Tag Archives: City of Peoria

City of Peoria, Traffic

Cancellations frustrate Traffic Commissioner

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Curphy Smith, a member of Peoria’s Traffic Commission and a candidate for City Council in the last election, wants to know why the Commission’s meetings keep getting cancelled. “Why was the meeting cancelled for the 3rd time in a row?” he asked in a recent e-mail that went to several members of the City Council and staff.

At the City Council meeting Tuesday night, during a discussion on the Riverfront Entertainment District, Councilman Sandberg asked why the Traffic Commission wasn’t consulted, considering the district involved closing Water Street. Public Works Director Dave Barber said he didn’t see it as a big traffic issue because there isn’t much traffic on Water Street.

Smith sees things differently. “I disagree with Mr. Barber’s response,” he said in his e-mail. “Any traffic (car, train, foot, bike, etc) at any given levels should be addressed. I think if more items were brought before the traffic commission we could spend our money more wisely and have better designs that promote safer and more pedestrian friendly roads.”

One of the items on the Traffic Commission’s work plan is to develop a city-wide neighborhood traffic calming plan. That effort remains stalled, even as private companies such as Methodist Hospital are implementing traffic calming for their own businesses. Smith applauds Methodist’s changes to Hamilton Boulevard and wonders why the City continues to drag its feet on rolling out these options to all neighborhoods: “[Methodist] did a wonderful job of taking the opportunity to introduce a very pedestrian friendly street level which includes bump outs, bike paths, colored crosswalks and other traffic calming measures. Are measure[s] such as these that are so obvious to other communities and companies, not that important to us? Why is that?”

Public Works Director Dave Barber had this response to Smith’s e-mail:

As to the cancellation of the Traffic Commission there are two basic reasons they were cancelled.

The first is that the Commission has two vacancies and gathering a quorum has been difficult. When scheduling the meeting we want to make sure that a quorum will be present so any action items can be addressed. It’s not fair to those who can make to be present and then not be able to address business matters.

The leads to the second reason for the cancellations. There have [not] been any actionable items for the Commission to address. Many items relating to traffic in [Peoria] are handled through administrative procedures and do not need to have Traffic Commission approvals nor Council approvals for many items. This reduces the potential matters for the Commission to address. This enables a more rapid response relative to addressing customer issues and provides for quicker response time. As I have addressed with the Commission in the past it does not seem appropriate to have meetings to just present updates. We can do this via email without the need for staff dedicated to taking and printing minutes and preparing and delivering packets to Commission members. I have asked the Commission to address their future plans and present a proposed list of what the Commission should be doing but I strongly believe meeting just to meet is not in the best interests on the Commission members nor is it a wise allocation of limited staff time and expense.

I will have Nick Stoffer meet with the acting Chair of the Traffic Commission to establish an agenda for the next meeting and will ask that the Commission address the matter of what they should and should not be addressing. I would suggest the Commission continue to meet as needed and not every month when not required.

The Traffic Commission has been without a chairman since Pat Sullivan resigned last October. A new chairman has not yet been appointed by the Mayor. Furthermore, the two vacancies on the Commission have gone unfilled for months. There were vacancies when the Heart of Peoria Commission was disbanded and its members were to be appointed to other commissions. All but two HOPC members were appointed to other commissions, but none were appointed to the Traffic Commission.

“As far as the second reason for the meetings being cancelled,” Smith responded to Barber, “I will disagree. I think I laid it out in my last email that I believe there have been many items for us to address. I have given my input on the Jefferson Street project and the Glen Oak project as well as others. I would suggest we start asking for our input in the beginning stages and not near the end.”

This is the same problem HOPC faced. Instead of seeing the commission as an asset — a part of the process that could help improve the built environment for all citizens — presentations to and recommendations from the commission are viewed as a nuisance or impediment to getting the project done. Thus, we continue to see regrettable development patterns and wonder why things never improve.

Smith concludes, “My belief and you can correct me if I am wrong is that you [Director Barber] would just like to do away with the commission. You have made it clear in your response that ‘[many] items’ ‘do not need to have Traffic Commission approvals.’ I am not looking for us to approve anything, but I do believe we can be a major asset in making sure the city staff is addressing appropriate measures through input and recommendations.”

