City Council, City of Peoria

City ignores service record; awards contract

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See No EvilDespite its breach of contract and public endangerment, Central Illinois Railroad (CIRY) was rewarded Tuesday night with a fat no-bid contract to do some rail improvements along Allen Road. I’m guessing this “see no evil” approach is the city’s way of saying “thank you” to a company that has conspired with them to stop serving Carver Lumber via the Kellar Branch.

City staff had the audacity to defend CIRY’s record of service, insisting as they did before the Surface Transportation Board (STB) that CIRY has been delivering Carver’s shipments within two hours of when Union Pacific places the cars on the western spur. As Pioneer Industrial Railway (PIRY) ably argued in a letter to the STB yesterday rebutting the city’s claim:

While the [city’s] letter claims that the “records show” that CIRY made deliveries “no more than two hours after receiving the car from Union Pacific,” this is not what the records show. Even if we were to believe these belatedly-produced, unverified “records”, they show notification times, not UP delivery times. It is also a matter of fact in the record that Carver routinely has to notify CIRY of UP deliveries because CIRY has no local presence.

David Jordan explains how long it really takes CIRY to deliver shipments:

The fact is, Union Pacific’s “Peoria Wayfreight” works five days a week, Sunday thru Thursday beginning at 5:00pm. A trip up to Pioneer Jct. is usually the first job for the wayfreight, which does this on Mondays and Wednesdays. Basically, UP delivers to CIRY in the early evening, but CIRY’s crew does not work the Pioneer Jct. to Pioneer Park line until late morning or early afternoon the following day (if there are any cars). [Assuming] that CIRY receives notice from the UP the following morning that these cars have been delivered […] UP physically interchanges these cars to CIRY the prior evening and then some 18-20 hours later, CIRY delivers to Carver Lumber.

That’s assuming that CIRY receives notice from UP in a timely manner, which isn’t necessarily the case, as Pioneer points out that Carver has had to notify CIRY on occasion as well. But who cares if Carver is getting adequate service? Certainly not the city. To the city, Carver is not a business that provides 50 good-paying jobs plus property and sales taxes to the economy; rather, they’re just obstructionists standing in the way of a hiking/biking trail the Park District wants to build.

City of Peoria, Museum Block

A review of some regional museums

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Here are some interesting observations from other museums of the midwest:

  • Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal — Cincinnati’s old train station, Union Terminal, is now the home of three museums (Cincinnati History Museum, Museum of Natural History & Science, and Cinergy Children’s Museum), an Omnimax Theater, and the Cincinnati Historical Society Library. At first blush, this sounds very similar to what Peoria is planning, but there are a couple of differences. First, notice that the name “Cincinnati” plays prominently in the naming, even though it also covers the surrounding area. Secondly, “Union Terminal takes up an area of 287 acres” for its five distinct wings; Peoria’s museum square takes up an area of about 6.5 acres for its seven distinct wings, Caterpillar Visitor Center, and 4 acres of open space.
  • Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum — This reference/research facility and Presidential museum opened in 2004. It doesn’t mention Springfield in the name, but it does have a narrower scope than Peoria’s planned musuem. “The permanent exhibit is comprised of two ‘Journeys,’ two Theaters, a Treasures Gallery, Mrs. Lincoln’s Attic and Ask Mr. Lincoln totaling more than 40,000 sq. ft. of state-of-the-art exhibitry.” All of that 40,000 square feet is devoted to President Lincoln, and in addition to that space the library boasts “more than 12 million documents, books, and artifacts relating to all areas of Illinois history. This includes extensive collections of State of Illinois history; Civil War and, of course, the world renowned Henry Horner Lincoln collection. The Library is also heavily utilized for genealogical research.” Peoria, on the other hand, is planning to have about 70,000 square feet of exhibit space devoted to art, history, natural history, science and technology, African American history, IHSA, and other exhibits covering the whole region. Very little space, if any, is devoted to research or library services. In fact, the Peoria Public Library wasn’t even asked to have any part in the project.
  • The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis — Guess where this museum is located. That’s right, Indianapolis. Guess what kind of museum it is. Yep, a children’s museum. See how easy it is to figure out when the name is so descriptive? This museum is 433,500 square feet situated on 14 acres of land. It “houses 11 major galleries that explore the physical and natural sciences, history, world cultures and the arts.” That’s a little over 39,000 square feet (on average) for each gallery. It also opened in 1925 in a carriage house and didn’t get a new, dedicated building until 1976, after its success was established. Its new building is also four stories high. An 80,000-square-foot addition was built in 1988 at a cost of $16 million. In 2006 dollars (according to the CPI calculator from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis), that comes out to just under $27.4 million. In contrast, the 70,000-square-foot facility Peoria is building will cost $65 million to construct.

