The most significant decisions from last night’s council meeting are:

• On the November ballot will be a referendum asking Peorians if they want to override the state’s new primary election rules.
• The new snow route plan was approved. Public Works Director Dave Barber stated that his philosophy is to plow the streets with the highest ADT (average daily traffic) first for “safety” purposes, rather than plowing the streets with the most population density first. He also stated that the city should be able to be completely plowed within 18 hours of a major snow event under this new system.
• The electronic billboard was approved for the Knoxville-Pennsylvania-interstate intersection. Planning & Growth Director Pat Landes stated that the City staff reversed itself and recommended approval because Adams Outdoor Advertising had satisfied the City’s conditions subsequent to the council communication being distributed. The City’s conditions were (1) that Adams provide proof that the State (IDOT) approved of an electronic sign next to the expressway, and (2) that Adams provide proof that the light emitted from the electronic sign would be no brighter than a traditional sign. Second District Council Member Barbara Van Auken moved to approve the special use. She said the issue before the council was not the placement of the sign (decided in February 2007) or whether the council likes billboards in general; the issue instead was whether Adams satisfied the City’s conditions. She also implied that the zoning commission’s recommendation for denial was based only on the fact the City’s conditions had not been met, but that’s unclear to me from reading their minutes; they may have had additional reasons for denying it.

Furthermore, regarding the billboard issue, it’s come to my attention that Peg Murphy, the executive director of Family House which is immediately adjacent to the property the billboard is on, wrote a letter to other council members that stated, in part:

I am writing because I am concerned about the impact of the large lighted billboard just beyond our home. I only had the information from the Journal Star article concerning the zoning meeting. I called and spoke to Barbara Van Auken, our council person and she told me that she would be asking for approval for the billboard. She said that the appropriate documents have now been submitted to indicate that the lighting will have little impact on the surrounding neighbors. I hope this is correct. Because of the height of our home and its primary use -sleep and comfort for our guests, we are naturally concerned.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it doesn’t sound like Family House was properly notified of the zoning commission meeting, since Ms. Murphy states she only heard about it from a Journal Star article. She should have received a notice in the mail since her property is most assuredly within 250 feet of the billboard’s property. It also makes one wonder if the residents of affected homes on Linn Street were properly notified of the hearing.

Second, the e-mail was sent on August 12, and she states that Ms. Van Auken told her that “the appropriate documents have now been submitted to indicate that the lighting will have little impact on the surrounding neighbors.” However, one wonders how that is possible, since that’s one of the conditions that the Zoning Commission and the City said was not met, and was in fact the reason the item was deferred from August 12 until August 26. I suppose it’s all a moot point, since the documentation has been provided now. But I found it curious. Perhaps Ms. Van Auken received the information before the City did. Still, it’s too bad that an adjacent property owner felt that her concerns were not adequately considered before the decision was made.

Tonight’s council agenda includes a request to allow an electronic billboard at Knoxville and Pennsylvania avenues, right by the Knoxville/I-74 interchange (note that the address for the billboard is given as Linn St.; that’s because access to the billboard is from Linn, one block west of Knoxville):

(08-418) Communication from the Interim City Manager and Director of Planning and Growth Management Requesting the Following:

A. Receive and File the SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION.

B. Take Action on Request to Adopt an ORDINANCE Amending Ordinance No. 16,072, an EXISTING SPECIAL USE in a Class CG (General Commercial) District for an OFF-PREMISE SIGN (Billboard) to Add an ELECTRONIC MULTIPLE MESSAGE DISPLAY for the EAST SIDE of the BILLBOARD for Property Located at 1418 N. LINN STREET;

OR

C. Concur with the Recommendation from the Zoning Commission to DENY the Request to Adopt an ORDINANCE Amending Ordinance No. 16,072, an EXISTING SPECIAL USE in a Class CG (General Commercial) District for an OFF-PREMISE SIGN (Billboard) to Add an ELECTRONIC MULTIPLE MESSAGE DISPLAY for the EAST SIDE of the BILLBOARD for Property Located at 1418 N. LINN STREET.