Given the number of meeting cancellations, the lack of action on the Mayor’s part to appoint a chairman or fill vacancies on the commission, and Director Barber’s easy dismissal of the Traffic Commission’s role in traffic-related projects, it’s obvious that there is little support for the Traffic Commission at City Hall. Maybe it will be the next commission to be disbanded, leaving one less opportunity for citizen input and involvement. That would be a shame.

City Council, City of Peoria

City decides to do market study of Wonderful Development after all

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On the Peoria City Council agenda for Tuesday night is this item:

ACTION REQUESTED: AUTHORIZE THE CITY MANAGER TO CONTRACT WITH HVS FOR UP TO $15,000 TO PROVIDE ANALYSIS AND CONSULTATION REGARDING DOWNTOWN HOTEL PROJECTS.

BACKGROUND: Since 2006, the City has worked with HVS to analyze potential hotel projects involving the Peoria Civic Center. This work included conducting a 2006 market study for a Hilton adjacent to the Civic Center at Kumpf and Jefferson and professional advice on the redevelopment agreement reached with EM Properties in December 2008. Currently, the City has contracted with HVS to conduct a market study of the most recent version of the Marriott Pere Marquette project at a cost of $7,500 [emphasis added]. (The City was able to work with HVS to reduce the cost of a full market study by agreeing to complete some of the local staff work.) That specific task will be concluded by April 30, 2010, but HVS’ expertise may also be required to analyze particular facets of the redevelopment agreement. The proposal from HVS to provide these services is attached.

HVS’ 2006 market study is available here. The most recent version of the downtown hotel project has a different design and fewer rooms, but at the same overall cost of $102 million. The developer is asking for $37 million in public assistance for the project.

City of Peoria

No market study performed on Wonderful Development

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The other day, I was reading in the Journal Star about former mayor Bud Grieves’ plan to publicly unveil his all-hotels-connect-to-the-Civic-Center idea, and this just jumped out at me:

City Manager Scott Moore said the city is looking to do its own market study on Grieves’ plan, a similar process the city took in 2008 when Matthews of EM Properties Ltd. pitched the $102 million Marriott project.

The city did a market study on the “Wonderful Development”? Really? I don’t remember any council action authorizing funding for that. I immediately sent a Freedom of Information Act request to see this market study of which the City Manager spoke. Here’s the response I received:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding a “market study on Gary Matthews’ hotel plan.” No official market study of Mr. Matthews hotel plan in 2008 was conducted. [emphasis added] Over the past few years, the City has worked with HVS – a global hospitality services consulting firm – to determine the feasibility and reasonableness of a variety of hotel projects. Their largest work for the City was conducted in 2006-7 in support of a plan to build a Hilton at the corner of Kumpf and Jefferson. HVS was involved in the discussion regarding the December 2008 Matthews plan, but never produced any written analysis. They provided us with advice and counsel on the scope and need for the project and the parameters of the Redevelopment Agreement. Their involvement included a series of phone calls with City staff, representatives of EM Properties and our respective attorneys.

So, as it turns out, there was no market study. No independent analysis of Matthews’ plans. There are references to a feasibility study that took place before the recession started. This is evidently what the City of Peoria calls “due diligence.” And this is the process they’re going to use on Grieves’ plan as well.

I suppose we should be grateful that the City didn’t spend money on doing its own market study, since they’ve been known to ignore them anyway and just go with the developers’ promises, like they did with MidTown Plaza. That certainly turned out well; I’m glad we’re doing the same thing again, and with higher stakes.

City of Peoria, Peoria County

Pitch for Lakeview not made in D.C.: Word on the Web

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Karen McDonald reports in “Word on the Web” today:

Apparently, a $500,000 request for the installation of solar panels, which will cover 7.5 percent of the Peoria Riverfront Museum’s energy usage, and other improvements aimed at energy efficiency, was not made on the county or city’s behalf. That said, the county is supporting Lakeview’s request for that project.

