Category Archives: General News

City of Peoria, General News, Peoria Area CVB, Peoria Civic Center

Civic Center rates the No. 1 reason conventions skip Peoria

40 Comments

Why do organizations skip Peoria and choose other cities to host their conventions?

The reasons were revealed by Sami Qureshi on WTVP’s public affairs program “At Issue” Thursday night. He should know. He’s the Holiday Inn City Centre’s General Manager, President of the Heart of Illinois Hospitality Association, and Secretary/Treasurer of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. He’s talked to convention organizers and read the PACVB’s lost business surveys.

Based on those primary sources, Qureshi says the number one reason Peoria is bypassed is because of the Peoria Civic Center’s rate structure. The number two reason is limited air service. The main reason is not, he says, due to a lack of quality hotel rooms.

Gary Matthews, the hotel developer who hopes to turn the Pere Marquette into a Marriott and connect it to the Civic Center with the help of $37 million in municipal (i.e., taxpayer-backed) bonds, disagreed with Qureshi. Matthews said that Marriott officials told him the Peoria Civic Center’s rates are perfectly fine. Qureshi countered that he wasn’t stating his opinion, but is just repeating what actual organizers who actually said “no” to Peoria had told him.

Qureshi and Matthews were on “At Issue” along with Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis and Holiday Inn City Centre owner Bruce Kinseth to talk about the “Wonderful Development” and its ramifications. There was also a prerecorded clip of Mark Twain Hotel owner and former Peoria mayor Lowell “Bud” Grieves explaining his alternative proposal. The episode will be replayed Sunday at 4:30 p.m. on WTVP, channel 47.

General News

Randy Oliver still making news in Surprise

8 Comments

It’s been a month since former Peoria City Manager Randy Oliver was fired without cause from his job in Surprise, Arizona. When Oliver left Peoria, part of his severance agreement was that neither he nor the City could talk about why he left, including whether he resigned willingly or was asked to resign. No such gag order was included in Oliver’s walking papers from Surprise, and one council member there — Sharon Wolcott — is telling the press there exactly why she voted to terminate the City Manager after just two years:

Mr. Oliver is a good technician, but he was not the right choice to lead this effort moving forward. He possessed the technical skills to manage day-to-day affairs of an organization such as ours, but he clearly did not possess the personal skills to resist bullying from “above.” He regularly chose to take direction from a select few.

Until people who hold the title of mayor, council member and city manager understand and embrace their respective roles, lines will be crossed and a culture of discord will hamper our ability to move forward. The roles are clearly defined in ordinance. An effective manager knows how to unify differing viewpoints from a policy perspective and resist interference by a mayor or any member of the City Council.

Asking for special favors, new programs or directing staff time is a common practice at City Hall and may seem harmless enough at first. But each time a member of the council or the mayor crosses over into the management side of city government with a special request, there is a cost associated with it. There is rarely a plan to integrate these pet projects into the greater vision of the city, rather only to move it forward under the radar of the budgetary process. This can only lead to an unequal footing with individual members of the council and mayor. In short a good manager should say just say “no”.

My vote to terminate Mr. Oliver’s contract was cast after repeated attempts to counsel him about engaging in political manipulation, only to be asked to participate in the Machiavellian games. While these tactics are not illegal, they do damage to the character and fabric of the organization.

Bullying and intimidation are tactical choices, but they are not healthy strategies to achieve a goal. The health of our city, our residents and our employees heavily lies in the hands of a city manager who focuses on the people and the long-term needs of a community. Unfortunately, Mr. Oliver was not the right person for the job moving forward.

Oliver had a response to that in The Arizona Republic:

Oliver, in an e-mail to The Republic, stated that he had a choice to have his employment discussed in public or behind closed doors in executive session. He chose a public forum.

“It was my decision to have the discussion last week about my tenure in Surprise held publicly as I had nothing to hide and believe in transparency,” he wrote. “Some council members, however, now believe they must defend their actions. The proper time was during that public form when a free exchange could occur.”

He added: “I have always treated all council members equally with all getting the same information at the same time. The council needs to determine how they best work together as a cohesive unit and determine their individual roles to move the city forward. I wish them well in this endeavor.”

It should be noted that the Surprise city council voted 4-3 to terminate Oliver, showing that the council was clearly divided. Surprise Mayor Lyn Truitt was quoted in the same article criticizing Wolcott’s letter, saying her complaints against Oliver are too vague, and that the press is the wrong place to make her accusations.

Also of interest, it appears that Oliver never signed his severance deal. He was fired March 25, and hadn’t signed the deal by April 21, so at the April 22 Surprise City Council meeting, the council gave the interim city manager authorization to execute the severance agreement without Oliver signing off on it.

