Category Archives: Peoria Journal Star

Blogosphere, Peoria Journal Star

Word on the Street follows up on Pundit post

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Last Wednesday, Bill Dennis posted a postcard advertisement from Aaron Schock for a “community coffee” with Second District Councilperson Barbara Van Auken and Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard. Bill objected to the design of the postcard, observing that it looks like campaign literature and could give someone the misconception that Van Auken and Settingsgaard endorse Schock.

Jennifer Davis and Molly Parker followed up on this story in today’s Word on the Street column. They called Van Auken and Settingsgaard to see how they felt about the advertisement. Van Auken said she wasn’t too terribly concerned about it and reiterated her support for Fourth District Councilman Bill Spears — Schock’s opponent in the upcoming election. Settingsgaard was also unconcerned and said he hasn’t endorsed either candidate yet, but it appears he votes Republican, so we can all speculate on who he would/might endorse.

As for Jennifer and Molly’s take on it, they were also unconcerned:

This is the type of thing that wouldn’t normally ruffle feathers, but, be warned: we are entering the hyper-sensitive silly season where staunch supporters of one candidate or another seem to think that there’s a double meaning behind every word spoken, every random encounter.

I’ll betcha Bill is working on a rebuttal to that statement right now.

Peoria Journal Star, State of Illinois

Preemptive amendments only protection against activist courts

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The Journal Star’s editorial board either hasn’t been paying attention to recent events or simply can’t put two and two together.

In their editorial today, “Same-sex marriage referendum a divisive distraction,” they observe, “Illinois already has a law that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, so this is redundant.” But the newspaper of record surely knows that in an age of judicial activism, passing laws is not enough. Massachusetts had a law defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, too, but the courts overturned it. So the only way to safeguard this law from judicial activism is to make it part of the constitution itself.

The editorial does mention that a constitutional amendment is the ultimate goal: “The November referendum is only advisory, intended to pressure Illinois lawmakers to put another referendum on another ballot to change the state constitution.” This is what happens when judges start legislating from the bench. The only recourse citizens have is to start writing laws directly into the constitution. And because this is such a long process, traditional marriage advocates don’t want to wait until the laws have been overturned to get started, like they did in Massachusetts.

The editorial goes on to say, “It’s a shame that petition organizers didn’t put their substantial grass-roots skills toward other family-friendly issues…,” as if the the definition of marriage is merely one issue in a litany of equivalent causes. Actually, marriage is the foundation upon which our definition of family is built, so “family-friendly issues” are dependent on our society’s view of marriage, not equal to it.

The editorial concludes with this admonition: “What Illinois is ready for is a focus on issues that make a real difference in people’s lives, not unnecessary and divisive distractions.” It’s actually quite practical to firmly establish the definition of marriage in Illinois. The very issues the Journal Star thinks are more important — health insurance, pensions — would be seriously impacted if same-sex marriage were legalized through some sort of court action, and Illinois would be ill-prepared for it.  Laws would need to be rewritten, financial projections would have to be completely refigured, and all within a short period of time.  Settling the issue of marriage by putting the definition in the constitution will provide stability both for families and the government.

City of Peoria, Kellar Branch, Peoria Journal Star

Journal Star: Trail at any cost

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The Journal Star has another editorial on the Kellar Branch today. I’m surprised it took them this long to write it, considering all their editorials on this issue follow the same boilerplate. Once again, it’s time to set the record straight:

Recall that Carver was the Kellar branch’s only customer, and that the city of Peoria built the company a $2 million extension so it could continue getting deliveries.

This is revisionist history. Peoria did not “buil[d] the company a $2 million extension.” The resolution which passed on May 15, 2001 stated explicitly the reason for extending the spur was “to retain long-term cost effective, direct rail service to Pioneer Industrial Park and future rail service to Growth Cell #2….” It was not just to benefit Carver Lumber, unless the council was lying about their reason for building it. (Insert cynicism here.)

