At the policy session Tuesday night, Finance Director Jim Scroggins was speaking and casually said something about a “$10 to $12 million deficit.” Councilman Sandberg stopped him mid-sentence after that and said, “Did you say $12 million?” Scroggins: “Ten to twelve.”
Can I just state the obvious here? The difference between ten and twelve million dollars is not trivial. Two million dollars can pay for a lot of city services. The council has been proceeding on the assumption that the deficit is going to be $10 million, and there’s already rhetoric that budget cuts are going to have to be made “with a chainsaw, not a scalpel” and it’s going to be “bloody.” I shudder to think how much worse it will be if the deficit grows another twenty percent.
One thing we can be sure of, though, is that the city will continue to protect unnecessary and expensive developer welfare like the $39.5 million they’re planning to give Gary Matthews to build a huge addition onto the Pere Marquette and affiliate with Marriott Hotels. They’re going to continue to protect money-losing “quality-of-life” amenities like the Civic Center and the proposed downtown museum, neither of which have been asked to sacrifice a penny. And they’re going to continue to annex more land to the north and west even though four decades of annexation has never produced the gravy train of revenue that was promised.
Instead, they’ll cut basic services, like police protection, code enforcement, animal and litter control, road maintenance, and the like. In tough economic times, it’s important to have priorities, you know.
Why wouldn’t you think the deficit wouldn’t be higher? There are business’s leaving Peoria, lots of vacancies (look out at Grand Prairie Ghost Mall,Main Street, Knoxville,etc), and no one is buying( sales tax is down), etc,etc. Yes, they are building lots of Hotels out at Grand Prairie but no one is staying in them, so not much sales tax generation. At the Chief’s game last night most people before and after the game ate in East Peoria at the restaurants, which were packed(Ching, ching). East Peoria probably isn’t hurting for revenue I bet.
… the inner city just became unfit and unsafe to live in, before you knew it, all of the tax paying families were gone, the tax base simply dried up…
Gentrification – the sooner we all come to terms with what is happening and let it flow, the better off we will be.
Just go, get out of the inner city – move North. The sooner you do, the sooner they can get in here and start to refurbish these wonderful old neighborhoods and buildings. Folks with money and culture will gravitate to Peoria; imagine the beautiful museum and condos on the riverfront. We will have highly desired charter schools; people will be free to jog on trails along the wonderful riverfront; walk about and shop. There will be construction and service jobs for all.
Why are we fighting this, we are holding up progress. If we just give in – it is going to be so much better here.
Sailman: Well, just wait until that new museum gets built. Then we’ll be rolling in dough! East Peoria will be no match for us then.
EmergePeoria,
Careful……………………………
What ever you are smoking is probably illegal.
The museum and hotel are not the reason we are going to have a $10-$12 million deficit next year.
We have bigger problems and they have been brewing for along time.