General News

Trends in online newspaper access

1 Comment

Starting in June, The Times of London is going to start charging a subscription fee for online access to their newspaper content. Subscribers to the print edition of the paper will get complimentary online access, but web-only subscribers will have to pay £2 ($4 USD) per week. That’s roughly one-third the price of a print edition subscription.

“Paid content is the only way that we are going to see a sustainable economic model for quality journalism,” explained Times Editor James Harding.

Mr Harding added: “Saying that our journalism is worthless and dumping it free online is not a viable economic model.” Even were The Times to double its online readership over the next five years the revenue created through non-subscription means would be too low to sustain a quality newspaper, Mr Harding said.

Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, added elsewhere in the article, “We are proud of our journalism and unashamed to say that we believe it has value.”

They aren’t the only ones setting up pay walls. The New York Times announced earlier this year, “Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access.” The Financial Times has a similar setup. Those who register can get 10 articles for free every 30 days, but must pay a subscription fee of $3.59 per week for unlimited online access. The Wall Street Journal charges $1.99 per week for online access only, $2.29 per week for a print-only subscription, and $2.69 per week for both.

A recent article in the Online Journalism Review says this is the way all newspapers will eventually go because it’s the only viable business model. “You don’t get free gas from a gas station. You don’t get free meals from a restaurant,” observes the article’s author, Gerry Storch. “So why is the newspaper industry the only one in America that is expected to give its product … in its electronic version … away for free?”

“Giving away information for free on the Internet while still charging 50 cents to $1 for the print version of the paper was one of the most fundamentally flawed business decisions of the past 25 years,” says Prof. Paul J. MacArthur, who teaches public relations and journalism at Utica College. “Newspapers told their paying customers that the information truly had no value. They told their paying customers that they were suckers. Why would anyone pay 50 cents for something he or she can get for free? This poorly conceived and obviously flawed strategy has helped put the newspaper industry into its current financial condition and hastened the demise of many publications.”

I’ve been asking that same thing for years now about the Peoria Journal Star. Why should someone pay $247 per year for the paper’s content (which is continually shrinking, by the way) when they can get the same content for free online? What kind of a business plan is that?

Storch gives his prescription for the newspaper industry: “[E]xcept for the ‘Big Four’ national players, newspapers will not survive unless they 1) convert out of print and totally into the Internet, 2) confine themselves to local news and, most importantly, 3) charge for it.” Overall, I agree with this assessment. However, I don’t think they need to get out of print totally. The market for the printed newspaper will continue to shrink, but will remain at least a niche market forever.

But Storch is correct that a focus on local news — and charging for it — is a must. No one is going to buy the Journal Star for its reprinted Associated Press content. But people will buy the Journal Star for local news. You don’t get local news from the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or even the Chicago Tribune. That’s the local paper’s competitive advantage, and they need to capitalize on it.

That’s the only way I can see for online newspapers to succeed in the long run. The only future for the free model is dwindling content and bankruptcy.

General News

Reza Aslan to speak in Peoria April 29

Leave a comment

From my inbox:

On Thursday, April 29, the Peoria Area World Affairs Council will host Reza Aslan, the internationally acclaimed author and media consultant on issues of religion and politics. The author will sign copies of his books, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam and Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age.

Since the attacks of 9/11 on the United States, news of terrorism and the fighting between religious factions, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, have given more weight to Samuel Huntington’s theory of the “clash of civilizations.” According to Reza Aslan, this is not the case.

“What is taking place now in the Muslim world is an internal conflict between Muslims, not an external battle between Islam and the West,” writes in his book, No god but God. “The West is merely a bystander — an unwary yet complicit casualty of a rivalry that is raging in Islam over who will write the next chapter in its story.”

Reza Aslan has degrees in Religions from Santa Clara University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues, Abraham’s Vision, an interfaith peace organization, and PEN USA, which champions the rights of writers under siege around the world.

The presentation on April 29 will begin at 5:00 pm with a reception and book-signing at Barrack’s Cater Inn, 1224 Pioneer Parkway in Peoria. Dinner will be served at 6:00 pm, followed by Aslan’s presentation. Tickets for the dinner and presentation are $35 for the general public, and $15 for the presentation only. Discounts are available.

For more information, please contact the Peoria Area World Affairs Council, (309) 677-2454 or www.pawac.org.

General News

Fresh Market to open in Peoria

12 Comments

The Journal Star reports that The Fresh Market is going to open a store in Westlake Shopping Center in the former Circuit City space. Fresh Market is a “specialty grocery store chain” based in North Carolina, and is similar to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Their prices are high, but so is the quality of their food. Many in Peoria have stated they want to have a gourmet food store like this, so I’m happy to see one is finally opening in the area.

On the other hand, they apparently require a very large sign in front of their store, and don’t want to screen their dumpsters (see Item 4, 2/23/10 City Council meeting). That’s regrettable.

