Tag Archives: City Council

City Council, City of Peoria

O’Brien Steel expansion: proposed or not proposed?

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Neighbors in the near north side and Averyville area are wary of Item No. 3 on tonight’s City Council agenda.

The item itself is fairly innocuous. O’Brien Steel wants the City to vacate the alley behind their Adams St. property. O’Brien owns the property on both sides of the alley. They’ve cleared recently-acquired adjacent property and are leveling the land.

What concerns neighbors is this: “This vacation is the first step in the proposed O’Brien expansion.” Neighbors are asking, “what expansion?”

Despite this council communication stating that there is a “proposed” expansion, when you ask the City for information about that expansion, they say they’ve received no proposal.

Susan Schlupp in the City’s Economic Development Department says her department has not received any expansion plan from O’Brien Steel. Pat Landes, Director of Planning and Growth, said in response to neighborhood inquiries that her department “does not have any application for rezoning, special use, or zoning certificate on file. At a meeting in September, O’Brien representatives said that when a plan was ready and they were ready to file that they would meet with the neighbors.”

Neighbors are wary of such promises. After all, the last redevelopment agreement with O’Brien Steel (June 2000) was made public on a Wednesday and passed by the City Council the following Tuesday. Neighborhood associations asked the City to defer the item to give them time to meet and give input to the plan, but the Council feared a deferral would scuttle the project.

Incidentally, the last redevelopment project promised to “increase the number of local job opportunities from the existing 150 to over 200 when the project is complete.” But in March 2009, the Journal Star reported that “32 of [O’Brien Steel’s] production workers were laid off indefinitely. Company president J.P. O’Brien said the company employs 120, most of whom are production workers.” It would appear that the promised additional jobs either never materialized or were short-lived. In any case, O’Brien now has significantly fewer employees than before their last expansion.

Despite all the protestations from the City that no proposal has been made, a June 22, 2010, statement from Speer Financial selling City of Peoria general obligation bonds had this to say: “[O’Brien Steel] is currently in negotiations with the City of construct a new manufacturing facility and warehouse that is estimated to cost $15,000,000.”

But the City doesn’t know anything.

City Council, City of Peoria

Liveblogging the City Council 10/12/2010

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Good evening, Chronicle readers. I’m back at the City Council meeting this week, and there’s a relatively short agenda this evening. The meeting is starting a little early — the Town of the City of Peoria is having a meeting from 6 to 6:15 p.m., and then the regular City Council meeting will begin. The Town meeting is pretty interesting, actually. The Town Supervisor Joe Whalen wants to lease a new office on Glen Avenue for a couple thousand dollars a month, whereas they’re currently located in City Hall for free. Upon questioning as to why City Hall can’t accommodate his needs, he couldn’t give any good reason (people have to walk up and down stairs, and other horrors). When asked if he looked at city-owned property, he says he was offered space at the bus depot, but he was concerned about security. There were other locations downtown that were not considered because Whalen felt there wasn’t adequate parking.

I can’t believe (a) Town Supervisor is an elected position, (b) this guy got elected, and (c) that he makes over $80,000 a year. Van Auken asks why it’s okay to have child care at the bus station, but security is an issue for his office? Whalen says he doesn’t run the child care center, but he does run the Town Supervisor office and he doesn’t feel safe having “his girls” down there (an apparent reference to female employees). Despite all this discussion, Irving moves to approve leasing the building on Glen, seconded by Turner. It passes unanimously.

The space they’re leasing is 1,896 square feet at 624 W. Glen Ave. (near Sheridan), for $11 per square foot. That comes out to about $1738 per month, or $20,856 per year. They’re going to pay this despite the fact that they have ample space available in the Twin Towers (Whalen doesn’t want people to have to go upstairs and is concerned about kids running around) and the bus depot (as previously stated, Whalen is concerned about safety). What a waste of money!

There are several proclamations tonight which I don’t usually cover; once the meeting starts, I’ll update this post throughout the evening. Here’s tonight’s City Council agenda:

Continue reading Liveblogging the City Council 10/12/2010 →

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.

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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 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.

City Council, City of Peoria

Liveblogging the City Council 8-24-2010

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Hello everyone, and welcome to the Peoria City Council meeting. I haven’t been able to attend the last couple of meetings, but I’m back tonight, liveblogging the event for your entertainment. You can join the fun at City Hall, fourth floor, Council Chambers. You can also watch live on Comcast cable channel 22, or listen live on 89.9 FM, WCBU.

The hyperlinked agenda is here, if you want to see supporting documentation. Otherwise, I’ll list the agenda items below and give a play-by-play on each of them as the council discusses them. This post will be updated frequently throughout the evening, so be sure to refresh your browser. It’s now 6:15 p.m. and time to get started. Without any further ado, here’s tonight’s agenda (it’s a long one!):

Continue reading Liveblogging the City Council 8-24-2010 →

City Council, City of Peoria, TIF

City to study feasibility of “East Village” TIF

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The City Council wants to see if all or part of the East Bluff recently dubbed “East Village” qualifies as a redevelopment area and tax increment financing (TIF) district. The council will vote tonight on whether to pursue a feasibility and housing impact study of the area that stretches from Arcadia to Adams, spanning three council districts. It surrounds, but does not include, the existing MidTown Plaza TIF. Since OSF St. Francis Medical Center is paying for the consultant, this item will pass easily.

City Council, City of Peoria

Walgreens liquor license goes before council tonight

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Walgreens wants to sell liquor in all its Peoria stores, but only three of them come before the City Council tonight. The Walgreens locations at 4814 N. Sheridan Rd., 1919 W. Pioneer Parkway, and 2324 W. War Memorial Dr. are requesting approval to sell package liquor. Earlier this month, the City’s Liquor Commission voted 3-1 to recommend approval.

Two Walgreen’s stores at 2515 N. Knoxville Ave. and 3524 N. University St. are not included yet because, according to the Liquor Commission minutes, “the District 2 Councilperson wanted to hold neighborhood association meetings in that District before those site applications were submitted.” In March 2008, the City Council denied (on an 8-2 vote) a package liquor license for Wal-Mart, just down the street from Walgreens on University. The reasons given were neighborhood opposition, concern over potential crime, and concern over expansion of liquor sales.

Walgreens wants to sell liquor “because of customer demand for their convenience, so they can make one stop on their way home as opposed to having to stop at another store,” the Liquor Commission minutes stated.