City of Peoria, Energy Issues, Gary Sandberg, Peoria Police

City trying to cut down on idling vehicles

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The City of Peoria is going to try to persuade its employees not to leave their city vehicles idling for long periods of time. I wouldn’t say they’re “cracking down” on the practice, because there doesn’t seem to be much more than an awareness campaign planned at the moment. But it’s not a bad first step.

Several citizens, including councilman Gary Sandberg, noticed that some police officers who would eat breakfast at a local restaurant in Peoria left their squad cars on and idling in the parking lot the whole time they were inside eating — sometimes as much as an hour or longer. When the City’s Energy Efficiency Task Force submitted their report to the council, Sandberg asked interim City Manager Henry Holling to look into the idling problem, since that’s a huge waste of energy, not to mention unnecessary pollution.

After that, the police officers never came back to the local restaurant. They apparently eat breakfast somewhere else now. That prompted Sandberg to say at a recent council meeting that “moving the problem is not solving the problem.”

So now, according to this week’s “issues update,” the city is giving all its employees who drive a city vehicle an anti-idling brochure: “A change in behavior will be reinforced with flyers posted on bulletin boards and articles in the employee newsletters. Department Heads are also emphasizing in staff meetings the need to reduce engine idling.” It doesn’t appear, however, that there will be a policy instituted or enforced.

My take: This will be great for conscientious employees who probably aren’t letting their vehicles idle excessively anyway. For those who leave their cars idling for an hour while they eat breakfast, I doubt this will make any difference whatsoever, some of them even they go and find the best dash cam online so they car are secured while they’re apart of the car. Those employees already feel justified in leaving their cars on for excessive periods of time, and will likely change their behavior only if told by a superior to knock it off. So that’s precisely what needs to happen in addition to this public-awareness campaign for any significant change to occur.

If you witness excessive idling of a city vehicle, write down the vehicle number and location and e-mail it to me. I’ll pass that information along to the city.

General News

Time is right on newspapers; but will “younger generation” buy it?

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A recent Time Magazine article has some advice for newspapers: sell your on-line content instead of giving it away free. Ironically, this very same Time article is available for free on the web.

Nevertheless, it’s not a bad idea. Specifically, the author (Walter Isaacson) suggests coming up with a system similar to iTunes where readers can easily purchase an article for a small amount of money that gets charged to their credit card. Assuming there were such a system in place, the question is, will people pay for online news content like they do for online music downloads?

The 19-year-old college student who sat next to me on the train ride home from Chicago today says no. She’s a journalism major at Lincoln College. She said the “younger generation” (as opposed to my “older” generation, evidently) won’t pay for this kind of content because they’re “not really into reading that much.”

Not really into reading? Lord help us. If she’s right, then the economics of journalism is the least of our worries.

Amtrak, State of Illinois

Amtrak study to be released in March

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Amtrak and the Illinois Department of Transportation is currently studying the feasibility of establishing passenger train service between Chicago and Peoria. The report was originally supposed to be released toward the end of last year, but there were a number of delays, sources tell Mayor Ardis. Ardis recently gave me a status update — Amtrak/IDOT has finished their visual inspection of the routes being studied, and they are crunching the numbers. The study should be completed by next month.

Peoria Public Schools

New D150 budget committee members revealed

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From a District 150 press release:

Planning and Budget Committee Members

As announced at the February 2 meeting, the Board of Education is establishing a special committee to assist with the school district’s budgeting issues. Below is a list of the appointed members to the Planning and Budget Committee.

Mr. Pat Roesler
Chief Financial Officer, G & D. Integrated

Mrs. Lois Boaz
Retired Caterpillar Executive with experience in accounting, business analysis and Six Sigma

Mr. Erik Bush
Chief Financial Officer, Peoria County

Mr. David Underwood
Vice President of Finance & Chief Financial Officer Proctor Hospital

Mr. Charles Randle
President, Illinois Business Financial Services

Dr. Bernie Goitein
Professor of Business Management & Administration at Bradley University

Mr. Ken Casper
Retired Banker

Mr. Larry Williams
Retired Superintendent and Business Manager of Illinois Valley Community School District

The main functions of the committee include:

  • develop financial templates for presenting and outlining the district budget; allowing easy assessment and financial impact of proposals, suggestions and changes

  • establish a “district finances” section on the district website

  • create one-page documents explaining school district financial terms and how these issues impact Peoria Public Schools. Examples include: Title I, Special Education Funding, Corporate and Property Taxes, Public Building Commission Funding and TIF Districts.

