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.