Thanks to Billy Dennis, I found this site, which let me add “Recent Comments” to my sidebar (look a little to your right).
Now, you won’t have to go searching through all my old posts to find out if there are any new comments there! This has been one of my favorite features on Billy’s site, and now I’m pleased to be able to offer the same feature to my readers.
I just got this e-mail from Brad Carter:
I just left the East Bluff candidates forum and Dan Gillette was there because Charles Schierer dropped out. He was notified by PJStar.com.
Gillette, of course, finished 11th in the primary, so apparently with the departure of Schierer, he moves up to the general election. The Journal Star quotes Schierer as saying:
“Being in ninth and in looking at the numbers, I think there are some significant hurdles in getting to the top five,†Schierer said. “That being the case, I don’t want to be mucking it up for the other folks. I think I am a realist. It’s probably best to step aside. This wasn’t my time.â€
In contrast, Dan Irving called me the day after the primary and said he’s definitely not throwing in the towel — despite coming in eighth with only 27 more votes than Schierer. Instead, he’s going to step up his campaigning and work all the harder to get his name and message out. I found his energy and optimism inspiring, and it made me rethink my initial pessimism about some of the election results.
Well, that saves me a call to Brentwood, Missouri, to find out more about Schierer’s term as alderman there.
It seems the school district hasn’t been keeping at least one of its latest property acquisitions up to code, and they’re proposing the most expensive solution to that problem, of course.
District 150 paid $98,000 — about $38,000 more than its fair market value — for the house at 2126 N. Prospect Rd. in April 2006 — part of a thwarted attempt to put a new grade school for the Woodruff attendance area in Glen Oak Park. That house is not up to code because of a bad roof and peeling paint. Rather than paint the garage and put a new $4,000 roof on the house, naturally they’re talking about demolishing it, according to a report at PJStar.com:
District 150 is considering tearing down a house on Prospect Road because of pending code violations, district officials confirmed Wednesday.
Demolishing the house will easily cost twice as much as fixing it, to say nothing of the equity they will lose. And when I say “they,” I of course mean “we,” the taxpayers. You gotta hand it to the school board — they really have a knack when it comes to dreaming up ways to waste our money.
It’s almost like they had a brainstorming session where they asked, “What would be the most irresponsible, ridiculous, and provocative thing we could do with the properties we acquired prematurely and cannot now use?” And after much discussion, the answer was clearly, “leave them in a state of disrepair until the city tries to fine us for code violations, then throw good money after bad by demolishing them.”
Bravo. For your next act, how about taking a bunch of taxpayer money and simply setting it on fire in the parking lot?
UPDATE: Clare Jellick’s full article appears in today’s Journal Star. It includes this information from the previous owner of the home:
Former homeowner Wilbur Rose said the roof was starting to go when he owned it, but it has deteriorated rapidly since then. He drives by it sometimes and says it’s now an eyesore.
“There was one spot going when I left and now it looks like there’s three huge spots where the wind and stuff has blown it away. It has gotten 300 percent worse than when I was there,” Rose said.
Why hasn’t the district put all of its Prospect road property back on the market yet?
Someone figured out the real identity of a popular pseudonymous blogger and left a threatening note on the door of his home. “Knight in Dragonland,” a Richwoods High School graduate (“Knight”) now residing in Pekin (“Dragonland”), blogs about Pekin politics just like I blog about Peoria politics. But someone is trying to silence Knight through threats and intimidation:
Today someone placed a handwritten threat addressed to “knightindragonland†on my screen door while my wife was home with our baby girl…. Paraphrasing, it told me to shut my mouth. I don’t remember the exact words and the note is now in the hands of the Pekin police.
I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to keep quiet about. I’ve opened my big mouth on quite a few topics, and my stalker wasn’t explicit about what he/she found offensive. This lovely sheet of paper also listed my parent’s address in Peoria with the phrase “do you recognize this?†after it.
