Museum Block

The museum and the economy

4 Comments

Several people have asked (rhetorically, no doubt) how the City can still be considering building a museum given the current economic climate. So I posed a few questions about that to the Museum Collaboration Group, and they graciously responded:

Q: In light of the current economic conditions, especially the so-called credit crunch, how would this museum be built even in your current fundraising goals were met?

A: “We have always said we would not begin building until we had met our fund-raising goals. We won’t start with a partially funded building. So, if our funding goals are met, we’ll build the museum.”

Q: Would you have access to the funds you would need to borrow to make this project a reality?

A: “We have never planned to take out long-term loans to build the museum. Some short-term bridge loans have always been factored into the plans, and we do not expect that these loans will be unavailable.”

Q: How is the current economic climate affecting your efforts?

A: “We are concerned about the current economic climate, but to date we are still on plan with our fundraising efforts.”

Peoria Public Schools

No mystery why D150 public meetings are poorly attended

59 Comments

District 150 is mystified — mystified! — as to why they can’t get more parents to give the school board their input. After only 13 parents showed up to a recent public meeting, board president David Gorenz was quoted by the Journal Star as saying, “It’s one of the most difficult issues districts face, how to get input.”

It’s no mystery to me. I think people see these meetings (rightly so) as a complete and total waste of their time. Why? Because the school board has already decided what they are going to do, and the only reasons they have public meetings are (1) to satisfy legal requirements in some cases, and (2) to gain public support for their inevitable decision.

There is no shortage of examples to choose from:

  • In August of this year, the school district had two public hearings to talk about their plans for the new Glen Oak and Harrison school buildings. Although supposedly a chance for the public to give their input, the district had no intention of changing anything about these plans, and they didn’t. Not one idea from the public was entertained; not one slightest variation from the district’s plan was made.

  • When Ken Hinton unveiled his plan to cut 45 minutes of instructional time out of every primary student’s school day, parents came out en masse to oppose it. Did the district listen? Nope. They voted 5-1 to approve it. Then, after weeks of letter-writing, demonstrating, petitioning (over 1,000 people signed petitions against the plan), etc., Hinton decided to restore 60% of the time. Instructional time was still cut despite parents’ pleas that all the time be restored, and despite being presented with alternative plans that would have accomplished the same goals without cutting instructional time.

  • Debbie Wolfmeyer, the new board vice president, when asked to meet with a parent regarding the aforementioned issue, responded, “It is not my role as a Board member to meet with individuals or groups.” So much for getting input from parents.

  • Without any public input at all, the school district decided it was going to build a school in Glen Oak Park and started buying up houses to make that a reality. When parents and neighbors turned out en masse to oppose it (including five neighborhood organizations and a city councilman), they were dismissed as a “vocal minority” by one school board member. Only a lawsuit against the park board stopped that from going through.

Eventually, people get the hint. The school board isn’t really interested in hearing their opinions or input — unless it agrees with what they’ve already decided. They’ve already made up their minds what they’re going to do, and “public input” meetings are, at best, an attempt to convince the ignorant masses why the board’s ideas are best.

The school board should be happy that fewer people are coming to the meetings — it makes their jobs so much easier when there’s no one around to disagree with their predetermined plans.

Note: Merle Widmer has a different take on Gorenz’s comment.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Pundit, Radio

Council coverage falls off without Ahl; blogs pick up slack

10 Comments

It used to be that you could count on WCBU to cover any city council meeting held on a Tuesday night, including important budget discussions like the one happening tonight. But since former news director Jonathan Ahl left the station, coverage has fallen off. It appears now that only regular city council meetings (twice a month) are carried.

That’s unfortunate, because the council meeting tonight covers important budget issues facing the City of Peoria. What’s being discussed tonight is at least as important, if not more important, than the business taking place at the regular council meetings. Why have they stopped being covered?

Fortunately, there’s still one media outlet that’s covering the event live — Billy Dennis’ Peoria Pundit blog. All Billy needs to do is figure out a way to provide a live audio stream through his blog in addition to his running summary.

City Council, City of Peoria

Next council meeting will focus on budget

19 Comments

The agenda for Tuesday night’s Peoria City Council meeting is short — just two items. But don’t let that fool you into thinking it will be a short meeting.

It’s that time of year when the council starts discussing the dreaded budget. In keeping with the council’s desire to include more meaningful input from citizens, Tuesday’s meeting will offer residents a chance to comment on the budget after some pertinent information is presented:

A. REVIEW of CURRENT OUTSTANDING CAPITAL PROJECTS;
B. PRESENTATION OF OVERALL VISION/MISSION/CORE FUNCTIONS;
C. REVENUE REVIEW;
D. PUBLIC COMMENT Relating to the 2009 CITY BUDGET.