When you start comparing, you start wondering how Peoria can do an adequate job of exhibiting so many different disciplines with so little space. Either there’s just not that much interesting art/history/etc. in Peoria (or regionally, if you will), or else our $65 million museum will be insufficient to house it all from the outset. I fear the latter is true.

City of Peoria, Technology

Wi-Fi proponents beware

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In the Chicago Tribune today (free registration required):

About 90 percent of the free wireless broadband connections available at O’Hare International Airport are not true Wi-Fi hotspots and some could be traps laid by fraudsters, a computer security firm asserts.

Apparently, what some hackers do is go to the airport, log onto either a free or fee-based broadband connection with their laptop. “The hacker laptop then broadcasts the wireless signal as free Wi-Fi, hoping to lure travelers as they log online to read their e-mail, check their bank balances or otherwise catch up with work.”

If your laptop is set to automatically search for and connect to Wi-Fi, just turning on your computer could allow hackers could steal your info without you even knowing it. I wonder if anyone would try that here in Peoria once muni Wi-Fi is set up….

Peoria Park District

I wonder if it’s an 18-minute gap

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Part of the Open Meetings Act requires that audio recordings be made of executive sessions precisely for the reason that’s facing the Peoria Park District now — someone is challenging the legality of action taken in closed session. Specifically, there’s a lawsuit over the Peoria Park District’s actions regarding sharing parkland with District 150 so they can build a school on a portion of Glen Oak Park. A judge can review the executive session recordings to see if any illegal action took place during the meeting…

But guess what? Merle Widmer reports that parts of the recordings in question have been erased!

First I heard it was one tape that got erased “accidentally” of Peoria Park Board and Peoria Public School District #150 Executive Minutes. Then an unimpeachable source told me it was “two” Park Board Executive tapes that were “accidentally” erased. These tapes supposedly contain dialogue between certain Peoria Public School District #150 Board Members and members of the Peoria Park District Board of Directors concerning the relocating of Glen Oak School on Prospect Road and on private and PPD land.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I smell a cover-up.

City Council, City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

And for your breach of contract, have another $187,847

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What do you do when a company exhibits questionable competence, endangers the citizens of Peoria, and breaches their contract with the city? If you’re the city of Peoria, you award them another contract for more work.

Just to recap: Central Illinois Railroad (CIRY) tried to fulfill their contractual obligations. Late last year they tried to take some lumber up the Kellar Branch to Carver Lumber Company. What many people don’t know is that the Kellar Branch includes a pretty steep hill where it climbs the bluff. CIRY was using a vehicle called a Trackmobile to haul the lumber up the hill. Trackmobiles are designed for moving train cars around in a train yard, not for hauling lumber uphill; they don’t have as much power as an engine. As a result, they lost traction and the train barrelled down the hill backwards at 30 mph through several grade crossings. That runaway train could have killed someone, but thankfully didn’t. After that, they never again attempted to use the Kellar Branch — in breach of their contract with the city.

Not only did the city not enforce that contract (to Carver Lumber’s detriment), but now they want to hire the same company — a company with questionable competence — to do some rail crossing work on Allen Road to the tune of $187,847.