General News

Conan is going on tour

1 Comment

Yes, I know this has nothing to do with Peoria. But I’m a fan of Conan O’Brien, and I thought I’d mention that he’s just announced he’ll be taking his act on the road to thirty cities. He’s calling it: “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour.” It’s billed as “A night of music, comedy, hugging, and the occasional awkward silence.”

You can get tickets at http://teamcoco.com/. Closest date to Peoria: Chicago (of course) on May 19 at the Chicago Theater. Tickets are $39.50, $59.50, and $79.50. I’m going.

UPDATE: The Chicago Tribune is reporting that “sidekick Andy Richter and the former ‘Tonight Show’ band will join O’Brien” for the tour.

UPDATE 2: Conan just announced via Twitter, “We are now adding a second show in both NYC & Chicago. For that second show, I’ll be doing all Liza Minnelli songs.”

UPDATE 3: If you haven’t already gotten tickets, you’re too late. The Chicago Tribune now reports, “Chicago tickets sold out on Ticketmaster.com within a couple hours.” Good thing I had the day off today!

General News, Peoria Civic Center, Peoria Mayor, State of Illinois

Civic leaders line up to tout Wonderful Development

9 Comments

I regret that I couldn’t make it to the Illinois Finance Authority’s public hearing on Tuesday regarding the Wonderful Development (i.e., the proposed downtown Marriott hotel project). It looks like I would have been the only dissenting voice. The Journal Star reports that “Every person who publicly spoke before the authority was in favor of it. No one spoke in opposition.” Those who publicly spoke included Mayor Jim Ardis, Civic Center General Manager Debbie Ritschel, Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau President/CEO Bob Marx, and “various trade groups.”

Mayor Jim Ardis defended the city’s position that it has done the appropriate due diligence on a project that is backed by nearly $40 million in public bonds.

If they really did “the appropriate due diligence,” it was all done in secret. No vetting was done in public, nor was there any public hearing before the city council decided to commit $40 million to the project.

He also defended the use of a tax bond for the project, saying that without public assistance, major Downtown projects would languish. He cited the “10 to 15 years” without development within the museum block as an example of the lack of the private industry moving forward with a project.

The City purchased the downtown Sears property in 1998 when Sears announced it would be moving to Northwoods Mall. Following that, they acquired the rest of the block. Ever since then, they’ve owned the whole block. They spent a few years haggling over what to do with it, then ultimately decided to give it to the museum. And that’s why there was a “lack of the private industry moving forward with a project.” They couldn’t. John Q. Hammons expressed interest in building a hotel on the block and the Mayor wouldn’t even return his calls. Furthermore, the museum group has had public assistance (lots of it!) for almost a full year and they still can’t get anything built down there.

“I would ask any . . . critics to name for me projects of this importance to the city that will have a private investor come before us and shoulder all of the burden,” Ardis said. “It doesn’t happen anymore.”

First of all, I take issue with his characterization of this project as one of “importance.” It’s not important to Peoria. All it will do is give us an overbuilt hotel to go along with our overbuilt Civic Center. Secondly, the reason a private investor won’t come before us and shoulder all of the burden is because they know it won’t be profitable. That’s why banks won’t loan the money, either. Why should we build an unprofitable hotel? Peoria has money to burn, apparently.

Ritschel and … Marx defended the hotel project as something that will make the Civic Center a more attractive destination for larger conventions and events.

Marx said at least 10 groups representing more than 17,000 room nights have approached the city about wanting to have an event at the Civic Center only if there was an attached hotel.

“They won’t event talk to us until we have this project come to fruition,” Marx said.

If it were that important to the Civic Center, then why didn’t they include a hotel in their $55 million expansion plan? Why did they say they could be successful without an attached hotel?

And what about those 17,000 room nights? Suppose they got $120 per room night for those (keep in mind that it will probably be less because they’ll give lower rates to big groups like that), how much would that amount to? $2,040,000. That’s not enough to make one bond payment. 17,000 room nights out of 178,850 annual room nights available (proposed 490 total rooms times 365 nights per year) accounts for 10.5% occupancy. Considering the current Pere Marquette (which has only 287 guest rooms) is barely getting 50% occupancy, I’d say we’re looking at some serious losses on this project.

But there’s no reason why Peoria residents should have to go to the IFA to complain about it. We should have had an opportunity to voice our concerns before our own local elected leaders. It’s too bad the IFA has provided more opportunity for input than our own City Council.

City of Peoria, General News

No regional brand?! Oh, we’ve got trouble, my friends!

27 Comments

Ryan Spain and the Heartland Partnership are cooking up a new idea:

The idea behind the project is to brand the Peoria region with a tag line and, perhaps, another logo.

