Category Archives: Peoria Mayor

Peoria Mayor, Peoria Public Schools

Mayoral appointment of school board members has big hurdle

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Never waste a good scandal. On the heels of today’s District 150 embarrassment — Mary Davis’s indictment — the Journal Star is reporting that Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis is thinking about exploring how he could have more influence over the district by appointing school board members:

He says he’s looking at larger cities such as Chicago, New York and Boston for inspiration to initiate change here that would intertwine his job as mayor with the decision-making of the school district. […] “It’s an interesting concept that I believe is worthy for some consideration,” Ardis continued. “From what I’ve read, the mayors who have been in the position to do that have seen success. It’s something I’m interested in. And I think the community is interested in learning more about it, too.”

Whether or not you think this is a good idea, it may be a moot point. Despite the relatively simple process the paper describes for changing the way school board members are chosen — “To enact such a change would require a public referendum or legislation approved by the General Assembly” — in reality it will be much more difficult.

The reason is because school board elections in Peoria are not governed by state law, but rather by a 1987 Class Action Voting Rights lawsuit settlement. That settlement did away with at-large elections of school board members, replacing it with a three-ward system and giving specific instructions on how board members would be chosen from each of those wards.

The Final Consent Decree clearly states in paragraph 4, “The Election Commission of the City of Peoria and the Peoria County Clerk are authorized and ordered to comply with the terms of this Consent Decree and to conduct elections in accordance with the terms of this Consent Decree.” It further states in paragraph 6, “This Court retains jurisdiction of this case for purposes of supervising the implementation of this Consent Decree.”

In other words, if you want to change how school board members are chosen, you’re going to have to get the new system approved by the court, and that could mean getting surviving litigants — including the school district itself — to agree to the changes. You can bet that mayoral appointment of school board members would be hotly contested.

Surely Mayor Ardis knows this challenge is out there. This same Voting Rights lawsuit settlement changed the City Council’s makeup as well. It established both the number of at-large councilmen (five instead of three) and the bullet voting system for at-large elections. At least one group has met in recent years to explore doing away with the bullet voting system in the City, but so far there has been no public action toward that goal.

Peoria Mayor

Will Ardis have more success with Google than AC/DC?

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A friend of mine recently mentioned to me that this whole Google initiative isn’t the first time Mayor Ardis has tried to lure a national act to Peoria. Just last year, he tried to get the band AC/DC to make a tour stop here. Here’s what the Journal Star had to say back on January 11, 2009:

Peoria radio station WIXO-FM organized the rally in hopes of catching the attention of the band, which has not performed in Peoria since 1983. … A video of the event, along with the petition, will be sent Monday to AC/DC. … Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis appeared on stage at the rally. He told AC/DC fans after the band sees the video, it will have no choice but to come back. Ardis had appeared on The X’s morning show and assured listeners AC/DC is welcome. “It would be great for Peoria,” Ardis said.

On October 22, the Journal Star followed up: “The fans were fervent, as the rockers hadn’t played in Peoria since 1983. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’ll be making a stop in P-town anytime soon.”

Granted, the city didn’t have an airplane fly a sky banner over the band asking, “Will AC/DC play in Peoria?” like the City did for Google. So let’s hope the Mayor has better luck this time.

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

Civic leaders line up to tout Wonderful Development

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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 Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Mayor

Former mayor counsels council

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Former mayor of Peoria Bud Grieves, who also happens to own a hotel downtown, has written the current mayor and council a letter with some advice on how to handle the so-called “wonderful development” — i.e., the proposed downtown Marriott hotel deal:

TO: The Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
FROM: Lowell (Bud) Grieves, Mark Twain Hotel
DATE: February 19, 2010
SUBJECT: JOURNAL STAR ARTICLE OF FEBRUARY 16, 2010

I am writing to clarify my position regarding the Downtown hotel project that was covered in an article appearing in the Journal Star on February 16, 2010. The article, while generally correct, missed some important points of which you should be aware.

