Hello everyone. Welcome to Peoria City Hall. The business portion of the meeting is starting right now, and it’s 6:40 p.m. Let’s jump right in to tonight’s agenda:
PETITIONS, REMONSTRANCES & COMMUNICATIONS – CITY OF PEORIA
ITEM NO. 1 CONSIDERATION OF CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS BY OMNIBUS VOTE, for the City of Peoria, with Recommendations as Outlined:
A. Communication from the City Manager and Director of Public Works with Request to Award the CONTRACT to the LOWEST RESPONSIVE BIDDER, CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY COMPANY for MAST ARM ASSEMBLIES in the Amount of $24,653.00, with a 90-Day Delivery for the North University and West Glen Avenue Intersection Improvement Project.
B. Communication from the City Manager and Director of Public Works with Request to Approve a RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION for a Portion of Parcel 13-03-400-007 for the Construction of ORANGE PRAIRIE ROAD from US Route 150 (War Memorial Drive) to IL 91/Grange Hall Road/Alta Lane, in the Amount of $235,000.00.
C. Communication from the City Manager and Director of Public Works with Request to Adopt an ORDINANCE for a PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT by Special Assessment: NORTH AVALON PLACE ORNAMENTAL STREET LIGHTING IMPROVEMENT PROJECT (From W. Hudson Avenue to W. Forrest Hill Avenue and From W. Albany Avenue to Buehler Home).
D. REPORT of the CITY TREASURER PATRICK A. NICHTING for the Month of MARCH 2011, with Request to Receive and File.
Akeson requests that Item B be removed. Weaver will be abstaining on Item B. The remaining items pass unanimously.
- Item B: Akeson says this expenditure wouldn’t be prudent given our current budget situation. Irving says it’s 100% funded from IDOT, and “we cannot stop this project.” He means by that, it won’t add anything to our general fund if we kill the project. “This is a very good development corridor for the City of Peoria,” he says. “It’s good for the City.” He moves to approve as outlined, seconded by Turner. Sandberg asks what percentage this property is of the total that needs to be acquired. Answer from Director Barber: approximately half. Sandberg asks if we’re “painting ourselves into a corner.” He wants to know if we’re “on target” not to exceed the total cost IDOT will pay. Motion passes 7-2 (Akeson, Sandberg) — Weaver abstained and Gulley is not here.
ITEM NO. 2 Communication from the City Manager and Interim Human Resources Director with Request to Authorize the City Manager to PURCHASE LIABILITY COVERAGES with ALTERIS PUBLIC RISK SOLUTIONS and AUTO PHYSICAL DAMAGE COVERAGE with GREAT AMERICAN through the Current Broker, ARTHUR J. GALLAGHER RISK MANAGEMENT SERVICES.
Van Auken/Spain move to approve. Passes unanimously. No discussion.
ITEM NO. 3 Communication from the City Manager and Director of Public Works with Request to Approve a THIRD SUPPLEMENT to a PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT for Pioneer Parkway Extension Preliminary Engineering Services with CRAWFORD, MURPHY and TILLY, INC., in an Amount Not to Exceed $87,369.00, to Complete Preliminary Engineering and to Obtain Design Approval for the Expanded Limits of the Project and to be Subject to Review and Approval of the Illinois Department of Transportation, and Authorize the City Manager to Execute the Documents. (Amends 03-612-A; Refer to 07-502-A and 08-456-A).
Weaver is abstaining on this item as well because he owns property in the area. Director Barber says he was asked to give a brief update on the project. He goes through a PowerPoint presentation. He states that it has been a “key project” for may years, supported by previous councils and other civic organizations. He shows a map of north-south routes, illustrating the lack of east-west routes connecting them. Next he shows the hurdles they’ve had due to the environmental impact on wetlands and flood plains. They held a public meeting where over 100 people showed up to look at the project. He shows a map of the proposed final construction. The project is $45-50 million “in today’s dollars.” He says $35 million of it is tied up on the bridge over the Union Pacific rail line and the interchange with Route 6. It will take 10-15 years or more to build the road once the land is acquired.
Sandberg asks what the uses will be in Growth Cells 2 and 3. Barber says the Comprehensive Plan says Cell 2 will be light industrial, and Cell 3 will be residential with some commercial. Sandberg says Cell 2 has seen commercial development instead of the planned light industrial. City Manager Urich says Allen Road is commercial, but the further into Cell 2 you get, the more it will be light industrial. Sandberg is skeptical, based on past experience. Sandberg asks if this configuration will be served by a “balanced bi-directional Union Pacific line.” Answer from Barber: no, we’re not adding a bi-directional switch. His basic point is that there is insufficient infrastructure for Cell 2 to support light industry, and he predicts it will just end up being big-box commercial. Barber says they can add a wye connection in the future, if development warrants it.