There are several things wrong with this picture:

  1. It does not appear that the City got multiple quotes and this was the low bid. For such an expensive project, one would think they would have bid it out. If they did, they didn’t disclose that information to the council in the Request for Council Action.
  2. The experience the City has had with this company is not exemplary. As noted above, they have been in breach of contract and have endangered the lives of Peoria citizens by their gross negligence. Why should we trust them?
  3. The quote submitted is apparently not itemized. There is hardware as well as labor included in that number of $187,847. How much are they charging for labor? How much for parts? Shouldn’t we at least get an itemized quote? It could be that it is itemized on “Exhibit 2B” which is unfortunately not included in the material available online.
  4. Recently, this same company filed a non-itemized quote with the Surface Transportation Board claiming it would cost over $500,000 to bring the Kellar Branch up to operable working condition, yet Pioneer Industrial Railway submitted an itemized work order indicating it would only cost around $10,000. See my previous post on this issue for more details. Doesn’t this indicate to anyone that CIRY’s cost estimates at least have the potential of being inflated?

One other thing: this work is not being paid by the city, but by IDOT. Does IDOT know anything about the history of this company? Did they have any part in this choice? In fact, why isn’t IDOT doing this work themselves? IDOT’s Bureau of Railroads provided an estimate for track repair on the Kellar Branch back in 2000 (which was used by the city to try to prove repairs are too costly). If they can provide estimates and repair work, and if they’re footing the bill anyway, why is CIRY involved at all?

I certainly hope someone takes this off the consent agenda on Tuesday and asks city staff some hard questions about it.

City of Peoria

What’s wrong with Peoria?

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Peoria LogoI’m disturbed by what I see as a trend to de-emphasize the name of our beloved city, Peoria. The museum is only the latest in a long line of the name purging. Remember what CityLink used to be called? That’s right, GP Transit — where “GP” stood for “Greater Peoria.” The Journal Star stopped calling themselves the “Peoria Journal Star” decades ago. The Peoria Civic Center is looking to sell their naming rights, so it will likely lose the Peoria part of its name. Now, the Peoria Regional Airport is floating the idea of changing its name as well.

Why? What’s wrong with “Peoria”? Is it a lack of civic pride? Are people embarrassed to be associated with Peoria?

One argument I hear often is that many of these places want to have more regional appeal, thus they come up with more generic or regional names. Here’s my question: how’s that working out? Does CityLink have a large presence in East Peoria, Pekin, Germantown Hills, Metamora, Washington, Bartonville, etc., now that they’ve adopted a regional name? Has the Journal Star’s circulation risen since they de-emphasized “Peoria” in their nameplate? Has fundraising really taken off in the surrounding cities since the museum started calling themselves (temporarily) the Central Illinois Regional Museum? I’m highly skeptical that these efforts have resulted in any appreciable difference in revenues or attitudes toward the companies who’ve chosen to eschew the Peoria moniker.

Another argument is that Peoria supposedly has a bad reputation for whatever reason, thus making the name a marketing liability. First of all, I don’t believe people are that easily fooled. You still have to tell people where you’re located, so they’re going to find out that you’re in Peoria eventually. You can’t trick them into coming here. Secondly, hiding the Peoria name doesn’t help improve that reputation, if one concedes such a repuation exists. If the Peoria Civic Center is successful, then Peoria’s reputation is helped. If the Peoria History Museum gained national attention, then the Peoria name would shine. But if the AMAZEum prospers, or the ABC Company Civic Center is a popular regional attraction, what does that do for Peoria’s name? Nothing. It’s self-defeating.

So, I ask again, what’s wrong with Peoria? What’s wrong with showing a little pride in our city? Yes, I do my fair share of criticism of the city, but I consider around 99% of it constructive criticism, and frankly, I love Peoria. That’s why I live here. That’s why I’ve chosen to live right in the heart of the city. That’s why I call my blog “The PEORIA Chronicle.”

