I didn’t get a chance to go to that meeting last night about Sheridan Village. But in talking about it with some friends, it made me wonder why another big box grocery store is opening up in that part of town. You have Kroger right across the street in Evergreen Square. And you have Schnuck’s just up the road at Glen and University. Isn’t it inevitable that one of the existing stores will close? Meanwhile, South Peoria has almost no grocery service at all.

I thought I’d check out some recent supermarket history, and culled the following timeline from Journal Star articles (closures in bold):

• Early 1994 — Cub Foods opens at Glen Hollow Shopping Center.
• Nov. 1996 — New Kroger (54,000-60,000 square feet reported) opens in Evergreen Square — replaces old, 27,000-square-foot Kroger in Evergreen Square.
• 9/16/1998 — Super Wal-Mart opens on East Peoria riverfront.
• 11/9/1999 — Schnuck’s (reportedly 87,000 square feet) opens at Glen and University. They tried for years to build a store at Glen and Sheridan, but were pushed back by neighbors and environmentalists. One of the big arguments against that site: it’s right across the street from another established grocery store, Ben Schwartz.
• 12/31/1999 — Ben Schwartz, Sheridan and Glen, closes.
• 3/2/2000 — Eagle Country Markets, 1401 W. Glen, closes (Chapter 11 bankruptcy)
• 8/12/2002 — Cub Foods (65,000 square feet) opens at Midtown Plaza on Knoxville. Developer David Joseph got $5.5 million in city incentives for this project and eminent domain power to wrest away little old ladies’ homes on Dechman. This project was going to “revitalize the East Bluff.”
• 9/25/2002 — John Bee Food Shop, 3419 N. Prospect Road, closes, citing big box grocery store competition. “‘When the first Cub store opened, things started turning downhill for independents; it became a trickle down effect,’ he [owner John Barnhart] said. ‘We did manage to survive them, but then came Schnuck’s. And the SuperWalMart came in and it was a big kick in the head.'”
• 11/15/2002 — Sullivan’s (formerly Thompson Food Basket) on Knoxville and in Campustown both close.

Now Hy-Vee is coming to Sheridan Village, right across the street from another supermarket. How does this serve the needs of the people in the immediate area or Peorians in general?

If you’re interested in the future of Sheridan Village, a trustworthy source has informed me that there’s a meeting at Fashion Bug tonight at 7:00 p.m. to discuss it. I’m told a representative of the Emmes Group will be there (they’re the ones who own Sheridan Village) along with representatives from the city and Hy-Vee, and of course surrounding neighbors and other interested parties. However, I’m told the press will not be allowed to attend. I’m not sure if neighbors will be allowed to voice their concerns or if this is just an informational meeting.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

A law that would bar fast-food restaurants from opening in South Los Angeles for at least a year sailed through the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday…. The council approved the fast-food moratorium unanimously….

When the Peoria City Council was discussing a moratorium on payday loan establishments here, Gary Sandberg joked that maybe we should put a moratorium on Starbucks coffee joints under the same theory. Starbucks isn’t what one would label a fast-food restaurant, but I thought it funny that Sandberg was joking about it, and then just a few days later L. A. does something very similar.

It was only a matter of time, of course. But someone finally couldn’t resist the urge any longer and published the first “Bush plays Peoria” story of the day. Except they got the cliche wrong:

It’s the ultimate political cliche: “How’s it playing in Peoria?” President Bush will find out today.

No, no, no. It’s “Will it play in Peoria?” Not, “How’s it playing in Peoria?” If you’re going to be so unoriginal as to drag out that tired old cliche, at least say it right. Sheesh.

By the way, as long as we’re on the subject, did anyone go? What did the President have to say?

The city council of Surprise, Arizona, unanimously selected Randy Oliver as their new city manager. Randy, of course, was previously the city manager here in Peoria. Since he left, Henry Holling has been the interim city manager while the council continues to look for a permanent replacement. Oliver is arriving in Surprise just as their council is starting to work together instead of fighting so much.

UPDATE: I missed this line before:

Past achievements Oliver outlined in his interview include: streamlining the building permit process in Peoria; working with construction-equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and Bradley University to form an Innovations Center in Peoria with lab space; negotiating a deal for a $20 million expansion of the University of Illinois Medical School; and helping make the largest annexations in the histories of both Greenville and Peoria.

The largest annexation in the history of Peoria was the Richwoods Township annexation in 1964, which added 20 square miles to the city. The largest annexation Oliver oversaw was a little over one square mile (715 acres).

From the Chicago Tribune:

The new full-body imaging machines that will arrive at O’Hare this fall look through clothing to create an explicit silhouette of the traveler—showing shapes, folds of fat and other anatomical characteristics—to identify possible hidden objects.

Even though facial features are blurred to protect privacy, the images reveal breasts, buttocks and other private parts, prompting some civil liberties groups to call the machines an unacceptable intrusion.

That’s right — airport security personnel will now be looking at your naked body every time you want to board an airplane at O’Hare. Perhaps most frightening is this typical response:

“Why they would want a picture like that of me is beyond me,” said Mike Glidewell, 62, a Kansas man who was going through security last week at O’Hare. “But anything they want to do to keep me alive is fine with me.”

Anything? Really? How about only allowing you on the plane if you’re blindfolded and handcuffed? I mean, that would certainly be safer, wouldn’t it? Then any potential terrorist would also be bound and blindfolded, and thus wouldn’t be able to hijack the plane, right? Why would you object? It’ll keep you alive!

The sad thing is, people probably would accept it. I mean, if you had asked anyone ten or twenty years ago if they would submit to a virtual strip search for the privilege of riding an airplane, you probably would have been slapped, then ridiculed. But today, we just accept it as the price of security.

What was that famous quote? “Give me liberty or give me security”?

Bloomberg (and a million other news outlets) reports:

U.S. consumer prices surged 5 percent in the past year, the biggest jump since 1991, just as households struggled with falling home values and the credit crunch. Spiraling expenses for food and fuel spurred the increase in June, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The cost of living rose 1.1 percent from May, more than forecast and the second-largest rise since 1982.

Yikes.

I stayed up and watched the whole four-hour, fifty-minute 2008 All-Star Game. And the National League lost — again — making it a four-hour, fifty-minute waste of my time.

Ever since the tie game in 2002, the winner of the All-Star Game gets home-field advantage in the World Series. That’s the stupidest idea ever devised by the mind of Bud Selig. Home-field advantage should obviously be given to the World Series team with the best regular-season record. But leave it to Major League Baseball to eschew common-sense.

Of course, Cubs fans have been bragging for a couple weeks about all the Cubs players who made it to the All-Star Game. So, let’s take a look at their box scores:

• A. Ramirez: .000 (0 for 0 with a walk)
• K. Fukudome: .000 (0 for 2 with a strikeout)
• G. Soto: .000 (0 for 2 with a strikeout)

Wow, I’m impressed. Meanwhile, the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols went 2 for 3. (Ryan Ludwick went 0 for 2 with a walk, though). To be fair, the Cubs’ pitchers were good:

• C. Zambrano: 0.00 (IP: 2.0, 1 strikeout, 1 hit)
• R. Dempster: 0.00 (IP: 1.0, 3 strikeouts)
• C. Marmol: 0.00 (IP: 1.0, 2 strikeouts)

In the end, it was the Phillies’ Brad Lidge that lost it for the NL in the bottom of the 15th inning. After the game was over, exiting Cubs fans were overheard to say, no doubt out of habit, “Wait ’til next year.”