City Council, City of Peoria, Crime, Peoria Police

The Chief’s words are so true

7 Comments

ChiefThe most interesting part of Monday’s Word on the Street column was Police Chief Settingsgaard’s e-mail to Molly Parker (no offense to J.D.). It’s the second half of the column and it lays out the Chief’s feelings about why it’s so hard to keep crime under control. It’s pretty clear that the police feel like their work is being undermined by a justice system that is just trying to keep up appearances to the public:

Prisons are overcrowded. We have to let criminals out and reduce the number coming in. Let’s not build more prisons, that would be expensive. Let’s not give shorter sentences to criminals, that could anger the public. Let’s give them sentences that are just as long but we will let them out sooner. Maybe the public will never get wise to this.

…We puzzle over why we seem to be arresting so many violent suspects yet violent crime keeps occurring.

That was never more soberly brought home than when Councilman Bob Manning was attacked by Michael Little. The situation is a little different than what the Chief was describing, but it’s the same principle. According to today’s paper, “Little has another felony case pending, an aggravated unlawful use of weapons charge stemming from a May 2006 incident at Fantasyland.” Little had shot off a firearm in the parking lot and was arrested, but of course, posted bail and has been living free for about a year now waiting for his trial.

Thanks to a court system that lets justice roll like molasses, Little was free to commit another violent crime before he was even tried for the first felony. He punched Bob Manning in the face — the thanks Manning got for stopping to help a little girl who ran into his car on her bike — then fled the scene. You would think that with now two felony indictments that Little would be behind bars, but rumor has it he posted $200 bail and is out on the streets yet again.

I’m sure Peoria police officers just love re-arresting the same criminals again and again. There is a problem with our criminal justice system. But the question is, what do we do about it?

Peoria Public Schools

District 150 Board: In Hinton we trust

4 Comments

The school board fawned all over District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton at Monday’s board meeting. Take a listen:

[audio:https://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Audio/Hinton050707.mp3]

Or, if you can’t quite stomach listening, here’s the agenda item as it appeared in the school board’s packet:

Proposed Action by the Board of Education:

That the Board of Education express its intent to ask Superintendent Hinton to continue on as Superintendent of the School District beyond the end of his current employment contract, which terminates on June 30, 2008, and grant him an additional new two (2) year employment contract at that time.

Background Information:

Superintendent Hinton’s current three (3) year employment contract will end on June 30, 2008. After Superintendent Hinton came out of retirement and became Deputy School Superintendent, he was asked to complete his study to obtain his Illinois Superintendent Certification and become Superintendent of the School District for a period of three (3) years. The Board of Education believes that the Superintendent has made great progress toward the goal of improved student achievement in the District and is bringing the District back to a sound financial footing. He is regaining the confidence of the Community and staff in our School District. The Board is asking Ken Hinton to continue on as Superintendent for an additional two (2) years beyond the end of his current contract and is publicly stating its intent to offer him a new contract at that time.

If the school board believes Hinton has made “great progress toward the goal of improved student achievement,” then they have pretty low expectations. While modest gains were made in Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) scores overall (although the percentage of students who “exceed expectations” actually went down), the performance of students on the Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE) fell this year.

As for financial stability, the deficit has gone down over the past couple of years, largely due to highly-paid teachers who retired, more state funding, and increases in taxes. I don’t think Hinton had very much to do with it, unless someone can show me otherwise. On the contrary, all I’ve seen Hinton do is prematurely spend $877,500 for properties on the basis of a non-binding letter of intent. He let the residents strip the homes before they left, leaving them unlivable and unsaleable, making these over-market-value purchases a total loss. Now the district is having to raze the houses at an additional expense. Administrative staffing levels have increased under Hinton, and they’ve just recently gotten big raises while at the same time teachers were taking heavy concessions. If this is what the board means by getting the district on “sound financial footing,” then again, I’d say the board has very low expectations of their superintendent.

The most laughable statement of all, however, is that Hinton is “regaining the confidence of the Community and staff….” Ironically, the same night that this statement was made, here was the scene outside of the administration building:

Save Our Lunch Ladies Picket

A real vote of confidence, wouldn’t you say? In reality, Hinton’s relationship with the staff and teachers is strained due to his questionable budgetary decisions. His relationship with the city is strained at best, thanks again to his botched handling of the Glen Oak Park/School issue. People are still moving out of Peoria. The district is still failing to meet AYP and is in danger of being taken over by the state. People are showing their confidence with their home sales.

But the school board is confident, and they voted unanimously to extend Hinton’s contract another two years, even though his contract doesn’t end until 2008 and there’s another round of tests before the contract comes up for renewal. What with the school board do if test results go down, or if the financial situation worsens? I’m beginning to see a trend here of premature action….

Peoria Public Schools

Quote of the day

36 Comments

When you look at our overall budget, and look at what we spend money for, I would like to think that we spend money for effective programs and effective opportunities that increase the academic performance, the social awareness, and the emotional stability of our students.

—Superintendent Ken Hinton, commenting at the May 7 school board meeting on why the district should break the bank to keep the Edison Schools contract. I wonder how paying $877,500 for houses the district can’t use, then razing them, increases academic performance, social awareness, or emotional stability of District 150 students.

2126 Prospect is no more
New Urbanism

New Urbanism in 10 minutes a day, Pt. 9

8 Comments

Part 9 of Andres Duany’s lecture on new urbanism is the final video in this series and it covers: “Back to the 11-hour workday: Spending our lives in our cars; Gold-plated highways at the expense of our civic and public buildings; Vertical vs. horizontal infrastructure; Affordable housing cont’d, by allowing families ‘one car less’ they can afford $50k more house! Conclusion; Year 2010 and 2015 projections.”

