City Council, City of Peoria

City Council budget session minutes released

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Did you miss the special City Council meeting on Monday where they discussed the proposed 2008 budget? Here is the meat of the official minutes from that meeting, which were released today (they’re long, so click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below to see the whole thing):

City Manager Randy Oliver provided the City Council with an overview of the 2008 Preliminary Budget. He discussed 2008 projected revenues and property tax base (EAV) growth from 2000 through what was estimated for 2007. He pointed out that out of every tax dollar, the City’s share was only 11%, with 9% going to the Park District, 10% going to the County, 59% going to the School Districts, and 11% going to other. He further discussed sales tax revenues from 2003 to 2008, which included local revenues and from the State revenues. He also discussed projected 2008 operating expenditures with 30% for the Police Department, 22% for the Fire Department, 21% for Public Works, and the remaining split between the other smaller departments. He explained the Operating Budget and the amount of increases over the last four years. He closed by discussing the General Fund – Fund Balance and the amounts of increases from 2000 to 2006.

Continue reading City Council budget session minutes released →

Television

Beware of “fake news” on TV

When is TV news real journalism and when is it fake? According to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), it’s fake when it’s nothing more than a “video news release,” or “VNR”:

Video news releases are public relations videos designed to look like television news stories. The vast majority of VNRs are funded by corporate clients to promote the company’s products or public image.

For example, the makers of Zicam, a cold remedy product, put together a VNR about the inconvenience of catching a cold while traveling. It was taped just like a news report, except that the surveys and reports it refers to are all company-sponsored, there are lots of Zicam product-placement opportunities, and their expert interviewee states, “in my research I found that homeopathic zinc products can shorten the duration of your illness.” You think you’re watching a report that includes unbiased scientific research, but it’s really just a clever commercial for Zicam.

CMD quotes a public notice from the FCC that states VNRs “must clearly disclose to members of their audiences the nature, source and sponsorship of the material.” The problem is, there are many TV news programs using VNRs without ever disclosing that their source material is simply a PR video hawking a specific product. Worse, CMD shows examples on its website of stations that “disguise VNRs as their own reporting”:

Newsrooms added station-branded graphics and overlays, to make VNRs indistinguishable from reports that genuinely originated from their station. A station reporter or anchor re-voiced the VNR in more than 60 percent of the VNR broadcasts, sometimes repeating the publicist’s original narration word-for-word.

CMD identified over 100 stations that aired what they consider “fake news.” No Peoria stations were listed. However, the owners of most of Peoria’s commercial stations were represented on the list (the one notable exception being Barrington Broadcasting, owners of WHOI) because stations they own in other cities did misuse VNRs.

The FCC has taken notice, and recently levied a $4,000 fine on a Comcast cable channel for failing to identify a VNR they ran as a news story. This one was for an herbal remedy called Nelson’s Rescue Sleep. Comcast defended its use of the VNR material, saying, “The segments in question were chosen by journalists in the course of reporting, and Comcast received no consideration or benefit by using the material.”

Indeed, since these types of news releases are provided for free to stations and with no limitations on how they can be edited, some newsrooms find them to be an easy source of content for “news” reports. Neither CMD nor the FCC says TV stations can’t use VNR material in their broadcasts, only that the source of the material should be clearly disclosed so viewers can make informed judgments as to the claims of such material.

2008 Campaign, Internet

A couple cool things I found on the Web

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Here are a couple of interesting sites I thought I’d pass along:

  • Complete Broadcast Day, September 21, 1939. All 19 hours of broadcasting, unedited, was preserved by radio station WJSV in Washington, D.C. on 9/21/1939. The whole day is here at this site in mp3 format (fortunately in separate files so you can easily sample it). You may recall that Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, setting World War II into motion. This broadcast includes President Roosevelt giving an address to a joint session of Congress explaining how the U.S. was going to remain neutral. Also included is the last regular season baseball game between the Cleveland Indians and Washington Senators that year. And a little after 12:30 a.m., you can hear the Bob Chester Orchestra play that smash hit, “Shoot The Sherbert To Me, Herbert.” (It makes me laugh every time I see that title.) It’s really a fascinating time capsule.
  • Select a Candidate Quiz. My parents forwarded this to me. It’s a short quiz you take identifying your position on certain hot-button issues, then your answers are compared to the stated positions of the presidential candidates. The candidate with the highest score is the one that shares your positions the closest. I took it; Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson tied for the highest score (43) based on my positions. I’m not quite sure how to feel about that. Bottom of the list: Chris Dodd. He and I disagree on almost every issue, apparently. Who tops your list?
The Peoria Chronicle

The sun also rises

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You may have noticed that the header for my blog has a new picture. I’ve been wanting to change it for some time, but just haven’t gotten around to it before now. The old picture was one was a great picture of the Peoria skyline at night that I found online. The new picture was one I took this evening around 5:30 at East Peoria’s riverfront park. The view of Peoria’s skyline from this park is really spectacular. I highly recommend it to all you shutterbugs out there.

Peoria Pundit

Kudos to Billy

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I’ve been noticing lately that Billy Dennis has really stepped up his citizen journalism. He’s always been the “blogfather,” of course, but I’ve noticed an increase in his first-hand reporting lately. He’s doing an especially good job of covering the 18th congressional district race.

I frankly can’t keep up with him anymore. If he keeps this up, I may give up my blog and just occasionally post guest commentary on his site. 🙂

Peoria Public Schools

Just when I was about to compliment them….