It’s also worth noting that there were several other businesses on the Kellar Branch before the city started their attempt to de-rail it. So the fact that Carver is the “only” customer now is to the city’s shame. Is the Journal Star happy they’ve run these businesses out of town for the sake of a trail?

And the $2 million cost did not come out of Peoria’s coffers. Most of that was a grant, just like the $4 million in grants that the Park District wants to use to build the trail. The Journal Star likes to think of grants as free money when it comes to building a trail, but for rail service it’s seen as a liability. More hypocrisy. The city only spent $175,000 out of the capital improvement fund for the spur.

Carver’s number-crunching ought not interfere with the trail conversion. At this point, they are two separate issues. There must be a way to walk and chew gum – to help Carver and build the trail – at the same time.

They are not two separate issues. Getting Surface Transportation Board (STB) approval is part of the process precisely so that rail line owners can’t do what Peoria is trying to do: take a line out of service without any regard for the businesses using that line. The process is working the way it was intended.

If the city and Park District were really willing to “walk and chew gum,” they could have had this trail completed years ago — by putting it side-by-side with the Kellar Branch.

Does the STB think the Kellar branch would magically reopen overnight and, poof, Carver’s problem would be solved? Parts of the line are in disrepair. It cost $350,000 for the city of Peoria to rehab a just small swatch of track in Pioneer Park. Multiply that by 8 1/2 miles and you get an idea of the prohibitive price tag.

This is a red herring. First of all, the tracks should not be in disrepair, and if they are, then it was due to a breach in contract with DOT Rail (d/b/a Central Illinois Railway), and Peoria should take legal action against them to pay for the repairs.

According to the city’s April 27, 2004, contract with DOT Rail, the city is only responsible for “maintenance of roadways and street crossings (excluding rails, ties and signal devices on roadways and streets) under the jurisdiction of the city.”

DOT Rail, on the other hand, “shall assume the responsibility for all maintenance of tracks, crossing protection, and roadbed including weed, brush, snow and ice control thereon, all drainage control maintenance, and all weed and brush control on the remainder of the right-of-way, following the guidelines set forth by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).”

Granted, this particular contract expired 60 days after the western spur was completed, but the spur was completed in February, which means the contract expired in April, just last month. If there are tracks in need of repair, that means DOT Rail was in breach of contract. Of course, since they never made a single delivery over the Kellar Branch, they were in breach of contract the entire time that Carver Lumber had to haul their lumber via truck at tremendous expense.

The decision to close Kellar has been made.

No, Journal Star Editorial Board, the decision hasn’t been made. It’s up to the STB, and they’ve said it can’t be closed yet. The Journal Star’s statement is a bald-faced lie.

Serious money has been spent on an alternative. It would be crazy to tap local taxpayers for even more millions to have two competing branches – one of which is old and rickety and interrupts traffic at several major intersections. Service to Carver would probably be faster by rickshaw, on a bike path.

Again, taxpayers would not be tapped for anything if the Kellar Branch were reopened. In fact, Pioneer would probably still be interested in buying it, in which case, rather than costing the taxpayers, the City of Peoria could rake in over a half-million dollars instead!

Also, the branches wouldn’t be “competing” with each other. The UP has access to both ends of the Kellar Branch (sole access at the western spur and neutral access downtown via the TZPR). So this is another nonsense statement.

There’s talk of getting a short-haul operator to run cars over UP’s line. But these are logistical matters that can be sorted out without derailing the trail.

Sure. And there are just a few logistical matters with getting pigs to fly, too. By all accounts from every railroad worker and enthusiast I know or have read, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that UP is going to let a short-haul operator run cars over its mainline.

The level of Carver’s rail service is not a little “logistical matter.” It’s the difference between them staying in business in Peoria or either moving out of Peoria or going out of business. This is a business that has been in this area over 60 years. But it’s apparently just collateral damage to the Journal Star, the City of Peoria, and the Peoria Park District, who continue to fight for a hiking trail at any cost.

