I enjoyed reading Brad McMillan’s article in InterBusiness Issues this month. It was quite entertaining. I had no idea he was such a good fiction writer, or that IBI had added a fiction section. Check out some of these knee-slapping lines:
The notion that this [museum] project was elitist and was forced on the community from the top down is simply false. Instead, this grass-roots initiative included nine museum groups and hundreds of volunteers…
Grass-roots initiative? Yes, this little “grassroots initiative” was pushed along by common, everyday people like various CEOs of Caterpillar and other large corporations, U.S. Congressmen, State Senators, and local mayors — all of whom are chronicled in Mr. McMillan’s article, by the way. And that “grassroots” marketing campaign that cost almost a million dollars? It was nothing short of miraculous the way the common folks were able to come up with that kind of money. The whole project was a modern-day “Little Engine That Could” story.
Our legacy Build the Block project is funded 55 percent private and 45 percent public….
And if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. The County alone is pumping over $59 million (including bond interest) into the project, the City’s contribution is roughly $17 million (land, TIF proceeds through 2021, improvements to Water Street), we’re getting $9 million in public funds for the parking deck ($4 million in federal highway administration funds and $5 million in state capital funds) — what are we up to now? $85 million? That’s already over 60% of the $140 million project.
…it was the broad-based collaboration between labor groups, museum collaborators, families and business that helped pass a sales tax referendum during the worst part of our economic recession.
…by promising to build an IMAX theater, use 100% local union labor, not bond out more than $40 million, and not bond out until all the private funds were raised — all promises on which they’ve now reneged.
Mike Everett, president of the West Central Illinois Building Trades, tirelessly raised money and put up signs for the Build the Block campaign, knowing that it would provide 250 local construction jobs for his men and women over 25 months.
Except that, since this is a public project now, those construction jobs will have to go to the lowest bidder, and that’s not necessarily going to end up being local laborers. I’m sure the museum supporters are hoping it will end up being local labor, since they promised in their TV ads it would be built with “100% local union labor.”
Through the efforts of so many, the 15-year hole in the heart of Peoria will now be filled with one of the single most important cultural and economic developments in our region’s history.
Fifteen years ago was 1995. Sears was still open and doing business on the block then. They didn’t close the store and move to Northwoods until 1998, so the block hasn’t been a “15-year hole in the heart of Peoria.” But I’m quibbling. Why let facts get in the way of a good story, right?
What’s the Dewey Decimal code for the Snarky section? I truly wish to properly file this.
Snarky? Yes.
Inaccurate in any way? No.
Yea Samer, I hate when people inject facts to dispute a story. That’s so snarky. The common everyday people need to keep quiet.
One day somebody GAVE Brad McMillan a job because he was a nice guy. Look how far he has come.
http://www.buildtheblock.org/riverfront-funding-progress.html
The numbers change from time to time … here the project total is $135.9M and Cat’s portion is $41M — leaving $94.9M for the museum, the parking deck and the value of the land. It appears that your 60% public calculation may be too low.
It appears that the County is realizing that there has been more than one hole dug for the museum project. The County Board members at last month’s committee meetings were trying to figure out how to ‘legally’ configure the bid language to develop a point system to award more points for contractors who will use local labor for building the project. No worries that they will not get the job done, just look what happened on the asphalt issue — don’t worry about whether it is really ‘legal’ or ‘ethical’ or ………. as long as someone doesn’t file a lawsuit, full steam ahead.
More open, transparent and inclusive government playing in Peoria.
And imo, it is an oxymoron for Mr. McMillan to be the Executive Director of the Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service.
SEE!?!
I knew it was only a matter of time before Karrie got all radical on us!
That is what it will take to win a council seat!
Now…if we can only talk her out of running as a Republican…….
Brad is also an accomplished actor. He can talk about all of his ficiton and keep a straight face.
It is not called fiction. It is called spin.
CJ – You and many others continue to ignore a large contingent of “common folk” who supported this project. That contingent is engaged parents who want to see their community embrace it’s science and history for the benefit of their children and grandchildren. The “elite” would not have been successful in the referendum had this large voting block of grassroots soccer moms and dads not existed.
Rewriting History is what the Neo-Cons do best. Corporate America has to continually rewrite History in order to make their economic oppression of the working class look reasonable.
So, when you put those two groups together, in someone like McMillan, what do expect to happen?
Actually Counterpoint……the public was engaged in the original idea. They were sold an 1. a design plan, which has changed and apparantly not finalized.
2. an Imax which the contract was waiting to be signed upon approval of the referendum.
3. state of the art planetarium.
4. shops and restaurants…of which there has been no discussion.
5. exhibits that could not be put into the current building…..yet space keeps shrinking, so how can that be?
6. the type of bonding
7. local union labor
8. the percentage of private money with few tax dollars.
9. promises of self sufficiency
10. promises of this being the silver bullet for downtown.
like good sheep. they don’t begin asking questions. Some of us did ask questions and the fantasy started unraveling, helping to cost one candidate an election. One must play ball you know. More research was done. and numbers didn’t add up. Imax disappears and now there is suddenly a committee for something that just needed to be signed. bonding changes. no longer local labor. planetarium…no one even mentions it.
