City Council, City of Peoria

On the slate: June 6, 2006

7 Comments

The council agenda has come out. A few items of note:

  • PAAG may not get their million dollars back, but they’re going to “make the city pay,” so to speak, one way or another. In case you’ve forgotten, the Peoria Area Advancement Group, LLC (PAAG) “loaned” the city a million dollars way back in 1998 to explore the financial feasibility of buying Peoria’s water works from Illinois American Water. So confident were they that it would be affordable, they promised not to ask for the money back if a buyout wasn’t feasible. Once it was determined that it in fact wasn’t feasible under the criteria stipulated by PAAG, they decided they wanted their money back anyway. It’s awfully hard to part with a million bucks, especially when you didn’t get your way. Now they’re demanding arbitration over the matter to try to recoup their foolish investment, and the city is hiring legal help to rebuff them. Legal fees are estimated to be anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 or more.
  • City Manager Randy Oliver is up for a raise. If the council approves, Oliver’s salary will go from $149,500 to $153,985 (up 3%). Here’s something curious: he also gets an “automobile allowance” of $500/month, which is also up for an increase to $575/month. I have no idea how much Mr. Oliver is required to drive for his position, but wouldn’t it be cheaper for him to drive a car from the city’s fleet? It doesn’t seem like a guy who makes over $150,000/year really needs an “automobile allowance,” does it?
  • That didn’t take long — just a couple weeks after Ferrell-Madden Associates suggested that a TIF district would be needed to revitalize the Warehouse District, here it is on the agenda for Tuesday night. Actually, it’s a recommended TIF (tax increment financing) district for the whole “Southern Gateway,” which includes the Warehouse District (to be rebranded “the Riverfront Arts District”), the River’s Edge Redevelopment Initiative, and the Eagle View Biotech Park. I predict this will elicit no small amount of discussion. After I have a chance to read up on the plans, I’ll write a separate post on this one.
City Council, City of Peoria

The Tax Man

4 Comments

Over Memorial Day weekend, I took my family downtown for our annual lunch outing. I don’t know how it got started, but for several years now we pick a date in May to go downtown, eat at the pushcarts, listen to the “Arts in Education” groups that play in courthouse square, then go in and pay our property taxes for the year.

I know, that last part sounds like a downer, but because of the music and food, it makes the whole experience a little more palatable. This year we paid three times as much as previous years because we bought a bigger house last September to accommodate our growing family. It was the last day of the “Arts in Education” performances, and we heard a little of the Jazz All-Stars, but couldn’t stay long because there’s no shade where they were playing. We went over to the fountain area, which is surrounded by trees. There we sat in the shade and listened to the third grade class from Charter Oak School perform. They were really good — their music teacher is very talented and entertaining. You could tell he was having fun, and so were the kids.

After paying my taxes, it got me wondering how much property taxes contribute to Peoria’s income, and what those taxes pay for. So, I consulted the City of Peoria’s 2006 Budget, which is conveniently available online on the city’s website. I was surprised by what I learned:

Property taxes, which are projected to bring $20.9 million to city coffers, only account for 14.2% of the city’s total revenue. Of course, the city collects all kinds of other taxes, most notably a 1.5% sales tax which accounts for 15% of the city’s revenue. That’s right, sales taxes bring in more money than property taxes. The city also collects taxes on gasoline, utilities, and hotels/restaurants/amusements (HRA).

Where does the money go? Mostly for personnel costs. In 2006, personnel costs are expected to account for 75% of expenditures — that includes benefits, which are rising astronomically as we all know. In fact, between 2005 and 2006, benefits increased 15.9%, and benefits alone account for 24% of city expenditures. The city has 787 employees (I’m assuming this is when fully staffed), and that includes police officers, firefighters, public works employees, council members, and administrative staff.

They say you can tell a lot about a person’s values by looking at where he spends his money. If that can be applied to cities, then Peoria values public safety and public works. Police services account for 19% of expenditures, fire protection 13%, and public works 17% — that’s not including benefits.

It’s easy to criticize the city for not providing more police/fire protection, but the question always remains — how do you pay for it? What other services do you cut? What taxes or fees do you raise? This is why it’s easier to be a blogger than a council person, especially around budget time.

