Category Archives: Museum Block

Museum Block, Peoria County

How are those IMAX negotiations coming?

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During the run up to last April’s referendum, I talked to many people who were going to vote in favor of the museum tax. One of the big selling features for many of them was the proposed IMAX theater that would be included as part of the package. The museum group wasn’t shy about touting the IMAX. They included it by name on their marketing materials. When Citizens for Responsible Spending pointed out that the museum group had no contract with IMAX, museum officials defended their use of the IMAX brand name and explained that they couldn’t sign a contract until the referendum passed, but that they had a contract sitting on their desks ready to sign.

It’s now been ten months, and there is still no signed contract with IMAX. More tellingly, museum officials have stopped using the IMAX brand name. In their presentation to the Peoria County Board last Thursday, it was consistently referred to as a “large screen theater” or a “giant screen theater.” When board member Brad Harding asked if it was an IMAX or a large screen theater, Lakeview’s chairman of the board stated that they can’t use the IMAX brand name because they don’t have a contract signed with IMAX yet. He did say they were still negotiating with IMAX, however.

I sincerely hope that the IMAX negotiations are successful. Because if there is no IMAX, it will be one of the biggest bait-and-switch swindles ever propagated on Peoria taxpayers.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Same song, second verse from museum group

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March 6, 2009:

Although a funding gap of about $11 million to build the Peoria Riverfront Museum would remain even if Peoria County voters approve a sales tax increase next month, project officials say they are confident a successful referendum will trigger the final donations.

“We will go out after the referendum is passed, and while it won’t be a piece of cake, we do feel that once we get over the hurdle of the referendum, the other $11 million can be put together,” said Mark Johnson, project manager of the Caterpillar Experience, the Cat visitor’s center that will share the Downtown block with the museum.

April 8, 2009:

The $40 million county contribution to the $77 million museum doesn’t fully fund the project; a $10 million funding gap remains…. Officials are looking at the possibility of federal economic stimulus money to help pay for the parking garage and other public money in a capital budget out of Springfield. Vergon said he thinks the money will be raised one way or another.

“We’ve got a capital campaign to restart,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to do that because most of the people that had not pledged or committed were concerned whether we’d get all the public money or not, and it looks like that seems to be behind us now.”

May 21, 2009:

Initially short about $10.2 million even with the $40 million raised through the voter-approved Peoria County sales tax increase, the funding gap to build the Peoria Riverfront Museum is narrowing.

“We knew there were people who didn’t want to formally commit to a donation until after the referendum to see which way the vote went,” said Michael Bryant, the CEO of Methodist Medical Center, who also heads the group of area leaders and business people – called the CEO Roundtable – that is raising money for the museum.

“We are seeing that those people are stepping up right now and committing money to this project.” Bryant said the new shortfall is about $7.2 million, meaning the project has received about $3 million in donations since the quarter-percent sales tax referendum was approved by voters 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent 44 days ago. “We’d like to see the gap closed all the way by the end of the summer,’ Bryant said. ‘I’m cautiously optimistic it can be done.”

February 4, 2010:

Governance agreements for the Peoria Riverfront Museum are within sight, paving the way for construction to begin this summer, though the Museum Collaboration Group is saddled with a $7.2 million revenue gap.

So, to sum up, there was a $10.2 to $11 million private funding gap before the referendum in 2009. Not to worry, museum supporters assured us. Once the referendum passes, they were confident they could raise the rest of the money. After the referendum passed, the CEO Roundtable went to work and raised $3 million in a little over a month.

And that’s it. Since May 2009, the funding gap has remained at $7.2 million. A child conceived when the last dollar was raised for the museum could have been born by now.

Not to worry, though. Lakeview Museum Board of Directors Chairman Tom Bardwell told the County Board on Thursday how they plan to close that gap:

We strongly believe that, through research and also conversations in the community and everything that’s happening right now, we believe there’s about $4 million that can be raised in private dollars here in Peoria County or in the local area.

We also believe there’s about a million and a half dollars — in fact, we have a target for about $3 million of line-of-sight that we can see, but let’s be conservative and say a million and a half dollars — from either grants, foundations, other government entities that may make pledges towards this project, which basically takes you five and a half million.

And then there’s also a third avenue of funding we’re pursuing — some of you may have heard some of this — something called New Market Tax Credits. New Market Tax Credits are something we’re pursuing for this project. We believe, conservatively, $4 million should be our target number.

So, our funding strategy is targeted to raise about nine and a half million dollars which is obviously about the $7.2 million gap, but obviously we want to be as conservative as possible in those numbers, so we hope to get there as soon as we can….