I am supportive of City assistance in this project and stated so publicly over a year ago. I am still supportive of the concept of public assistance but only for the purpose of tearing down Big Al’s and other bars in upgrading the entire block. It’s a stretch, but this can be interpreted as a public improvement that the City can choose to make to leverage the recently upgraded Civic Center – I understand the importance of this!

However, I talked to City Attorney Randy Ray prior to the interview and was told that the $40 million in public funds were not restricted to public use outside the hotel but instead could be applied to any portion of the project. That means carpeting, televisions, elevators, and even the walkway connecting a private hotel to the Civic Center could be paid for with these funds. This is simply not fair to taxpaying, existing Downtown hotels that have to pay for these very same things on their own to compete. If your goal is to offer public assistance to Downtown hotels to accommodate Civic Center conventions, then you should see to it that all Downtown hotels get public assistance! I would like to build a skywalk from my hotel to my banquet facility (Packard Plaza) and would request City funding assistance to do so.

The convention business is slow, and I have never seen the hotel business this bad. John Q Hammonds recently backed away from the build out of additional rooms at the Embassy and gave back $500,000 to the City of East Peoria. Does this sound like a strong recovering market to you? Perhaps this project will not go and let you off the hook. If not, I would urge you to limit the use of public money to public improvements, prior to issuing the bonds. Failure to do so will set an indefensible precedent, and you will have to live with the consequences.

Thank you.

The project’s developer, Gary Matthews, who last year confidently stated that he’d have all his financing in place by January of this year, now says he’ll ask for an extension from the City Council on the redevelopment agreement. He added this:

Design plans for the $100 million hotel are also set to change: Matthews tells us the “blended look” between the Pere Marquette and the Marriott will be slightly different.

There’s only one reason to change the design at this point, and that’s to save money. I shudder to think what the “new” look will be.

What the Council should do (but they won’t) is cancel the whole project for the same reasons they never should have entered into the agreement in the first place. Matthews’ inability to secure financing despite having 40% of the cost of the project covered by the City should be a clear enough sign to the council that this is a bad investment.

But then, bad investments are no big deal when all you’re investing is other people’s (i.e., Peoria taxpayers’) money.

2010 Election, City of Peoria, Comcast, Peoria County, Peoria Mayor, Peoria Public Schools, Traffic

Blogging Bits and Pieces

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Here are some odds and ends that I just don’t feel like writing a whole post about:

  • It looks like District 150 has just about settled on a new superintendent, and her name is Grenita Lathan. She’s currently the “interim deputy superintendent at California’s San Diego Unified Schools.” Other than that I don’t know much about her, and there’s surprisingly little on Google, Lexis-Nexis, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, or any number of additional sources I checked. Oh, there are some snippets here and there. You can see some interview footage with her here. Commenters on another post have several links to quotes and information they find troublesome. Some have already passed judgment. I’m kind of old-fashioned, though. I like to wait until someone actually screws up before I start criticizing them. From what I’ve heard, the first thing she wants to do is purge the administration of unnecessary and ineffective administrators. I certainly can’t complain about that.

  • John Vespa was not endorsed by the Journal Star to succeed his brother as the 10th Judicial Circuit judge. The reason they give for passing him over is that “Vespa fell below the 65 passing grade” on something called the bar poll “and is ‘not recommended.'” They say the bar poll (where responses are anonymous) is “controversial,” but they evidently believe it. Not surprisingly, the Vespa campaign begs to differ. They report: “To understand the relevance of the bar poll … it is important to look at … the number of people participating. There are 911 lawyers in the Circuit that are eligible to participate in the poll, according to the ARDC website. Of those 911, there were only 152 that registered an opinion. (16.3%) The majority of those 152 felt John met the requirements of the office. Of course John would expect to have some legitimate detractors, particularly given the fact that half of his practice is devoted to criminal defense. In fact, it would be troubling if he did not. (All of his opponents practice for the most part, civil law only).” As the Journal Star would say, “Voters can make of that what they will.”