City of Peoria, East Bluff, Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Public Schools

And another thing about yesterday’s editorial . . .

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The Journal Star still hasn’t put yesterday’s editorial on their website where everyone can read it. I don’t blame them. It was so bad I’d want to just forget the whole thing, too, if I were they.

Still, I subscribe to the paper, so I have a copy of it, and I just remembered another ridiculous statement of theirs I failed to mention in my earlier post:

Now State Sen. George Shadid says he’ll ask the governor not to sign legislation he sponsored to help District 150 pay for new schools. [ . . . ] Shadid must surely recognize it’s not the School Board or superintendent he’s attempting to punish, but Peoria’s children. His bill and this issue go way beyond just this one school.

The bill to which they are referring is SB 2477 which lets the Public Building Commission issue bonds for school construction — in Peoria only, and only through the year 2011. So when the editorial board says this bill goes “way beyond just this one school,” remember that it only applies to Peoria’s school district, which is currently planning to build a total of six schools within the next five years. “Way beyond” seems a bit hyperbolic, don’t you think?

But on to their main point. What would happen if the governor didn’t sign this bill? Would it punish Peoria’s children, as the Journal Star contends?

In a word, no. For one thing, their statement assumes a new building is so desperately needed that the denial of it is considered punishment. That contention hasn’t been proven.

But besides that, the school district could still issue bonds for school construction without this bill — they’d just have to get the voters’ okay via a referendum. Isn’t that awful? Imagine! Having to (gasp!) communicate to the public and (*wheeze*) persuade the public to invest in such a plan. Horrors! Funny, I sense a trend here . . . .

I get the impression that the Journal Star editorial board has joined the school and park boards in believing the public is too stupid or too bothersome and must be avoided at all costs. It’s a shame they think so little of us, considering we’re the ones who will be paying off this construction through our property taxes.

Sen. Shadid is doing the right thing by not letting the school board continue to leave the public in the dark. Why a newspaper would advocate a governmental body keeping the public in the dark is beyond me — it seems to fly in the face of their mission.

But what do I know? I’m just one of the 113,000 stupid taxpayers in Peoria.

East Bluff, Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Public Schools

Journal Star questions sincerity of neighbors/parents, but not school/park boards

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If there was ever any doubt that the paper’s editorial board is out of touch with the feelings of most Peorians, look no further than today’s paper for proof. The Journal Star has published today one of the most ridiculous and obtuse editorials I’ve ever read (and they’ve had some doozies).

The editorial is about the school siting controversy in the east bluff. The editorial is one large straw man that basically goes like this: The school board wants to help the children in the east bluff by investing $15 million in a new school, but the foolish NIMBY neighbors are trying to kill the district’s plans to help the children and make said investment; thus, the east bluff deserves to be abandoned and the money invested in a different part of town.

Were that the case, it would be easy to lambaste the neighbors for short-sighted pettiness. But the paper’s argument is a sham. To borrow the phrasing of the editorial writers, “This [editorial] has proved so disappointing on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start.”

The Journal Star says:

When Peoria school and park district officials first unveiled their plans in late March, they waxed enthusiastic about spending $15 million on a state-of-the-art school [ . . . ] on an East Bluff that could use the investment. They thought — silly them — that they were doing something positive for the neighborhood and its children.

I guess I’ll start by stating the obvious: if the school board wants to “[do] something positive for the neighborhood and its children,” then perhaps they should try communicating with the neighbors and finding out their needs and desires instead of working behind closed doors to solve a “problem” that may not be the neighborhood’s biggest concern.

Make no mistake about it, this plan to replace school buildings did not originate with the neighborhoods. There was no groundswell of concern over the age or alleged disrepair of the buildings. In fact, the neighbors are more concerned about safety, academic achievement, and hot lunches that don’t make their children sick. No, this was a budget issue, not a response to neighborhood needs.

