Category Archives: General News

General News, Movies

AMC is buying Kerasotes ShowPlace Theatres

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With the exception of three theaters, Kerasotes is selling its entire chain to AMC. That means the Kerasotes ShowPlace 14 in Pekin will be acquired if the sale receives regulatory approval. Incidentally, for you local history buffs out there, before the ShowPlace 14 (originally the ShowPlace 12) was built, this was the site of the Starlite Drive-In Theater, one of several drive-in theaters in the greater Peoria area. It was destroyed by fire in October 1991. The drive-in was owned by Kerasotes Theatres, and when it burned down, they opted not to rebuild it, but instead put up the largest local multiplex at the time. You may recall that there was another theater chain in the area with a similar name: George Kerasotes Corp., or GKC. (Anyone remember the jingle? “Tonight I feel like GKC!”) It was unaffiliated with Kerasotes Theatres and was sold to Carmike Cinemas in 2005.

Now it looks like the Kerasotes name may soon be gone forever from the area. Here’s the press release:

Kansas City, Mo. (Jan. 19, 2010) – AMC Entertainment Inc. (“AMC”), and Kerasotes Showplace Theatres, LLC (“Kerasotes”), two leading theatrical exhibition and entertainment companies in the U.S., announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which AMC will acquire substantially all of the assets of Kerasotes. Kerasotes owns 96 theatres and 973 screens in mid-sized, suburban and metropolitan markets, primarily in the Midwest. More than three quarters of the Kerasotes theatres feature stadium seating and almost 90 percent have been newly built since 1994. Following the consummation of the proposed transaction, Tony and Dean Kerasotes will retain and operate their two new ICON concept theatres in Minneapolis, MN and Chicago, IL; and one Showplace theatre in Secaucus, NJ. Kerasotes is currently owned by the Kerasotes family and Providence Equity Partners.

“Combining Kerasotes’ highly-regarded assets and operations with our own is a natural way for us to continue re-defining the future of our industry,” said Gerry Lopez, AMC CEO and president. “With almost 200 years in the exhibition business between us, our collective experiences and our complementary geographic footprints will allow us to maintain the reputation for excellence and leadership that is part of each company’s culture.”

“Our team has delivered a consistent, high quality experience for customers, and we have appreciated Providence’s partnership over the last six years in helping Kerasotes grow into the sixth largest motion picture exhibition company in North America” said Tony Kerasotes, Chief Executive Officer. “We expect these theatres will be a strong addition to the AMC theatre circuit, and look forward to successfully completing the transaction with AMC and to beginning our next chapter.”

Completion of the acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions for transactions of this type, including Department of Justice antitrust approval.

2010 Election, Blogosphere, General News, Museum Block, Peoria County, Peoria Public Schools, Peoria Times-Observer

Saturday must-see links

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If you haven’t already seen these this week, you’ll want to check them out:

  • Outside the Horseshoe for January 26, 2010, from WCBU 89.9 FM radio. Tanya Koonce has a conversation with Peoria County Administrator Patrick Urich, Peoria County State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons, and County Board Members Andrew Rand (Dist. 4) and Stephen Morris (Dist. 10) about the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum project. What we can deduce from the conversation here is that, at least in the county’s perception, Lakeview Museum is trying to dominate and control the project. I suspect their perception is true; Caterpillar had similar problems working with Lakeview which led to their decision years ago to put their visitor center in a separate building instead of sharing space in the museum.

  • Blacktop Reform from DeWayne Bartels of the Peoria Times-Observer. You may be surprised to learn that the next time you want to get your driveway blacktopped, you’ll have to pay a lot more money and have fewer contractors from which to choose. The County Board is trying to run non-union blacktop paving contractors out of town. Let this be a lesson to current and future Board members: do your homework before you vote!

  • School Board Member Laura Petelle’s thoughts on the final candidate for District 150’s New Superintendent. She wants to assure everyone that the process this time was “far different and more comprehensive” than the past. In other words, they did a better job of vetting the candidates than the board that hired Kay Royster did. That should give residents some comfort.

