City of Peoria

Peoria has the perfect solution to Matthews’ inability to pay loans back on time

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The Journal Star reports that East Peoria taxpayers are having trouble getting their money back from Gary Matthews. He borrowed $150,000 from the city in 2007 to help him build the hideous monstrosity we know as GEM Terrace. He’s been paying that money back, but not exactly on time. He owes $24,862 in late payments.

The City of Peoria isn’t going to let that happen to taxpayers here. When Matthews finally builds The Wonderful Development, Peorians won’t have to worry about him making late payments. Why? Well, because the City isn’t loaning him any money. They’re planning to give him $37 million ($9 million of which will go directly into his pocket as a “developer fee”) as a grant. No repayment necessary. Aren’t we clever? While all the citizens have to check out HardMoneyLendersBoston.com and beg for payday advances and loans, Matthews continues to bumble about.

Matthews’ inability to hit deadlines has actually worked to Peoria’s advantage. We haven’t had to sell the bonds yet to come up with that $37 million because the Wonderful Developer has been unable to get the project started by the dates required on either of the redevelopment agreements he inked with the City in 2008 and 2010.

I, for one, hope Mr. Matthews continues his deadline-missing ways. It’s saving the taxpayers here a lot of money.

City Council, City of Peoria, Redistricting

Residents: Keep our neighborhoods together (UPDATED)

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Only a few people spoke at Tuesday’s City Council redistricting committee meeting, but those who did had one thing in common. They did not want to see their neighborhoods divided between two or more council districts. City staff was instructed to discard the maps that carved up the West Bluff and/or the Florence Avenue Neighborhood Association and come back with more alternatives that keep neighborhoods within a single council district.

There was also a request for staff to quantify what kind of population growth the City expects over the next ten years — taking into account plans for the Warehouse District, East Village Growth Cell, Main Street Commons, and growth cells in the current fifth district — and use that information to assist in drawing new district boundaries. Here’s how this information helps: when drawing new boundaries, the city is required to make each district equal in population. But they don’t have to be exactly equal — they’re allowed a range of deviation of up to five percent. So, if you expect one district to grow faster than the others, you can make that district a little smaller in population, as long as it’s within the five percent range. This helps keep districts from getting too lopsided over the next ten years.

The committee also recommended that the full City Council discuss whether to increase the number of council districts in the city and/or do away with cumulative voting for at-large council members. The committee felt that discussion was outside of their purview and should be taken up by the entire council.

The next redistricting committee meeting will be Tuesday, July 5, at 4:30 p.m. in City Council chambers. The meeting time was moved an hour earlier so that third district councilman Riggenbach (who was unable to attend last night’s meeting due to an unexpected work assignment) can attend both the redistricting committee meeting and an East Village Growth Cell meeting at Glen Oak School that same night at 6 p.m.

Continue reading Residents: Keep our neighborhoods together (UPDATED) →

Nation/World

Guest Editorial: Distractions

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Editor’s Note: This post was submitted by my father-in-law (and faithful Chronicle reader) Lee Tallman. All comments on this post will be forwarded to him.

During the period of the Roman Empire, gladiatorial contests and executions were held in the coliseum. Their purpose was to entertain the public, and divert its attention from the activities of the government. Today, in the United States, the attention of the public is diverted by the public battles between the Republican and Democratic parties. As in ancient Rome, the contests today have little to do with the activities of government.

The government of the United States serves the interests of important industries: insurance and banking, pharmaceuticals and agriculture, energy and defense (collectively the small businesses about which politicians are so passionate.) These industries provide the promotional campaigns that ensure the election of favored candidates. Members of both political parties participate. Successful candidates are expected to support legislation that is favorable to sponsoring industries. Lobbying organizations provide second careers for retiring politicians.

Uncategorized

Question of the Day: Should there be a law against running with scissors?

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I think we would all agree that one shouldn’t run with scissors. It’s dangerous. You could trip and fall and impale yourself, or put out your eye. Worse, the scissors could fly out of your hands accidentally and injure another person. Anyone who runs with scissors does a very foolish thing. That’s a given.