The staff and the zoning commission have both recommended denial of this request. The zoning commission’s recommendation was unanimous. Yet this item was deferred the first time it appeared on the council agenda, and now it appears with an additional option to approve.

It seems to me that if the council wanted to protect the city from gaudy electronic billboards, especially one that abuts single family homes and is, in fact, located too close to a residential neighborhood, they would have the perfect opportunity to do so here. Staff is opposed. Zoning commission is opposed. Council could vote it down with impunity.

But apparently someone is trying to get this through. I guess we’ll find out tonight who’s advocating for the outdoor advertisers. I have a feeling it’s going to be our second district council member.

Other communities are looking for ways to restrict these kinds of billboards. Four states — Maine, Vermont, Hawaii and Alaska — have banned billboards altogether. The reason is that they clutter public spaces and hide the natural beauty of our cities and transportation corridors. There’s even a non-profit group called Scenic America that is “dedicated solely to preserving and enhancing the visual character of America’s communities and countryside.” That means they advocate for billboard restrictions. Here’s a video essay they put together on YouTube:

It does make you wonder, as these LED billboards become more and more prominent in Peoria, how long it will be before driving down University or Knoxville is going to look like driving down Las Vegas boulevard. We need to start thinking about this now, before it’s too late.

And the council needs to vote down this electronic billboard. There’s no compelling reason to allow it.

UPDATE: Before anyone points it out to me, I’m aware that we have a sign ordinance that does regulate electronic billboards, as well as the placement and spacing of signs in general. But as we’ve learned from the Land Development Code, the ordinance is only as good as its enforcement. We have to be careful about where and why and how we make exceptions. We’ve already made an exception with this billboard by allowing it to be significantly closer to a residential neighborhood than is normally allowed. We might also want to consider whether the existing ordinance is strict enough.

A new snow plan is on the City Council agenda again tonight. This was first brought up in July, but was deferred because some council members had questions. The current snow plan can be downloaded from the City’s website.

If you look at the current snow route map, you’ll see that there are red routes (primary) and blue routes (secondary). The new plan would, among other things, change all some of the blue routes to red routes; or, to put it another way, it would elevate the status of some secondary routes to primary ones. There are significantly more blue routes in the newer, northern parts of Peoria. So, what this effectively means is that snow removal will be slower in the older parts of town as resources are shifted north.

“What’s wrong with that?” you may ask. It’s less efficient. Efficiency would be clearing the greatest amount of snow for the greatest number of people in the least amount of time. The current primary/secondary route system does that. Promoting all secondary routes to primary ones would decrease efficiency.

How? Because of two things: density and grid streets. There are more homes per acre in the older parts of the city, so naturally plowing a mile there is going to affect more people than plowing a mile in the northern part of the city. And the streets in the older part of the city are laid out in a gridiron pattern, which is also more efficient to plow because it doesn’t require any backtracking. You may recall from the Six Sigma snow study that it takes six times as long to plow a cul-de-sac than a through street.

Fifth-district councilman Pat Nichting’s response to this argument?

“Remember, taxes pay the bills and not density,” Nichting said. […] “I know Mr. Sandberg wants to focus on density, but does it pay for people’s salary or (generate the taxes) to pay for salary?”

I guess under Nichting’s logic, the primary snow routes should be the streets the rich people live on, and if the poor people aren’t paying enough taxes (in his estimation), then they just shouldn’t get their streets plowed at all. I would point out that while “taxes pay the bills,” property taxes only account for 14% of the city’s revenue. We actually get more revenue from sales taxes, state sources, and other local taxes such as the garbage tax — which, by the way, is a flat fee paid by rich and poor alike. And I might also point out that it was with taxes generated by the older part of Peoria that all that infrastructure in the over-annexed north end was developed — and developed at the expense of maintaining the infrastructure in the older parts of town.