The soccer moms were had. the public was lied to. I can’t even begin to call it misinformation from the county board and some members of the museum group. On top of insult to injury. the BS continues at the city council meeting. although everyone knows they are being lied to then, approve the the land deal. two council members with clear conficts of interest vote on the project, one to the point announces a contract interest and votes blatently anyway. A grant appears to be falsified by the county, is approved and defended by county board members, one of whom is the attorney for the grant source. Please, let know one complain about Chicago politics it is alive and well here.
pdw – if the public’s resentment of the changes to the Museum plans was as significant as you suggest I think you would have seen a greater number of signatures on the recent petition to have the bond referendum rescinded.
logical fallacy
The number of signatures has NOTHING to do with the public’s resentment or approval.
The number of signatures has to do with the motivation of the those seeking the signatures, their ability to get the signatures to to the public and the public’s ignorance or frustration with the process.
point. you’ve missed the point. the petition was not to rescind the bond referrendum, It was to hold the county accountable to the type of bonds issued.
Geez, some of our elected officials do not care whose money it is, just as long as they can spend it and it isn’t theirs.
Just because a project has the support of elected officials and Caterpillar CEO’s does not mean that the project was elitist. Hundreds of ordinary community volunteers worked hard on this project. And it was their collaboration that deserves the credit.
Peoria has upwards of 180,000 people, but “Hundreds of ordinary community volunteers” get the last say?
Brad: “And it was their collaboration that deserves the credit” under ‘your principled leadership’?
I am sure that a number of “ordinary community volunteers” worked diligently behind the scenes. This hardly makes this a grass-roots project.
I think the ‘elitist’ view stems from the fact that everyone in charge of this project was, in fact, a local political/corporate heavyweight [elitist?]. From beginning to end these people had a lock on how this project took shape, etc. They were never held accountable for any aspect of this project. The questions and concerns of us ‘common folk’ were merely swept aside.
What I do find interesting is that the Republicans promised to cut out-of-control spending, and not raise taxes. The only Republican on the local ticket who was willing to practice what she preached was Karrie…
I guess spending a ton of money [we don’t have] on a project that will never show a return, is NOT what the local “Republican Wave” was talking about…?
Karrie,
The “collaboration” was a myth. If anyone cares to check the trustees and/or boards of the so-called collaborating groups, you will find they all run in the same circles.
Collaboration my buttocks.
Peoria has upwards of 180,000 people, but “Hundreds of ordinary community volunteers” get the last say?
No, the voters did.
Chew on this aspect of the project for a moment or two. The five groups who form the “Museum Collaboration Group” have approximately 4,500 members between them. However, to the best of my knowledge, less than 1,000 of these members have made a financial pledge to the project. I’m not talking about a pledge of thousands, but even a pledge of $50 or $100, nope they just haven’t been swayed by all of the BS from the Museum elitist proponents. That just tells me that there is not now, and never was previously a great deal of “grass roots” support for this project. Sure a bunch of folks might have volunteered to have a yard sign placed on their property prior to the referendum, but what would be really interesting is to have Mr. McMillan come out and tell us just how many individual donors the Museum Group has pledges from. That would really show just what sort of support this project really has.
Huh,
The voters did…what?
“The whole project was a modern-day “Little Engine That Could” story.”
Now that’s a great line. I literally LOL’d.
The truth is that families, union guys, museum collaboration members worked very hard to make this project become a reality. I know that most of the people that read this blog do not feel that this was the right direction to go for our community. Obviously, you have the right to feel the way you do. The reality is that this was the most collaborative, largest community volunteer effort I have ever been a part of. Good people working together trying to improve the quality of life in Peoria.
Brad:
You are a lawyer ….. so, in your opinion, the museum project ‘was the most collaborative, largest community volunteer effort I have ever been a part of’ — that seems a reasonable statement as that is your experience.
Here is the question which would be helpful to answer for those taxpayers and citizens who remain unconvinced about the merits of the musueum project ….
When you were are the various forums, the information you presented, would you have been willing to say that same information under oath or even as an affirmation such as the following?
I promise before Almighty God that the evidence which I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Thank you for the dialogue.
Karrie,
I would gladly take that oath.
Brad
As Brad is so fond of pointing out, this project “was the most collaborative, largest community volunteer effort” he had ever been a part of.
The museum group has always used this ‘city-coming-together’ spiel as a major selling point for this project.
The problem is…that this project has also been one of the most CONTROVERSIAL in Peoria history.
Why?
Because a bunch of nay-sayers and rabble-rousers have it in for the local ‘elite?’ Because we all want to see Peoria fail? Because we cannot, as mid-western hicks, appreciate the fine arts? Maybe we don’t really give a crap about our precious children’s education…..?
Maybe there are just enough of us who have questions and concerns about the ins-and-outs of the project. I am also thinking that there are more than enough of us who are fed up with having those questions and concerns routinely swept aside, or just plain ignored.
The museum group has been anything but transparent in their dealings with the public. From the questionable financing of this project, to the entire IMAX fiasco, this project has been mismanaged from the start.
Legacy? No. Just politics as usual.
NV: Bullseye!
IBI has had fiction for a long time – 40 under 40. Should be called ‘People Who Work at Places that Advertise with us or who we hope will Advertise.’ IBI is nothing more than a magazine sized advertisement.
As for the museum, which I have not opposed, but which I have opposed in how handled, I do hope Caterpillar has control over much of it. Prefer a large corporation that makes profits than a a city that has large deficits (even with taxing abililty), a county (that will likely see its financial vodoo come home to roost), or a Board exempt from Open Meetings requirements and headed by Ransburg. Caterpillar, much as many hate to admit, has remained solvent, profitable even in tough times without too much suckling at the public teet. And Cat has been willing to make the unpopular decisions to get there that our public officals will not. And no, I am not a Cat employee, nor have I ever been, nor do I aspire to be.