Village of Peoria Heights

Peoria Heights street looks like “war zone”

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A block of Paris Ave. — one block south of War Memorial Drive, between Wisconsin and Illinois avenues — looks like a “war zone” according to Tom Horstmann, Peoria Heights village administrator. Take a look for yourself:

[flashvideo filename=https://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Video/Paris-Ave.flv /]

Yep, pretty much. Here’s why:

The work on demolishing these houses to make way for a new strip mall has ground to a halt. The reason is a survey for asbestos required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

In the meantime, the place looks like Yucca Flats after the blast. And we all know how persnickety Peoria Heights is about how their village looks. This must be driving them crazy. [/sarcasm]

Incidentally, click on the link to the Times-Observer article. The really interesting part of the story is not the “war zone” comment. It’s the fact that the Village hasn’t seen any plans for the strip mall, doesn’t know who the tenants will be, and neither does the developer know who the tenants will be. I guess when they say they don’t make developers “jump through a lot of hoops,” they must mean they have no standards at all for development.

But the village is reportedly “excited” about the development anyway, even though they have no idea what kind of business will move in or any inkling of what it will look like. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the tenants turned out to be a car wash and a payday loan establishment?

2008 Campaign

Darin LaHood touting campaign successes

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From a press release:

LaHood Continues Momentum with $212,000 Raised to Date
Challenger for State’s Attorney leads in contributions and support from law enforcement

Peoria, IL – With a significant cash advantage and unanimous support from the Peoria County law enforcement community, Darin LaHood’s bid to unseat a 20-year incumbent State’s Attorney continues to gain momentum.

“We’ve had an amazing number of individual, local donors contribute to our campaign,” said LaHood. “People realize that Peoria County has the highest crime rate in the State during the past five years and that is simply not acceptable. We’ve got to do something to reverse this trend and voting for a change in the State’s Attorney’s office is a start. I’ve sought input from local law enforcement, kept an open ear to all of the neighborhood groups, and bring to the table solid prosecutorial experience. I believe I am the right candidate for this job and I sincerely thank all those supporting my campaign.”

In his semi-annual financial report filed with the State Board of Elections this week, LaHood’s campaign shows over $212,000 raised to date, with $113,000 remaining on hand. More than 750 individual donors have contributed to the LaHood campaign since he announced his candidacy in October 2007.

Darin LaHood’s proven ability to effectively raise money for his campaign has been bolstered by his prowess in earning powerful support from the law enforcement community. For the last several weeks, police unions from various departments throughout the County have publicly issued endorsements of LaHood’s candidacy including the City of Peoria Police Department, the Peoria County Sheriff’s Department, the Chillicothe Police Department and most recently, the Bartonville Police Department. Law enforcement officials collectively say the present State’s Attorney’s office is ‘disconnected and it is time for a change.’

“We’re going to keep working straight through Election Day,” proclaimed LaHood. “Public safety in our County is at stake and the voters realize that. It’s going to take a lot of money to unseat an entrenched incumbent, but it will also take a strong message of change to convince people to vote differently than they have in the past. My supporters are lining up and we look forward to victory in November.”

Darin LaHood, 40, was born and raised in Peoria. He is a former federal prosecutor who served four years with U.S. Department of Justice in Las Vegas, Nevada. LaHood was also an Assistant State’s Attorney in both Tazewell and Cook counties. LaHood and his wife Kristen returned home to Peoria in 2005 to raise their three children: McKay, Luke, and Teddy. LaHood currently practices law with the firm of Miller, Hall, & Triggs. Darin and Kristen are active in numerous Peoria charity and civic organizations and are members of St. Vincent de Paul Church. Visit www.DarinLaHood.com to learn more about the candidate, volunteer opportunities, or to contribute to the campaign.

OSF St. Francis, Peoria Times-Observer, Streets

Times-Observer: OSF moving into K’s Merchandise building

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From the Peoria Times-Observer:

OSF St. Francis, Inc. has leased about half of the [former K’s Merchandise] building to consolidate offices spread throughout Peoria.

Also in the story, fifth district councilman Pat Nichting uses this news to push for the Pioneer Parkway extension. “‘There’s a lot of folks being patient waiting for the extension of Pioneer Parkway. It will have a major impact on that area,’ he said,” the Times-Observer reports.

City of Peoria, General News

News about downed trees and branches

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From the City of Peoria:

City and Park District crews are currently removing down trees and branches from the roadway. Many times power lines will be taken down with tree branches. Please use caution when moving branches around your home.

Waste Management will be picking up yard waste from the storm with the daily pick up throughout the City. Please remember all material must be bagged or bundled and should be easily handled by one person.

City Council, City of Peoria, Zoning Commission

Zoning Commission wants to move meetings to 3 p.m.

