Polly Peoria has the right take on the Southtown deal:
Peoria very well might be better off if Methodist and/or OSF build their planned facilities and the would be buyer of the vacant lot be shut out. However, that is the role of the market place, not local government (no matter how noble their intent) to decide.
Didn’t somebody say they didn’t think government should be into choosing the winners and losers? If this isn’t just that sort of situation, I don’t know what is.
I’ve decided to take Bill’s advice and leave Blogger for WordPress. However, I’m still getting acquainted with my new digs and I’m not completely moved in yet. I think this setup will be better in the long run. Please bear with me while I’m getting things set up. Thanks!
Fifth-district councilman Patrick Nichting doesn’t want to wait three weeks to decide on Select Medical Corporation’s offer to buy a four-acre plot in Southtown. A motion to reconsider comes up Tuesday night:
Communication from Council Member Nichting Requesting RECONSIDERATION OF THE MOTION TO DEFER ITEM NO. 06-026 Regarding OPTION AGREEMENT with SELECT MEDICAL CORPORATION, LLC., for the PURCHASE of CITY-OWNED PROPERTY, (Bordered by Hightower, R.B. Garrett, and Richard Pryor Way), in the Amount of $714.384.00.
The City Council will decide Tuesday night whether to let the former Hunts property be disconnected from the city so it can be annexed to West Peoria. As you may recall, Crusens bought the neighboring Hunts property when Hunts closed for good last year. Hunts is in Peoria, whereas Crusens is in West Peoria.
I would expect the city to give the okay to disconnect it, but who knows? Maybe one of the other bars in town will ask the council to defer this a couple weeks so they can understand the deal better….
Somebody tell Bonnie Noble to put her sledgehammer away — the demolition of the Kellar Branch has been delayed.
The Surface Transportation Board today decided to stay the effective date of their decision to discontinue service on the Kellar Branch. The Board stated:
The Board’s decision granting CIRY’s petition for exemption was premised on the fact that the existing shippers on this segment of rail line would receive rail service in the future via a new western connection to the Union Pacific Railroad Company (UP) or by some other arrangement . . . . In its letters, Carver Lumber expresses concern about allowing CIRY’s discontinuance authority to go into effect because the western connection has not yet been completed. Carver Lumber also raises several issues regarding the western connection to UP that call into question the availability and practicability of that alternative when it is completed. Until these issues are resolved, it would be inappropriate to allow this discontinuance to become effective.
A stay of the effective date of the exemption is appropriate to allow time for the parties to provide additional information and for the Board to consider the issues presented in Carver Lumber’s filing. Accordingly, the exemption will be stayed pending further order of the Board. In the interim, CIRY and the City are directed to keep the Board informed of their progress in addressing and resolving the issues raised by Carver Lumber.
This Board’s decision was originally set to take effect January 22. That date has now been postponed indefinitely.
An anonymous commenter wondered why there has been no discussion from bloggers about the council’s deferral of a $9 million development in Southtown. So, anon, this is for you.
A Pennsylvania company wants to build a long-term acute care hospital. They’re not asking for any financial assistance from the city, and are willing to pay $714,384 for the four-acre parcel. It would create 100 jobs. This sounds like a slam-dunk deal, doesn’t it? Why in the world was it deferred?
Well, Second District Councilperson Barbara Van Auken wouldn’t say in the meeting (isn’t that intriguing?), but she later told the Journal Star that “a lawyer for OSF Saint Francis Medical Center contacted her Monday, asking for more time to understand the deal. Since St. Francis is planning a $250 million expansion and is one of the area’s largest employers, Van Auken said she didn’t see a problem with giving them the courtesy of a deferral.”
Let’s think about this for a second. Who does this lawyer work for? OSF. And so who’s interests is he looking out for? OSF’s, right? Does he care about the city’s interests? Only insofar as it furthers OSF’s interests. And so, why does he need to “understand the deal” before the city can act on this offer? Why is it in the city’s interests to defer the vote?
The statement from the Journal Star seems to imply that it’s because “St. Francis is planning a $250 million expansion and is one of the area’s largest employers.” So? What’s that got to do with the price of eggs in China? As I read it, this deal is between the City of Peoria and Select Medical Property Ventures, LLC. It doesn’t involve OSF at all. In fact, OSF could potentially be a competitor if they have any plans to enter into the “long-term acute care” market. It wouldn’t be any stretch of the imagination to consider that could be in their long-term plans, would it? So, again I ask, why is the city delaying the vote so that OSF’s lawyer can “understand the deal”? If you run a personal injury law firm, one of your top priorities in the business will always be getting new clients and signing more cases. Daniel Hegwer are a team of personal injury trial lawyers with proven expertise handling injury cases.
Delaying the vote so OSF can weigh in on the deal can only mean one thing: OSF and a majority of the council believe that OSF should have a place at the table when deciding where, how, and perhaps if new medical establishments locate in Peoria. And that’s troubling.
Why should a land deal in Southtown have to get OSF’s go-ahead before the council can vote on it?
I know some of you are tiring of the Kellar Branch deal, but if you’ve ever wondered why Peoria has a reputation for being anti-business (or at least anti-local-business), one need look no further than this debacle.Carver Lumber is located on the Kellar Branch line and relies on rail transportation for shipping (it’s considerably cheaper than trucking). They agreed to the city’s plan to turn the Kellar Branch into a hiking/biking trail on the condition that equivalent service be provided via a “western spur” that the city promised to build.  What the city has done is:
Now Carver is making a reasonable request of the Surface Transportation Board: stay the Board’s decision to discontinue rail service on the Kellar Branch until (a) the western spur is completed, and (b) service via the western spur has proven to be adequate for Carver’s needs.
