent who knows how long looking at other potential sites on behalf of Big Al’s.
And they found one — a parking lot owned by the City of Peoria. One problem: it’s too close to a day care center. No problem! The city’s attorney invented a new definition of “property line” and read it into the code. Then they approved the site for the sale of liquor, despite having no site plan on file from the developer, which is required for any other applicant.
But last night was the coup de grace. After all this special treatment, the City did one last favor for Big Al’s. It sold this taxpayer-owned acre and a half of land at a bargain-basement price of $400,000.
Buy high, sell low. That’s the City’s approach to economic development.
Sorry I can’t be at the council meeting this evening due to a scheduling conflict. But fear not! Others are liveblogging tonight:
Peoria Pundit/From the Newsroom
Word on the Web (PJStar.com)
In the interest of fairness, I e-mailed WEEK’s general manager Mark DeSantis yesterday, and asked him about the employees’ concerns about outsourcing our local news to Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Here’s what he had to say:
[T]he one point that seems to be the most vital to the viewers of Central Illinois is that the local news operation remain local. I have gone on record with the union and with the public that there is no plan and no proposal to move the news outside of our East Peoria facilities. We have invested millions to build a dual digital control room, outfit a second studio, purchased and installed digital cameras in the studio as well as cameras used in the field to produce 11 hours of local news each day. There is so much invested and so much news content to produce that it could not be moved to another entity. It does not make financial sense.
The local news operation here will remain local. Period.
According to published news reports and interviews I’ve heard, the troubling language that Granite Broadcasting (owner of WEEK) wants to insert in the contract is something called “jurisdicitional flexibility.” The employees believe that, regardless of current plans, this language will give the company the option of outsourcing the news if they desire.
So I asked Mr. DeSantis, if the company plans to keep local news operations local, why are they pushing for this “jurisdictional flexibility” language? What does the company hope to gain by including this in the contract? What are some examples of the types of things the company could or would do with this contract language?
DeSantis declined to answer, saying, “Obviously we cannot get into specific issues with regard to language proposals. These are employee issues and getting into specifics would be a breach of our relationship with the union. What I can say is that the proposed language is becoming industry standard and exists with units in many stations including stations represented by AFTRA. So there is nothing in the proposal that would be new to the union representing the WEEK/WHOI newsroom. It is, understandably, new to this unit and I understand that change is not easy for employees to accept.”
My take: To some extent, the news is always going to have to be gathered locally. If you want to get on-camera interviews with local newsmakers, you have to have someone in Peoria holding the camera and asking questions. If you want to cover local sports, someone has to be in Peoria attending the games and getting footage. In essence, you have to have some kind of reporting/newsgathering staff here locally, and you have to have some amount of camera equipment to support that function. But everything else — editing, voice over, and especially anchoring — can be done remotely, from a technical standpoint.
It’s true there has been investment in equipment and sets, but those can be moved. When Granite entered into a local marketing agreement with Barrington Broadcasting, owner of WHOI, they moved WHOI’s sets to WEEK’s studio, as well as their equipment. If Granite wanted to move the whole works to Ft. Wayne, they could pack up the sets on a truck and move them out to Indiana in a jiffy. The digital equipment could be repurposed to Granite’s other stations, or kept here for use as a production facility (i.e., creating commercials or other production services for hire). Even if they sold the equipment, any loss could arguably be covered by the decreased personnel costs.
The bottom line is that many local residents just don’t trust Granite Broadcasting. We’ve seen them move all their master control out of the area, resulting in job losses here. We saw them try to move the weather reports out of state for a while. We’ve seen the increase in technical glitches during the news programs. We saw them get rid of reporters when they brought WHOI into the fold. It’s hard not to be skeptical of their assurances that they’re heavily invested in the area and have no plans to move the local news operation in light of all these other actions that have hurt our local news coverage.
I’ll let this video speak for itself, except to say I support keeping our local news local:
You can get more information on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/peoriaaftra. They’re encouraging everyone to contact their boss, their boss’s boss, and their boss’s boss’s boss:
Who to Contact:
Mark DeSantis
General Manager
WEEK/WHOI
2907 Springfield Road
East Peoria, IL 61611
mdesantis@week.com
309-698-2525Granite Broadcasting
Mr. Peter Markham, Chairman of Granite Broadcasting
p.markham@granitetv.comMr. Duane Lammers, Chief Operating Officer of Granite Broadcasting
d.lammers@granitetv.com767 Third Ave, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10017(212) 826-2530
Last week, the City of Peoria issued this press release:
“The City of Peoria incurred expenses of $554,671 in combating and managing the 15″ snow storm and blizzard conditions of February 1 and 2, 2011. Clean-up continued throughout the balance of the week. The majority of expenses, $541,000, were incurred by the Public Works Department, and included payment of $192,000 to private contractors to manage and remove snow in a timely and safe manner. The Illinois Emergency Management Administration will be reviewing these expenses to determine the level of reimbursement to the City.
As a matter of interest, we note that the combination of severe ice and sleet storm of 2-3 inches on November 30, 2006, coupled with the following 13” inches of snow and rapidly dropping temperatures on December 1, onward resulted in total expenses of $290,329. Public Works expenses were $274,000 (numbers rounded).
Public Works Department’s redesigned snow routes and increased pre-event planning, plus the use of private contractors during the February 1 blizzard, resulted in quicker response and clean-up compared to the 2006 storm. However, these two storms were much different from one another in terms of the 2006 pre-snow ice build-up and then dramatic temperature drop.
The Journal Star ran an article with some additional cost breakdowns.
This seems like a good time to remind everyone how city planning and development have contributed to these high costs. A 2007 Six Sigma project report found that “The community has grown over 26 center lane miles in the past seven years [2000-2007] and will be growing another ten center lane miles later this year due to new neighborhoods being developed,” but that, “No consideration has been given for equipment or manpower needed to clear the streets.” In other words, as the City has grown in land mass, not enough attention has been given to the cost of providing City services to these new areas. When the City annexes land or builds new roads, you never hear any discussion about the costs of maintaining and clearing them, or the cost of providing additional police and fire protection.
After the report came out, the City initially increased the number of snow routes from 25 to 26. But due to budget cuts in 2009, the number of snow routes was cut back to 23, and there were some layoffs. According to a 12/11/2009 article in the Journal Star, “The route reductions and job cuts resulted in $222,500 in savings.” One wonders what the net savings have been this winter, given the cost of hiring private contractors, renting additional equipment, and paying overtime to the City’s plow drivers.