City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

It’s all over but the budget busting

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I wasn’t at the school board meeting last night, but I didn’t need to be. It was as predictable as the sun rising in the east. I’m not quite sure why they’re continuing the charade of “evaluating” the two proposed school sites; they’re not fooling anyone.

The school board decided on this site long ago, and nothing is going to stop them now. If they want to make unilateral decisions and ignore the city, parents, and residents — not to mention budget realities — that’s their prerogative, but a very foolish course of action. The school board fancies itself as the Lone Ranger, a vigilante board that can save Peoria singlehandedly. But they’re really more like Don Quixote: idealistic and impractical, mistaking friends for enemies, well-meaning but delusional.

They’ll build their school on the park site, and they’ll congratulate each other in the shadow of their burned bridges.

City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

Carver asks city to reimburse $41,000 in shipping costs

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As I mentioned last Friday, Carver Lumber has filed its report to the Surface Transportation Board regarding the service it has been receiving via the newly-built western spur. You can read their letter here (84KB PDF file).

They give a lot of details, but the basic facts are these:

  • Deliveries that used to take 1-2 days via the Kellar Branch hauled by Pioneer Industrial Railway (PIRY) are now taking 4-8 days via the western spur hauled by CIRY — a 400% increase in delivery time.
  • The cost of delivering rail cars via the western spur is double what it cost for PIRY to deliver the same cars via the Kellar Branch.

Slower delivery, higher costs. But here’s the kicker (emphasis mine):

As I believe the STB knows, service to Carver via the Kellar Branch was interrupted due a CIRY [Central Illinois Railroad Co.] runaway/derailment/collision during their first delivery attempt to Carver forcing us to transload material for a period of nearly 5 months […] resulting in costs to date of $41,605.10 which neither the City or CIRY have been willing to reimburse. We are currently seeking the aid of independent legal counsel in an effort to collect these costs. […] [W]e believe the City of Peoria is obligated to provide Carver Lumber with sufficient rail service, and that the disruption in rail service experienced by Carver Lumber should be compensable.

The city, which has $60,000 to spare for decorative garbage cans, millions for a museum, and no limit to TIF districts for local developers, is unwilling to reimburse $41,000 to Carver Lumber — a local business for over 60 years — for increased shipping costs that were the direct result of the city’s own negligence and unwillingness to enforce its contract with CIRY. And the city wonders why it’s perceived as not being business-friendly.

Carver further states they have “tried to work with both the City of Peoria (CIRY) and the Union Pacific to address the issue of guarantying minimum levels of service and rate stability to no avail.” That’s a far cry from Public Works Director Steve Van Winkle’s November 10, 2004, letter to Carver Lumber that stated (emphasis mine):

This letter is, in part, to tell you that the City has no intention of discontinuing service over the Kellar Line until the western connection is fully operational. These two projects are currently timed to coincide well. In the event that either is delayed, the City assures you that it will make an adjustment in the timeframe so that there is no interruption of your rail service. We will not discontinue service over the Kellar Line until the western connection is fully operational.

As for the ability of the City to intercede on your behalf should issues of service andlor cost arise in the future, we call to your attention that we have contracted with DOT [parent company of CIRY] for service from the West. Article 14 of that contract specifically provides that DOT shall pick up and deliver cars within 24 hours after being notified by the UP that the cars have been placed on the Peoria Pioneer Spur. The City stands ready and willing to enforce all aspects of its contract with DOT and with the Union Pacific Railroad. The City has the ability, under its agreement with DOT, for all legal remedies up to and including termination which would allow the City to replace their service with another company.

CIRY never did make a successful delivery over the Kellar Branch, thus service was discontinued before the western spur was completed, resulting in the $41,000 in extra shipping costs.  Furthermore, their deliveries have been taking 4-8 days instead of the 24-hour turnaround promised by the city and specified in CIRY’s contract. Yet not only does the city not enforce their contract, which CIRY has demonstrably breached in most egregious manner, it won’t even reimburse Carver for the results of that breach of contract!

Carver concludes their report by asking that the Kellar Branch be reinstated and that Pioneer Railcorp be allowed to provide service over it, due to CIRY’s “demonstrated inability, and stated unwillingness, to provide service over the Kellar Branch.”