  • Racism alleged within the Peoria County Democratic Central Committee. Rachael Parker is a sitting Peoria Board of Education member running for a seat on the Peoria County Board, and her campaign manager and communications director sent out a press release accusing local Democrats of being racist. They also questioned why the Peoria Journal Star did not interview Parker. I’m wondering how the Journal Star got a quote from Parker for their January 15 story if they didn’t interview her.

Happy reading/listening!

General News

New York Times to charge for web content in 2011

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The New York Times announced today:

Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site.

This is what the Peoria Journal Star ought to do. I’ve often wondered why I should keep subscribing to the print edition of the Journal Star when its local content is available for free online. It seems like such a business model is ultimately self-defeating. Offering full web access only to subscribers is a reasonable plan. The question I have is: Will they offer a web-only subscription at a reduced rate from their print subscription price?

General News

Keystone gets to keep tax exemption

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State Senator Dave Koehler and Representative Mike Smith were able to pass legislation that will save Keystone Steel and Wire a bundle of money in taxes that had threatened to shutter the struggling business. Koehler’s office issued a press release that explained:

Senate Bill 328 allows Keystone to continue to benefit from a tax exemption it has long enjoyed. Illinois provides a tax exemption to businesses in enterprise zones that employ more than 1,000 full-time workers. Due to the recession, Keystone has had to cut back on employee hours and no longer qualifies. The legislation allows Keystone to
continue to take the exemption as long as it maintains at least 500 full-time employees and gradually works back up to 1,000 full-time employees by 2013. The potential effect of losing the exemption could amount to a monthly financial loss of $140,000 per month for the company and threaten its financial viability.

Keystone’s enterprise zone was established in the mid-1980s.

General News

Peoria on PBS

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On the PBS Newshour Wednesday, they did a segment on Rocco Landesman, National Endowment for the Arts chair. You may remember that he made some disparaging remarks about Peoria, then visited Peoria last November. During the PBS news segment, there’s footage from his Peoria visit as well as his explanation/apology for the disparaging comments he had made earlier:

JEFFREY BROWN: You created a stir early on with the Peoria comment. And it sounded as though you were saying that money should go to places with proven merit, as opposed to the more traditional sort of distribution geographically. That’s the way it sounded.

ROCCO LANDESMAN: Well, Peoria was really a figure of speech. I’m a Broadway guy, and there is that great old Vaudeville expression, will it play in Peoria? I didn’t mean anything personal to Peoria. And what I was trying to say was really that art that’s going to be supported by the NEA is going to be on the basis of merit and quality, not just because it exists in a certain place. And we’re going to be wherever it is.

So there you have it: Peoria’s national reputation has been restored. Who could ask for anything more?

2010 Election, General News

Chicago Tribune wants a revolution

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The editors of the Chicago Tribune have an interesting take on why we keep electing the same leaders in Illinois:

Evidently, it’s Stockholm syndrome, the tendency of some hostages to bond with their captors. How else to explain Illinoisans’ habit of re-electing lawmakers who chronically spend and borrow billions more than taxpayers supply? The result: huge debts and unfunded obligations that will make this an unaffordable state for employers and workers to build a future.

They want us to snap out of it and clean house in the next election. And they’re running a series of editorials aimed at convincing voters to do just that. The first one — “A call to arms” — ran last Sunday, December 27. Today’s editorial is “Splurge. Borrow. Repeat.” While they’re obviously talking about state government, I think this can be applied to other levels of government as well — specifically in regards to fiscal irresponsibility:

If you enjoy the political culture as is — with the next corruption scandal never far off and with your public officials borrowing future generations into penury in order to prop up today’s treacherously uncontrolled spending — then you should support candidates who’ll protect the status quo. If, however, the failure of too many politicians to make urgently needed reforms infuriates you, then reach for a broom.

We hope you’re among the millions who are infuriated. And we hope you’ll reach for that broom.

