St. Louis Cardinals

Cards up 3-2! Can they make it to the World Series?

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I never would have believed that they would get this close. I was sure the Mets would win 4-0 or 4-1. They could still win 4-3 if they win the next two games in New York….

But of course I hope they don’t. Another trip to the World Series for the Cardinals would be sweet! Maybe they’ll even show up and play this year! The series two years ago against Boston was painful, just painful. It wasn’t painful just because the Cardinals lost; it was painful because the Cardinals just didn’t play like they had all year in 2004. You may remember they had the best record in baseball that year — in either league. They were smoking hot leading up to the series.

And then, it was like they were all replaced with minor-league lookalikes for the series. Something terrible happened. It was like they were tricked into the kyrptonite chamber and their baseball powers were sucked away. It makes me shudder just to think about it.

Here’s hoping for better luck this time. With Carpenter on the mound, I’m hoping the Cardinals can win this NLCS series 4-2 and head to Detroit for Saturday’s game, and maybe win a few against the Tigers.

City Council, City of Peoria

Council Roundup: Crime Issues Forum planned

Remember the “Target Peoria” TV special that aired not too long ago that featured a panel of city staff and neighborhood activists (hosted by WCBU’s Jonathan Ahl) discussing crime issues in Peoria? Well, Mayor Ardis promised there would be more forums in the coming months to continue that discussion, and the next one is scheduled to take place on Monday, October 23, 6:00-7:30 p.m., at Riverside Community Church downtown (the old Shrine Mosque building). The public is welcome to attend and join in the discussion.

Amtrak, City Council, City of Peoria

Council Roundup: Mayor Ardis’s Amtrak meeting

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Amtrak LogoCouncilman Manning took the opportunity under New Business to thank Mayor Ardis and Councilman Jacob for attending the Amtrak meeting in Champaign on Tuesday afternoon. He was glad to see Peoria pushing for Amtrak service to be restored.

Ardis reported briefly on his meeting with Senator Durbin and Amtrak President Alex Kummant. He expressed to them the fact that Peoria is the largest MSA (metropolitan statistical area, includes the tri-county) in the state outside of Chicago, that we have Caterpillar World Headquarters here as well as Bradley University, and a whole list of other reasons why Peoria should be considered for passenger train service. He also mentioned that Rep. LaHood and Sen. Durbin both support Amtrak service for Peoria.

Ardis also reported that IDOT will be doing a feasibility study on the costs associated with getting Amtrak service in Peoria again. It sounds like we’re seriously going to pursue the possibility of restoring passenger train service here.

And why not? The state recently doubled its funding for Amtrak from $12.1 million per year to $24.3 million. Besides rail service to 30 Illinois communities for 3.2 million travelers annually, Amtrak also provides 1,800 jobs in Illinois, $88 million in wages, $69.7 million spent annually by Amtrak on state goods and services, and over $250 million invested in high-speed rail. Illinois has shown a great commitment to Amtrak. Ridership is up on all routes the past two years (e.g., ridership on the Chicago-St. Louis route increased by 13.7% in 2005 and 8.3% in 2006), and so they’ve added more trains to accommodate the higher volume.

It’s time for Peoria to be back on-line.

City Council, City of Peoria

Council Roundup: 4 a.m. liquor licenses and living downtown

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The residents at 401 Water Street want to see 4 a.m. liquor licenses go away. Their first step in that process is to force any requests for a 4 a.m. liquor license to go to the entire City Council for a vote, thus allowing residents an additional public hearing, and possibly an override of a Liquor Commission recommendation.

Currently, if a business-owner already holds a liquor license, the Liquor Commissioner (Mayor Ardis) or Deputy Liquor Commissioner (Councilman Turner) can approve a change to a subclass 1 (4 a.m.) liquor license upon recommendation from the Liquor Commission. This new proposed ordinance would require the whole City Council to approve or deny it instead.

Also speaking in favor of this plan during “Citizen Requests to Address the Council” was Sandy Fritz of the organization Citizens for Community Values. She implied that if the council continues to give out 4 a.m. liquor licenses, she may try to organize a referendum on the matter to see what Peoria residents think of the practice, and predicted that 90% would say they don’t want to see any new 4 a.m. liquor licenses approved.

My take: I hope this doesn’t get me fired at church, but I personally have no problem with the 4 a.m. liquor licenses. They’re confined to a small area of downtown, and they’ve been in place considerably longer than 401 Water has been taking tenants. It’s not like the bars all had 1 a.m. liquor licenses and then, when the residents came in, the council changed them all to 4 a.m. licenses with a stroke of the pen and an evil laugh. The residents were fully aware of the bar/liquor-license situation downtown and they chose to live there anyway.