I’m tired of seeing “Peoria” get short shrift. Despite its challenges, Peoria has a lot going for it. We all know it. We can all quote chapter and verse about Peoria’s storied past and our progressive vision for the future. Why not flaunt it? We should be proud to put the name “Peoria” on our museums, civic centers, airport, buses, newspapers, etc. And we should be proud to be known as Peorians.

City of Peoria, Insight Communications, Television

TV ads promote national cable franchise agreement

Have you seen a commercial like this one lately?

In this ad, which I got online, it lists Tennessee senators, but I’ve seen this same ad locally (frequently) with Illinois senators listed. It leaves you with the impression that some nefarious “special interests” are sabotaging a chance to lower our cable bills and allow something called “cable choice.” But these ads are totally misleading.

What the ads don’t tell you is that they’re advocating a bill in Congress known as the Advanced Telecommunication and Opportunity Reform Act. The House version of the bill (HR5252) passed 321 to 101, and is due to come up in the Senate. If passed and signed into law, this bill would allow the federal government to award cable franchise agreements.

I first brought this up back in April when Peoria’s franchise agreement with Insight expired. Right now, companies who want to offer cable television to a community must negotiate a franchise agreement with the local municipality. Peoria is still trying to negotiate a renewed franchise agreement with Insight Communications; according to city attorney Randy Ray, Insight and the City will be meeting again September 11 to hopefully hammer something out.

By law, cable franchise agreements are non-exclusive. That means no one is keeping “cable choice” from happening. Any company who wants to offer cable TV to Peoria can come in and negotiate their own franchise agreement with the city. But big telecom congomerates like AT&T don’t want to have to negotiate with every municipality, hence the push for a national franchise agreement.

The telecom-backed www.WeWantChoice.com, which sponsored the above commercial and others like it, call the current franchise system “a lengthy, expensive process that just doesn’t make sense.” By having a national franchise agreement, it will make it easier for them to compete, they claim, and that competition will lead to lower cable bills.

The Illinois Municipal League (IML) sees it differently. Local governments and their advocates like the IML are undoubtedly the “special interests” to which the commercials refer. The IML believes this legislation “would harm consumers, cities and counties in many ways, including:”

  1. It fails to keep local govemment financially whole because it strips state and local governments of tax authority over broadband and wireless telecommunications services.
  2. It would permit local telephone companies to pick and choose the neighborhoods in which they want to provide video and broadband services, while allowing them to bypass other
    neighborhoods completely.
  3. It would replace strong state and local consumer protection and customer service standards with federal standards drafted by federal bureaucrats not accountable to state and local communities and consumers.
  4. It would unilaterally preempt other carefully crafted state and local laws that encourage competition and protect the public interest.

If this process is so expensive and burdensome, how is it that cable companies have figured out a way to do it profitably? Why should telecom companies be allowed a shortcut — an end-run around local control? This is not about leveling the playing field — it’s about very large telecom companies wanting an advantage over cable companies. This is not a process that needs to be nationalized. Cable franchises should not be a federal issue; they are a local issue, and they should stay local.

Incidentally, Randy Ray mentioned that the city has been lobbying our representatives in Washington concerning this, and “the Mayor has written several letters.”

No one has admitted it, but I’m guessing this legislation is one of the sticking points that’s delaying the new franchise agreement between the City and Insight. I’ll bet Insight wants language in the agreement that will allow them an “out” if national franchise agreements are permitted in the future. Otherwise, they would be at a competitive disadvantage.

City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

Carver Lumber pleads for Kellar access

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Carver Lumber recently wrote the Surface Transportation Board (STB) and pleaded with them to let Pioneer Industrial Railway provide them service over the Kellar Branch. It’s technically called a petition for “Alternative Rail Service.” The idea is that everyone is kind of in limbo waiting for the STB to rule on whether service over the Kellar Branch should be discontinued or not, but in the meantime Central Illinois Railroad (CIRY), the city’s current carrier, refuses to run on the old Kellar Branch, even though they have an obligation to do so until the STB gives them approval to stop.