Irving says the project started in 2001, LaHood got us $1 million in federal funds for it, and now motor fuel tax (MFT) funds are being used. This project didn’t qualify for stimulus dollars because it wasn’t shovel-ready. He says he wants to “keep this project moving,” and at least get the first leg of it started as soon as possible. Motion to approve, seconded by Eric “Tough Decisions” Turner.
Akeson asks Irving to describe the development proposed behind the car dealership. Answer: the diocese of Peoria is going to be developing back there. Akeson asks if it’s the proposed Notre Dame high school. Irving: “I suppose so.” Akeson says there is no warrant for continuing to pay for this. We need to make a statement that we want to control spending. Economic times have changed, and we just don’t have the money. “There are all sorts of imaginary projects coming forward…but I’m not willing to say yes to something” when “so many roads are in such bad repair.” “We don’t have any plan” to fix the roads. “Why would you go forward spending this money?”
Spain compares this project to the Washington Street project. He’s hoping we’ll get funding for this from other sources, such as the federal government. He wants this project to be shovel-ready, so when stimulus money and other programs are brought forward, we’re ready to get money for the project from those sources. He’s supporting the project. He doesn’t think that this project in the northern part of the city will be at the expense of older parts of the city. He says the property taxes paid in Irving’s district is equal to the property taxes paid in all four other districts combined. Oh my… I can’t believe he actually said that. Way to marginalize four-fifths of the city!
Ardis reiterates Spain’s point. He mentions the “millions of dollars” in investment in that area by OSF. He says he’s going to continue to take handouts from the Feds and the State as long as they’re offering it, even if it is poor policy.
Sandberg says “we’re just spending money without [considering] what it’s going to take to be succesful.” “We need access, but we don’t need this ill-planned access,” he concludes.
Spears says he’ll be supporting the project because “it lays the foundation for the roadwork.” He says we have to plan for the future.
Motion passes 7-2 (Sandberg, Akeson). So much for Mr. Turner making tough decisions.
ITEM NO. 4 Communication from the City Manager and Director of Public Works with Request to Approve the CITY OF PEORIA SPECIAL ASSESSMENT PROGRAM POLICIES AND PROCESS, Which Revokes any Former Policy and Represents the Entire Policy with Regard to Special Assessments. (Refer to 08-491).
Van Auken moves to approve. Sandberg is dissatisfied with this new policy. “All we’ve done is institutionalize our inefficiency in getting special assessment projects completed,” he says. Van Auken gives Barber a chance to respond to why it takes so long to get these projects completed. Answer: they were behind on projects, but they’re just about caught up. They get behind when there are very large projects that are expensive and take several years to complete.
[There was more, but I lost my internet connection and lost the rest of my post on this item. Sorry. It passed 9-1 with Sandberg voting no.]
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
(11-183) Communication from the City Manager and Director of Planning and Growth Management with Recommendation from the Zoning Commission and Staff to DENY an ORDINANCE Amending an EXISTING SPECIAL USE, Ordinance No. 16,082 as Amended, in a Class C-2 (Large Scale Commercial) District for a SHOPPING CENTER to Add a FIVE FOOT TALL, THIRTY-FOUR SQUARE FOOT MONUMENT SIGN for Property Commonly Known as JUNCTION CITY SHOPPING CENTER with an Address of 5901 N. PROSPECT AVENUE with the Proposed Sign Being Located at 5832 N. KNOXVILLE.
Motion to defer for two weeks, passes unanimously.
NEW BUSINESS
May 15, noon to 5, West Bluff Grand Tour of Homes.
Sandberg asks whether there will be any help given to schools along Northmoor Road due to road closures along that route disrupting traffic and making it difficult to ingress and egress from the schools along that street. Police Chief Settingsgaard says they will survey the schools affected. They have spoken to the principal at Richwoods, but not the other schools in the area. The principal at Richwoods didn’t seem to think it was a big problem.
Expo Gardens is having a community meeting tomorrow night about the proposed go-cart track there.
Thursday night, the City Council redistricting committee will meet. It will be here in Room 400 at 5:30. Citizens are invited to come out and participate.
Akeson thanks the City department heads from bringing her and Weaver up to speed as new council members.
Ardis wants to review the council rules at the next meeting to see if any revisions or changes need to be made.
The State of the Schools address will be tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. at the Pere Marquette. Superintendent Grenita Lathan will be making the presentation.
CITIZENS’ OPPORTUNITY TO ADDRESS THE CITY COUNCIL/TOWN BOARD
Savino Sierra gives his general comments as usual. Kenny Carrigan gives his thoughts on the Pass Forward workshop held yesterday.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
ADJOURNMENT
And that’s the end. It’s 7:49 p.m. and we’re out of here. Thanks for joining me. Good night everyone!