I’m happy to hear that, considering two-thirds of the project is already publicly funded. I wish Caterpillar would just back out of the deal and let it die. I would like Cat to build their visitor’s center, but if we can only get it by throwing away nearly $40 million in public money, it’s not worth it. Sorry. And anyone who thinks that a visitors center can in any way be correlated to Cat’s ties to the community is delusional.

Some other interesting info from McDonald’s article:

Aren’t those leaders back in Illinois enough? Why not just talk to them while they’re here?

[County board member Jimmy] Dillon explained Monday that in person face time is key. It’s the whole they don’t come to you, we go to them thing. … Furthermore, Peoria officials met with key projects directors for the legislators, who are the one’s who really make things happen and those people typically don’t make it to Illinois.

The trip cost the county roughly $3,000.

How is “in person face time” different in D. C. than here in Peoria? If Schock is here, and you’re meeting with him, are you not getting “in person face time”? Dillon really didn’t answer the question. Besides, I again express my incredulity that we send a person to Washington to represent us, and then we have to send four representatives to our representative in order to get him to represent us. That whole system is as ridiculous as it is redundant.

But, of course, it gets even more silly, because despite Dillon’s protestations that “in person face time” is so important with our representative, our delegation didn’t actually meet with Schock or Durbin, but rather with their staff. But that’s okay, the article explains, because the “key projects directors … are the one’s who really make things happen.” So what are Schock and Durbin doing, exactly? I mean, call me crazy, but it would seem that a more efficient process would be for Schock and Durbin to meet their constituents here in Peoria, find out their needs, then travel to D. C. and talk to their key projects directors so they could “really make things happen.” Isn’t that the whole idea behind them “representing” us?

And what about that lobbyist? Aren’t we paying someone or some firm $85,000 to be our “representative to our representative” already? Isn’t he supposed to get the “in person face time” with “key projects directors” on our behalf?

The duplication in government is truly staggering.

City of Peoria, Peoria County

Not a good year for companies with Energy in their names

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On the heels of Firefly Energy’s bankruptcy, another Peoria company that got loans from the City and County is not looking too good:

On March 22, 2010, Busey Bank filed Judgment orders against Globe Energy Eco-System LLC, David M. Jones and Joan Jones, totaling $7,938,676.81 with attorney fees reserved.

Ouch. Both the City and the County provided loans to Globe Energy:

Globe Energy hasn’t made a payment on its government assistance program loan from the county since Dec. 15, 2008, and owes more than $116,000, plus interest, on its $150,000 loan. The city is owed $141,775 on its $150,000 loan.

I suppose the silver lining is that this is significantly less than the $6 million the City and County combined may have to shell out due to their loan guarantee of Firefly, but it’s still an awful lot of taxpayer money down the drain if Globe Energy doesn’t pay up. And let’s face it, the chances of them paying up at this point are pretty slim.

I have to admit, I was excited about the promises made by Globe Energy when they first came to town. They looked like exactly the type of company we wanted — one that would add manufacturing jobs, and lots of them, which paid a living wage. Unfortunately, none of that ever came to fruition.

Now it looks like it may just be another pile of taxpayer money thrown down the drain. Merle Widmer gives a list of recent companies that have failed and left the City and/or County holding the bag:

Bad bets by the EDC who recommends these companies to the county, recently include In_PLay, River Station and FireFly and now, apparently Globe.

And, taking a look into my crystal ball, I would venture to say we’ll be able to add the downtown hotel to that list pretty soon if the City decides to go ahead and finance that as well. Only this project will impact City taxpayers more heavily than all the other failed projects put together, because this one isn’t for $150,000 or even $3 million, it’s for a whopping $37 million.

Bottom line: I think the City and County have proven they don’t have the chops to be in the venture capital business, and frankly, that’s not the purpose of municipal government anyway. They should stick to providing basic public services and stop financing private ventures.

City of Peoria, Museum Block, Peoria County

Peoria sends four reps and a lobbyist to our three reps in Washington … or their staff

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From Word on the Web:

Peoria County officials and a Peoria City Councilman are on their way to D.C. to meet with U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, and U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Roland Burris, or at least their staff … to discuss legislative agendas and projects the city and county hope receive federal funding.