So, during this “limbo” period that CIRY is refusing to carry out their common carrier obligation, Pioneer is offering to provide that service instead. Clear as mud? Carver writes:

Several weeks ago Carver Lumber Company requested that the board restore our rail service over the Kellar Branch in Peoria County, Illinois. On July 27, 2006, Pioneer Industrial Railway Co. filed an Alternative Rail Service Request, which we support. To date, Central Illinois Railroad Company continues to refuse to provide service over the Kellar Branch, despite its common carrier obligation to do so.

Our business desperately needs reliable rail service. We urge the board to act as quickly as possible to grant Pioneer Industrial’s Alternative Service request.

It’s kind of sad that Carver has to appeal to the STB to get any relief. You’d think that Peoria, that’s supposedly trying to become more business-friendly, would be on Carver’s side, trying to get them the rail service they need. You’d think that Steve Van Winkle, who promised Carver in writing that “the City stands ready and willing to enforce all aspects of its contract with [CIRY]” would stand by his word and actually seek relief for Carver’s unnecessary expenses due to CIRY’s breach of contract.

But no. The city lied. The city wants Carver to go away. The city wants to throw away those 50 jobs, sales taxes, property taxes, and of course the $565,000 rail asset. All for a hiking/biking trail.

UPDATE: CIRY and the City have written the STB in response to Carver Lumber’s request. They point out that once a car is placed on the new western spur by Union Pacific, CIRY promptly delivers the car to Carver Lumber. Thus, they claim CIRY is fulfilling its common carrier service. Completely ignored is the fact that Carver could have gotten that shipment sooner had CIRY (or Pioneer) picked up the car downtown and taken it up the Kellar Branch instead of waiting for UP to place it on the western spur. It would be cheaper, too. Just one more example of how the City has no interest in dealing fairly with Carver Lumber Company.

Museum Block

Museum should allow “write-in” votes

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To follow up my earlier post, remember when they wanted to rename the Peoria Chiefs? They had all kinds of ridiculous-sounding names, and everyone wrote in “Chiefs.” Guess what? They stuck with “Chiefs.” I wish we could do that with the Peoria museum. As a recent commenter pointed out, that’s what everyone is going to call it anyway — why not formalize it?

I have some other ideas for write-in votes, too. Remember, this is all in fun, okay? My intentions are not nearly as mean-spirited as the names may sound:

  • CATastrophe Museum
  • SNOOZEum
  • Midwest Ambiguous Museum of Miscellany
  • Museum on the Old Sears Block

Incidentally, I’ve noticed on the “Name the Museum” website that they don’t use radio buttons — the kind that allow you to choose only one item in a list — but rather the little checkboxes so you can choose as many options as you like. Interesting choice of coding; I’ll have to assume it was intentional, but I don’t know why. Until they add a “Peoria Museum” or at least a “None of the Above” choice, I’m not voting.

Peoria Public Schools

District 150 responds to Royster suit

Kay RoysterThe Journal Star reports this morning that District 150 has filed their response to Kay Royster’s allegation that she was terminated as Superintendent due to racial discrimination. You can read the full reply by clicking here (PDF file).

Of most interest to me was that they denied the most damaging claim (in my opinion) — that a meeting took place among only the white board members where the black board members were specifically not invited. They didn’t give any details of their defense, just a flat denial. Of course, how does one prove a negative? It will be up to Royster to prove such a meeting took place.

Not metioned in the Journal Star article are the “Affirmative Defenses” at the end of the 25-page reply. Among the more interesting ones to me: the defendants claim that most of the allegations have been brought forward too late — that they’re past the statute of limitations time period, that the specific defendants (Aaron Schock, Sean Matheson, Vince Wieland, and Mary Spangler) have immunity from suit because they’re local legislators, and Royster “lacks standing to bring some or all of her claims as she was fully compensated under the terms and conditions of her expired contract.”