Note that their plan to close the private funding gap includes efforts to get $4 million in public funding via the New Markets Tax Credit program. They’re also trying to get public funding from “other government entities.” And despite the fact they’ve not raised any money the past nine months, we’re supposed to believe there’s still $4 million in private funding out there based on their “research” and “conversations.” These are the same people who assured us the funding gap would be closed right after the referendum passed.

Why should we believe any of this? What possible reason is there to have any confidence in the museum group’s fundraising plans? In fact, other than the $3 million raised after the referendum passed, fundraising efforts have been effectively stalled for years, which is why the museum group came to Peoria County for tax funding in the first place.

Instead of this eternal effort to bleed the region for money, the museum should do what it should have done years ago: change its plans. Redesign the building so it’s more efficient to build. Build up instead of out, which will free up more of the block for private commercial development. Dispense with the parking deck, as there is already a glut of available parking downtown, especially along the riverfront. Cutting the deck (pun intended) and/or redesigning the building would also remove the engineering challenge/expense of putting a boomerang-shaped building partially on top of a rectangular deck. If just those things were done, millions of taxpayer dollars would be saved, and the project could be built without any additional fundraising.

The first step in problem solving is to correctly identify the problem. The problem here is not a fundraising problem. It’s a design problem. The project is too large and too expensive. Caterpillar should be using its influence to get the museum group to do their part in reducing expenses instead of bullying the County into building something unaffordable and unsustainable.

Museum Block, Peoria County

County caving to Cat on museum

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Looks like the Peoria County Board is set to capitulate to Caterpillar’s demands. In Caterpillar’s letter of January 20, they gave this ultimatum:

Our message to the Peoria County Board is clear: We must have a deadline or the work for the museum project will continue to languish; the county must modify its governance demands to allow museum activists and professionals to run the PRM; and the Board must help close the funding gap caused by the loss of New Marketing Tax Credits … the county’s contribution needs to be the full $40 million authorized.

In the absence of a positive response from the Peoria County Board by February 12, 2010, Caterpillar doesn’t believe this project can be viable. Failure to move forward in a responsive manner will result in Caterpillar withdrawing its funding commitment for a PRM and termination of our plans to move forward with the Caterpillar Visitor Center.

According to Peoria County Board member Merle Widmer, the County has drawn up an agreement that dutifully complies with Caterpillar’s demands. “The board will be asked to increase the amount voted to give the museum committee to $40 million instead of the $34.7 million the board voted on to help make up the shortage in the endowment,” he reports. “To accept ownership of the building, the County Board will be asked to approve a minimum of three contracts totaling 120 pages . . . and containing such language ‘that a board member can be removed without cause’, an advisory committee (all agreeing to the museum mission) of not more than 60, several layers of boards with the county owning the building forever.”

And if you ever thought the County Board was a professional, deliberative body, looking out for the best interests of taxpayers and thoughtfully considering both sides of an issue, Mr. Widmer adds an account of this conversation, recorded in closed session when at a meeting from which he was absent: “…Mike Phelan, Democrat County Board member [told] the Executive Committee to disregard Merle Widmer and get on with building this museum. He said the public voted on it and the public wants this museum…. He also said board members comments should be limited tommorrow afternoon and Board Chairman, Tom O’Neill said something about ‘putting a sleeping pill in his water.'”

Impolite comments about fellow board members aside, Mr. Phelan forgets that voters were told in town hall meetings that the county would be financing $34.7 million of the cost, and that the museum group would be responsible for raising the rest of the money. Caterpillar is blaming the County for the supposed loss of $5 million in New Market Tax Credits, and are demanding $5.3 million in additional funding from sales tax receipts. No independent proof of this supposed “loss” has been produced, at least publicly. Nevertheless, it appears the County is willing to take the rap for the alleged loss and plug the hole with yet more public funding. All the while, there is still a huge question of whether the other private money that has been supposedly raised will materialize. Most of it is in the form of pledges that have yet to be collected.

A Committee of the Whole meeting will take place today (Thursday) at 3 p.m. at the Peoria County Courthouse.

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!

Caterpillar, Museum Block, Peoria County

CAT bullying County on museum

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Peoria County Board Member Merle Widmer is reporting that Caterpillar sent a threatening letter regarding the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum (PRM) to all County Board members demanding “a positive response from the Peoria County Board by February 12, 2010.” The letter, signed by CEO Jim Owens and CEO-elect Douglas R. Oberhelman, went on to say, “Failure to move forward in a responsive manner will result in Caterpillar withdrawing its funding for a PRM and termination of our plans to move forward with the Caterpillar Visitor Center.”

The bullies are back, and they want action.