Janice Favus, a resident of 401 Water who spoke in favor of the motion, stated that residents only want the same rights that all other Peorians have, including the right to leave her windows open on summer nights and not have a lot of noise from bars outside.

Now, in one sense, I can understand her point. If there is a major disturbance outside — crowd-control problems, fights, generally rude and obnoxious drunks leaving the bars — that’s not acceptable. But there are already laws against such behavior, and from what I’ve seen from my days playing in a band at downtown bars, those laws are enforced.

But on the other hand, with all due respect, it is totally unrealistic for Ms. Favus and her neighbors to expect downtown Peoria to be as tranquil as the suburbs at night. This isn’t beachfront property. You’re not going to hear the silted waves of the Illinois River lapping up on shore as you drift off to sleep. And nowhere did the city promise any downtown resident the right to be undisturbed if they leave their windows open at night. They’re downtown.

If we’re going to have a downtown that’s “24/7” — like the Heart of Peoria Plan calls for, and like all the consultants recommend, and like the council has been saying they want for years — that’s going to mean having places that are open late. Very late. Maybe all night. And people on the street means noise. I’m not talking about disorderly-conduct noise, but more noise than one would expect in a suburban neighborhood, or even an urban one.

When people are downtown, they’re going to be talking at normal volume, not in hushed tones. They’re going to be laughing and having a good time. Their cars are going to make noise at odd hours of the night when they come in or when they leave. There are going to be places playing music into the wee hours of the morning to attract people down there.

I’d like to call on music legend Petula Clark to give the residents of 401 Water a description of what it’s like to be “Downtown”:

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go – downtown
When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know – downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, things’ll be great when you’re
Downtown – no finer place, for sure
Downtown – everything’s waiting for you

Don’t hang around and let your problems surround you
There are movie shows – downtown
Maybe you know some little places to go to
Where they never close – downtown
Just listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossa nova
You’ll be dancing with him too before the night is over
Happy again

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, where all the lights are bright
Downtown – waiting for you tonight
Downtown – you’re gonna be all right now

And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along

So maybe I’ll see you there
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares
So go downtown, things’ll be great when you’re
Downtown – don’t wait a minute more
Downtown – everything’s waiting for you

Noise, lights, traffic, places that never close — that’s downtown, 401 Water residents. That’s what you signed on for when you moved down there. You want to sleep with your windows open and have the robins sing you awake in the morning? Maybe downtown living isn’t for you.

City Council, City of Peoria

Council Roundup: What’s your sign?

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Adams Outdoor Advertising would like to put up billboards that change their message every six seconds. Right now, the zoning ordinance only allows billboard messages to change no more than once every hour. The Zoning Commission wanted to defer the request until March 1, 2007 — after the form-based codes are completed — because of staffing issues. The council thought that was too long to make a business wait for a hearing on this issue, so a recommendation will probably come back in December instead.

Electronic BillboardMy take: I’m not sure what kind of sign Adams Outdoor Advertising has in mind, but from the discussion on the council tonight I get the impression that it’s an electronic billboard similar to Proctor Hospital’s relatively new sign at their Knoxville entrance, or the Civic Center’s sign at the corner of Jefferson and Kumpf, or this generic one above that I found on the internet. Can you imagine billboards like that all around the city?

Councilman Spears half-joked that putting up such billboards around the city would eliminate the need for streetlights given the amount of light that would be emitted. Councilman Grayeb suggested writing into any new zoning ordinance a limit to how bright such signs can be. Not a bad idea. Although, I’d be just as happy if they outlawed all of them. Electronic billboards are a terrible source of light pollution and energy waste, and do we really want drivers — already distracted by their cell phones and other gadgets — having one more thing to arrest their interest while they’re supposed to be driving? I mean, we don’t allow television screens in the front seats of vehicles for this very reason; how are electronic billboards different, or any less of a distraction?

City Council, City of Peoria, Form-Based Code, Heart of Peoria Plan, Traffic

Council Roundup: Ferrell-Madden presentation leads to questions on group living, one-way streets

The City Council had two big questions for Ferrell-Madden and Associates after their presentation at Tuesday’s council meeting:

  1. Group Living — As stated in a previous post, the new Land Development Code includes general provisions for all of the Heart of Peoria, and specific form-based codes for the four “form districts,” namely, the Prospect Road Corridor, Sheridan-Loucks Triangle, Renaissance Park (or West Main corridor), and the Warehouse District. Within these form districts, there are stricter standards for the form of the building (i.e., the facade, how it fronts the street, etc.), but the use of the building is relaxed.