Uncategorized

Slow news day

Sorry for the paucity of posts, but there’s really nothing to blog about today.

The big meeting with Ray LaHood, the school board, the park board, and the city was a big bunch of nothing, according to news accounts.  The city council was off this week, so there’s no council meeting to cover.  I asked Randy Ray if there was anything new on the cable franchise renewal front — nope.

*sigh*

I guess it’s kind of nice to have a break, now that I think about it.  I’m sure there will be something blogworthy again soon enough….

Nation/World, State of Illinois

Pantagraph can’t decide if it’s for or against earmarks

1 Comment

I was looking up some information on Ray LaHood and the money he brings to our community through the earmark system, and I ran across this editorial from Sunday’s Bloomington Pantagraph. (I recommend you read it, as it will make it easier to understand this post.)

It’s titled, “Illinois missing out on federal ‘pork’ feeding,” and the basic thesis is that Illinois pays more in taxes than it gets in federal spending on state projects. In fact, they claim we’re 46th out of the 50 states, receiving “only 73 cents for every $1 its taxpayers sent to the nation’s capital in fiscal 2004.”

What I’m trying to figure out is if they’re for or against earmarks. They say, “Illinois is subsidizing the ‘earmarks’ and ‘pork’ that are helping drive up our national debt.” So, they’re against it, right? But then they conclude by saying:

We’re not holding our collective breaths for any earth-shaking tightening of the reins from lawmakers who like to remind us that these pork projects date back to the days of George Washington.

If the rules don’t change, then Illinois’ representatives should do a better job of feeding with the others at the trough.

This strikes me as highly hypocritical, and puts lawmakers in a “damned if you do/damned if you don’t” situation. If they “bring home the pork,” they’re criticized for driving up the national debt. Yet, if they show restraint and don’t use the earmark system to its maximum, then they’re criticized for subsidizing other states’ pork and not bringing enough to Illinois!

If I were a lawmaker and read that editorial, it would persuade me to just keep on doing what I’ve been doing.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Park District, Peoria Public Schools, Ray LaHood

LaHood mediation meeting not inspiring confidence

2 Comments

Nothing cures distrust like more secrecy.

Today’s Word on the Street column reports that the public won’t be allowed to witness Ray LaHood’s mediation skills when he tries to broker a compromise on the location of a new school in the city’s East Bluff. LaHood will be meeting behind closed doors at 9:30 a.m. this Wednesday, May 31, with officials from the city, school board and park board. They’ll have a press conference after the meeting.

It appears I’m not the only one who wonders why LaHood is getting involved in this issue. In a letter to the editor that was also published in today’s Journal Star, Donald R. Jackson says:

It is too bad LaHood didn’t make himself available to mediate the conflict between the School Board, Dr. Kay Royster and members of the community who supported her then and still do. LaHood was asked to intervene, but he declined stating that he had no control or influence over the board.

In one sense, these two situations are different: the Royster issue involved one public body that was internally divided — the school board; the school siting issue involves three public bodies — the school board, park board, and city — who are at odds with each other, but are not internally divided.

But in another sense, the situations aren’t different at all. In both cases, it’s a local government issue that doesn’t warrant the time of a U.S. Congressman to mediate. What’s next? Will he be mediating a compromise between the city council and the county board regarding jail fees and election commissions?

And if that weren’t enough, he’s also related to the park board director. Doesn’t that bother anyone? I’m not trying to impugn his integrity, but LaHood seems to have a real blind spot when it comes to the appearance of his actions. He should have enough judgement to see that his in-law relationship to Bonnie Noble gives at least the appearance of impropriety and bias when he’s trying to mediate a dispute that involves the park district.

Then to have the meeting behind closed doors is just the icing on the cake. As the WOTS column points out, decisions made in closed-door meetings are one of the biggest points of contention! And I loved this line:

Tim Butler, LaHood’s spokesman, defended the decision to have the meeting closed, saying there would not be any decisions or determinations and therefore still plenty of time for public input.