You may recall that this isn’t the first time that Caterpillar has strong-armed community members to support the museum. In December 2008, they sent letters to the all the county school districts asking them not to put a tax referendum on the ballot that would have provided desperately-needed funds to the cash-strapped rural districts who don’t have access to the Public Building Commission. Why? Because it would have jeopardized passage of the museum tax referendum which was slated to be on the same ballot.

So the school districts lost out on education funding, and the museum referendum passed, raising the sales tax a quarter of a percent. Even after all that, the museum group was still unable to raise the remaining private funds they needed, despite promises from museum supporters that the shortfall would be easy to make up once the referendum passed. The County Board had the audacity to insist the museum group keep their word and raise the remaining money before starting construction, which has delayed the project considerably. Also contributing to the delay has been an apparent inability to agree on the makeup of the new museum’s board and operational bylaws.

Now Big Yellow has turned its muscle on the County Board, giving them an ultimatum. The county needs to move forward — presumably with a contract between the County, City, and Lakeview — by February or else Cat withdraws all its funding and its plans to build a visitors center. If the deal falls through, who will get the blame according to Cat? The county! Yes, it’s all their fault the museum can’t get its act together, I guess. Cat even included this little gem in their letter: “Delays (by the county) have cost our community $5 million dollars in New Market Tax Credits.” Et tu, Feles? After all the county has done for you? After successfully shepherding through a tax increase in the middle of a recession that will contribute $37.5 million to the cause, you’re going to throw them under the bus for your failed attempt to secure more taxpayer money? There’s gratitude for you.

Well, the bullying is already paying off. Just a couple hours after Widmer published his post on the matter, he received an e-mail informing him that “all misunderstandings have been cleared up and the collaboration contract will soon be ready for the County Board vote.” It looks like Peoria taxpayers’ milk money will be dutifully handed over by the deadline.

Check Merle’s blog for the latest news.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Museum board agreement reached

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The Journal Star is reporting that an agreement has been made between Peoria County and the Museum Collaboration Group on who will run will the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum.

The agreement reached Monday – after the two sides appeared stalemated on Friday – calls for a governing board of between 17 and 22 people, according to [County Administrator Patrick] Urich. A minority of the members – eight, nine or 10, depending on the final size of the board – would be representatives of one of the five agencies that constitute the museum collaborative group. […] A majority of the board would be residents of the county unaffiliated with any group in the museum collaborative group. There would be no representative from county government.

Also:

Urich said the exact relationship between the museum board of directors and the county will be spelled out in the by-laws. The county would own the building, but the board would operate the museum.

And:

“We would be looking for the best and the brightest from the community for a seat on the board,” Urich said.

Here’s how this will work in practice: A bunch of people who are politically connected (the main requirement for being considered “best and brightest” in Peoria), but know nothing about how to operate a museum, will be appointed to the museum board. They will all look to the Lakeview appointees as the “experts” on museums, and vote in accordance with their recommendations. Eventually, they’ll get busy with other things and stop coming to a majority of the meetings — just enough will show up to maintain a quorum. At that point, the majority of those who actually attend will be Museum Collaboration Group members. Their meetings will not be open to the public. Poor decisions will continue to be made, leading to chronic underfunding problems, requiring tax revenue for operations. The project will be determined to be “too big to fail,” given its huge initial cost and prominent placement on the riverfront, so tax money will be diverted to keeping it afloat in perpetuity. It will draw the same number of annual visitors as the current Lakeview Museum by year three, at which point plans will be drawn up to expand the museum (at taxpayer expense, of course) so it can draw more visitors. Peoria County voters will approve more funding.

Museum Block

NY Times: “irrational exuberance” led to big museum building projects

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The New York Times recently published an article about big museum building projects that’s a must-read for all Peoria residents, leaders, and voters. The good news is, we haven’t actually built anything yet here in Peoria, so we still have time to correct our mistakes.

Within months of its opening in 1997, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao had given the language a new term and the world a new way of looking at culture. The “Bilbao effect,” many came to believe, was the answer to what ailed cities everywhere — it was a way to lure tourists and economic development — and a potential boon to cultural institutions.

Municipal governments and arts groups were soon pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into larger, flashier exhibition spaces and performance halls.

Now the economic downturn has reined in a lot of these big dreams and has also led to questions about whether ambitious building projects from Buffalo to Berkeley ever made sense to begin with. Some are arguing that arts administrators and their patrons succumbed to an irrational exuberance that rivaled the stock market’s in the boom years. […]

“Museums, when they saw how much money other museums were raising, said, ‘Oh, we can’t miss out on this,’ ” said Terry Riley, a former head of the Museum of Modern Art’s department of architecture and design, who helped oversee that museum’s renovation by Yoshio Taniguchi. In many cases, he added, “it’s almost as though money drove the decision.”