    For example, under our current zoning laws, any kind of residential group living (more than three unrelated persons living in the same house) is restricted; you have to get a special use permit to legally have a household so constituted. But under the form-based codes, such arrangements are allowed by right, without having to get a special use permit.

    What’s wrong with that? Well, one potential problem is right over in the West Main corridor — by Bradley. It sets up a situation where one side of the street may require a special use permit to allow, say, 4 or 5 Bradley students to share a house, but the other side of the street would allow that use without a permit. This can lead to inequities for landlords and headaches for neighbors who want to have tighter controls on that particular type of use.

    From the way the council was talking, expect there to be a revision to that part of the code.

  2. One-way streets — Ferrell-Madden made it very clear that there are two issues critical to the success of the form districts: (a) implementation of the form-based codes (the Land Development Code, or LDC), and (b) “fixing the streets.” We’ve already talked about the LDC. By “fixing the streets,” they mean slowing down the traffic to make them more pedestrian-friendly by widening the sidewalks, putting in street trees, and converting one-way streets to two-way.

    Councilman Sandberg specifically singled out Adams, Jefferson, and Washington streets and asked Ferrell-Madden what would happen if the council did nothing to improve these streets (including conversion to two-way on Adams and Jefferson), yet still implemented the LDC. Answer: very little. Private developers would not want to invest money in a business that would front a street that is unsafe or perceived as unsafe. There might be some investment on cross streets where there is less traffic, but overall the initiative would be unsuccessful.

    There’s a part that the public sector has to play and a part for the private sector. The council can’t put businesses in there form districts, obviously. All they can do is provide the infrastructure that will make it attractive to developers — and part of that infrastructure is streets. Streets that are “fixed” in the public’s eyes, and will lead customers to the doors of new businesses that open in these form districts.

Any neighborhood groups or other organizations that would like to have a presentation can contact the Planning & Growth department at City Hall to schedule one. They want to get as much public input as possible before putting a final version of the LDC before the council for enactment. Formal public hearings will be held Nov. 8, 29, and Dec. 6.

City Council, City of Peoria, Form-Based Code, Heart of Peoria Plan

City Council to get form-based code presentation tonight

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If you missed last night’s meeting at the Gateway building (you can read about that meeting in the Journal Star today) and you want to know more about the proposed form-based codes for the Heart of Peoria, watch the City Council meeting tonight at 6:15 on Insight cable channel 22 (or head downtown to see it live on the fourth floor of City Hall). Ferrell-Madden and Associates will be presenting the new “Land Development Code,” as it’s called now, to the council early in the evening’s proceedings.

The whole idea of this new code is to recognize that zoning needs in the older, urban part of town are different than zoning needs in the suburban part of town. Right now, we just have one zoning ordinance that applies to the whole city, and it’s based on suburban standards (e.g., strictly separating residential and commercial uses of land, extensive parking requirements, fast arterial streets, large setbacks for buildings, etc.).

That kind of zoning just doesn’t work for the older part of town where density is so high that they often can’t meet the extensive parking requirements without tearing down buildings to put in parking decks or large surface lots, where buildings and neighborhoods were designed for mixed uses of land (corner grocery stores, residential apartments above commercial shops, etc.), and where businesses are supposed to front the street, coming right up to the sidewalk.

In addition to these general provisions for maintaining the character of older neighborhoods and commercial districts, the Land Development Code also includes additional, highly-detailed provisions for four specific “form districts”: the Sheridan-Loucks Triangle, the Prospect Road Corridor, the West Main Street Corridor (Renaissance Park), and the Warehouse District. These provisions are tailored to these individual areas, taking into account their unique features and needs. The time it takes to develop such a detailed code for these areas makes it impossible to do this for all 8,000 acres of the Heart of Peoria all at once; but more form districts will be added over time.

As mentioned before, this is not coming before the council for adoption tonight. There will be an intense public hearing process over the next month or so, and hopefully the code, with revisions, will come before the council for adoption sometime in December.

Amtrak, City of Peoria

Ardis is in on Amtrak meeting

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Peoria’s Mayor Jim Ardis will be pressing for rail service to come back to Peoria when he meets with Dick Durbin at a meeting in Champaign, the Journal Star reports:

“I would definitely like to get on Sen. Durbin’s radar because he is very supportive of continued funding for Amtrak,” Ardis said. “Even though it hasn’t been here, we’re the largest metropolitan outside the city of Chicago. I think people would use it and it would help for economic development.”