Regarding Growth Cell Two and a “balanced bi-directional Union Pacific line,” it is good to hear there is still talk of light industrial development in Growth Cell 2, but I don’t see it happening. Not with the City’s “clean industry” and high-tech mentality.
One other thing though, there is no need to place a south wye at the junction between the north-south Union Pacific mainline and the City-owned Pioneer Industrial Lead. A south wye would burden the UP with an additional control point (switch track) on the mainline and thus, more maintenance. With current local service arrangements, THE CURRENT NORTH WYE IS SUFFICIENT TO INTERCHANGE CARS WITH THE PIONEER INDUSTRIAL RAILWAY. Should business pick up (HA!), a short siding should be built between the junction and Radnor Road. Such would allow simultaneous exchange of cars to and from PIRY, it would also enable UP locomotives to work the interchange southbound if necessary.
Well, the bad news is we still have a majority of people on the council voting in the wrong direction regarding growth that, as C.J pointed out, we just don’t need at this time. (see previous article) Young Mr. Spain must be heavily indebted to the contributors in Mr. Irving’s district to make that argument. We don’t have the money, we need to be more conservative, but let’s do it anyway.’ (paraphrase, of course) was the gist of his speech. It was amusing to watch Ardis try to invoke some sort of answer to counter Sandberg’s comments concerning light industry versus commercial boxes (stores) in Cell 2. I think he had Spears, Barber, Ray, and Urich all chime in at some point, while Sandberg kept coming back to the key issue of having a light industrial zone being filled up with Commercial projects.
I was particularly impressed with Beth Akeson’s adamant stance toward fiscal conservancy. Yes, I know, it was her platform while she ran for the seat, but often platforms are abandoned when people take office. Beth’s comments were to the point and made sense. We can’t keep spending like something is going to happen tomorrow. We have to take a more conservative approach. And while Weaver abstained due to a conflict of interest, his comments later in the meeting regarding the city’s ability to complete projects on time were to the point and concise. I think we have a couple of fresh voices who are going to try to make a difference in the way we do business in Peoria. We could use them.
Savino Sierra had some excellent comments regarding striping of crosswalks around the various schools in Peoria. Hope they listened.
Help me to understand why its good to oppose items B and 3 (Sandberg and Akeson opposed.)
Is it because we don’t have the $?
Or because the planned projects just don’t warrant the investment?
There is no vision once the extension gets built. Am I understanding the reasons why it is good to oppose this.
I read the previous blog post about lack of street maintenance and belive I now understand why its good to oppose this project.
I will be interested to see how the vote goes when the Marriott redevelopment agreement changes come up for another vote. Jacob was a no and is now gone. Has Weaver expressed an opinion on this? I assume Akeson will be a no.
Fred, it’s good to be conservative about some issues, but not all. There are always times when the city must spend money. The problem we’ve been having is they’re not spending it on the right projects because of a lack of vision and planning. I hope Akeson does not prove to be someone who’s always going to vote no on every spending items, even ones that are a good idea.
I can see now that Weaver will be abstaining on probably 33% of the “growth” votes to come. Either he, his business, or his family have money invested in far too many big ticket items to count. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has to abstain from the Marriott vote, due to there being some sort of family investment in the Marriott corporation. Such are the issues when multi-millionaires are elected to political offices, I guess.
That will work out nicely for Weaver……”don’t look at me, I didn’t vote for that”.
Prego — perhaps a good thing if you’re against some of the “progressive” developments that come before the Council. Each member of the Council that has to abstain lowers the bar on the number needed to vote no to stop some of these deals.
Though I don’t see his situation any different than that of former Councilmember Jacob who had to abstain from a large number of votes related to granting of liquor licenses.
Peo Proud, we saw that after Jacob’s unfortunate accident. His absence this past year didn’t change any outcomes since there was (and still is) a majority of councilmen who choose to use our money to give developers a free ride on the economic destruction roller coaster, Peoria’s only tourist attraction. The only difference now is we added antother developer to the council. He promises to be different, lets see if he’s true to his word. The future will tell the story.
The most interesting thing about this council to me is seeing the large number of Ruplican connections. Nationally & state-wide, Republicans are supposed to be known to be fiscally conservative, yet locally they spend our money like a kid in a candy shop. I enjoyed seeing Akeson challenge their conservativism Tuesday night. It certainly got a rise out of Jim Ardis who, as is well known, desires a Republican seat in the state House.
Don’t forget Spain either wants mayor or to bide his time for Leitch’s seat. a democrat in the republican camp. He certainly spends that way.
Spain is Shock Jr. I can see him being a career politician.