Peoria Public Schools

School board meeting tonight at 5:30

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Peoria Public School District 150 will be meeting tonight at 5:30 to discuss the new school for the Woodruff High School attendance area. You can join them at 3202 N. Wisconsin Ave. and let your voice be heard, or you can watch them on cable channel 17.

I’ll be on a date with my wife tonight, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to attend. The options were The Fish House and a movie, or the school board meeting. Can you believe she chose the former?

Of course, I’ll tape the meeting for later.

UPDATE: I was mistaken about the TV coverage — they only broadcast “regular” school board meetings, and this one is a “special” meeting. So, you’ll have to go in person if you want to see it. I guess I’ll have to read about it in the paper tomorrow….

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Civic Center

City to consider another consultant for Civic Center hotel

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On the council’s agenda for Tuesday night is a request to hire yet another consultant to determine whether Peoria needs a hotel connected to the Civic Center. This one costs $21,000 and will look at demand for hotel rooms, what impact the proposed Civic Center hotel would have on existing hotels, and the quality of existing hotel space downtown.

According to Paul Gordon’s column in the Journal Star yesterday, every one of the requests for proposals for a new hotel connected to the Civic Center said such a hotel would require public assistance, such as a TIF district. I’m no business genius, but that would indicate to me there is not enough demand for hotel rooms to make a new hotel profitable.

If there’s not enough demand for a new hotel, and if a new hotel were built with the help of public money, what kind of an impact do you expect that would have on other downtown hotels? The new hotel could leverage its room rates on the taxes the other hotels are paying. Is that fair?

The last criterion is the most curious: the quality of existing space. What purpose does this serve, exactly? And how is quality going to be measured? And suppose the consultant finds that existing hotels don’t meet these quality standards? Would that be used as a justification for building a competing hotel with the help of public funds? Why not use those public funds to help the existing hotels instead?

I think the RFPs speak for themselves, and this consultant is unnecessary. Until a hotel can come into Peoria, attach itself to the Civic Center, and be profitable under the same conditions as Peoria’s other hotels, we don’t need one. The city shouldn’t waste its money on the hotel or the consultant.

City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

Source: Carver Lumber asks STB to keep Kellar Branch

13 Comments

On April 25, the Surface Transportation Board ruled that the city couldn’t tear up the Kellar Branch for at least another 90 days so Carver Lumber had time to evaluate the service they receive from Central Illinois Railway (CIRY) over the new western spur. Carver and CIRY were expected to report back to the STB at the end of that time, and that time has come.

It’s not posted on the STB’s website yet, but I’ve heard from a reliable source that Carver has submitted their report, and it’s not a good one. Their freight costs have doubled and their service has deteriorated, thus they want service via the Kellar Branch restored. I’ll have more specifics to report once I see the actual filing.

It’s unlikely that the STB would side with the city after getting such a report from an active shipper. This could be the death knell for the city’s plans to replace the Kellar Branch rail line with a hiking/biking trail. On the other hand, Pioneer Railcorp has had a standing offer for the past two years to help build a trail next to the rail line in exchange for letting them purchase or lease the Kellar Branch.

If the city were smart, they’d take Pioneer’s deal now, before the STB’s decision. Selling or leasing the line would provide some much-needed cash to a city looking at big budget holes, plus they would still get their beloved trail to boot. What do they have to lose?

City of Peoria

The city’s proposal to District 150

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You may remember I said I wasn’t going to comment on the city’s proposal until I was able to get all the details instead of just some sketchy reports. Well, I now have a copy of the letter that was sent to the district, signed by Bob Manning and Mayor Jim Ardis. You can read it here (PDF file): City’s proposal to District 150.

The most impressive part of the letter is the last page — the one that shows all the money and other assistance the city already gives to District 150. Remember, District 150 is its own taxing body and the city isn’t obligated to give them any money — not one penny — yet they receive or benefit from $311,105 from the city’s operating fund (truancy officers, crossing guards), $575,000 from the city’s capital fund, and $236,000 from the Southtown TIF (Valeska Hinton School). Total: $1,122,105.

In the city’s proposal, the city would provide another half-million dollars for property acquisition on one condition: the new school for the Woodruff attendance area is built at the current Glen Oak School site. Coupled with the $1 million the district still has budgeted for property acquisition and their ability to sell the properties they’ve already purchased by the park, that should be more than enough money, even if they have to acquire some of the homes for 10-20% over market value.