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The Zoning Commission is asking the City Council to move the commission’s meetings to 3 p.m. the first Thursday of each month. Since January, the commission has been meeting at 6 p.m.

This comes as no surprise. Up until January of this year, the Zoning Commission met at 1 p.m. the first Thursday of each month, and they really didn’t want to change. In fact, two commission members threatened to quit if the council changed the meeting time. Those turned out to be empty threats as no one resigned.

The purpose of changing the schedule was to allow more participation from residents who are not able to attend Zoning Commission meetings in the middle of the day because they’re working. Now, the Zoning Commission is saying that attendance is not any different than it was before, and that having the meetings earlier would save the city money in overtime/comp time pay. They offer no hard numbers.

I don’t see how a 3 p.m. meeting is going to be any easier for the first-shift working public to attend than a 1 p.m. meeting. And I would be interested to see some empirical evidence for the commission’s contention that “attendance was always based on whether the topic on the agenda was controversial or not” and that “controversial topics brought out more people whether the meetings were held in the afternoon or in the evening.”

It will be interesting to see the council’s reaction to this request.

City Council, City of Peoria

Snow Response Plan calls for staff increase, fleet upgrade

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It’s hard to think about things like snow removal when it’s been in the 90s and humid outside lately. But this is the best time to be talking about it — well in advance of the next snow storm.

On the city council agenda tomorrow is a plan to add staff and upgrade the city’s truck fleet in order to improve what they call “snow response.” Recommendations for change include:

  • Due to growth, the number of snow routes needs to be increased to add one additional route;
  • A slight reconfiguration of the routes on the north side of the City to address the many new areas;
  • The new plan also eliminates what are currently called “secondary” snow routes. (This will allow
    staff to more quickly complete efforts on the major streets during a snow storm, and move into the
    residential streets faster.)
  • Based on the additional route and a review of current staffing levels, the Administration is
    requesting a change in staffing for the Streets & Sewers Division to reduce our reliance on
    “Temporary” workers and move back to using a full complement of full-time staff. This change will
    add 22 full-time employees.
  • A fourth PW [Public Works] Supervisor is also requested, to help monitor the snow response program. In the summer months, this new Supervisor will be able to relieve the Manager from direct oversight of the Seal Coat program.
    • The annual cost for the staff changes is estimated at about $226,000 based on the current
      pay levels. There are several reasons cited for this recommendation in the attached presentation.
  • Staff developed a schedule for accelerating the purchase of trucks to meet their expected useful life (attached) and is recommending an increase in the annual level for truck replacement from about $250,000 in our Capital Fund to about $642,000 (and this amount needs to increase annually for inflation). Since we are behind in our upgrades to the truck fleet, we will need to buy ten (10) trucks in 2009, nine (9) trucks in 2010, and six (6) trucks in 2011 . The schedule shows a need to find additional funds or borrow on a short term basis for these three years in addition to the increased Capital Fund support. The attached spreadsheet provides a summary of this analysis for consideration.
    • The equipment used for snow removal was also evaluated as a part of the program review. There are forty-three (43) trucks used for fighting snow and ice storms. It is estimated that the larger trucks last only about nine years before they become unreliable, and costs for maintenance start to increase to the point where their replacement is more cost-efficient. The smaller trucks only last about seven years. Based on these estimates the City needs to be buying about 5 to 6 trucks annually to keep up with this rate of deterioration. We have only been buying two or three, as funds are made available.

The financial impact is estimated to be $226,000 per year for the additional staffing, $392,000 for fleet upgrades in the current budget, plus a lot of borrowing in future years for more vehicle replacement ($510,000 in 2009, $696,000 in 2010, and $412,000 in 2011).

Why hire so many permanent full-time workers? According to the study that was done, it was determined that the current process of hiring temporary workers is not effective. The presentation attached to the council request states that temporary workers “lack experience,” “don’t know routes as well,” “need more supervision,” and “are paid more than full time staff.” In addition, the “current staffing level provides no back-up.”

It should come as no surprise that more staff is necessary to handle public works needs in a city that continues to increase in size (and continues to add miles of inefficient curvilinear streets). There’s an annexation request on the city council agenda nearly every week, and I have yet to see one defeated. As the city continues to grow, expect other departments to request an increase in staff and equipment as well.

Perhaps the next Six Sigma project could be a process for evaluating annexation requests on a cost-revenue basis. The city currently does no such evaluation, choosing to look only at the potential revenues (increased tax base) and ignore the additional public works and public safety costs.

Peoria Journal Star

No comment from Gordon on GateHouse

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Paul Gordon’s business column in the Journal Star today is all about stock analysts’ view Caterpillar.

A consensus estimate of 20 industry analysts who follow Caterpillar, and compiled by Thomson Financial Network, is that the company made a profit of $1.55 a share during the second quarter, which ended June 30.