There won’t be any decisions? What exactly is the point of this meeting? How do you resolve a dispute without making any decisions? Is Ray just going to do one of those little team-building exercises — like having Councilman Manning fall backwards while Ken Hinton and Tim Cassidy catch him so they can all build up trust for each other?

Despite all my reservations, I nevertheless hope that something good comes out of this meeting. I hope LaHood proves wrong all my fears. But most of all, I hope Glen Oak School remains in the heart of the East Bluff, and that the school board will learn to be more transparent in the future so we don’t have to go through all this rigmarole.

Illinois American Water

Tribune looks at water buyout efforts

1 Comment

The Chicago Tribune has a good article on the fight many communities are waging to buy back their water works from American Water Company. You’ve probably heard most of the stories, but I did find a couple of quotes particularly interesting:

In most instances, American Water–RWE’s U.S. arm and the largest private water company in the country–has won. In the last 15 years, it has sold only three operations because of hostile challenges.

I didn’t know they had sold any, did you? Although the Tribune sets this in a negative tone (“it has only sold three…”), I imagine most cities would see this as an encouragement. If hostile challenges have worked three times, they can work again, right? On the other hand, RWE has a strong incentive to keep fighting:

The Illinois challenges come at an especially delicate juncture for the company. Although American Water officials say none of the firm’s individual units is for sale, RWE is pursuing a public stock offering for the whole of American Water. If communities succeed in taking over even a few of its subsidiaries, the value of the public offering could be seriously eroded, company officials say.

I suppose their reasoning should have been obvious, but this is the first time I’ve seen the company say something other than simply “it’s not for sale.”

Even though I’m not a proponent of Peoria buying back its water works, I think it’s good to keep abreast of this issue because it’s only a couple of years before Peoria tries the buyout route again.

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

The Cold War is over; no need for sprawl anymore

7 Comments

At Thursday’s form-based code “Work-In-Progress” presentation, I learned something new. Do you know what one of the big contributing factors to suburban sprawl was? Civil defense. Really!

In 1951, as a way of protecting us from nuclear attack, President Truman announced his National Industrial Dispersion Policy. The idea was to provide incentives for cities to get their industrial plants away from densely populated areas so that, if the bomb drops, it would minimize the damage. This assumes the old-school mentality that our enemies would only go after military targets and want to minimize civilian casualties.

Well, city planners started planning with this “dispersion” principle in mind, and, lo and behold, our cities are now dispersed! Everything is separate and safe from those Soviet nukes. Except the Soviets are gone and our new enemies are just as happy taking out civilians, so our sprawling cities offer us no protection now. Truman couldn’t have seen that coming.

Other than that, Thursday’s meeting was nothing new for a regular HOP presentation attender. That’s not to say it wasn’t good, because it was. But it’s lost the “wow” factor for me because I’ve seen so many of these artists’ renderings and Photoshopped pictures of what Peoria could look like in the future: tree-lined streets with landscaped boulevards, historic streetlamps, angled parking, wider sidewalks, and bustling pedestrian traffic. It’s time to take the next step of turning those pictures into reality for Peoria.

It all starts in the black and white minutiae of zoning rules and regulations. Nothing is as powerful as zoning at shaping a city.

For example, take a drive down Knoxville and check out the new doctor’s office on the northwest corner of Knoxville and Corrington. All the other professional offices along that stretch of Knoxville are set close to the sidewalk with parking in the rear. But the new office has to conform to one-size-fits-all suburban zoning laws which require it to be set back from the street and provide parking in front. As buildings are replaced, you can see how, over time, that kind of zoning could change the whole character of that stretch.

Because the stakes are so high in tinkering with the zoning ordinances, getting citizen input is essential. But at the same time, it’s the fun part of the job. The real work begins when you try to codify the citizens’ desires into regulatory language, working with public works staff, planning engineers, and other government officials. That’s why Ferrell & Madden get the big bucks.

Perhaps the hardest sell and the most controversial part of their presentation is their recommendation to create another dreaded TIF (tax-increment financing) district for the Warehouse District. Their reasoning is that it’s the only financially feasible way to turn that area around. There are myriad infrastructure needs (from environmental cleanup of hydrolic fluid to upgrading power lines), and no reasonable way to finance them other than through a TIF.

