Bradley University

Bradley should put training facility on ice

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Bradley Men's Basketball Practice Facility

Did you hear that Bradley is building a replacement arena for Robertson Field House?

Of course you have. Everybody has.

Well, it’s official now:

The arena would be the new home for BU women’s basketball and volleyball and would also include a weight-training facility for all student-athletes and a dedicated practice gym for men’s basketball.

My wife asked a good question tonight regarding that last item — the “dedicated practice gym for men’s basketball.” Is it going to be on ice?

Every year, one of the excuses given whenever Bradley is losing is that they don’t get to practice at the Civic Center where the hockey floor (ice) is covered with the basketball court, and they’re not used to all of the condensation and slippery surfaces that result.

So, since the school is spending in excess of $100 million, can we expect them to replicate their actual playing surface so they’re prepared for that first icy step on the court and can have a huge advantage over their opponents?

General News

Ending Earmarks Express

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The “Ending Earmarks Express” RV visits Peoria? Does Ray LaHood know about this? Ray is one of the biggest apologists for earmarks in Congress today. You gotta give the guy credit for putting his money where his mouth is. Or is that your money?

As stated in the Journal Star article, the Ending Earmarks Express recently stopped by the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” and here, courtesy of YouTube, is their report (hat tip: InstaPundit):

Of course, as the article states, not all earmarks are for frivolous things like a bridge to nowhere. Some of the projects are worthy of federal funding. But when there’s no process for weeding out the pork from among the worthy projects, that system is broken. Click on the link below to see a list of Ray LaHood’s earmarks, courtesy of the State Journal-Register:

Continue reading Ending Earmarks Express →

City of Peoria, Peoria Area CVB

When the going gets tough…

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…the tough get going — out of town? Steve Powell resigned as director of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau yesterday and said he’s moving back to Missouri. Why? The Journal Star reports:

Powell acknowledged he was taking heat from some bureau board members, who include several hoteliers, about the fact he favors a new hotel attached to the Peoria Civic Center.

Just in case you don’t know who’s on the PACVB board of directors, here they are (according to their website, which I assume is up-to-date):

  • Dan Cunningham, EastSide Centre – Chairman
  • Ken Goldin, Bradley University – Vice Chairman
  • LaVonne Hamilton Klein, Stoney Creek Inn & Conference Center – Secretary/Treasurer
  • Rick Edwards, Caterpillar Inc.
  • Jim Garner, MultiAd
  • Craig Hullinger, City of Peoria
  • Honorable John Morris, Peoria City Council
  • Frank Pedulla, Radisson Hotel Peoria
  • Tony Pisano, Kouris’ Restaurants
  • Sami Qureshi, Holiday Inn City Centre
  • Debbie Ritschel, Peoria Civic Center
  • Mary Jo Schettler, PAR-A-DICE Hotel Casino
  • Honorable W. Eric Turner, Peoria City Council
  • Don Welch, Hotel Pere Marquette

Now, I’m not a proponent of the Civic Center hotel idea either. But if taking a little heat from the board over one of your ideas/positions causes you to take your ball and go home, there’s something wrong. There must be more to the story than that.

I don’t think it has anything to do with the recent flap over unauthorized redirection of funds because that took place under Keith Arnold, Powell’s predecessor. It’s hard to imagine how that could have hurt Powell, unless he was involved in some sort of cover-up after the fact.

Perhaps this quote from Powell provides a clue:

“The only thing I’ll say is that Peoria needs to be sold as a destination, then they can better sell the products that are offered within the destination. Some people didn’t understand that.”

It sounds like the differences between Powell and the board went deeper than a single hotel issue. That quote makes it sound like there was a fundamental difference of philosophy on how to “sell” Peoria, and that’s why Powell’s job may have been in jeopardy if he kept pushing his agenda. In that case, his departure may have been on principle.

Now they have to start searching for a new director, and the search committee comprises the bureau’s chairman (Cunningham) and vice chairman (Goldin), a representative from Caterpillar, and a representative appointed by the Mayor. Considering Cat is against a Civic Center hotel, and the city isn’t very warm to the idea either, I’ll bet the next director will be against it, too. Which begs the question, did Cat have anything to do with the pressure put on Mr. Powell?

Kellar Branch

Is City fabricating evidence in Kellar Branch dispute?

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The latest goings-on regarding the Kellar Branch involves the cost to make the embattled rail line operational again. As reported in a previous post, the City contends that it would be too expensive now to make the Kellar Branch operable, originally claiming that it would cost over $2 million to make the necessary upgrades. Then, just a few days later, they claimed it would only cost $50,000.

Well, now they say, in a Surface Transportation Board (STB) filing on August 16, that what they really meant to say was $500,000, not $50,000. That was a typo — a typo it took them apparently 14 days (August 2-16) to discover. Oops! Then, in the very next breath, they say “On August 4, 2006, Central Railgroup Construction Services, LLC provided a more detailed estimate of the cost of that rehabilitation in the amount of $546,705.”

Ah, okay, let me see if I’ve got this straight now. It’s not $2 million, or $50,000, or $500,000. Those figures were all wrong. The real figure is $546,705. Okay, got it.

