City Council, City of Peoria

After throwing away nearly $50M, City pleads poverty on basic services

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The City of Peoria is looking at cutting the budget Tuesday night. This isn’t part of the 2011 budget negotiations, but rather a cut to the 2010 budget. City staff is forecasting that there will be a $1.2 million shortfall in state income tax and personal property replacement tax revenues. Here are the areas to be cut:

Radios: $ 40,450
Public Safety Cameras: $200,000
Furniture and Equipment: $ 69,200
Renaissance Park: $ 43,890
Neighborhood Signs: $ 9,650
Trails Edge Hammerhead: $ 63,700
Traffic Signals: $ 1,910
GIS: $ 7,700
Fire Station Upgrades: $237,600
Fire Equipment-SCBA & Harness: $ 70,000
Fire Fleet Recap: $ 71,340
Fiber Optic: $ 60,000
Fleet Recap: $ 274,560
Western Avenue Greenway: $ 50,000

Nevertheless, the City is able to afford to give away $10 million in land to the County for $1 and to give $37 million to a millionaire hotel developer.

As is evident, when public spending increases, it creates inflation, which increases people’s living costs, which is also directly related to the mortality rate of adult men.

To that extent, it is advisable to have life insurance that provides your family with the guarantee of not being helpless. Visit https://www.lifecoverquotes.org.uk so you can see that the costs are affordable. A cheap payment for a peace of mind in your family.

City Council, City of Peoria

City to hire consultant to help reorganization

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On the City’s agenda for Tuesday night:

The City intends on reorganizing as a major step to realize its overall goals to become more efficient and effective. The objective is to have the new organization fully deployed and operational no later than mid-December 2010 so that the financial benefits will begin accruing to the City no later than January 2, 2011.

These organizational changes will generate many changes to the current reporting structure and the processes currently utilized by City Government for the majority of the organization. And, unless this new organizational structure and corresponding process changes are readily and rapidly accepted by the employees the resistance to these changes will present the potential for lost productivity, turmoil, and risk to gaining the desired financial results.

With that in mind, Staff is recommending the approval of LaMarsh and Associates, Inc. to assist the City of Peoria plan for and roll out its new organizational structure and process changes to the organization. By proactively addressing the potential resistance to these changes, the organization can and will more rapidly accept and adopt these changes, generating the desired financial gains for the City and its taxpayers.

FINANCIAL IMPACT: Estimated total cost of $45,000 to be funded through the reprogramming of capital project funds relating to Federal Grant Consultant (E04009) $18,585; Community School Initiative (PB0604) $22,760 and Competition Enhancement (PB0710) $3,655.

NEIGHBORHOOD CONCERNS: N/A

I can’t wait to see what changes are being planned to the City’s organization, although I suppose I shouldn’t care. After all, neighborhood concerns are “not applicable.” Sounds like the changes, which have yet to be revealed to the taxpayers they are supposed to benefit, are quite controversial within the ranks of city employees.

City of Peoria

San Marcos to decide on city manager Oct. 1

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The San Marcos Record (Texas) reports that the City Council there will make a decision on who to hire as City Manager on October 1. Peoria’s current City Manager, Scott Moore, is a finalist for the position. Over 100 residents turned out for a “meet the candidates” forum on Wednesday, the paper said. Here’s what they had to say about Moore:

Longtime San Marcos resident Carmen Imel said she was impressed by all of the candidates but she especially came to meet Moore because she used to teach at Illinois State University near Peoria.

Imel said she believes the new city manager should help attract companies like Caterpillar to San Marcos because there is a shortage of large employers in the area.

“They need skilled workers, but I guess we’ll have to bring them in,” she said. […]

Even though he is currently the farthest away, Moore told attendees that his roots in Central Texas make him the ideal candidate.

Moore earned his Bachelors in Business Administration from then-Southwest Texas State University in 1994 and played football there from 1989 to 1993.

“I think just being able to come back and re-establish ties. I have an instant connection with the athletic department, the administration (and) the business school,” he said.

He said even though he has only been city manager of Peoria for one year, he welcomed the opportunity to possibly move back to San Marcos because he is originally from Bastrop and still has family there.

“Any chance an individual gets to go back home, you have to always say you are interested,” he said. “If a person says they are not interested in going back home or going back to where they got a start, I think it would be short-sighted for the conversation to really go beyond that because I think in everybody’s heart they would want to go close to family and friends.”

He was previously the assistant city manager of Wichita, Kan. from Aug. 2005 to Sept. 2009.

It’s interesting that in San Marcos, the public gets to meet the candidates before the Council decides who to hire. In Peoria, everything is kept a secret from the public until after the decision is made. John Sharp had a good article in the Journal Star about how our local officials rationalize their lack of transparency in the process.