  • One of my readers recently told me about this site called “How We Drive” — and specifically, this post on “Parking Availability Bias.” Very cool site full of interesting information.

  • The “religious group” that the city is considering to operate the public access channels on Comcast’s cable system is called GPS-TV, and is located in Washington, Illinois. Here’s their website.

  • You can download a transcript (PDF format) of Mayor Ardis’s State of the City address here. Of course, the biggest announcement of the speech was this: “I have spoken at some length with County Board Chairman Tom O’Neill and we are prepared to put together a group that will be charged with exploring the opportunity to move Peoria City?County towards combined municipal government.” It will be interesting to see what recommendations that group makes in the future. Will it just be combining certain functions, or a total UNIGOV proposal?
Chamber of Commerce, City of Peoria, Peoria Mayor

State of the City Address preview

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This year’s State of the City address will be at the Holiday Inn City Centre, 11:45 a.m., January 26. The Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce has published a video preview of the event:

Notable this year: It won’t only be the state of the city, but also the state of District 150. Interim superintendent Norm Durflinger will be presenting along with Mayor Ardis. If you want to attend, you can register here. Cost: $50 for non-members of the Chamber, $35 for members. For those of you who don’t want to spend the cash (like me), the city usually posts a copy of the speech to the city’s website immediately following the event. It’s free.

Peoria Mayor, Peoria Public Schools

Ardis asks Sec. Duncan for help for D150

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Arne DuncanFrom the Journal Star:

Mayor Jim Ardis said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is pledging his department’s assistance to help Peoria turn around its schools…. Ardis, along with Lee Graves, CEO and president of ELM Group, and former state Sen. George Shadid made a whirlwind visit to Washington, D.C., this week, meeting with Duncan, a former CEO of Chicago Public Schools who once served under CEO Paul Vallas….

There’s no easy answer, Ardis admitted, noting that Duncan believed it will take a combination of Race to the Top, strong emphasis on charter schools and performance-based teaching as well as more municipal involvement to get poorly performing school districts headed in the right direction….

Ardis said he wanted to find out what’s available and what Duncan would recommend for improving school performance.

“We haven’t seen any movement by this board or past boards to go out on their own initiative to speak to with the secretary of education, or anyone else,” he said.

A couple things about this story:

First, kudos to Mayor Ardis for taking initiative and doing what he can to help District 150. It’s unfortunate that his past efforts (to bring in Paul Vallas for some consulting advice) have been rebuffed by District 150 administrators and board members. The district should be welcoming the mayor’s overtures.

Second, Secretary Duncan’s reported response is interesting: “…it will take a combination of Race to the Top [additional federal funds allocated to school districts through state governors], strong emphasis on charter schools and performance-based teaching [emphasis added] as well as more municipal involvement to get poorly performing school districts headed in the right direction….” Doesn’t this sound like the Secretary is implicitly suggesting union-busting? Performance-based teaching is a repudiation of the tenure system, and charter schools can hire teachers who are not union represented.

Well, as it turns out, teachers are catching the same vibe. In a speech to the National Education Association (NEA) in July, Education Week reported that Duncan said “[t]eachers’ unions must be willing to reconsider seniority provisions, rework tenure provisions, and work with districts to create fair ways of incorporating student-achievement growth in teacher evaluation and compensation.” As you might expect, this wasn’t well-received by teachers:

Delegates applauded Mr. Duncan’s calls for continued federal funding for education, better training for administrators, and for improved teacher-mentoring experiences. But in an indication of the challenges that the federal government will face as it pushes for reforms to compensation and evaluation, they booed and hissed through those parts of Mr. Duncan’s address.