It seems the city can’t quite make up their minds how much it costs, frankly. There was no source given for the original estimate of $50,000 (or $500,000, if you believe it was a typo). Yet two days later, they received an exact quote for roughly the same amount. What a coincidence! And just where did that figure come from?

The last figure comes from a company called “Central Railgroup Construction Services, LLC.” According to the State of Illinois LLC file, that company was established on August 2, 2006, and lists the same address and agent as Central Illinois Railroad Holdings, LLC, which just acquired CIRY. On August 4, this brand new company was able, based on their two-days worth of experience, to estimate how much it would cost to rehabilitate the Kellar Branch. And, by jove, it’s right around $500,000, the new and improved, if unverified, estimate from the city.

Meanwhile, Pioneer Railcorp, which has been in business considerably longer than two days and has extensive experience actually running trains successfully over the Kellar Branch, has estimated it would only cost a little under $10,000 to rehab the line, and they’re willing to do that out of their own pocket.

Furthermore, the rail line was operable when Pioneer was forced off the line, and the contract between the City of Peoria and Central Illinois Railroad (CIRY), specifically stated (at 3.4):

DOT [parent company of CIRY] shall assume responsibility for all maintenance of tracks, crossing protection, and roadbed including weed, brush, snow and ice control thereon, all drainage control maintenance, and all weed and brush control on the remainder of the right-of-way, following the guidelines set forth by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

That contract didn’t expire until 60 days after the ciy completed the western spur. The western spur was just completed in March of this year, meaning the contract expired in May. Thus, CIRY (through its shell company Central Railgroup Construction Services) essentially admits that they broke their contract to keep the line maintained.

We already knew that CIRY broke their contract to provide service over the Kellar Branch by never delivering one shipment successfully over the line. The only time they even attempted it, they were so inept that they lost control of the train and endangered the lives of Peoria citizens.

And the City, which promised Carver Lumber they would take legal action against CIRY if they broke their contract, never so much as filed a complaint against CIRY. Never. Now, their continuous unverified cost estimates to repair the Kellar Branch is just the latest in a series of obfuscations and fabrications by the city to dupe the STB into killing the Kellar Branch, regardless of the money lost, assets destroyed, or businesses ruined.

Call your council members and demand they stop wasting our money and sell the Kellar Branch to Pioneer Railcorp.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

City takes the high road

Despite having the school board spit in their eye over the replacement school for the Woodruff attendance area, the city asked for input from the school board regarding their plans to implement two new TIF districts along the Warehouse District and Southern Gateway.  It’s good to see the city taking the high road and showing some statesmanship in this matter.

At the same time, I was happy to see the city council not just throwing good money after bad in the name of cooperation.  At last week’s council meeting, there was a proposal on the agenda to replace sidewalks around one of the schools slated to close within the next year or so — clearly a huge waste of money.  They wisely deferred that item until they could get more information from the school board on their plans for that school.

Kudos to the Council for playing fair, but not playing the fool with District 150.

Voting

Arizona bribe doesn’t address real question

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I was listening to the Dennis Prager show today (hat tip to B.J.), and there was an interesting discussion regarding voting.

As you may or may not know, there’s a ballot proposition in Arizona that, if passed, would offer $1 million to a lucky Arizonan in each and every election. The idea is to increase voter turnout. It’s kind of like a lottery, except you don’t have to buy a ticket; you just have to vote. This is almost universally assailed as a terrible idea, yet some are saying the proposition is likely to pass.

Most things I’ve read regarding this issue focus in on the fact that we need more informed voters rather than more voters in general, and that citizenship in a free society is its own reward. All true. But there’s a more fundamental flaw in this “solution.”

It doesn’t solve the real issue. The reason most people give for not voting is that they believe their votes don’t matter — that the outcome is predetermined. There are a number of factors that support this thinking: gerrymandering, a two-party system that systematically excludes third-party candidates from public debates, campaign financing inequities, etc. These are things that need to be addressed — not merely voter turnout.

City of Peoria

The Plague has hit my house

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Monday morning, I got sick. Monday afternoon, my wife got sick. Tuesday, my son got sick. Last night, my youngest daughter got sick. Sick, sick, sick. That’s all that’s going on at my place this week. I’d like to go a good long time (like maybe forever) before being vomited on again, if that’s at all possible.

Maybe all this sickness could explain why I’m suddenly bored to death with my blog. Or it may be because I always talk about the same things… District 150… Kellar Branch… City Council… Blah, blah, blah.

I’ve thought about writing about other stuff, like my life. But my life isn’t a fount of entertaining first-person narratives, although I did want to share this:

My oldest daughter — the only one who didn’t get sick this week… yet — is learning to write, so all summer she’s been writing notes. My favorite one came to my wife after our little angel had done something especially disobedient. It read: “Dear Mommy, I love you and I want to obey you but I can’t.” Kinda says it all, doesn’t it? I believe the Apostle Paul wrote something similar in his epistle to the Romans.

But I digress. It’s time, once again, for me to step away briefly from the blogosphere and see if I miss it. Every time I’ve done this before, I’ve always come back. That either means it’s an enjoyable, worthwhile hobby, or it’s the fulfillment of that biblical proverb, “as a dog returns to his vomit….”