However, they reason, what people are really upset about is the abuse of TIFs in Peoria, not the proper use of them. They stressed that this is an example of the type of project for which TIFs were created. This TIF would benefit a whole area, not just one business or developer like we’ve seen at MidTown Plaza, for instance.

When Ferrell Madden Associates are done, here’s what we’ll have: (1) very specific form-based codes for the Sheridan/Loucks Triangle, Prospect Corridor, and Warehouse District, and (2) zoning changes for the rest of the Heart of Peoria from euclidian zoning rules (dispersion) to traditional city planning principles (mixed-use).

Things won’t change overnight, and we certainly need to work on other problems in tandem (crime, schools), but this is one piece of the puzzle that will help transform the Heart of Peoria into a more desirable place to live and work.

Illinois American Water

At least the trip to Germany wasn’t for naught

Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing flew to Germany earlier this spring to see if she could talk RWE AG into selling the city its part of Illinois American Water Company.  Of course, they said “nein,” but the News-Gazette reports that Illinois American did announce yesterday (coincidentally, they claim) they plan to “build a new water treatment plant in west Champaign, part of $40 million in capital improvements planned over the next five years.”

So, I guess the trip wasn’t all for naught.

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools, State Legislation, State of Illinois

Legal loopholes make a mockery of the Open Meetings Act

6 Comments

I have had further correspondance with an attorney who spoke to me on condition of anonymity. Here’s a transcript of what we talked about regarding the school district’s actions and whether or not it violates the Open Meetings Act (OMA).

Real Lawyer:

C.J., I regret that there has been some misinterpretation by others about the OMA as it applies to the actions of Dist. 150. Just to clarify, the OMA and caselaw interpreting it do not (unfortunately in my view) prohibit ratification by the board after an action has been taken. What the OMA prohibits is the board taking official action on anything in closed session. Whether the board decides to approve something in advance or ratify it afterwards, it must take that action in open session.

Me:

Thanks for the follow-up. I am confused, however. If they can take final action in closed session, then approve it post facto in open session, doesn’t that make the prohibition against closed-session final action in the OMA meaningless?

Lawyer:

The board cannot take final action for the property purchases in closed session. I think Matheson may have made a remark at their last meeting stating they could do so; if he did say that, he was wrong. And “final action” doesn’t necessarily mean a formal vote; anything constituting approval can be a final action.

I don’t know what if any action the board took prior to the Prospect property purchases. But the fact that they ratified the purchases at their last meeting, in the open, was likely sufficient under current case law. This is what I think is unfortunate, but until the case law is overturned that’s what we have.

This is all sort of splitting hairs, but I wanted to try to clarify it.

Me:

Sorry I’m not grasping this. It sounds like you’re saying this (not you personally, but case law): If the school board approves in closed session the acquisition of property, it constitutes “final action” per the OMA, and is therefore illegal. But, that illegality is nullified if the board subsequently approves the purchase in open session. Am I understanding that right? They can perform an illegal act and then magically turn it into a legal act by approving it publically after the fact?

Lawyer:

In essence you are right; that’s the clear implication. And the way you phrased it helps, I think, to demonstrate why post-action ratification should not be permitted, at least in situations like the one we have with the property purchases. By allowing a board to “cure” a mistake via ratification afterwards, the courts have made it too easy to evade the intent of the OMA’s requirement for openness.

Is that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? What we have here is a legal loophole for the school board or any other public body to skirt around the Open Meetings Act and take secret action, away from public scrutiny, even though it involves spending (in this case) $877,500 of taxpayers’ money! All they have to do to make it “legal” is approve it after the fact in open session. Big deal. The money’s already gone! How could they not approve it? The contracts are already signed. Talk about violating the spirit of the law….

If the case law does indeed allow for this loophole, it should not be allowed to stand. Senator Shadid, who has expressed concern about the secrecy under which this action was taken, should work with his colleagues in Springfield to immediately propose an amendment to the Open Meetings Act that specifically prohibits such “post-action ratification” by a public body.