Booed and hissed! And here I thought incivility was invented by Rep. Joe Wilson just a few weeks ago. Imagine teachers booing and hissing (the hissing is what really gets me) the Secretary of Education during a speech. One more quote from the Education Week article: “‘Quite frankly, merit pay is union-busting,’ said another delegate, to applause from her peers.”

So, my guess is that District 150 will have a similar reaction. They will likely embrace efforts to capture more federal dollars through the Race to the Top Fund, but efforts to implement performance-based teaching initiatives will be rebuffed in teacher contract negotiations. Realistically, that would mean Peoria would receive no benefit because the Race to the Top dollars are tied to just the kinds of reforms teachers unions find objectionable. As for charter schools, the only one proposed recently — the Math, Science, and Technology Academy — has yet to have its charter authorized by District 150.

However, teachers will be happy to hear that Duncan is no fan of No Child Left Behind. Here’s his assessment, according to a recent report from ABC News:

“It unfairly labeled many schools as failures even when they were making progress,” he said. “It places too much emphasis on raw test scores rather than student growth. And it is overly prescriptive in some ways while it is too blunt an instrument of reform in others.

“But the biggest problem with NCLB,” he added, “is that it doesn’t encourage high learning standards. In fact, it inadvertently encourages states to lower them. The net effect is that we are lying to children and parents by telling kids they are succeeding when they are not.”

That’s certainly been true in District 150, as recent changes to the district’s grading scale can attest.

City of Peoria, Peoria Mayor

Mayor Ardis asks for feedback on budget

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I received this yesterday but haven’t had a chance to post it until today:

September 15, 2009

As many of you know, the City Council has been wrestling with our 2010 budget for several months now. We have been working to balance the City’s budget like you have to balance yours……. Identifying needs vs. wants and being more efficient with the income you have available. During this challenging economic situation, the process has not been easy.

To this point, the City Council has already trimmed over $8.5 million dollars from next years budget. If sales tax revenue continues to come in below our expectations, it may be necessary to trim another $4 to $5 million to balance our budget. We’ve made significant reductions in our operating budget next year and identified over 40 positions that will not be filled throughout all city departments, including police and fire. In the coming weeks, we may find it necessary to lay off 20-30 more employees. This all equates to a drastic cut in service to our constituent taxpayers.

During this process we have focused on being open and transparent. With this in mind I’d like to solicit your input as we move towards making final decisions on next years budget. This will not be a scientific poll by any stretch, but an opportunity to provide me with your thoughts on a few budget related questions. I will share your responses with the rest of the City Council and the City Manager.

These are tough times but I am confident the City Council will make the right decisions to get us through this with the least amount of additional cost to you. And we hope to get this done with the least amount of job losses possible. Thank you for taking the time to respond. Feel free to pass this on to other concerned citizens.

Please click here to take this short, 3-question survey

Jim Ardis

2009 Campaign, Peoria Mayor

Parker’s mayoral eligibility in question (UPDATED)

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HOI News is reporting that General Parker, candidate for mayor of Peoria, has a criminal past that includes two felony convictions. According to state law, convicted felons cannot hold the office of mayor.

But there’s a catch. Evidently, the only way this is enforced is if someone contests Parker’s candidacy.

The State Board of Elections said it is not illegal for a felon to run for office, in fact they can even win and serve.

Only when someone formally objects to the state’s attorney is it investigated.

Parker is trying to get a pardon from Governor Quinn. Parker is the only candidate running against incumbent Mayor Jim Ardis.

UPDATE: The Journal Star has an article up about this now. It’s not looking good for Parker’s mayoral run.

I honestly didn’t know that he had been convicted of a felony. It was mentioned on my blog several days ago that a convicted felon couldn’t serve as mayor, but I didn’t think anything of it because I thought Parker’s offenses were misdemeanors. Guess I missed the boat on that one.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder what the rationale is for barring felons from being mayor. Obviously, if they’re in prison or on parole that would make sense. But what if they already served all their time and had paid their debt to society? Why should it be the unpardonable sin?