The question is not, “Should one not run with the scissors?” The question is, “Should there be a law against running with scissors?” In other words, should the government make it a crime to run with scissors? Should a bill be introduced in the state or federal legislature making it illegal to run with scissors? Should anyone caught running with scissors in a public place be fined, or perhaps jailed?

Why or why not?

City of Peoria

Starting over? Come to Peoria

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According to MSN Real Estate, Peoria is one of the ten best places for starting over; i.e., Peoria is one of “10 midsize to large cities with the best job prospects and most affordable mortgage payments.” The list is:

  1. Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
  2. Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas
  3. Kalamazoo-Portage, Mich.
  4. Rochester, N.Y.
  5. Oklahoma City
  6. Peoria, Ill.
  7. Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, Ark.
  8. Kingsport-Bristol, Tenn.-Bristol, Va.
  9. Columbus, Ohio
  10. Fort Wayne, Ind.

Here’s what they had to say about our fair city:

Employment gains in Peoria are setting it apart from some of its Midwest rivals. The city is working to grow small businesses with a technology incubator that opened in 2007.

A new entertainment project, The Block, with an interdisciplinary museum, theater, planetarium and The Caterpillar Experience will open along the downtown riverfront in the fall of 2012.

With an average home price of just $140,666, residents here can afford to take in all that the city has to offer on the weekends.

I think it’s interesting that they didn’t mention (for example) the recently-expanded Civic Center, which we have, but did mention “The Block,” which won’t be opening for more than a year. Regardless of what I think about the museum, this write-up makes Peoria sound like it doesn’t have much in the way of entertainment — and won’t until next fall. Why not highlight some of the amenities we already have?

Hat tip: homemade and happy

Census 2010, City Council, City of Peoria, Redistricting

City redistricting maps released

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City staff has created nine options for new Peoria City Council districts. You can see all the proposed maps in the Redistricting Committee June 21 meeting packet from the City’s website. I’ve also put a copy of the maps on my site here:

6-21-2011 Redistricting Maps

Several different scenarios are included: columnar districts (north to south), layered districts (east to west), drawn-out-from-center districts, and districts expanded from current boundaries (there are several of these). All of them have one thing in common: the fifth district gets smaller and the other four districts get bigger.

There’s also an interesting memo from Randy Ray at the end of the packet that details what the process would be for changing the number of districts and council members, and eliminating cumulative voting for at-large council members. The City’s current system of government (five at-large council members elected by cumulative voting plus five district council members) was established as the result of a civil rights lawsuit in the 1980s, so any change to this system would have to be approved by the federal court that decided that case. In addition, state law requires that changes to the system of government be approved by the voters via referendum. So the process would be this: A public referendum would have to be drafted and approved first by the federal court and then the voters. In order to have enough time to comply with redistricting requirements, the decision would have to be made this year (2011) on whether they wanted to try to make these changes. It will be interesting to hear the discussion on this possibility at the next meeting.

The next meeting of the redistricting committee is Tuesday, June 21, at 5:30 p.m. in Council Chambers.

City Council, City of Peoria

Peoria City Council 6-14-2011 (Live Blog)

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Hello everyone. I’m here at City Hall, room 400, for the Peoria City Council meeting on this Flag Day 2011. It’s very warm in council chambers, and the windows have been opened to help cool things off. It appears that all the council members and mayor are in attendance, and there is a rather long agenda for this evening. As usual, I’ll be adding my comments about the proceedings under each item below (the consent agenda is a single item). Also in attendance are Chris Kaergard from the Peoria Journal Star, Tanya Koonce from WCBU-FM, and Shaun Newell of 1470 WMBD radio.