The Master Facility Planning Committee was established “to conduct a capacity and utilization analysis of District 150’s school buildings for use in providing guidance to the District in meeting the recommendations of the Structural Budget Imbalance (“SBI”) Task Force and maintaining and improving the District’s priority status on the 2003 State school construction grant list.” The “SBI” was established to identify $19 million in “budget savings, revenue enhancement and/or resource reallocations,” according to the April 19, 2005 school board minutes.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the paper is making it sound like this was done solely for the purpose of “investing” in the children of the older parts of town — that the board was trying to do a “good deed.” The truth is, the school board wants to save money because they’re on the state’s financial watch list. The board believes that by shuttering 11 schools and building 6 new ones (consolidation and replacement), they can save money on maintenance and administrative costs. Now, one could make the case (and the district tries to) that these new buildings will, as an added bonus, also be a better learning environment for the children. But you can bet if there were no perceived cost savings involved, the district wouldn’t even be considering “investing” in the east bluff.

The Journal Star says this “investment” came about because of “intergovernmental cooperation of a kind all too rare in central Illinois.” This is the same paper that’s already reported that the Park Board broke the law by reaching that intergovernmental agreement in executive session, away from public scrutiny. Would that such back-door deals were indeed “all too rare.”

And that’s the point. The controversy really isn’t over the school board’s plans to replace schools — it’s over the secrecy with which the board’s plans have been executed. The Journal Star should know that. For them to say — not once, but twice — that the school board ought to abandon the east bluff because the neighbors complained about these secret plans is unreasonable and irresponsible.

And disingenuous. The paper criticizes Third-District Councilman Bob Manning for trying to use the city’s power to force the school board to listen to the neighborhood’s concerns (how dare he!). They complain that it looks to them as if he’s trying to “kill the project.” Yet, the Journal Star itself filed a complaint with the attorney general against the Park District for their illegal closed-session meeting where the intergovernmental agreement was forged. The attorney general could (although it’s admittedly unlikely) decide to reverse the Park Board’s decision as a result of their unlawful actions. So, isn’t the Journal Star complicit in the attempt to “kill the project”?

The Journal Star says they “don’t question the sincerity of school officials in trying to make Peoria a better city.” Who is? Again, this is a straw man. Neither Manning nor the neighbors are complaining about the board’s motives, but their actions. You can’t keep the public in the dark, propose a controversial school siting, threaten to take people’s property via eminent domain, then feign shock that anyone would be upset about it.

Unlike the Journal Star, I also don’t question the sincerity of East Bluff parents and their city councilman in trying to make Peoria a better city and the East Bluff a better neighborhood. I guess the paper thinks a lame-duck school board working with a secretive park board knows better than parents and residents what’s best for their neighborhood and school.

While the newspaper pines for statesmanship, the residents of Peoria long for a rival newspaper capable of expressing an informed, evenhanded, and cogent argument.

City Council, Peoria Journal Star

Journal Star selectively hears Sandberg

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The Journal Star Editorial Board had some bitter words for Councilman Sandberg in today’s paper, saying he “found a basketful of nits to pick” regarding the museum’s request for more money from the city.  They focused in on Sandberg’s contention that TIFs are siphoning money from basic services, and defended TIFs in a paragraph that looked like a transcript of Councilwoman Van Auken’s statements from Tuesday night’s meeting.

But they also say in their editorial, “The subsurface parking was recommended by the Heart of Peoria Commission.”  Now anyone who actually watched the council meeting Tuesday night would know that Sandberg spent a considerable amount of time debunking that  misconception.  He interrogated the museum and Caterpillar representatives, and they both admitted in plain language that the Heart of Peoria Commission never recommended subsurface parking — in fact, they recommended having no parking at all, except for street parking, because the block is surrounded by public parking.

