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City votes against water buyout

The city council, to my surprise and delight, decided not to pursue the water buyout tonight on a very close vote (6-5). Here’s how they voted (a “yea” vote was to pursue the buyout):

Yea: Grayeb, Gulley, Manning, Sandberg, Van Auken
Nay: Ardis, Jacob, Morris, Nichting, Spears, Turner

Jacob, who had hardly said anything thus far on the council, made perhaps the most succinct and compelling speech against the buyout. He was concerned about the debt load the city would be carrying and the fact that just adding revenue doesn’t address the city’s root problems with fiscal responsibility or the lack thereof. He and several others who voted against the buyout still are balking at the price. They feel it was appraised too high and isn’t really worth the amount of money we would have to pay for it at this time. There may be legislation and grants that we could use to our advantage if we wait. Another concern of several council members, including Ardis, was that this vote was too rushed; the vote to pursue due diligence needed to be made in May, not August. There simply isn’t enough time to make a responsible decision.

Grayeb made an eleventh-hour, end-run substitute motion to pursue due diligence with the private Peoria Area Advancement Group (PAAG) loaning $250,000 toward the cost of the process. However, it went down to defeat 7-5, with even Manning (to his credit) voting against it.

Thank you to all the council members for their conscientiousness on this issue. Obviously, I’m happy about the outcome, but I know that those in favor of the buyout also had the best interests of Peoria at heart. My thanks again to you all.

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Water Buyout: Just Say No (Again)

Dear City Council,

There seems to be some confusion over the city residents’ wishes regarding the proposed water buyout, so this letter is to give a little clarification. When we voted “no” in the most recent referendum, that meant that we didn’t want the city to purchase the water company. It’s as simple as that.

Since then, there have been all kinds of crazy ideas regarding the voters’ intent. Some say the voters were ignorant of the facts, that too many of us thought the city was going to actually manage the water company, or that what we were really voting against was the price and terms of purchasing the water company at that time.

Wrong. We voted “no” because, frankly, we don’t trust you. Not you personally, but the council that will exist in various configurations over the coming decades. You have a long track record of using our money unwisely (e.g., RiverPlex), neglecting the older parts of town, and favoring big box developers over neighbors and small businesses (e.g., Glen Hollow, MidTown Plaza).

Storm drainage in the Rolling Acres area has gone unaddressed for years. Raw sewage is being dumped into the river near Detweiller Marina. Lord knows what shape the water infrasturcture will be in if the city’s responsible for maintaining it. And why don’t we have the money to fix those things? Because the city has been busy building ballparks, establishing TIF districts for large retail, and giving away a $565,000 railroad right-of-way to the park district to build a money-losing trail, among other questionable decisions.

To plug a budget shortfall that would have shuttered a fire station, you recently tacked $6 per month onto our water bills under the pretense of a “garbage fee” — a political move that allowed you to boast that you didn’t raise property taxes. Why should we believe you won’t use our water rates the same way in the future?

You say that if future councils unduly raises rates that we can vote them out. But that’s little consolation. We voted out the previous council for the $6 garbage fee and for trying to buy the water company, and yet the garbage fee remains and you’re still considering buying the water company. Clearly, voting you out is no deterrent, and voting in a new council doesn’t repeal past increases or release us from past debt obligations. The damage is already done by the time an election rolls around.

It wouldn’t matter what the price or terms of the sale were, we would still say no to buying the water company. It will inevitably end up being another tax on city residents, and no guarantee of better service or maintenance. Let Illinois American Water Company continue providing us water service; we’re happy with them.

Use all this energy you’ve been exerting to do something that will really help Peoria, like attracting higher-paying manufacturing and industrial jobs, improving the infrastructure in the older parts of Peoria, fixing the storm drainage and sewer problems, and continuing to work with District 150 to improve the schools so people stop moving out to Dunlap and Germantown Hills. There are a lot more beneficial things you could be doing instead of pursuing this buyout to which residents have consistently said no.