The city’s response? “That would not be appropriate.”
That’s what the city’s attorney Tom McFarland wrote to the Surface Transportation Board today. He goes on to say, “It would not be appropriate to stay the Board’s decision for an indefinite time while the adequacy of service from the west is tested, and perhaps to overturn the Board’s decision if Carver Lumber deems that service to be inadequate.”
In other words, turning the Kellar Branch into a linear park is more important than maintaining a profitable business climate for a long-time, local Peoria business.
It’s actually worse than that. The city has no agreement with Union Pacific to use their line to the west, despite the western spur they’ve connected to it. So, by saying it’s “inappropriate” to stay the decision “until the adequacy of service from the west is tested,” what they’re really saying is they’re not willing to ensure Carver can receive any shipments at all via the western spur before they start ripping up the rails on the Kellar Branch!
And why is it they’re doing this? For a hiking/biking trail.
Make no mistake, parks are more important than business in Peoria.
During the latest annexation of 715 acres, I heard more than one media outlet describe it as “the largest annexation since the city added Richwoods Township.” I wasn’t even born yet when Peoria annexed Richwoods Township, so that meant nothing to me, but I figured it must have been a big addition of land.”Big” doesn’t begin to describe it.
I spent some time at the library familiarizing myself with some annexation history tonight and was shocked at the size of the Richwoods annexation. It more than doubled the physical size of the city, expanding it from 15 square miles to 35 square miles. The additional land extended from just north of War Memorial Drive (south of Lake) all the way past Detweiller Park to Ravinswood Road to the north. It also added about 21,000 residents.
And it almost didn’t happen. The residents of the township had to vote for annexation, and pro-annexation voters won by only 336 votes. There was quite a bit of debate leading up to the big vote, which took place on November 21, 1964. Most of the arguments centered around the then separate Richwoods school district which did not want to join Peoria’s District 150. Proponents of annexation pointed out all the city services Richwoods would enjoy: storm sewers, water (provided by the Peoria Water Works Co.), buses, increased law enforcement, the replacement of volunteer firefighters with “city firemen” (lowering their fire insurance bills), garbage collection, street repair, street lights, etc., etc., etc. One of my favorite quotes was, “Speakers for annexation have told prospective voters to consider the long range view, that a bigger city could attract more industry by showing evidence of a growing, vibrant city.”
It’s growing, alright–but only in size. Check out these numbers:
| Year |
Square Miles |
Population |
| 1960 | 15 | 103,162 |
| 2006 | 49.26 | 112,936 |
The physical size of the city is over three times as large as it was 46 years ago, yet our population has increased only 9.5%. Is it any wonder that we’re having trouble balancing budgets? Why is our population stagnant despite the immense increase in land mass, strip malls, retail stores, etc.?
(One interesting side note: the city next tried to annex Peoria Heights in February 1965, but it was roundly defeated by voters there.)
Bill quotes a study that says, “In just a brief one-twentieth of a second–less than half the time it takes to blink–people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an Internet site.” I agree with him that this is taking “style over substance” to an extreme.However, I think some criticism of websites is warranted. For instance, there’s something ironic about a site that touts Peoria’s scientific and technological expertise, yet can’t get their own website updated.
I looked up the website for PeoriaNEXT, “a not-for-profit regional development and commercialization collaborative for science and technology,” and found it interesting that Kay Royster is not only on their Board of Directors, but is still the Superintendent of Peoria Public Schools District 150!Â
Now, I understand how hard it is to keep a website up to date. Almost as soon as you put information out, it’s out of date. For instance, elsewhere on the site they tout District 150’s various academies. Those were just cut by the school board, so technically, that information is also out of date. But I don’t blame them for not having that changed yet — that just happened within the last couple of months! Â
But Kay Royster was ousted in 2004. When I see a site that’s more than a year out of date, I assume it’s been abandoned. I wonder if PeoriaNEXT is still operating.
Last night, the city council voted down a proposal to pay $37,500 in consultant fees toward an effort to get RWE AG to sell off Peoria’s portion of Illinois American Water Company.
There was so much spin put on this issue at the meeting, I started getting dizzy. The item itself seemed pretty straightforward to me:
Communication from the City Manager Requesting Authorization to Enter into a CONTRACT with CLARK-DIETZ, in an Amount Not to Exceed $50,000.00, for the CITY OF PEORIA to EXPLORE the COOPERATIVE PURCHASE of the WATER SYSTEM from ILLINOIS AMERICAN WATER COMPANY with the CITIES of PEKIN, URBANA, and CHAMPAIGN, and the UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.
Sounds like they want to explore purchasing the water company, doesn’t it? But to hear the discussion last night, it appeared everyone agreed that this wasn’t going to work. Nevertheless, one argument after another popped up to go ahead and spend the money anyway:
Boy, those are compelling. When you’re going to be spending over eight billion dollars for a company, I’m sure Peoria’s 1.5% share ($122 million on the private market) is going to be a huge consideration. Ironically, knowledge of Peoria’s buyout option could actually sweeten the deal, once the buyer learns that selling the water company to Peoria means they get an extra $100 million than they would get in the private sector.
But my favorite is the last one — “aw, shucks, 37 grand ain’t all that much money. Heck, let’s just put it in a Valentine’s Day card and mail it to Champaign-Urbana as our way of saying, ‘gee, you guys are swell!'” As long as the city’s feeling so friendly, can you send me $400 to help me pay my Ameren bill? I’ll be happy to send you a letter telling you RWE isn’t interested in selling the water company in pieces. You’ll get your rejection and save $37,100! It’s a win-win!
Wiser council members prevailed. The vote was 8-2 against spending the money.