So how did the Journal Star hear Gary’s comments about TIFs (which were brief) and miss his comments on parking (which were extensive)?  I guess they’re just more interested in using Sandberg as a punching bag than getting their facts straight.

Elections, Peoria Journal Star

JS really shines when it comes to election coverage

Have you ever gone to a political candidate’s website? Usually, they’re terrible. Oh, they’re good if your goal is to give money to their campaign — it’s easy to find your way to the contribution page. But if you’re looking for information — detailed information — on what they plan to do if elected, forget it. If they have anything, it’s usually little more than platitudes: improve schools, stop corruption, create jobs. All the candidates want to do those things.

In contrast, go to the Journal Star’s election guide, and there you’ll find a wealth of information on the candidates. For governor, there are video clips of the Journal Star’s interview with each candidate. There are links to many other election resources, too. But my favorite part is the questionnaire. The Journal Star mailed questionnaires to each candidate in contested races and published their answers. I find these to be the most valuable.

First of all, the questions are very good — no softball questions here. And secondly, you get a feel for what’s really important to each candidate. Some have long, detailed answers on one or two questions, then gloss over the other ones; that says something about their priorities. Others are flippant, almost like they don’t take the questionnaire seriously; and that says something about the value they put on communicating with the public.

For example, Republican gubernatorial candidate Andy Martin answers a question about school funding by simply saying, ” This is a complex issue and there are no easy answers. I would press the legislature to consider alternatives.” Wow, thanks for that insight, Andy. I had no idea it was so complex. Glad to see your “plan” is to push this one off on the legislature.

I was most disappointed to see that 2nd-district school board candidate (and incumbent) Garrie Allen didn’t even bother to fill out his questionnaire. I wasn’t especially impressed with his opponent and was leaning toward voting for him until I saw that. Why should I vote for him when he doesn’t have time or think it’s important to answer a few questions for the public?

But I digress. My point here is that the Journal Star consistently does an excellent job at election coverage. I’ve been voting since 1988 and have found the Journal Star’s election guide to always be one of the best sources, if not the best source, of detailed information on the candidates’ positions.  It’s an invaluable service, and I think they should be highly commended for it.

And if you haven’t gotten out to vote yet, the polls are still open as of this writing. Check out the Journal Star’s election guide and then do your civic duty.

Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Police

PJS throwing stones in their glass house

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The Journal Star, apparently trying to give police chief Settingsgaard a taste of his own “shaming” medicine, slapped the word “GUILTY” in bold red letters across his face in today’s editorial. His crime? “[W]anton disregard for basic fairness by continuing to post the name and photo of a Bloomington man on the city’s prostitution Web site, even though he was acquitted of sex solicitation by a jury of his peers.”

In contrast, the Bloomington man, whose name is Samuel T. Clay, has printed next to his name on the Peoria PD’s website in bold red letters, “Not Guilty.” You see, as has been pointed out by others already, the pictures on the PD website are pictures of those arrested for solicitation, not those convicted.

This is something the Journal Star itself does regularly. For instance, just today they printed the names of several individuals who were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. Even if the charges are dismissed, they still print the person’s name and state that the charges were dismissed. What’s the difference between that and what the Peoria PD is doing on their website?

Here’s another example. When DOT Rail owner Donny Lee Gibson was arrested for allegedly trying to hire someone to kill his wife, the Journal Star didn’t have any qualms about printing that arrest, even though he was never convicted of that charge.

Apparently the only arrests that are verboten by the Journal Star are solicitation arrests. Why should these be treated differently than every other arrest? Stigma? I think murder-for-hire carries a pretty bad stigma, too. I wouldn’t want to be accused of either.

In my opinion, the Journal Star should get off Settingsgaard’s back. If those prostitutes were anywhere near where the editors of the PJS live, they’d be singing Settingsgaard’s praises for cracking down hard on them and their customers instead of boldly holding up a double-standard.

