The next post I put up will be the first one on the Peoria Chronicle not written by yours truly. Instead, it will be a guest editorial by a regular reader of my blog — an anonymous commenter who goes by the handle “justanobserver.” Justanobserver has a different view than I about the current designs for the Peoria Riverfront Museum and how they fit with New Urbanism, as you will be able to tell immediately.

So, why a guest editorial? In a previous post, “Museum Project Too Big, Too Expensive,” there was quite a back-and-forth discussion going between a museum supporter and a museum critic, and both felt the use of the comments section to express themselves was a little constraining. So I made an offer:

I happen to think this discussion has been very interesting and educational. I love to hear both sides of the issue, and I feel like that’s what we’re getting here.

If you want, and if it would make this forum easier for each of you, I’ll make you an offer. Each of you write up your “side” of the argument — make your case — and send it to me via e-mail, and I will post both of them as guest editorials on my blog.

It sounds like you two are quite involved in Lakeview and can make a good case for your opinions, and I think my readers would love to hear both sides of the argument. Scott could write about what his vision is for a museum and why the Museum Collaboration plan isn’t living up to that ideal. Observer can write about why the current museum plan is better than the Heart of Peoria Plan vision. … Or however you want to organize it — I’m just trying to say you can both feel free to give your positive vision of how the museum project should go. If you’d rather not proceed in this way, that’s fine too. Just wanted to provide you with another option, if you’re interested.

My offer has been accepted, so the next post will be the very first guest editorial to run. I hope you enjoy hearing a different voice once in a while. Let me know what you think.

Note: Right now, I’m not accepting unsolicited editorials. It’s probably unlikely that I would get a flood of submissions if I were accepting them, but Billy is already providing that service on his blog, so it would seem superfluous for me to do the same. To differentiate myself, my guest editorials will be by invitation only.