Without any further ado, here’s tonight’s agenda:

Continue reading Peoria City Council 6-14-2011 (Live Blog) →

Peoria Public Library

Downtown library to make genealogy and local history sections accessible again

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This is the best news I’ve heard all day:

Because of staffing issues, the genealogy library was going to operate fewer hours than the rest of the library. That issue has been resolved, [spokeswoman Trisha] Noack said, in part with volunteer workers, and it will now be open whenever the Main Library is open, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

My sincere thanks to the library board and staff for resolving this issue. I complained pretty bitterly about plans to make this section less accessible than before the library’s $28 million expansion/renovation. It’s only fair that they now be commended for listening to the public (I wasn’t the only one who complained) and making the necessary adjustments to keep this vital resource as accessible as possible.

Peoria Public Schools

Court: McArdle termination legit

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District 150 did not violate Julie McArdle’s first-amendment rights when they terminated her contract. Evidence presented in court basically confirmed District 150’s statement to the press on April 29, 2009. Specifically, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois found that McArdle was terminated without cause, pursuant to her employment contract, and that the decision to terminate her employment was made before she reported alleged illegal activities of her supervisor, Mary Davis.

McArdle had argued that her termination was in retaliation for blowing the whistle on Davis. But the court found that the timeline of events simply didn’t comport with McArdle’s assertions:

Plaintiff’s own evidence shows that McArdle did not report Davis’ alleged illegal conduct until after learning that the District intended to terminate her contract. When Broderick, the vice-president of the Board of Education [sic], called McArdle on April 21, 2009, McArdle was given actual notice of her supervisor’s decision to exercise the buy-out provision of her contract. The record before the Court illustrates, therefore, that the decision to terminate McArdle had effectively already been made, and McArdle was notified of this decision before she engaged in allegedly constitutionally protected speech. While some of the Board members saw McArdle’s email regarding Davis’ alleged criminal conduct, the superintendent and vice president of the Board had already decided to terminate McArdle’s employment and had effectively and clearly communicated this decision to her before she ever publicized Davis’ alleged criminal activity. Thus, no reasonable factfinder could conclude that the District was motivated by McArdle’s future speech when deciding to exercise the early termination provision of her contract.

Incidentally, the court document erroneously identifies Broderick as the School Board vice president; he was actually the Human Resources administrator.

McArdle also argued that Davis orchestrated her termination by giving her unwarranted bad reviews and giving district administrators a bad report of her performance. However, the court found no evidence for this:

As illustrated in the record before this Court, the District had received numerous complaints from parents and coworkers about McArdle’s actions and statements while principal. McArdle was also informed of these complaints and given an opportunity to correct her actions and attitude before the District chose to terminate her employment. These complaints did not come solely from Davis, and there is no evidence before the Court to establish a genuine issue of material fact that Davis orchestrated these complaints, as argued by Plaintiff. […]

When making its initial determination, [Superintendent Ken] Hinton and [Human Resources Director Tom] Broderick considered numerous complaints made by parents, students, and teachers against McArdle in addition to the performance reviews and personality conflicts reported by Davis. The Board, when finalizing the decision to terminate McArdle, also considered evidence in addition to and not provided by Davis.

In short, McArdle failed to prove there was a conspiracy against her orchestrated by Davis. You can read the full 15-page opinion here:

Summary-Judgment-6-7-2011

Blogosphere, Museum Block

Rumors circulating on Peoria Dot Com about museum tax

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I can find no verification of this rumor that was recently brought to my attention:

Just talked to a relative that is on a local developement [sic] company that helped push for the museum. He told me that there will be something coming through the pipeline that will change the wording on the tax bill they passed to pay for this museum. He said it will include a scheduled increase in the tax rate for the museum in years 1-8 of operations. They are now projecting a loss when they open up. Really. He also said that the wording will be changed allowing the tax rate to go up in the future without a vote. The problem with this is that it will only have to be approved through the city counsil [sic] and not by vote. So the vote probably will happen without hearing a word about it.

Whether or not this specific allegation is true, there’s no doubt that the museum will be sucking more money from the taxpayers one way or another. You can count on it. As Thomas Andrews said to White Star Line managing director Ismay about whether the Titanic would sink, “It is a mathematical certainty.”