Those officials are Scott Sorrel, Tom O’Neill, and Jimmy Dillon for the County, and Tim Riggenbach for the City. Peoria taxpayers are sending them as our representatives to Washington so they can ask our other representatives in Washington for federal money. Or they might just meet with their staffs — I guess they don’t have local offices or something. This comes on the heels of the County extending its contract with a D.C. lobbying firm to March 31, 2011, for $85,000. This begs the question, “How many representatives does it take to screw in a light bulb?” Meanwhile, the rest of us are living in an age of rapid communication — e-mail, internet, video conferencing, telephone. I wonder if there’s a way our government officials could tap into these mysterious new communication tools the way private companies are doing during this economic downturn.

But wait, there’s more. Look at what they’re requesting:

  • $900,000 for the City:
    • $500,000 to improve sidewalks/infrastructure around Harrison School
    • $300,000 to fix erosion issues at Springdale Cemetery
    • $100,000 for the Peoria Police Department’s drug market initiative program
  • $1,250,000 for the County:
    • $250,000 for a mobile dental clinic in partnership with OSF
    • $500,000 for engineering/design work to replace E.M. Dirksen Parkway
    • $500,000 for solar panels for Peoria Riverfront Museum
  • $1,100,000 in joint City/County projects:
    • $100,000 for a minority business incubator
    • $1 million for public safety radios

Total: $3.25 million.

All of the City’s requests are things the City should be doing with City revenues. But they can’t, of course, because they’re using City revenues to pay off the MidTown Plaza TIF bonds and Firefly Energy’s loan from National City (which could cost the City up to $3 million). And they’re trying feverishly to give Gary Matthews $37 million to build a hotel across the street from the Civic Center. The City squanders taxpayer money, then goes to the federal government for more taxpayer money to cover the basic services they’ve neglected.

As for the County’s requests, except for the road work, they’re all frivolous. Let’s jump right to the most egregious: the solar panels for the proposed museum. Ahem, the taxpayers are already kicking in nearly $40 million for the museum in local sales tax revenue, let alone all the “grants,” earmarks, and other pork barrel spending that’s being poured into this boondoggle. And now they’re asking for more taxpayer dollars?! What on earth are they doing with the millions of dollars they’re already confiscating from us?! For the love of Pete, another half a million dollars for the museum, so they can “save energy”? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

If they want to “save energy,” why don’t they just take all the money out in cash, put it on the Sears block, and set it on fire? That way we can save the energy of actually building the museum and watching its inevitable fall into insolvency. Plus, we can waste all that money in 2010 dollars, instead of the more expensive future value of the money.

All I can say is, thank goodness we don’t get all the government we pay for.

City Council, City of Peoria

Liveblogging the City Council 3/23/2010

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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to room 400 of Peoria City Hall, Council Chambers. It’s time for another Peoria City Council meeting! As usual, I’ll be updating this post throughout the evening, so be sure to refresh your browser to see the changes. Here’s tonight’s agenda (linkable version available here):

Continue reading Liveblogging the City Council 3/23/2010 →

City Council, City of Peoria

City mulls over cuts to basic services, giving $37M to hotel developer

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According to this Journal Star article, the City of Peoria is looking for ways to cut basic services like sidewalk and sewer improvements due to a nearly “flat projection” in sales tax growth. Meanwhile, according to this other Journal Star article, developer Gary Matthews is still pitching his hotel plan which relies on $37 million in TIF and sales tax revenue. That figure is down from the $39.3 million originally proposed (and approved), but the project is smaller now, too. There are 70 fewer rooms and “[i]t will be designed so that another 100 rooms can be added later, if needed,” according to Matthews.

“It has taken me a lot longer to reach this point than I expected. I didn’t see the recession coming, especially one that deep. Even so, I never thought it would be so tough to finance a project that is 50 percent equity,” Matthews said.

He didn’t see the recession coming when he submitted this project for council approval in December 2008? Really? That’s funny, because the recession started in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Yet despite this striking admission, we’re still supposed to trust his judgment with our $37 million in tax money. And the City has such a great track record of choosing economic winners and losers… well, at least losers. Cub Foods. Firefly Energy. A few more “self-supporting” projects like those, and we’ll be completely bankrupt.