The implied threat was clear … I know who you are, I know where you live, I know where your parents live, and you better shut your mouth.
To his credit, Knight has not been cowed by the malicious little dirtbag who’s threatened his family. He’s come out fighting, filing a police report and letting everyone know about the threat. He will most likely “come out” and reveal his identity soon, once he gives his employer a heads-up.
Keep up the good work, Knight. Don’t be bullied. Keep blogging.
The Journal Star is reporting tonight that Peoria’s Historic Preservation Commission is not in favor of designating Glen Oak Park as an historic landmark, but is willing to consider landmarking some individual structures, such as the pavilion.
That’s a reasonable approach. Designating the whole park as a landmark would be overreaching, in my opinion, and would challenge the sovereignty of the Peoria Park District. It would almost certainly have ended up in litigation, needlessly draining taxpayer dollars as the city and park district played tug-of-war.
That said, the park district does need to do a better job of maintaining Glen Oak Park, as well as the other parks under its stewardship. That’s the underlying reason this is being brought before the historic preservation commission in the first place. The parapet has been falling apart for years, and the foot bridge has also been undergoing “demolition by neglect,” to name two very visible examples. There seems to be no end to the resources the park district can dole out for new projects like the zoo expansion and rail-to-trail conversion attempt. Some of those resources would be better used maintaining what they already have.
UPDATE: Here’s Jennifer Davis’s full article from Thursday’s Journal Star. I was interested to read this statement: “Until [March 28], the park remains as if it was landmarked, which park officials protested because it stalls their plans to remove the old stone fort by the lagoon.” It seems their lack of maintenance over the years has caused the parapet to deteriorate to a point that it would cost over $800,000 to fix it, according to the one bid they received.
I don’t know what they’re so worried about. If the commission finds that it’s not an historic structure, they’ll be able to proceed with removing it; if it does get designated an historic structure, I would imagine it would make it eligible for grant money that could be used to repair it.
I’m reporting tonight from the studios of WCBU! Jonathan Ahl and Tanya Koonce were nice enough to let me hang out with them and let me blog from one of their computers.
So, without further ado, and with 100% of precincts reporting, the results from Tuesday’s primary are as follows:
| Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gary Sandberg | 5518.41 | 17% |
| 2 | Ryan Spain | 4575.33 | 14% |
| 3 | George Jacob | 4540.83 | 14% |
| 4 | Eric Turner | 4371.16 | 14% |
| 5 | Jim Montelongo | 3420.08 | 11% |
| 6 | Gale Thetford | 2233.66 | 7% |
| 7 | Patti Polk | 1622.24 | 5% |
| 8 | Dan Irving | 1592.25 | 5% |
| 9 | Charles Schierer | 1565.16 | 5% |
| 10 | Gloria Cassel Fitzgerald | 945.83 | 3% |
| 11 | Dan Gillette | 602.66 | 2% |
| 12 | Brad Carter | 566.50 | 2% |
| 13 | Kelley Mammen | 338.25 | 1% |
| 14 | Donald Cummings | 327.58 | 1% |
There was about a 9.7% voter turnout for this primary, which is, of course, pathetic, but in the world of local primaries is actually not that bad. The top ten vote-getters move on to the general election on April 17.
No surprise, Gary Sandberg came in first by a commanding margin. I mentioned this on the radio, but in the last at-large election Gary also got a large showing, and apparently people really couldn’t believe it. Really. They couldn’t believe it so much that they actually had Bradley do a study to find out if he only got in because of cumulative voting. The result: Gary had a very broad base of support. He not only had the most votes, but the most voters casting their ballot for him, too. It looks like he hasn’t lost that support over the past four years.
The biggest surprise was Ryan Spain finishing in second place, ahead of two of the three incumbents. He’s well on his way to the state house city council (sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself).
If the top five vote-getters end up being the five at-large council members in the general election, it’s not really going to change the makeup of the council. Spain is pretty much an even swap for John Morris. There is no one quite like Chuck Grayeb, but voting-wise, I’ll bet Jim Montelongo will be closer to him than, say, Sandberg.