Nah, it can’t be the latter. Not after this week….

City Council, City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

City walking over dollars, looking for dime

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On Tuesday night, the city council was reminded again about the impending budget crunch due to new accounting regulations known as GASB45:

GASB refers to the General Accounting Standards Board, an operating arm of the private Financial Accounting Foundation. GASB establishes standards of state and local government accounting. And Section 45 is a policy adopted by the board in 2004. It requires that governments must account today for future costs of guaranteed medical benefits for retirees…. [Those] higher costs, when the bills eventually come due, must be paid for by higher taxes or reduced services.

Standard and Poor’s, which takes this seriously because it rates government credit, said in a December 2004 report that GASB could uncover much higher costs that could “seriously strain operations” or uncover conditions in which governments “are unable or unwilling to fulfill these obligations,” which could hurt governments’ credit ratings.

So, Peoria is going to be facing some potentially drastic measures, such as making cuts in health care coverage for employees. Since that’s unpopular, every item of business, no matter how small, came under scrutiny. They even spent time haggling over hiring a part-time training coordinator for a mere $5,000.

I would be more sympathetic to these conscientious cost-cutting measures if it weren’t for the fact that the city council is poised to throw away a $565,000 asset without giving it a second thought. While they’re haggling over $5,000, the park district can hardly wait to get the word that it’s okay to tear out a half-million dollar rail line known as the Kellar Branch — a rail line for which there is a willing buyer or lessee — so they can turn it into a hiking trail. The irony is that the city could get the money and the trail, too, if they’d accept Pioneer Railcorp’s offer to buy or lease the line.

If the city council is really interested in plugging the GASB45 gap, then they should stop walking over dollars to pick up a dime.

City of Peoria, Peoria Journal Star

Everybody’s the exception

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Phil Luciano’s article today once again highlights the no-win situation of city code enforcers. You know, if they don’t enforce the law on the petty issues, people complain about them not doing their jobs and wax eloquent about how important it is to fix problems when they’re small so bigger violations aren’t likely to happen (aka the “broken window theory”). But if they do enforce the little issues, then people like Phil Luciano complain that (a) the ordinance is stupid, and/or (b) this person who’s breaking the ordinance should be an exception.

In this particular case, apparently Phil thinks that code violation officers, upon seeing someone violating some ordinance, should immediately find out how much money the person has put into their house, interview the person to see if they have a justified reason for breaking the ordinance, perhaps interview a few neighbors to see how they feel about it, and then make an informed decision on whether to enforce the law or not based on those factors. Most importantly, if the person threatens to move, immediately tear up the citation and allow them to break any code they want.

Obviously, the problem is that everyone has an excuse for breaking an ordinance. Rare is the person who flagrantly violates the law without some reason for doing so, no matter how flimsy that reason may be. I’m sure code enforcement officers have heard them all.

Question: Do we want the code enforced? If not, let’s get these ordinances off the books. If so, stop complaining when the code enforcement officers do their jobs.

Peoria Public Schools

School District 150 proves it’s easy to rehab older schools

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Peoria Public Schools logoWell, well, what have we here? WEEK.com has this chipper report about the supposedly old, horrible, dilapidated, beyond-repair, poorly-lit, un-air-conditioned dungeon known as Blaine-Sumner Middle School.

This is one of those schools that just couldn’t be rehabilitated and had to close. It’s one of those schools that District 150 said would cost more to renovate than to shut down. It’s one of those schools that costs so much in operations and maintenance, that the only way the school could save money was to mothball it along with ten other buildings and build five new ones. This is one of those schools that has all that plaguing asbestos that would surely be loosed and kill everyone inside if air conditioning were to be introduced.

And yet…

This is the school that, according to WEEK, “crews spent a month cleaning and painting…for its new use.” This is the school about which “Special Education Assistant Director Bryan Pullen said, ‘Air was added to all the offices, all the rooms, so there was some actual costs, but I think in the long run it will probably save money.'” This is the school that is “[t]he newly named Blaine Sumner Complex [which] is now home to special Education Services.”

So Blaine-Sumner, which was one of the lowest scoring buildings on the district’s Master Facilities Plan, was rehabbed with a little paint and some A/C in about a month. And now it’s going to be home to “[e]ighty-five special education workers including psychologists, coordinators and Medicaid staff….”

Huh. Let’s review the district’s Master Facilities Plan again. Blaine-Sumner was one of six buildings (net) that was supposed to save (among other things) about $500,000 annually in operation and maintenance costs. I quote:

Presuming a net number of school closures at six and based on Operations and Maintenance savings of $500,000 per school closed, a savings of $3 million could be realized.

So, the question is, how do they make up the approximately $500,000 they were supposed to save by closing this building? How does this impact the master plan? Will they have to close another school now?

And, of course, the big question: If it’s this easy to rehabilitate these old buildings — and remember, according to the master plan, Blaine-Sumner was one of the worst-scoring on health/life/safety and operational tests — why do they need to close 11 of them and build 5 new ones in the first place? It looks to me like they’re not all that hard to fix up after all.