It’s time the City stopped acting like a bank for entrepreneurs who can’t get private financing because their projects are too risky, and started doing what they’re supposed to be doing, which is providing basic services for the residents of the City. It’s past time, actually.

City of Peoria, Peoria County, Peoria Journal Star

More historic quotes about Firefly

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“In terms of company stability, Caterpillar owns 35 percent of Firefly, and Cat is a company that does its homework. This battery technology is unique and promising enough that Firefly had little trouble raising $20 million in private equity. Company officials figure 80 percent of that money is spent locally, so there’s economic spin-off.” –Journal Star Editorial Board, May 22, 2007

The Journal Star said the risk was worth taking, and endorsed the loan guarantee. I just thought this quote was notable because there’s this attitude in Peoria that if Cat invests in something, then it must be a sure thing. Obviously, Cat didn’t get as successful as it is by making a string of poor investments, but the Firefly bankruptcy does show that Cat isn’t perfect, and their investment is no substitute for municipalities doing their own due diligence. Then again, Cat did tip its hand even in 2007. A May 23, 2007, article carried this ominous statement: “Although Caterpillar Inc. owns 35 percent of Firefly, it wasn’t clear Tuesday why it wouldn’t guarantee the loan.”

“The Firefly package was being worked on for a number of weeks between Firefly, the county and the city,” Ardis wrote in an e-mail. “The proposal went through various stages and changed a number of times. It would have been difficult to update people on financial discussions when they were fluid and evolving into what was the final proposal. Once made public, there wasn’t anything hard to understand about the deal.” –Mayor Jim Ardis, quoted in “Word on the Street,” Peoria Journal Star, May 28, 2007

This was Ardis’s defense of “dropping the deal late on the public — [and] his council colleagues — and pushing the vote” with very little deliberation and without any policy discussion. The whole article is interesting. It recounts the story of how former Mayor Dick Carver was in town to talk to the City Council about the Kellar Branch rail-to-trail initiative, and during his stay here, he set up a meeting between Mayor Ardis, Rep. David Leitch, and president of G&D Integrated Joe O’Neill. They met at Le Peep restaurant for breakfast, and, “Over toast, these four men toasted a commitment to finding a solution that would keep Firefly Energy Inc. in Peoria.” Firefly moved into the former Foster & Gallagher building on Galena Road — a building owned by O’Neill’s company — and “O’Neill also hopes his Morton firm will eventually secure contracts with Firefly to build the high-tech core components that would then be shipped to battery plants in Missouri and Ohio,” the paper reported at the time. Leitch was a VP at National City at the time, the bank that provided the loan to Firefly.

“Ultimately, this is new ground for Peoria County.” –Peoria County Administrator Patrick Urich, quoted in Journal Star, June 1, 2007

The news article added, “But he [Urich] told the committees it was a worthwhile investment because the company has promised to keep its headquarters here and may manufacture in Peoria its high-tech components, parts that would then be shipped to battery plants in Missouri and Ohio.”

“I see it as one of the safest loans that we could make. If I had the money, I’d make it myself.” –County Board Chairman Bill Prather, quoted in Journal Star, June 10, 2007

If it were really that safe, why did National City require the City and County to guarantee the loan? If it were really that safe, why didn’t Caterpillar guarantee the loan? Well, now we know.

“I’m happy to be doing what I can to get them these defense dollars. In the end, I want them in Peoria. That’s going to be the icing on the cake for us.” Then-Congressman Ray LaHood, quoted in the Journal Star, June 10, 2007.

LaHood helped Firefly get millions in defense contracts. Icing on the cake? What cake?

“This is the highest and best use of this money that we have.” –Peoria County Board member Allen Mayer, quoted in the Journal Star, June 15, 2007

Note to future board candidates: Mark this quote for your campaign literature.

Before someone else says it, I concede that hindsight is 20/20. But I’m more concerned about another proverb: Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Will our elected officials take this very hard and expensive lesson to heart and stop using taxpayer money for risky private ventures?