Good news: Gale Thetford finished in sixth, about 1200 votes behind the fifth-place finisher. Let’s hope that holds up. Bad news: Dan Irving didn’t have a stronger showing and, while anything is possible, it’s realistically not likely that he’ll be able to make up the 6% difference to overtake the three candidates in front of him.
Of course, with the general election comes more voters, so the primary may not be an accurate picture of voter sentiment. So, who knows how it will all shake out. If I were to make a prediction at this point, though, I would bet that the top five vote getters are going to end up being the next at-large councilmen.
Finally, we must say goodbye to last place finishers Dan Gillette, Brad Carter, Kelley Mammen, and Donald Cummings. I was hoping that Brad would make it past the primary; perhaps he’ll run again in the future.
On to the general election! Let the games begin.
I’ll be on WCBU tonight with Jonathan Ahl, first as a guest on “Outside the Horseshoe” at 6 p.m., and then in the studio to comment on the election results as updates are provided.
Because of the cumulative voting system and low voter turnout, there’s no telling how things will shake out tonight. Who will be eliminated? Who will be the top vote-getters? If the turnout is indeed low, as expected, can these returns be considered a valid sample of all registered voters and their feelings about the candidates? Tune in tonight for answers to some questions and speculation about others on WCBU, 89.9 FM.
Today is a primary election day. I voted this morning at about 8 a.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church which is the polling place for three or four precincts. I was the only one there other than the election judges from the minute I walked in to the minute I walked out. I didn’t pass anyone coming or going, either. That’s pretty sad.
If you’re registered to vote and you haven’t voted already, I encourage you to take the time to go to your polling place and cast a ballot.
Here are my endorsements for the at-large City Council election tomorrow:
Only three? Yes, only three I feel comfortable unreservedly endorsing.
However, there are other candidates that are worth further consideration (maybe we can consider this a “qualified” endorsement): Brad Carter, Dan Gillette, Patti Polk, and Charles Schierer. With the exception of Polk, I’ve spent a fair amount of time talking to these candidates, but only about one or two issues. After reading their answers to the Chamber of Commerce’s and Journal Star’s questionnaires, I have some further questions. Polk’s answers to the questionnaires I found to be rather vague. So hopefully, if all these candidates make it through the primary (and I hope they do), I’ll try to meet with them and get more information before I publish my General Election Endorsements.
I happened to be looking up some old posts on District 150, and I ran across the post on Kay Royster’s racial-discrimination lawsuit against the school board from July 2006.
I haven’t heard anything about it lately, so I did a little research. The latest filing was on February 14 — a Motion to Compel. It was filed by the defendants (school board) and says:
- Plaintiff has failed to answer defendants’ interrogatories and requests for production served on December 5, 2006.
- Defendants’ counsel has undertaken good faith efforts to try to obtain discovery responses and documents from plaintiff’s counsel but such efforts have proved unsuccessful.
- Plaintiff’s discovery misconduct has unduly delayed and interfered with the scheduling of plaintiff’s deposition and other necessary discovery.
In a supplementary memorandum, the defendants further stated, “Since filing her complaint seven plus months ago, plaintiff [Royster] has only within the past week provided the documents referenced in her tardy initial Rule 26 disclosures, and has ignored any need to respond to defendants’ interrogatories and requests for production. As a result, plaintiff has deprived defendants of what should have been a standard part of the early discovery process.”
“Rule 26 disclosures” are simple things like a list of possible witnesses, any documents that support each party’s case, how much they’re seeking in damages, etc. Yet, Royster was slow in delivering these standard disclosures, and apparently has still not given the defense all the information they’re due.
Doesn’t this seem odd? I’m no lawyer, so maybe one of my lawyer readers can weigh in here, but isn’t it usually defendants who drag their feet in lawsuits? Why would a plaintiff ever want to do this?