No mention of the consensus estimate of 4 industry analysts who follow GateHouse Media, and compiled by Thomson Financial Network, that the Journal Star’s parent company made a profit of 1¢ a share during the second quarter, which ended June 30. Nor is there any mention of their estimate for the next quarter: -1¢.

Is the Journal Star under orders not to cover GateHouse Media? Or do they just not find the potential demise of Peoria’s only daily newspaper newsworthy?

Of course, and I’m serious when I say this, nothing would make me happier than for someone to comment on this post telling me that the Journal Star is safe and all this speculation about their demise is an overreaction.

City of Peoria, General News

DNA rarity estimates under fire

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They call it the CSI effect — “the phenomenon of popular television shows such as the CSI franchise raising crime victims’ and jury members’ real-world expectations of forensic science, especially crime scene investigation and DNA testing.” But today, the Los Angeles Times reports that the FBI’s real-world rarity estimates of DNA matches may be unrealistic as well:

State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona’s DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles.

The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.

The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white. […]

No one knows precisely how rare DNA profiles are. The odds presented in court are the FBI’s best estimates.

The article is basically about how Troyer’s discovery in 2001 has led to several other states — including Illinois — querying their DNA databases to see how unique their samples are. And that has led the FBI to try to stop those states from doing these database queries. The FBI says the states’ results are misleading; the states say that the FBI is trying to hide evidence that their rarity estimates are flawed. For example:

In July 2006, after Chicago-area defense attorneys sought a database search on behalf of a murder suspect, the FBI’s Callaghan held a telephone conference with Illinois crime lab officials.

The topic was “how to fight this,” according to lab officials’ summary of the conversation, which later became part of the court record. […]

A week later, the judge ordered the search. Lawyers for the lab then took the matter to the Illinois Supreme Court, arguing in part that Illinois could lose its access to the federal DNA database. The high court refused to block the search.

The result: 903 pairs of profiles matching at nine or more loci in a database of about 220,000. [Emphasis added]

State officials obtained a court order to prevent distribution of the results. The Times obtained them from a scientist who works closely with the FBI.

Recall from the earlier quote that the FBI’s odds of two people sharing the same nine out of 13 loci on their DNA is 1 in 113 billion. Yet, when the database of only 220,000 samples was queried, “903 pairs of profiles matching at nine or more loci” were found. That’s 1 out of 244.

Statisticians have many explanations for this phenomenon, and the FBI stands by their estimates. Bruce Weir from the University of Washington offers this explanation (PDF file). On the other hand, he’s also quoted in the article as saying “these assumptions should be tested empirically in the national database system. ‘Instead of saying we predict there will be a match, let’s open it up and look.'”

That sounds like a reasonable request, since so much weight is given to DNA evidence. We want to be sure that it’s as reliable as possible, and rarity estimates neither understated nor overstated.

Peoria Historical Society

Theft at Peoria Historical Society

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Diane Vespa reports that $13,000 is believed to have been stolen by a new employee who is also missing.

According to the letter, a police report has been filed and an investigation is underway. The Historical Society fears they may not be able to recoup the majority of these funds. In the interim, they have changed locks, passwords and security codes and cancelled credit cards and accounts and filed claims.

They may not get the money, but hopefully they’ll get the person who stole it and put him or her behind bars for a few years. Why would someone steal from the historical society? What an idiot.

UPDATE: Comments have been turned off. Please go to Diane’s blog to comment since she’s the one who broke the story. Thanks.

General News

One more reason not to fly

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From the Chicago Tribune:

The new full-body imaging machines that will arrive at O’Hare this fall look through clothing to create an explicit silhouette of the traveler—showing shapes, folds of fat and other anatomical characteristics—to identify possible hidden objects.

Even though facial features are blurred to protect privacy, the images reveal breasts, buttocks and other private parts, prompting some civil liberties groups to call the machines an unacceptable intrusion.

That’s right — airport security personnel will now be looking at your naked body every time you want to board an airplane at O’Hare. Perhaps most frightening is this typical response:

“Why they would want a picture like that of me is beyond me,” said Mike Glidewell, 62, a Kansas man who was going through security last week at O’Hare. “But anything they want to do to keep me alive is fine with me.”

Anything? Really? How about only allowing you on the plane if you’re blindfolded and handcuffed? I mean, that would certainly be safer, wouldn’t it? Then any potential terrorist would also be bound and blindfolded, and thus wouldn’t be able to hijack the plane, right? Why would you object? It’ll keep you alive!

The sad thing is, people probably would accept it. I mean, if you had asked anyone ten or twenty years ago if they would submit to a virtual strip search for the privilege of riding an airplane, you probably would have been slapped, then ridiculed. But today, we just accept it as the price of security.

What was that famous quote? “Give me liberty or give me security”?