It would be a comprehensive approach to selling the region to tourism groups and those who could come to Peoria on business, Spain said.

“I would argue we don’t have anything now,” he said. “The timing and the urgency for creating a brand for our region … if we don’t have one, we run the risk of someone doing it for us. It may or may not be what we want to be known for.”

You gotta love marketing people. Urgency? Risk? Peoria County was established in 1825; Tazewell County followed in 1827, and Woodford in 1841. From that time to the present we’ve never had a regional brand. But now, suddenly it’s urgent to brand the region, and we’re at risk if we don’t!

This kind of exaggeration reminds me of someone… a salesman I heard once. Ah yes, I can just hear Mr. Spain explaining this dire situation to the town leaders now:

“Either you’re closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the absence of regional branding in your community. Well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here, I say, trouble right here in River City, with a capital T that rhymes with B that stands for Brand!

“Leaders of River City! Heed the warning before it’s too late! Watch for the tell-tale signs of having no regional brand! When you talk to out-of-town clients and say you’re from Peoria, do they ask ‘Where’s that’? Do the bloggers in your community make their own sarcastic logos of the region? Does Rocco Landesman not know that there is a Civic Center in your town?

“If so, ya got trouble, my friends. Yes, ya got lots and lots of trouble — with a capital T that rhymes with B that stands for Brand!”

Perhaps he can institute The Think System, where he gets everyone to just think that “it’s better here” in Peoria and they start to believe it. Oh wait, someone’s already tried that one…..

General News

Bill to ban red-light cameras sent to subcommittee

9 Comments

State Sen. Dan Duffy (Dist. 26) is the chief sponsor of Senate Bill 2466, which would ban red-light cameras in the State of Illinois. The bill was assigned to the Transportation Committee, where it got a hearing yesterday.

According to the Daily Herald’s live blog of the meeting, it sounds like there wasn’t enough support for the bill to get it sent back to the floor for a vote. Instead, a five-member (3 Democrats, 2 Republicans) subcommittee was formed to try to “find the middle ground on this redlight camera policy.” Sending a bill to subcommittee is often the same as killing the bill, but the chairman of the committee indicated that he would like to schedule a subcommittee meeting in early March.

They don’t say who was assigned to the subcommittee, but local senator Dale Risinger is a member of the larger Transportation Committee. Risinger doesn’t sound like a big supporter of red-light cameras, judging from this Peoria Times-Observer article.

Risinger, a former IDOT engineer, said, in his view, red-light cameras do not reduce accidents….

Risinger added he is also concerned about tickets being issued to motorists who pull forward to make a right turn on red without making a complete stop.

Risinger said he is concerned about the city growing dependent on the revenue that could be generated by tickets to red light violators.

He said Chicago became dependent on this revenue and began ticketing motorists who pulled forward at red lights for visibility reasons while trying to turn right on a red light.

I believe his concerns are warranted.

General News, Movies

Speaking of IMAX, have you heard of “fake IMAX”?

1 Comment

Frequent commenter “Mahkno” mentioned in response to a previous post that “IMAX was [as of the last time he looked into it] moving away from the singular movie theatre venues. Their principle growth has been in partnering with large theatre chains to sell their IMAX brand, equipment, and format. It might be more likely at this point that one of the area multiplexes would adopt the IMAX format before the museum would.”

As a matter of fact, IMAX has indeed been partnering with large theater chains, including Goodrich Quality Theaters (which owns Willow Knolls 14 in Peoria) and AMC (which will soon own ShowPlace 14 in Pekin). But these multiplex IMAX theaters are not the same as standalone IMAX theaters. They’re smaller. A lot smaller. In fact, here are a couple of screen-size comparisons that I’ve shamelessly swiped from other websites (here [WARNING: lots of profanity] and here):

Click on the images to enlarge. As you can see, the retrofitted multiplex theaters don’t really hold a candle to a true IMAX giant-screen experience. But that really isn’t what has gotten everyone so upset. After all, the screen is larger than most multiplex screens, and the sound is far better.

What bothers critics — including Roger Ebert — is that IMAX is not differentiating these smaller theaters from their traditional giant-screen theaters. So Joe Blow goes to his local AMC multiplex and plunks down an extra five bucks for the IMAX experience, walks into the theater and… surprise! It’s not a giant-screen theater, but just a slightly-larger-than-average multiplex theater screen. And he feels scammed. Ebert offers some common-sense advice:

But apparently, IMAX is not going to do any such thing. This whole outrage over what many are calling “fake IMAX” broke out nearly a year ago, and so far no differentiation has been forthcoming from IMAX.

Nevertheless, given AMC’s deal with IMAX and the fact that AMC is buying Kerasotes Theatres, I wonder if the museum might have some competition for landing a local IMAX theater. Time will tell.