I think Nichting’s longing for oligarchy is not in the best interests of Peoria. An efficient snow removal plan would be better for all. Workers would be able to get to work quicker, which would help the employers/executives, and emergency services would be able to have quicker access to all parts of town. And it should be remembered that everyone’s taxes “pay the bills,” not just those from the fifth district.

UPDATE: Since I don’t get the full council packet, I can only see what is put up on the city’s website. The new snow plan map is in the council’s packet, but not on the website, so the only thing I had to go on was the July 22 council communication and PowerPoint presentation. Based on the wording there that they were recommending to “eliminate ‘secondary’ routes,” and subsequent discussion on the council floor that meeting where at-large councilman Gary Sandberg asked if the blue routes were becoming red routes, I was under the impression that applied to all of the “eliminated” blue routes. Sandberg has informed me that it’s only some of those routes.

The point is still that the routes should be based on density, and changes to the route system should be clearly communicated and justified.

What will the City Council be considering Tuesday night? Well, I thought you’d never ask. Here are the highlights:

• First off, at-large councilman George Jacob will be attending the meeting via teleconference. Do you ever wonder what the person is doing while teleconferencing in to the meeting? Eating dinner, perhaps? Or watching the Olympics? All of a sudden, we hear him shout “GO USA!” because he forgot to hit the mute button…. Okay, maybe I’m the only one who wonders those things.
• The City is looking to get an electronic storage system for documents and images. By storing scans of documents and pictures in a centralized database, the City can be more efficient both in terms of physical space and retrieval time. One example given in the council communication is building plans. “Planning, Public Works, Inspections and Fire all receive building plans and each department is storing those plans independently. With this system, the plans can be scanned or saved if in electronic format and shared by all departments rather than each saving the large files and taking up additional space for either disk storage or the paper copies.” Sounds like a good idea. Cost: $81,000. Vendor: Advanced Processing and Imaging, Inc.
• The City is poised to spend $122,446.20 on a .22-mile bike trail extension with its own storm sewer system along Hickory Grove Rd. This is a curious expense. It’s at 100% city expense. The storm sewer portion will correct a drainage problem that has resulted in some flooding of residential backyards. Can someone tell me when the longstanding drainage issues in the fourth district got corrected that would have moved this fifth-district project up on the priority list?
• New sidewalks will be constructed around Manual High School. This was in response to Manual students walking in the middle of the road, obstructing traffic, ostensibly because sidewalks were in disrepair or nonexistent. What do you think? Will the construction of these sidewalk improvements keep the kids out of the street?
• It’s been two years since the City’s 20-year cable franchise agreement with (then) Insight Communications expired. Since then, there have been little extensions of a few months at a time while a new franchise agreement is negotiated. There will be another one of those extensions Tuesday night, this time until June 2009. Maybe someday they’ll actually come to terms on a new franchise agreement.
• The City will raise cab fares to a realistic level.
• The City has a chance to put a stop to the proposed three-story office building for Riverfront Village (you know, the big concrete slab on stilts that blocks the view of the river downtown). When the City approved the development back in March 2007, it had a deadline that construction would commence by December 2008. Well, that’s not going to happen, so now the developer wants to extend the deadline to December 2010. The council should be working toward eventually getting that monstrosity torn down, not adding to it. A three-story office building will only exacerbate the problem. This is the perfect opportunity to kill it.
• There’s a request for the Council to approve a resolution asking the state to raise our taxes supporting the City of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
• There’s a request to put an electronic billboard at the intersection of I-74 and Knoxville Ave. The Zoning Commission recommended denial. It will be interesting to see if second-district councilmember Barbara Van Auken goes with the Zoning Commission’s advice, or if she votes to approve it anyway.

There’s one more item — the snow plan — but I’ll be looking at that in a separate post, coming up next.