Later in the article, this observation is made by Adrian Ellis, introduced as “executive director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and the founder of AEA Consulting”:

“Cultural buildings became the way in which cities articulate their identity and vitality — they were driven not by the artistic community but by a civic agenda,” he said. Now the economy is pushing organizations into “deep reflection about what their purpose is and how best to realize it,” he said — reflection that can lead back to an arts-focused agenda, and to a renewed concern about “protecting their capacity to take artistic risks.”

“When you overexpand, you limit your ability to take those risks,” Mr. Ellis said. “Although expansion is usually seen as a sign of health, it is not always a sign of vitality.”

It’s time for the city, county, and arts community to wake up, abandon their “irrational exuberance,” and start working on a realistic, sustainable plan either to expand their current operation at Lakeview, or to build/renovate a smaller space downtown that is within their means. It’s painfully obvious that the stalled project they’ve been trying to build for the past five years is decided unrealistic.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Museum still stalled, but parking lot progresses

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From the Journal Star:

With the allocation of $140,000 in engineering fees for the Peoria Riverfront Museum, the Peoria County Board is moving forward with the $77 million project even as issues of just who will run the place, and how, remain unresolved.

That’s right, they’re going to do an environmental assessment and engineering review of the proposed parking lot design. This is a parking lot that all studies have shown isn’t necessary in the first place. But here they are, getting ready to build it, despite a lack of funds for the museum building itself.

On the bright side, several county board members are getting frustrated with the museum group. Whereas Merle Widmer used to be the only dissenting vote on museum matters, these latest actions have seen five board members vote nay. All we need are four more to switch sides and we can finally put a stake through this ill-conceived plan.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Museum odds and ends (UPDATED)

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  • From the Wall Street Journal: “Ten Things Museums Won’t Tell You.” Number 7: “Our priceless treasures are languishing in storage.” Number 9: “You think our building is ugly; we say it’s one of a kind.”
  • The County is still hashing out a redevelopment agreement with the Peoria Riverfront Museum (PRM), the City of Peoria, and Caterpillar. I received a draft copy anonymously through the mail. One of the items: “PRM will commence construction of the Project if and when all conditions precedent are satisfied, including receipt of funds equal to the entire Project Budget, plus a project contingency in a to be determined amount.” Another interesting provision states that once PRM is up and running, Lakeview Museum will cease to exist. I’ll post a copy of the document this evening.
  • So, how much is the entire “Project Budget” and how much in funding has been received? According to an October 22 letter to the County, the total project budget is $79,486,662. The total pledged dollars: $73,285,140. Since then, the state has passed a bill (still waiting for the governor’s signature, I believe) allocating $5 million in additional funds to the museum, which would bring that total up to $78,285,140. That leaves a remaining funding gap of $1,201,522. However, most interesting is this statement (emphasis mine): “The total amount collected for the project to this point is $14,244,543.”
  • Merle Widmer has his own update on the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum.

UPDATE: As promised, PDF Link here is the document.

Museum Block

More tax money going to museum

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The proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum is poised to get $5 million more of our tax dollars if Gov. Quinn signs Senate Bill 1181 into law. It includes this provision:

Sec. 213. The sum of $5,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated from the Capital Development Fund to the Department of Natural Resources for capital grants to Peoria County for costs associated with construction and development of the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

Now, based on a July 21 Journal Star report, “Officials are trying to bridge a $5 million gap in public and private dollars still needed.” So, this $5 million infusion of cash from the state should finally get the museum fully funded, right?

Surprisingly, no. According to this new Journal Star report, “The museum project presently has a funding gap of about $6 million, and $5 million from the state would nearly close that, he [Jim Richerson] said.” How can we explain this discrepancy? Was the report in July incorrect? Or did the museum lose $1 million between July and October? If the latter, how was the money lost?

It’s worth pointing out again that during the time leading up to April’s referendum, museum officials assured everyone that the remaining $11 million would be raised through private donations, aided largely by the CEO Roundtable. Now they are seeking to plug these gaps with more public money — that is, more of our tax money.

At the same time, according to yet another Journal Star report, the state’s spending plan “reduces or eliminates funding for dozens of other [educational] programs. Agricultural education, for instance, will lose half of the funding it got last year, leaving it with almost $1.7 million. Funding for early childhood education is being cut by a third, and bilingual education programs will see a 25 percent reduction.”

But they’ve got $5 million for a museum in Peoria! Priorities, you know.