I’ll be at the council meeting tonight, but will not be live blogging the event. My wife and I were invited to attend tonight’s swearing-in ceremony as guests of newly-elected council member Beth Akeson, so I’ll blog about the event afterwards. If you want live coverage, I recommend WCBU (89.9 FM), Comcast Cable channel 22, or the Peoria Journal Star (pjstar.com) which will be live-streaming the event this evening.
Of course, the big news tonight will be the return of George Jacob to the horseshoe for the first time since his motorcycle accident. This is also his last meeting as a councilman, as his term expires this evening. Godspeed, Councilman Jacob.
This might be the final meeting for Councilman Sandberg, too, right?
Sandberg paid up today.
It was an interesting event. Akeson went up to BVA before the meeting. Unsure of the exchange, but noticed Akeson extended her hand with a smile and BVA got some surly look on her face and walked the other way. Hopefully others witnessed the rude behavior of the 2nd District council person. In saying their goodbyes to Montelongo and Jacob some clearly chose their words carefully. Gully told a story of having to remind Jacob that Gully was the district councilman. Feeling territorial? perhaps returning your phone calls to your constintuents would be a great place to start, that would go out to the first 4 districts by the way. Spain complimented Montelongo and spoke if they were old buddies, yet would rip apart Montelongo out of the limelight. He apparantly gave Jacob credit for all the things Jacob has done at the meeting, but campaign literature would have suggested that Spain conquered to world in in less than 3 days, alone.
The speech read by one of Jacob’s sons was very moving. Several in the audience has weepy eyes. Speaking of which, BVA said she would make her comments in private due to becoming teary….more likely she didn’t want to drop f bombs while the public watched. ahhh pomp and circumstance….gotta love it.
For a slightly different view of last night’s proceedings, I posted last night when I got back.
Somebody should remind Gully that he’s the 1st district rep and quit voting with the 5D club all the time.
Fred, were you as insulted as I was when Riggenbach was thanking George Jacobs for introducing him to so many great resteraunts in the east bluff. Uhh, isn’t that’s your district Tim!? It just goes to show what an elitist, arrogant punk that guy is. I don’t expect every councilman to know every single property in his or her district but when you publicly announce it in an anecdote like that, it just shows a major disconnect with your constituents. It’s just one more dumb comment to add to his never-ending list of Riggenisms. That guy’s gotta go!
I wasn’t as insulted by that remark as I was amused when Sandberg remarked to Beth Akeson how he thought she would have been an outstanding District Councilperson. I caught a definite gritting of the teeth by Riggenbach as Gary said it, and I thought it was a wonderful dig by Sandberg. God Bless Gary Sandberg. I am hoping he will rub off on Chuck and Beth.