This sounds like a real positive step for District 150. My hat’s off to these community members who have stepped up to lend their expertise to Peoria’s public schools. And I commend the board for putting this group together and setting goals for greater transparency in the district’s financial dealings. If these goal are attained, I think it will go a long way toward reestablishing some trust in District 150.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Build the Block numbers questioned

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I took down my previous post on the economic impact study by a couple of Bradley professors because I unfairly portrayed them as being uncooperative and unwilling to back up their numbers. They have both contacted me and assured me that they will be happy to meet once they’re both in the country and can coordinate their schedules. My apologies to them for implying they were stonewalling me.

In the meantime, it appears I’m not the only one wondering how they came up with such impressive numbers in favor of the museum. (Last week, they held a press conference where they announced the museum and Cat visitor center would create 1,100 jobs during the two-year construction phase, 90 jobs per year after construction, and $572 million in economic growth over 20 years.) The chairman of the economics department at Knox College is skeptical of those numbers, too.

Richard Stout is the chairman of the economics department at Knox College in Galesburg. Though he hasn’t read the economic impact study, he said he has some questions about how the study drew some of its conclusions. He was skeptical about how the $572 million of economic growth over 20 years figure was calculated. For one thing, included in that figure is the $136 million cost of the project and estimated additional spending that would be created because of it.

“You can’t say the cost of construction is not a cost, that it’s an economic benefit. The cost of construction is a cost,” said Stout, who also questioned how the museum’s operating expenses through the years would also be tallied as an economic benefit to the region.

I also found this interesting. The Bradley professors told me that they weren’t “e-mailing out [their] spreadsheet work on Build the Block at this time.” But according to the Journal Star article, “The summary mentions a copy of the report will be filed with the Peoria County Clerk’s Office and available for sale. It has not yet been filed, according to Scott Sorrell, assistant to the county administrator.”

Once it’s filed with the County Clerk’s office, doesn’t it become a public document? How can it be available “for sale”? Couldn’t a person just FOIA it? Who would get the money from such a “sale”? If I write my own report on Build the Block, will Peoria County sell my report on consignment as well? Perhaps this was just a typo, and the “sale” referred to is simply photocopying charges, as allowed under the Freedom of Information Act.

City Council, City of Peoria

CSO improvements head wish list for stimulus funds

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On the Peoria City Council’s agenda for Tuesday is a “resolution establishing the City of Peoria’s highest priorities for stimulus package projects.” Here they are:

The City of Peoria’s highest priorities for stimulus package projects are as follows:

  1. Combined Sewer Improvement Projects as follows:

    a. Western Avenue Storm Sewer removal from Combined Sewer System. Estimated cost: $5.1 million.

    b. Glen Oak Avenue storm sewer removal from Combined Sewer System. Estimated cost: $1.2 million.

    c. Spring Street supplemental sewer. Estimated cost: $6.5 million.

  2. Various sidewalk projects including, but not limited to,

    a. Glen Oak School Impact Zone. Estimated cost: $475,000.

    b. Sidewalks at Kellar Primary School, Charter Oak School and Rolling Acres School. Estimated cost: $525,000.

    c. Lake Avenue sidewalk at Sheridan Village. Estimated cost: $90,000.

    d. Sheridan and Lake Intersection improvement. Estimated cost: $125,000.

    e. ADA Ramp Program. Estimated cost: $250,000.

    f. Liberty Park sidewalk improvement. Estimated cost: $100,000.

    g. Sheridan Road sidewalk improvement. Estimated cost: $230,000.

  3. Construction of Darst Street and Clark Street in the Southern Gateway Area. Estimated cost: $3.33 million.

Presumably, these are all “shovel ready” projects. My only thought is, we keep hearing that the total CSO project is going to cost at least $100 million, but the three CSO projects listed here total just $12.8 million. I guess I wish we could get more money for that project since it’s an unfunded mandate that’s going to be very hard for our city to afford.