The first step in regaining our trust is to listen to us. Think about that when you vote tonight.

Sincerely,
Your constituents

Kellar Branch

Kellar Branch: The Saga Continues

Some interesting developments in the Pioneer Industrial Railway v. City of Peoria department today. You may recall that, over the weekend, Pioneer (PIRY) filed a petition with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to reopen the adverse discontinuance case. Today, the STB published the documentation that goes with that petition, and it’s very interesting!

It looks like Pioneer has secured another attorney and is taking further legal action. The last STB ruling found (among other things) that the City of Peoria is the landlord, so to speak, and Pioneer is the tenant, and that any disputes between owner and tenant are not for the STB to decide, but whatever court has jurisdiction over such matters. So, Pioneer is filing suit against DOT Rail and the City of Peoria in circuit court. Pioneer maintains that the agreement between the city and Pioneer (as successor to Peoria & Pekin Union Railway) did not specify an expiration date, and thus the original agreement is still in effect. If that’s true, then Pioneer can continue operating on the line as long as they’re providing adequate service to shippers. PIRY wants the STB to clarify that the city cannot remove any track on the Kellar Branch unless (a) this court case is decided in favor of the city and (b) CIRY receives authority from the STB to discontinue service on the line. In order for the STB to make such a clarification, it would technically need to “reopen” the case/decision. Thus the petition to reopen/reconsider.

Sound confusing? Legal maneuvers usually are. I think Pioneer makes a good case, though. Their position is that, if the court case is decided in Pioneer’s favor, but the city has already ripped up the rail line, they will have done irreparable damage to Pioneer’s ability to reestablish shipping. Thus, the line should stay in place until the court case is decided. They threw in the second condition because the city keeps talking as if they can rip out the track once the spur is completed without going back to the STB for discontinuance approval. Pioneer wants to remind the city that they can’t legally do that.

The upshot is that this dispute could take months or years to wind its way through the courts, and if the city has to keep the tracks in place until it’s finally resolved, the park district may lose its funding for converting the Kellar Branch into an extension of the Rock Island Trail. So, it will be interesting to see how the STB responds (if it responds at all).

Oh, one other interesting thing — you know how the Journal Star castigated Pioneer for supposedly pulling out early when they had promised to help with the transition? PIRY’s STB filing includes a letter from city attorney Thomas McFarland that ordered PIRY to vacate the tracks by 11:59 p.m. August 21. So Pioneer was just following orders. I wonder if the Journal Star will report that news. Not!

City of Peoria

Internet Every Day

I was checking out the Peoria Public School District 150 website, and I came across a link that said simply “Technology.”  I thought it looked intriguing, so I clicked on it and came across a plethora of internet links for students and teachers.  The most curious one was labeled “Internet Every Day.”  This links to another page on the school district website that includes this introduction:
As a classroom teacher with 5 computers and a new “attachment” to the wide area network and the World Wide Web, I want to see my students engaged in meaningful use of these resources.  I have researched numerous sites that I feel would be useful for my students to access on a daily basis and also resources for teachers to use for their daily tasks.  Try as many of these sites as you like and see what you think.
After this are several links to “sites for kids” and “sites for teachers.”  The sites for kids include “Time.com for Kids,” “Yahooligans! News, Jokes, and Sports,” “Brainteasers,” “EduPuppy,” and several others.
 
This is ridiculous.  First of all, when did using the internet become a basic skill right up there with readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic?  Using the internet is not that difficult, folks.  You don’t have to do it every day of your school year to figure it out.  I never even had the internet until I was past college age and I picked it up without any trouble.  My parents are in their late fifties/early sixties and they use it.  So don’t tell me this is a life skill that kids need to learn early or they’ll just never make it in the real world If I want to learn more about tv and internet packages then I can do so pretty quick. 
 