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Peoria Public Schools logoI was all set to praise the District 150 school board for being open-minded about the two-school option in the East Bluff/North Valley area, and reconsidering their plans to remodel the district offices… and then I read this:

District 150’s newly named deputy superintendents will receive temporary pay raises until Superintendent Ken Hinton recovers from back surgery and returns to work.

The School Board approved 15 percent raises for deputy superintendents Cindy Fischer and Herschel Hannah. Their pay will return to normal when Hinton comes back.

What is the matter with these people? Let’s review. Royster is fired. Board wants Hinton to replace her, but Hinton doesn’t have certification to be a superintendent. They hire him anyway (as “deputy” superintendent) and hire Fischer and Hannah as co-interim superintendents. Then Hinton gets his certification and becomes Superintendent.

Then the board decides to keep Fischer and Hannah on anyway, even though these positions are unnecessary now because the Superintendent position is filled. They call them “Associate Superintendents” and gave them a huge pay increase just a few months ago.

Now that Hinton is out on medical leave, they give them both another huge pay increase (albeit “temporary”) while he’s out of the office. These two superfluous positions already pay over $114,000 a year before the increase. Fifteen percent of that is over $17,000 (annually).

I can find no other school district the size of District 150 that has as many superintendents as District 150. This is the district that is always complaining about not having money, using the Chamber of Commerce to get donations to keep the truancy center open, considering outsourcing the lunch ladies, negotiating low or no raises for teachers, etc., etc. Yet they can spend gobs of money on superfluous administrative positions and give them mammoth raises without batting an eye.

Priorities?

General News

“Moment of silence”? Whatever could it mean?

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I was amused by this headline in today’s paper: “School struggle with meaning of law: Administrators say moment of silence rule is still unclear.”

I know there’s a lot of controversy over this law, and frankly I don’t think it’s the state government’s responsibility to mandate a moment of silence (shouldn’t they be working on other things, like overriding Blagojevich’s veto on education funding?), but hearing school administrators profess their confusion over what “a moment of silence” means makes me fear for public education.

Really? They’re “struggling” with the meaning of the law? They’re not quite sure what constitutes a “moment”? Here’s what the law (called “The Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act”) says:

In each public school classroom the teacher in charge shall may observe a brief period of silence with the participation of all the pupils therein assembled at the opening of every school day. This period shall not be conducted as a religious exercise but shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.

The act itself isn’t new; what’s new is that they changed the word “may” to “shall” as noted above, making it mandatory. Incidentally, the legislature had to override the governor’s veto to pass it. There didn’t seem to be any confusion about the act when it was optional, but now that it’s mandatory administrators are suddenly befuddled. Maybe they should look up the words in a dictionary, or even online with one of those computers they put in classrooms nowadays.

But here’s my favorite line from the paper:

“At least as it stands now, it’s not costing us any money,” [Don Beard, superintendent of Tremont Community Unit School District 702] said.

Yeah, that’s a good point. This legislation isn’t costing any school any money. Unlike another recent piece of legislation that will cost District 150 taxpayers millions of dollars. Sorry if I’m not more sympathetic with the plight of schools having to muddle through the “trouble” of being quiet for ten seconds a day.

Crime

Vehicular endangerment the right charge

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Tossing a brick from an overpass onto a passing car was a senseless act, and the perpetrator should definitely be brought to justice. But charging Rakiem Campbell with first-degree murder was excessive. I’m pleased that Campbell will be punished by being sent to prison for 15 years, and that his charge was reduced to the proper one: vehicular endangerment.

He plead guilty to a couple other crimes in the process, and will also do time for those. The Journal Star reports, “In total, [his sentence is] 22 years, but with credit for time served and day-for-day ‘good-time’ credit, he could be released in slightly more than 10 years, said Kevin Lowe, one of his attorneys.”

I think justice was served as far as the charge and the sentence, but I do question a system that lets criminals out after serving less than half their sentence. Is this just to free up prison space? What is the reason for not requiring a full sentence to be served?

Peoria Police, Traffic

If city stands firm, State’s Attorney could be in a world of hurt

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On Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2006, police ticketed thirteen pedestrians and two motorists for jaywalking and crosswalk violations downtown around Jefferson, Adams, and Main streets. There was the usual hue and cry with calls for police to focus on “real crime,” but the police and the city (rightly) stood firm.

Not so the State’s Attorney’s office. On Feb. 14 that year, prosecutors dropped the charges, sending all the scofflaws letters that stated, “Our office joins Peoria police in its interest to raise public awareness regarding pedestrian safety…. We have chosen not to pursue this as a prosecution in court, and no payment nor further action is necessary on your part. No mark of any kind will appear against your license or name regarding this matter.” Kevin Lyons declined to comment at the time.

So I would expect the State’s Attorney’s office do the same for the children who were recently ticketed for similar pedestrian violations. Since they’ve set a precedent for dismissing these infractions, it would be inconsistent for them to take a different course of action here, wouldn’t it?

As I see it, this will put the State’s Attorney between a rock and a hard place. If he doesn’t prosecute these tickets, he’ll be perceived by many as soft on crime at the worst possible time for him: during an election cycle (won’t LaHood have fun with that one?). But if he does prosecute, he’ll have, at best, a large number of people demanding an explanation for his inconsistency — at worst, charges of racism.

I’ll bet he regrets not prosecuting those tickets last year.