But on the other hand, every little bit helps, and it’s pretty unlikely we would receive anywhere near $100 million from the federal government. So this sounds like a good list to me.

General News

Soda pop and zombies

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I’m sharing these merely because I found them amusing:

  • The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy — What do you call carbonated beverages? Soda? Pop? Coke? If you live in Peoria County, odds are you call it “soda,” even though most of northern Illinois calls it “pop.” How do I know? Because someone has taken the time to put together a map of Generic Soft Drink Names by County. It’s just part of a website created by Alan McConchie devoted to the topic.

    When I was in grade school, our family called everything “coke.” It was like calling all tissues “Kleenex” or all copiers “Xerox machines.” We didn’t mean the brand, but the type of product. “Do you want a coke?” “Sure.” “What kind?” “7-Up.” According to the map, that’s a southern thing.

    And then there are the variations. A former co-worker of mine used to call it “sodee.” She was the assistant team leader of our work group, and a couple of us in the group teased her about her pronunciation. “How do you get ‘sodee’ out of a word spelled s-o-d-a?” we’d ask. Irritated with us, she said, “Everyone I know pronounces it that way,” and then, to prove her point, turned to another team member and asked, “How do you pronounce soda? Sodee?”

  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — Yes, that’s the real title of a real book that is due to be released later this year, written by Seth Grahame-Smith and co-author Jane Austen. According to the publisher, Quirk Books, it’s “The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!”

    “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.

    That’s one way to get teenage boys to read Austen. I can’t wait for the movie.

Peoria Public Library

Peoria Public Library weeding its collections

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dumpster-readerA concerned taxpayer recently told me about the library throwing out a large number of books:

I take my kids to the downtown library a few times a week. I have noticed on a number of occasions that there are people dumping books into the dumpsters behind the buildings. When I asked [someone at the library] what was going on she said that the library was eliminating thousands of books from their collection. I was told that they are also removing most of the magazines and older books that have been stored in the basement level. She said that most all eliminated material is being thrown away and hardly any of it is being donated.

Well, that was certainly a provocative tip! I immediately wrote to library director Ed Szynaka, and he forwarded my inquiry to assistant director Leann Johnson. She basically confirmed what I was told and gave me the following explanation:

Withdrawing items from the collection is an ongoing process for libraries and Peoria Public Library locations strive to maintain an up-to-date and useful collection as well as a strong local history and genealogy collection. As observed, materials are discarded and the reported comment as to the number of items refers to an intensified effort to get the collection in good condition before the imminent building project begins. That being said, this is a very tough thing for librarians to do as we, like all book lovers, find it hard to let go of books of any kind. But the reality of the renovation of the Main Street Library has taken hold and we are now making the decisions that have been on the back burner for a long time.

I appreciate your asking if we donate books and about the library’s policy. Most of the materials are given to the Friends of the Library for their book sales. Proceeds from the book sales then support the wide variety of programs offered by the Library. Other recent cooperative efforts include working with Thomas Jefferson school after the fire, providing childrens’ books to a local church group for a school library in Louisiana, housing a collection of older materials related to the Civil War in the reading room of the GAR Hall, and working with Eastern Illinois University to transfer a large collection of government documents known as the Serial Set to an academic setting where the material is more likely to be used and stored appropriately. Materials that don’t get sold, donated, or recycled are then discarded. We do recycle and would like to recycle more. To my knowledge no recyclers in the area accept hardbound books. We continue to try to locate a recycler who will.

The answer to which books get eliminated and which are retained is a long one and depends on a variety of factors including general condition, outdated information (particularly in the areas of science, medicine and law), demand, copyright dates along with last date circulated, duplicate copies, superseded editions. These guidelines vary based on the subject (Dewey number) or genre. We do have a Collection Management Policy as well as “Weeding” Guidelines for withdrawing materials from the collection. The guidelines are adapted from The CREW Method: Expanded Guidelines for Collection Evaluation and Weeding for Small and Medium-Sized Public Libraries by Belinda Boon. Older materials present another challenge altogether and we take into consideration local topics that provide insight into the history of our area, historic events, unusual topics or unique items.

I hope this helps to answer your questions.

The acronym “CREW” in “The CREW Method” stands for “Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding.” You can read about this method at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission website.