As far as using the content of the internet for educational purposes, I think it’s a waste of money.  There’s great cost in wiring schools for internet access and purchasing computers and paying network administrators to keep it all humming, and for what?  I’ve clicked on many of the links on the “Internet Every Day” page, and they’re nothing that needs to be done on a computer.  For example:
  • Brainteasers:  I used to do brainteasers in school — they used to call them “story problems,” and the teacher handed them out on a piece of paper.  This gave me the added benefit of being able to work out the math on the paper itself so the teacher could see how I came up with my answer, not just whether or not I got the right answer.
  • Word of the Day:  We used to call these “vocabulary tests.”  We’d have a list of words for which we needed to know each spelling and definition.  Another way we got a “word of the day” was by reading books.  When we came across a word we didn’t know, we’d look it up in the dictionary (that’s a book filled with “words of the day” and their definitions).
  • Yahooligans! News:  We read the newspaper — they still publish these today.
  • Ask Jeeves:  We used a set of books called an “encyclopedia.”  The World Book encyclopedia was especially kid-friendly, with well-written but easy-to-understand entries and lots of pictures and diagrams.  Some entries even had little science projects you could do!  For really complicated questions, you might have to go to the library and look up more information in books.
  • A Game A Day:  We used to play games with each other instead of with a computer.  Board games often required skills like counting, making change, or memorization.  Outdoor games required strategy and physical agility.  Playing outside instead of on the computer would go a long way toward keeping kids from getting fat, too.
Certainly none of these internet sites warrant visiting them every day.  Besides their questionable value, there’s also the issue of advertising on several of the sites and the effect that can have on children. 
 
U.S. students are not lagging behind other countries like Germany and Japan because they don’t know how to use Google.  We’ve got them beat on that front.  If you really want to teach the kids something, have them take the computer apart and put it back together.  Then at least they would be learning something about electricity and the properties of certain metals.  They may even get interested in engineering or chemistry as a result.
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Note to Bill Dennis: Stop the annoying “jump to”

As avid readers of Bill Dennis’s Peoria Pundit site (like myself) have no doubt discovered, he’s just putting up headlines with teasers now, and you have to jump to the rest of the story on another page by clicking on “Read the rest of this entry >>” links. 
 
I can understand the occasional use of this feature if you have an excessively long entry, or if you are posting “eye candy” that might be offensive to some readers.  But every post?  Annoying.
 
However, Bill is turning in some very interesting entries, as usual, so I can’t be too critical.  🙂

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Last trip to Ben Franklin

My wife and I visited the Ben Franklin store in the Heights yesterday for the last time.  It was a lot like going to a wake.  The body was still there, but the soul was gone.  We all shuffled by the empty shelves, remembering what was once there but is missing now.  There were times, for instance in the candy aisle, where you felt like the place almost looked lifelike.  But you were soon reminded that this store was never coming back. 
 
I chatted with Jerry Hoerr on my way out the door Saturday.  I told him how I wished someone could have taken over the store so he could still retire and not have to close the shop.  He said no one was interested in buying the store — too much competition from the big box stores.  He told me that sales had been flat the last 4 or 5 years and were even starting to dip now.  So, since he’s retirement age anyway, it’s better to get out now before he has to start putting money into it again. 
 
People sometimes ask me why I don’t shop at Wal-Mart.  My standard answer has been that Wal-Mart is evil (which it is).  But perhaps a better answer would be that I value people over money.  I value people like the Hoerrs, who were able to make a good living for many years by owning a little variety store.  Thanks to places like Wal-Mart, we don’t have that option today.  Anyone who knows anything about Wal-Mart knows that the way they keep their prices low is by paying poverty wages, maintaining a large part-time employee base to avoid paying benefits, and of course outsourcing its manufacturing and production to places like communist China where workers get paid pennies per hour.  So, people keep shopping there, not realizing (or perhaps not caring) that what they save in hard cash, they pay for through the loss of good-paying American jobs and the loss of competent personal service.
 
Others ask how I can possibly avoid foreign-made goods that exploit third-world labor.  The answer is that I can’t avoid them.  But I can avoid some of the worst perpetrators, and there’s no company worse than Wal-Mart in that department.  So, my boycott against Wal-Mart continues….