Uncategorized

Back, but busy

2 Comments

My wife and I got back from our weekend getaway last night (it was very fun and relaxing, by the way). But now there is much work to catch up on, so I won’t be able to do much blogging today. Maybe this evening I’ll have some time to write up a couple of things. The school board meeting should be interesting. If anyone is interested in watching it, the school board meeting will be televised live on Insight cable channel 17 tonight.

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools, The Peoria Chronicle

Be back soon!

13 Comments

Hi all. I’m still on vacation, but will be back soon. Just a few odds & ends I wanted to mention:

  • I did a little catching up tonight and looked at the recent comments on Beth’s guest editorial. That’s a really interesting discussion. I also checked my Akismet spam filter and found a couple of comments that were erroneously caught. So check out the comments again to make sure you didn’t miss any.
  • If you’re wanting to comment on something else in the news, you can use this as an open thread.
  • I checked with Terry Beachler about his court date on May 1; he said no charges were filed, but the statute of limitations isn’t up for a year, so I guess he could still be charged if the Peoria PD has a change of heart. I wouldn’t want that hanging over my head for a year
  • From the Journal Star: “‘I think overall we [the District 150 school board] feel that if you look at the status of the district today compared to two years ago that there have really been significant improvements,’ board president David Gorenz said today.” He was referring to the likelihood that Superintendent Hinton’s contract will be renewed for two more years at Monday’s school board meeting. What exactly has improved under his leadership? Better test scores? Fiscal improvement? Intergovernmental cooperation? I’m drawing a blank here.
  • Speaking of District 150, they’re selling property, but not the properties on Prospect that they no longer need. Rather, they are selling some land down by the river — one lot is being sold to ADM for $650,000. They’re selling another lot to A. Lucas & Sons for $200,000. And then there are two lots they’re selling to Tri-City Machine for $40,000 each. And they’ll be selling the Meyer building at auction, if that item passes Monday night. Not including the Meyer building, that’s $930,000 the school board will be raking in. Is this the same school district that says they can’t afford to keep their truancy center open?

That’s enough for tonight. Talk to you more later when I get back in town. By the way, are you all enjoying the Duany presentation I’ve been putting up on the site?

City of Peoria

Guest Editorial: Is Peoria desperate for development?

49 Comments

[Beth Akeson is Vice Chairman of the Heart of Peoria Commission, a former candidate for District 150 School Board, and a friend of mine. She wanted to comment on my recent post about the proposed South Peoria grocery store, and I felt it would actually work better as a Guest Editorial. More people will see it and can comment on it directly this way. –C. J.]

There is more to the visit and if CJ doesn’t mind I would like to add the following…

CJ and I met yesterday for lunch to talk about the Heart of Peoria Commission. In conversation the grocery store topic surfaced and I said Councilman Gulley suggested I visit and talk with Mr. Abud and I suggested maybe we should do it together… CJ agreed and on we went.

During our visit, Mr. Abud told us in addition to the grocery store he had plans for a full scale truck stop (phase three), a Laundromat (phase two) and he told us the grocery store (phase one) was dependent on securing a liquor license. He warned us that if he does not get a liquor license for the grocery store he would be forced to stop his work on the grocery store and move the business to Ohio. He claims it would not make financial sense to continue. Mr. Abud indicated he was currently in negotiations with the city to secure incentives for the truck-stop phase of the project and that he spoke with City Manager Randy Oliver and Economic Development Director Craig Hullinger that morning, at the site, regarding the truck-stop.

I asked Mr. Abud if he could rank the importance of each component of this project and he said the most valuable would be the liquor business followed by diesel gas sales and the grocery business would be last. He mentioned a Laundromat in passing, but CJ and I did not ask for Laundromat details.

Mr. Abud presented some good arguments for why he should be allowed to sell liquor. Many of these arguments CJ has articulated on his blog. Mr. Abud also mentioned a couple of places that currently sell liquor, one that sells beer at very high prices and the other that according to Mr. Abud sells liquor without the required license using a pass code system (what ever that means).

My view, of course, is that the Heart of Peoria Plan should be the guidepost as projects are proposed. Amenities for families living in the Heart of Peoria Plan area should be accessible without needing to own or have access to an automobile. The walk to the grocery store should be nice; in fact, it should be inspiring. All citizens should be able to walk out their front door and feel the world is a wonderful and safe place. Our city’s built environment should convey to each and every one of us, “You matter and we care about you!” That feeling should be felt everywhere in Peoria and yet, I am sad to say, that is not the case.

CJ and I spent more time speaking to Mr. Abud than we planned and I left with conflicted feelings about this deal. I know this area is desperate for a grocery store, but I believe Peoria’s number one problem is that we always appear desperate. We were desperate for riverfront development, desperate for Campus town, desperate for Cub Foods, desperate for…you name it. Could it be that Peoria’s desperation prevents successful long term real population growth and prevents truly quality projects from being developed in the older sections of our city?

As time goes on we have witnessed solid quality businesses moving north and the buildings they once occupied are now housing predatory (my opinion) operations which do nothing to enhance the neighborhood’s quality of life or we see the buildings sit vacant adding to the sense of despair. A truck-stop in this part of town will reinforce the current blighted conditions. Would any of us choose to live next to a truck stop? And if we wouldn’t want that for ourselves why would we knowingly allow this to be developed near Harrison Homes? I asked Mr. Abud if he would want to live near a truck stop and he said no.

Development for development’s sake is not a good idea. My favorite quote is from Winston Churchill who said, “We shape our cities and then they shape us.” Enough said.