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.
Will somebody please something?
A few days ago the Journal Star published an editorial telling the Peoria Zoo to stop asking for more public money. If the zoo could could not come up with necessary funding, they should scale back their expansion plans. But wait!!! The Star all out supports a $100 million dollar museum downtown? The Star claims that the museum will attract “tens of thousands of visitors” every year. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago might draw those numbers, but a “regional” museum in Peoria?
If you’ll notice, not one of the “community leaders” advocating this “legacy” knows the first thing about what a museum is. Many of them visited a few area museums to compare and contrast, now we will give them millions to develop a museum [I almost forgot, Jim Richedrson has years and years of experience developing multi-million dollar museum projects?]. These people did not know the difference between an art museum and history museum. The only thing the public has to go by are some vague powerpoint posters, and these produced by some company Lakeview paid big bucks…to develop a larger version of Lakeview [some exhibit plans, more fine arts, etc]. Peoria’s history? Please! Where are all of the French and Indian artifacts supposedly in Lakeviews keeping[not mention the bogus Peoria Hist Society]? They hit the auction block! The Peoria Hist Soc [as written in the Star] admitted to having no knowledge of the CC marker. Idiots! Their predecessors placed it there! Yes, these are the people we can trust with our money and our “legacy.” Whose legacy is it anyway. SC