Kellar Branch

Pioneer appeals STB decision

Pioneer Industrial Railway (PIRY) has requested the Surface Transportation Board (STB) reopen/reconsider their recent ruling in the adverse discontinuance case that removed the short-line operator from the Kellar Branch line.  I doubt this will amount to much, as it seems unlikely to me that the STB would ever reconsider it, let alone reverse their decision.  But it does show that PIRY hasn’t given up on trying to keep rail service on the Kellar Branch line.
 
The text of their request was unavailable over the weekend, but will probably be posted on the STB site Monday.  Expect the Journal Star to have some article tomorrow or Tuesday saying that Pioneer broke its promise not to fight the STB’s decision.

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Thoughts on the Water Buyout

I have to admit that I’m cynical regarding the city’s ongoing quest to purchase the water company.  I know I shouldn’t be.  I should think the best of people.  And, in all honesty, I’m pretty trusting of the present council so far, as they seem to be more basic-services oriented. 
 
But the buyout is a 34-year deal.  I doubt any of these guys are going to be on the council 34 years from now, except maybe Sandberg.  And here’s what I’m afraid will happen:  any money the city makes as a result of the buyout will be used for “progressive” projects, like further remodeling of the civic center, building a history museum, expanding the zoo, etc., etc., etc., instead of improving our outdated infrastructure.  Then, when pipes break and the infrastructure needs to be updated, there won’t be any money left for that, so they’ll slap a special assessment on the adjacent property owners to fix up the city pipes, kinda like they do with sidewalks now. 
 
I also fear that whenever sales tax revenue is down or there is some budget shortfall, the city will raise water rates instead of taxes to plug the hole.  I mentioned this when commenting on Bill’s blog recently, but a good example of this was the so-called “garbage fee” that was passed not long ago.  Isn’t it ironic that they collect that “fee” on our water bills?  I think that’s a pretty good indication of what the city will do to our water bills if they own the water works. 
 
So, that being said, I would be willing to consider the water buyout if the city took steps to alleviate these concerns.  For instance, they could add conditions to their motion to purchase the water works.  One of the conditions would be to put a set amount of money toward infrastructure improvements that can only be used for that purpose — not repurposed for some “quality of life” project like building a trail through the middle of town (before you tell me they didn’t spend any money on that, I’ll remind you that they spent $175,000 to finish the spur from the west to make the trail conversion possible — same difference).  Of course, promises like that can easily be undone by future councils, so to really make it stick, they should require that the money can only be repurposed by a 3/4 vote of the council. 
 
There should also be some sort of oversight/safeguards regarding rate increases.  Perhaps they could appoint a water rate panel that has three citizens, two council people, and a representative of the company that would be managing the water works for the city.  Any rate increases would have to be approved by this panel, and their decisions would be binding. 
 
Maybe these suggestions are unworkable.  So be it.  But the city needs to come up with something to alleviate the fears of Peoria residents that council control of the water company will mean high water bills and nominal improvements in infrastructure.  If they made a good-faith effort to address these concerns, I think more Peorians would be in favor of the buyout.

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Note to Steve Tartar: Try 103.5

In Steve Tartar’s column in this morning’s Journal Star, he lists all the radio stations and formats, just in case you’re new in town, I guess.  He mentions his pet peeve with “103.3 WGLT” is, “Reception not great in Peoria.” 
 
Steve, try tuning into 103.5 (the actual Peoria frequency) and you’ll notice that it comes in great.

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Clark overtaken by Marathon

The Clark gas station at the corner of Knoxville and Forrest Hill is changing to a Marathon gas station, finally. They had a banner advertising the change last fall, but today — roughly a year later — they are finally changing the paint and signage.

Maybe their luck will change with the new moniker. You may remember that this is the station that gets robbed on a regular basis, although thankfully no one has been seriously injured there.

Unfortunately, the one thing that won’t change is the price of gas. High prices, high prices. Wherefore art there high prices? A gas station by any other name will gouge just as bitterly.