Tag Archives: City of Peoria

City of Peoria

New city manager may come from Wichita

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Scott-MooreAccording to a breaking news story in the Wichita Eagle newspaper, a finalist for the Peoria City Manager position is Wichita’s Assistant City Manager, Scott Moore.

[Wichita] Vice Mayor Jim Skelton said today that Moore has indicated he will likely leave Wichita for the job.

. . . Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis and Councilman Gary V. Sandberg would not confirm they are negotiating with Moore. But they confirmed that he is a finalist.

They said the Peoria City Council will negotiate with the finalist and vote on a contract, most likely at their next council meeting Aug. 25.

Moore got strong endorsements from Ardis and Sandberg.

“Scott, in particular, has a very strong background and experience working in a big city like Wichita, which is helpful,” Ardis said.

Moore’s experience with tight budgets, such as the one he and other officials faced this year, is attractive, Ardis said.

. . . “We feel that Scott’s experience in that realm will be very good for us,” Ardis said.

Sandberg visited Wichita several weeks ago and was impressed with the city.

He said his questions are about why Moore and other Wichita officials didn’t more closely vet a Renaissance Square developer who had several lawsuits for nonpayment of bills and bounced checks.

Moore was interim city manager at the time, though Director of Urban Development Allen Bell accepted the blame for not relaying background information to council members.

Moore was also the Interim City Manager of Wichita while the city searched for a new City Manager. According to an October 2008 Kansas television news story, “[Wichita] city policy doesn’t allow the interim city manager to also apply for the [city manager] job.” According to the story, Mayor Carl Brewer said Moore “was given the option of taking the interim job or applying like everyone else.” Since then, Moore was a finalist for the city manager position in Corpus Christi, Texas, but (ironically) lost to Corpus Christi’s Interim City Manager Angel Escobar. Before the job went to Escobar, and Moore was still a finalist, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times published a glowing profile of him:

Former Wichita Mayor Carlos Mayans said Moore faced some political turmoil in the city.

“Scott always handled that with a quiet demeanor,” he said. “He’s not a confrontational person; he’s about getting the job done. The world of the big-city managers is a world of egos many times. I don’t believe you will see that in Scott.”

He worked to entice businesses to Wichita and redevelop its downtown, planned repairs to the city’s failing infastructure and oversaw expansion at the city’s airport and rail system.

Hmmm… Expansion of the rail system…. Sounds promising! The Caller-Times also added a little more info on why Moore took the Interim City Manager position with Wichita: “Wichita city officials already told him he wasn’t qualified to hold the post full-time, the standard rejection he had heard before.”

Here’s a quick bio on Scott Moore from a City of Wichita press release when Moore was appointed Interim City Manager:

Moore was the top administrator for the City of Ellsworth [Kansas] from June 1997 to June 2005 when he became Wichita’s Assistant City Manager of Operations….

Moore is a native of Bastrop, Texas. He attended college at Southwest Texas State (known now as Texas State), where he earned a business administration degree in 1994. He played wide receiver for the Division I Bobcats. In May 1999, Moore earned a masters degree in public administration from Wichita State University while serving as the top administrator for Ellsworth. Moore’s achievements in Ellsworth include uncovering a high-profile embezzlement case, negotiating an $800,000 legal agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation and securing future financial commitments to assist the city-owned visitor center.

His honors include being named Ellsworth’s Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year in 2003. In 1999, Gov. Bill Graves presented him with a certificate of recognition for becoming Kansas’ first African-American city administrator. He also coached middle school basketball in Ellsworth. In 2007, the Wichita Business Journal selected him as member of its coveted “40 Under 40” honorees. Moore currently sits on the board of the Boy’s & Girl’s Club of South Central, Kansas….

Before Ellsworth, Moore worked four years as a budget analyst for the City of Austin, Texas, which is near his hometown. He is married to Tammy, a native Lyons; they have two daughters.

And here’s his resume from the same site (copied to the Peoria Chronicle’s archives).

If hired, Moore would replace Peoria’s Interim City Manager Henry Holling, who was appointed in January 2008 within a couple of weeks after former City Manager Randy Oliver’s departure. Oliver is now the City Manager of Surprise, Arizona. The City Council started a search for a new City Manager last year, but then suspended the search until after the latest municipal election.

City Council, City of Peoria

Why isn’t the council nixing the hotel deal?