Politicians at all levels of government are addicted to debt. The City of Peoria paid almost 11 cents of every dollar toward debt service in 2009 — a percentage that will go up in 2010 as the city cuts operational costs while simultaneously taking on more long-term debt. The next City Council election is in 2011 when all the at-large council representatives come up for reelection.

General News

Novel idea: Accountable development

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The Associated Press has published an article (sent to me by alert reader and frequent commenter “anp”) about how municipalities are starting to hold companies more accountable for the tax incentives they take.

As the economy sputters along, municipalities struggling to fix roads, fund schools and pay bills increasingly are rescinding tax abatements to companies that don’t hire enough workers, that lay them off or that close up shop. At the same time, they’re sharpening new incentive deals, leaving no doubt what is expected of companies and what will happen if they don’t deliver.

They call these “clawback” (or “recapture”) provisions, and such a provision sure would have come in handy had it been written into the MidTown Plaza agreement. Instead, Peoria gave away the store and is left holding the bag. A recent Journal Star article states that MidTown Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district “has an annual $351,000 bill but doesn’t bring in the property and sales tax revenue to cover expenses.”

The AP article gives several examples of successful clawback provisions in other cities. Here’s one:

[In DeKalb, Ill.,] Target Corp. got abatements from the city, county, school district and other taxing bodies after promising at least 500 jobs at a local distribution center.

So when the company came up 66 workers short in 2009, Target got word its next tax bill would be jumping almost $600,000 — more than half of which goes to the local school district, where teachers and programs have been cut as coffers dried up.

Even better news is that there is no evidence that these kinds of provisions “scare off other employers,” according to Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First. Incidentally, the website for Good Jobs First is fantastic. If you do nothing else, read A Beginner’s Guide to Accountable Development.

This is an idea whose time has come. If DeKalb can do it, so can Peoria. If it’s good enough for Target, it should be good enough for local developers here in the river city. We should all demand of our council representatives that recapture provisions be written into any new developer subsidies; in fact, it should be boilerplate language. There’s no excuse for taxpayers shouldering all the risk while developers reap all the rewards of sweetheart economic development incentives.

General News

Top stories of 2009

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I’m not doing a Top 10. Rather, I’m just going through each month and pulling out the two or three most significant events that happened, as reported on the Chronicle. No doubt there are bigger stories missing here and there because I didn’t write about everything, but you can read about those in the mainstream media or other blog sites.

Here are the 2009 Top Stories on Peoria Chronicle, as I see them:

January

February

March

  • WHOI News bites the dust as an independent news source. WEEK-TV (Granite Broadcasting) takes over operations under a shared service agreement, fires all WHOI reporters. The newscast and anchors remain, but content is identical to WEEK.
  • Barbara Van Auken is sued by Sigma Nu fraternity in a transparent (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to spike Van Auken’s reelection bid.

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

And that’s your 2009 Year in Review.

General News

Unique eatery gone forever

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Vonachen’s Old Place will never reopen. The train cars are being moved to Wheels ‘o Time Museum, and the building is being razed.

And I’m sad. In a world full of cookie-cutter chain restaurants, VOP’s was truly unique. It was a great place to take the family for lunch or dinner. It was a great place to go for special occasions. The private dining rooms on the train car were great for dates. And I took many an out-of-town business associate there, since it was one of the most interesting places in town to eat.

The place is full of stories. Like the train car that is closest to Prospect Road — it was a private car for Toledo, Peoria & Western (TP&W) president George McNear. Railroad workers went on strike back in the 1940s, and McNear wouldn’t give in to their demands. At one point, he tried running a TP&W train with strikebreakers — and armed guards to ensure passage past picketers. Some picketers got injured in that confrontation, and on March 10, 1946, as McNear was walking home from a Bradley game, he was shot to death right on the street. The murderer was never found.

But now stories like that will be tucked away at a museum north of town, along with the clock from the old Peoria County Courthouse and other treasures long discarded by Peoria. No doubt a chain restaurant will take the place of the eatery originally known as Vonachen’s Junction, and it will probably be very successful, too.

Oh well. Times change.