[…]Still, Ardis said he hasn’t taken a serious look at the possibility and plans to discuss it with council to find out if others are on board after the meeting with Durbin.

So, for all of you other rail-enthusiasts who were wondering who to contact to express your interest in passenger train service returning to Peoria, there’s your answer: contact your city council representatives. It sounds like their interest is going to have an effect on how hard Ardis pushes for it.

There are some significant logistical hurdles to overcome. A common misconception people have about railroads is the belief that the tracks are just like interstates or highways — i.e., that any trains can travel on them whenever they want. But the truth is that railroad companies actually own their own rights-of-way, and any other company that wants to use it has to enter into an agreement and pay a fee to the company who owns it.

That’s right, unlike public roads and airports that are subsidized by the taxpayers, railroads are all privately owned and maintained. And Amtrak doesn’t own any track in Illinois. So for Amtrak to come to Peoria, one of the sticking points is determining what tracks it would/could actually run on. Once that’s determined and a deal is worked out with the owner of the tracks, most likely those tracks would have to be upgraded because Amtrak trains generally run at a higher speed (70+ mph) than freight trains. And that costs money; probably state money.

The bottom line is, there would have to be better ridership than there was back in the late 70’s when train service left Peoria, or the early 80’s when Amtrak left East Peoria. And, contrary to some comments I’ve seen, just running a train to Normal to connect with trains there isn’t going to cut it. We need a direct-to-Chicago route (in less time than it takes to drive) if we want to get significant ridership. One of the reasons ridership was down 20-30 years ago was because service got so bad and trains went so slowly due to deferred track maintenance.

I think Peoria would embrace fast, quality passenger train service to Chicago and St. Louis. I’m glad to hear that Ardis, Durbin, and other elected officials are interested.

General News

Current negative ads tame by comparison

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I’m not particularly swayed by negative political campaign ads. I think they’re generally in poor taste, and they sure don’t tell you much about either candidate’s platform. If the best thing you can say about your bid for office is “vote for me ’cause my opponent is a bum,” you really aren’t offering much. So, I’m no apologist for negative campaigning.

That said, I think candidates are getting a bit thin-skinned these days. You know it’s getting bad when a grown man trots out his mother to defend him against a subliminal knock on his weight in a TV ad. To read the Journal Star’s “Word on the Street” column today (can’t find it online or I’d link to it), you’d think negative campaigning were something no one had ever seen before. Molly Parker says “enough is enough” — then goes on for three more columns rehashing how terrible these negative ads are.

I wonder what the candidates (and Ms. Parker) would think if their opponents ran this ad against them (from the 1964 presidential election):

Call me crazy, but I’d rather be criticized for my weight than have my opponent claim I’m going to start a nuclear holocaust. That really takes the cake — it goes waaaay beyond “vote for me ’cause my opponent is a bum” to “vote for me ’cause my opponent will start a nuclear war and vaporize your children!” It doesn’t get any more negative than that. Yet, sadly, it worked. Johnson won the election.

Did I say it doesn’t get any more negative? Well, maybe it does. Mike Smith isn’t the first person to have ads poke fun at his physique. Witness this political cartoon from Vanity Fair in 1860:

Stephen Douglas cartoon

That’s 5′ 4″ Stephen Douglas being lampooned for being so short. He’s depicted here as a child trying to reach the highchair of the presidency. To make matters worse, he’s balancing on a stool on the back of a black boy to get there — a reference to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which Douglas (an Illinois senator!) had proposed and which ultimately passed Congress. That’s another story, not germane to this post. My only point is that this was quite inflammatory — way more inflammatory than the kinds of ads we’re seeing today.

And those are only two examples. Believe me, the political ads of today are a love fest compared to the past.

City Council, City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan

Form-based codes are back on the agenda

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There’s a new Land Development Code soon to be proposed to the City Council, but first it needs to go through a rigorous public hearing. To kick things off, Ferrell-Madden and Associates will be holding an informational meeting at the Gateway Building downtown at 7:30 p.m. They will also be making a presentation to the City Council at their regular Tuesday meeting.

The Land Development Code is basically the Heart of Peoria Plan codified into Peoria’s zoning ordinance. There will be many presentations over the next couple of months — to developers, to commissioners (zoning, planning & growth, Heart of Peoria, Ren Park), and to the public, to try to get constructive input that will strengthen the code before it goes before the City Council for adoption.