If you’re looking for information on the city’s budget, look no further than peoriabudget.com. City staff has assembled a number of helpful charts and graphs to give you a picture (literally) of the city’s revenue and expenditures, broken down a number of different ways. Here are a couple that will be germane to Tuesday’s meeting (click on the thumbnail to see the full graph):

These two graphs show the revenue sources for the city. They’ll come in handy when it comes time figure out how we’re going to raise more revenue for the city’s needs.

The Peoria Chronicle

Site news: Comment toolbar added

Leave a comment

Anyone who leaves comments on blogs knows that, if you want anything other than plain text, you have to know a little HTML coding. But not everyone knows that, or wants to learn it. And so, I’ve had some requests for a toolbar on the comment box that will allow commenters to bold, italicize, and add hyperlinks to their comments.

Well, you’ve got it. I had a hard time finding a WordPress plugin that would give the comments box this functionality. But the “blogfather” Billy Dennis found one for me. My thanks to him. Also, thanks to the person who wrote the plugin. I hope WordPress will build this into a future update, as it seems like an obvious upgrade to make.

The only thing missing from the toolbar is a “blockquote” button, which would have been helpful. But I think the tools that are provided will meet most commenters’ needs. Let me know if you have any trouble using it. If your comments don’t show up, it’s possible that it got caught in the Akismet spam filter (especially if you used hyperlinks). Just send me an e-mail and I’ll rescue it. If, for some reason, this toolbar “breaks” the site, I’ll deactivate it.

Hope you find this upgrade helpful. Happy commenting!

Radio

“Unforgettable 1350” gone but not forgotten

10 Comments

Everyone knows by now that 1350 WOAM and 94.3 WPMJ have gone off the air. But they deserve a requiem nonetheless.

Although their music was syndicated, 1350 AM had no small amount of local programming. Every morning, there was Breakfast with Royce [Elliott] and Roger [Monroe]. They had a lot of special guests, and of course a lot of humor. And during the summer, they carried the Peoria Chiefs baseball games. I’ll never forget hearing them win the Midwest League championship — an unbelievable come-from-behind win in the ninth inning (naturally, they were still a Cardinals affiliate then). They carried other local sports as well.

I didn’t listen to 94.3 very much, as it was all syndicated oldies music. Occasionally I’d turn it on for a song or two. It took on the oldies format after 93.3 jettisoned their “Big Oldies” moniker. Frankly, I won’t miss this station much, but I will definitely miss 1350. It had a definite local feel to it, without being talk radio. It had a lot of variety, and I’ll miss that.

On a positive note, the paper reports that station owner Bob Kelly “said he would continue to run the Kelly Communications Co. despite the stations being off the air with the hope of eventually bringing the stations back online. ‘I’m going to work full-time on getting financing.'”

So maybe 1350 will be back again someday. Hope so.

Nation/World

House begins debate on Senate bailout package

4 Comments

For those of you in the 18th Congressional District, here’s the telephone number for Ray LaHood: (202) 225-6201. (If you live in a different district, you can find your representative’s phone number on the Clerk of the House of Representatives’ page.)

I would encourage you to do what I’ve done: call and urge Rep. LaHood to vote against the Senate’s bailout package. I know LaHood voted for the first one, and he believes a bailout package is needed. But this bill is even worse than the last one, including all kinds of indefensible pork that squanders more taxpayer money.

There are $6 million in tax breaks for the manufacturers of wooden arrows.

Another $33 million in tax relief for corporations operating in American Samoa territory.

And don’t forget the $192 million break for Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum producers.

U.S. senators on Wednesday tacked these incentives and nearly $150 billion in other unrelated tax breaks on to the $700 billion emergency rescue bill for the nation’s troubled financial institutions.

Besides the added pork, many economists have been saying that this bill simply won’t work to solve our credit crisis. You don’t hear these voices, unfortunately, because the media by and large hasn’t covered them, as this article from the Chicago Tribune points out:

If you’ve spent much time listening to cable news lately, you would think there is universal agreement among economists that an immediate, enormous government intervention in the markets is the only way to stave off a recession, and perhaps even a depression. This is simply false. Many economists reject the notion that something must be done immediately and have called for more careful consideration of a wider range of options. Some even reject the premise that any bailout action will make much of a difference.

This bill needs to be voted down and a serious deliberation needs to take place. Congress should stop this rush to do “something,” and focus on doing what is best.