City of Peoria

City Manager Moore a finalist for Texas job (UPDATED)

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Peoria’s City Manager Scott Moore has been announced as a finalist for the city manager position in San Marcos, Texas, according to the San Marcos Daily Record:

The San Marcos City Council has announced three finalists for the position of City Manager following two days of interviews.

They are Jeffrey Howell, city manager of Kilgore, Scott Moore, city manager of Peoria, Ill [emphasis added], and Jim Nuse, city manager of Round Rock.

They will be invited back for a second round of interviews with the City Council and a public meet and greet to be held on Wednesday, Sept. 22 from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the City of San Marcos Conference Center, 3101 S. IH 35.

San Marcos is located about halfway between Austin and San Antonio in south central Texas and has a population of about 35,000. The City Manager job description for San Marcos is available here. Scott Moore started as Peoria City Manager in August 2009.

UPDATE: The City of Peoria has released a statement from City Manager, Scott Moore:

City Manager Scott Moore is a finalist for the position of City Manager in St. Marcos, Texas. As a young professional, Scott has been sought out by other communities; however, this particular location would provide him with the opportunity to be closer to family. “I enjoy the challenges that we are working through in the City of Peoria, and it is also humbling to be approached by other communities who believe you possess the qualities that could be an asset to their organization,” said Moore.

City Council, City of Peoria

City Council meetings now available online

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From a City of Peoria press release:

Peoria – (September 14, 2010) – Within one week after each meeting of the Peoria City Council, citizens can go on-line to view streaming video of the meetings.

The video can be accessed by going to www.peoriacitycouncilmeetings.com and selecting a meeting from the playlist, then click play. Specific parts of the meeting can be viewed by highlighting the tool bar at the bottom of the screen. The toolbar appears when the mouse hovers over the screen. The site does require a flash enabled web browser to view the meetings.

This new feature is provided by Focal Point Video, the company awarded the contract to record the Council meetings. The Council meetings were previously recorded by Comcast.

Council meetings are televised live on Comcast cable channel 22, and are rebroadcast Wednesdays at Noon. Dvd’s are also available for purchase through the City Manager’s Office. The Peoria City Council meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 6:15 p.m.

General News

Probably no connection

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On 11/17/2009, Gary Matthews of E. M. Properties contributed $10,000 to “Taxpayers for Quinn.” Previously, Matthews had given no more than $500 in a single contribution to any political candidate, most of them Republicans, according to campaign disclosures currently available online.

In a completely unrelated matter, Governor Quinn signed Senate Bill 2534 on June 19, 2010, giving Gary Matthews’ Wonderful Development a 25% income tax credit for qualified renovation costs with a cap of $10 million. The legislation is designed to be a “pilot” program for possible statewide historic tax credits of a similar nature, meaning that, for the time being, Mr. Matthews is the only developer in Illinois who benefits from this tax break.

City Council, City of Peoria

Liveblogging the City Council 9-14-2010

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Hello all you lonely people who have nothing better to do than read a live blog about the Peoria City Council meeting. 🙂 Mayor Ardis is not here this evening, so Ryan Spain is filling in as Mayor Pro Tem. As always, I’ll be updating this post throughout the evening, so refresh often. Here’s tonight’s agenda:

Continue reading Liveblogging the City Council 9-14-2010 →

Bradley University

Bradley’s investment in Main Street Commons could be over $1M

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Bradley isn’t saying exactly how much they invested in Main Street Commons, but they are saying this, from the Bradley University Scout:

Vice President for Business Affairs Gary Anna said Main Street Commons construction had been delayed due to the struggling economy, but Bradley had a hand in funding the first phase of building. “We took a piece of our endowment that had been set aside,” he said. “The preliminary stage of the project is $12 million, and we gave less than 10 percent of that. The money is not coming from a source that would construct a building on campus or for equipment for labs, so we’re not shortchanging the students. There is a return on our end that will go back to the endowment.”

Less than 10% of $12 million is any amount up to $1,199,999.99.

Museum Block, Peoria County, Peoria Journal Star

Panetta criticizes Block the Bonds effort

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Journal Star reporter Gary Panetta recycled his blog post of Sept. 2 (also see his follow-up post Sept. 3) as a print article on Sunday. He thinks the Block the Bonds group is “nitpicking and making much over nothing much at all and potentially mucking up a project that could turn out to be a real turning point for the city’s art scene.” I’ll let my comments on the two blog posts stand as my response to his article. I’ve reprinted them below the jump for archival purposes.

Continue reading Panetta criticizes Block the Bonds effort →