City of Peoria, Peoria Journal Star, State of Illinois

Misleading statistics abound in Journal Star special series

The Peoria Journal Star recently concluded a three-part series titled, “Lead Poisoning: Our Silent Epidemic.” You can read reporter Clare Howard’s entire series online here. The report has already received accolades from the Peoria Pundit, who has gone so far as to suggest the City Council should act immediately on the recommendations from Dr. Brian Bostwick, the doctor quoted in the series.

Lead poisoning claims should never be taken lightly. It is a serious problem that should be looked at critically and objectively. What I’m about to talk about in no way diminishes the importance of lead poisoning prevention.

That said, let’s talk about statistics.

Someone once said, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” That’s because you can get statistics to say just about anything you want them to say. The Journal Star has them saying that “Illinois leads the nation in elevated blood lead levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” To prove it, they reproduce this chart from the CDC on page A21 of the 11/13/05 edition of the paper:

This chart is from a report titled, “Surveillance for Elevated Blood Lead Levels Among Children — United States, 1997–2001.” It’s available online here, at the CDC website. As you can see, the number of confirmed elevated blood lead levels (EBLLs) is astronomically high in Illinois compared to the other states: 15,323 children were confirmed to have EBLLs — higher than Michigan and Pennsylvania combined. When this happens, they should have been checked by associates like Nephrology & Hypertension and gotten treatment. It’s unbelievable! So unbelievable, I didn’t believe it. So I did some investigating.

The raw data on which that chart is based is also included in the very same CDC report, Table 6. Reviewing this data, it became clear to me why Illinois was so high: a far greater number of children were tested in Illinois than in most of the other states. In fact, only Massachusetts and New York tested more children than Illinois. Illinois tested 187,385 children in 2001. In contrast, California only tested 15,040 children. Obviously, Illinois is going to have a higher number of children confirmed to have EBLLs when they test twelve-and-a-half times as many kids!

When the sample rates are that varied, you can’t make a meaningful comparison between states. In fact, the report explicitly says, “State-to-state comparisons of the numbers of children tested and confirmed with elevated BLLs should be made cautiously.” What you can do instead is compare the confirmed cases of EBLLs as a percentage of children tested.

And I’ll be darned, that data is already in Table 6 of the CDC report — they’ve even done the math for us. When you look at percentages, you get a different picture:

  • Oregon: 9.68% of children tested had EBLLs
  • California: 9.32% of children tested had EBLLs
  • Pennsylvania: 9.31% of children tested had EBLLs
  • Illinois: 8.18% of children tested had EBLLs

That’s right. When a proper comparison is made, Illinois does not lead the nation in EBLLs — it was fourth in 2001 according to the CDC’s own data from the very same report the Journal Star referenced in their series. (In case you’re wondering if perhaps Illinois reached No. 1 at a later date, the answer is no. In 2002 and 2003, Pennsylvania was No. 1, according to another CDC report, “Tested and Confirmed Elevated Blood Lead Levels by State, Year and Blood Lead Level Group for Children <72 mos.”)

You would also get the impression from reading the Journal Star articles that the problem must be getting worse, thus the need to take immediate and drastic action. Yet, according to those same statistics we’ve been looking at in Table 6, you may be surprised to learn that the number of Illinois children with EBLLs has dropped by more than half since 1997. In 1997, 32,061 children (17.87%) had EBLLs, but the number dropped steadily each year to 15,323 (8.18%) in 2001.

Things have continued to improve. That other report I mentioned from the CDC website shows that Illinois dropped to 9,379 children (4.78%) having EBLLs by 2003. If you exclude Chicago, it drops even further: 2,688 children (2.90%).

Like I said before, this doesn’t diminish the important work of eradicating elevated blood lead levels in Illinois. And when you see the statistics in proper context, it shows that we’re making significant progress toward that goal. But exaggerating the problem by the misuse of statistics (unintentional though they may be) hurts the credibility of lead-abatement advocates.