That’s one heck of a deal. It would be very foolish for the school board to turn it down, considering they could stand to lose more than just $500,000 for property acquisition.

The city is in a budget crunch. There are two fire houses in Peoria that are understaffed, and the police force could use some boosting, especially given the increase in crime lately. That $300,000 a year from the operating fund that goes to the school district is going to be a mighty tempting target for the chopping block, especially if the school district continues to treat the city as an adversary instead of an ally.

There’s a lot to be said for the argument that the city should just play hardball instead of trying to woo the school district with more cash. But I think this deal is a good one, nevertheless. The city is taking the high road — trying to work with the school board, show their willingness to compromise, and put their money where their mouth is.  It shows a good faith effort to work things out amicably.

If the school board rebuffs the city, it will make it just that much easier for the city to balance its budget, and that much harder for the district to balance theirs.

Blogosphere

SJ-R contemplates breaking news via blogs

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Dave Bakke of the State Journal Register (Springfield) lists several news stories that were first reported in blogs, and then asks, “How long before it happens in Springfield?”

He doesn’t answer that question directly, but he does speculate on why Springfield’s bloggers haven’t broken a “big Springfield story” yet: “[M]ost are not geared for it. The majority are in an opinion, humor or entertainment mode.”

In Peoria, it’s different. We have quite a few newsy blogs, and while I can’t think of a “big” Peoria story the was first reported by a blogger, I can think of several little ones. Even I have had an occasion where I was the first to report on a Peoria story, and I’m certainly no insider.

So, I’ll leave you with a couple of questions: Why does Peoria have more newsy bloggers than our state capital does? And can you think of any “big Peoria stories” that were first reported on local blogs before the Peoria media picked them up?

City of Peoria, Peoria Fire Department, Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Police

Journal Star: Better to burn to death than be murdered

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Does that headline sound silly to you? Me too. But the Journal Star’s editorial Tuesday argues just that. Instead of fully staffing Fire Station 11, we should spend that money on police protection, they said. “Firefighting and other emergency response are important, but every penny spent on reopening Fire Station 11 is one that won’t go to added police protection.”

Fire and police protection are both among the most essential, basic services a city can provide, and their funding comes pretty much exclusively from the city. So police and fire protection should not be pitted against each other for funding. Something is wrong in a city that can’t fully staff their fire stations and provide adequate police protection at the same time.

There must be other places where the city could cut truly unnecessary spending. (Fire protection is not what I would call “unnecessary.”)

This may sound like sour grapes, but the more I think about it, the more I question the money the city spends on District 150. Think about it. The school district is its own taxing body, and the city has gained nothing by trying to cooperate with the school board, so why are we sending them over a million dollars a year in operating, capital, and debt service support? The fire and police departments can’t tax the public directly for their needs, so it would seem to me that the city’s money would be better spent on fire and police instead of the school board.

If we have to start picking and choosing, I don’t know how the city could responsibly cut fire protection while still spending money on a school district that is essentially double-dipping our tax dollars.

Television, The Peoria Chronicle

Well, that was . . . terrifying

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Whew. I appreciated the opportunity to be interviewed on TV, but boy am I glad that’s over! I was so nervous. I feel so much more comfortable writing, where I can meticulously craft exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it — rewriting several times in the process.

I was impressed by how nice everyone was to me. I was impressed because, if I were they, I would have been totally annoyed with someone like me hanging around. They took the time to answer my questions and let me stick around and watch them produce the 10:00 news. I was interested in that because, of course, I do a little bit of TV production in my job at Grace Presbyterian. Their production is much faster-paced than ours, which is to be expected since they don’t spend a lot of on-air time praying, and we don’t spend any on-air time giving the weather or lottery numbers.

Surprises:

  • Mac and Mike wear real suits; Lee Hall just wears the jacket, tie, and shorts.
  • All the news personalities edit their own news clips.
  • Gary Sandberg is a fan of mine!
  • Jenny Li really is even cuter in person than she is on TV.
  • Neither Mac nor Mike get to decide which stories run or in what order (I always thought the anchor got that privilege). The producer makes those decisions.

I asked Mike if they were going to interview any anonymous bloggers, and he mentioned that one may be “coming out” on the air in the future. That made me raise an eyebrow….

Thanks to everyone who watched tonight. And now, back to our regularly-scheduled program.