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I listened to “Outside the Horseshoe” on WCBU last night before the city council meeting. One of the guests was Second District Council Member Barbara Van Auken. During the course of the show, she mentioned several times that the city needs to do what any citizen would do when faced with lower income — start cutting expenses, and start with things that are wants, not needs. I completely agree with that kind of thinking.

Unfortunately, this thinking does not translate into action for Van Auken and most of the other council members when it comes to the City’s plan to give $39.5 million to Gary Matthews to build a huge addition to the Pere Marquette and affiliate with Marriott hotels. As much as I opposed the sales tax increase for the proposed downtown museum, at least taxpayers had the consolation of knowing that museums have some civic value. Not so with the hotel.

The city has an opportunity to get out of the deal at this point. The developer is unable to get private financing, and has missed contractual deadlines. The city is in a position to walk away from this deal and save the taxpayers $39.5 million on a “want” that could be repurposed for a “need” elsewhere.

Why is it that the city has no trouble raising taxes to help private developers (which benefits only a few), but wrings its hands at the prospect of raising taxes for basic services (which benefits all)? Why does the city have no problem levying a 2% tax on restaurants to benefit the civic center, but won’t raise taxes 2% on packaged liquor to help plug a $10 million budget gap that affects police, fire, and public works? And they won’t even consider a property tax increase, of course.

The hotel deal needs to be canceled immediately, if not sooner. There’s a reason banks aren’t loaning Gary Matthews the money. The city would do well to heed the banks’ decisions as a warning that this is not a good investment for the city — and by “the city,” I mean the taxpayers, who are ultimately providing the money.

“Everyone has to share the pain.” “We must cut ‘wants’ so we can provide for our ‘needs.'” All these platitudes are meaningless as long as the city council continues to pursue the hotel plan.

City of Peoria, Streets

Trails or complete streets?

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I think everyone would agree that there exists a need for pedestrian (and, by extension, bicycle) mobility in the city. Not everyone owns or has access to a motor vehicle (which they can buy from dealers like Bill Eads RV – rv dealer if they have a budget); for example: children under 16, elderly residents who can no longer drive, disabled residents, poor residents, and those who simply choose not to drive for health or other reasons. All these people have the same mobility needs as their fellow residents who have motor vehicles. They all need to get groceries, visit the doctor, enjoy entertainment offerings in town, visit friends and relatives, etc. I think everyone would also agree that one of the basic functions of government is to provide the infrastructure for said mobility.

So the question then becomes, what is the best, most efficient way for the city to meet this need?

Some people believe the best way is by providing a network of exclusively pedestrian corridors — “trails.” These trails are to be completely separate from city streets, which are assumed to be the exclusive domain of motor vehicles. Given that assumption, it follows that motor vehicles and pedestrians simply don’t mix, thus making separate corridors essential for safety reasons.

I would argue that a better solution is something called “complete streets.” The idea is to use a city’s existing corridors, which after all go all the places a person wants to go already, to accommodate not only motor vehicles, but also pedestrians and bicyclists.

The trouble with the “trails” system is that they are almost exclusively for recreational use. They don’t go to all the places one needs to go (work, home, shopping, etc.). Thus they don’t really help meet the need of pedestrian mobility. They’re also a tremendous public expense. Acquiring and maintaining duplicate corridors (one for motorists, one for pedestrians) doubles the burden on the taxpayer.

It’s easy to see why there is a desire for trails, however, when you consider how little consideration pedestrian access has been given in the city. Look around town and you’ll find places where sidewalks are non-existent, intermittent, crumbling, obstructed, narrow, or unconnected.

In October 2007, the State of Illinois adopted “complete streets” legislation as Public Act 095-0665, which states, “Bicycle and pedestrian ways shall be given full consideration in the planning and development of transportation facilities, including the incorporation of such ways into State plans and programs.” However, if you take a look at some big road projects — the Route 150 resurfacing, for instance — you don’t see any improvements for pedestrian mobility. That’s because projects like that are exempted from the statute:

(b) In or within one mile of an urban area, bicycle and pedestrian ways shall be established in conjunction with the construction, reconstruction, or other change of any State transportation facility except:
(1) in pavement resurfacing projects that do not widen the existing traveled way or do not provide stabilized shoulders; or
(2) where approved by the Secretary of Transportation based upon documented safety issues, excessive cost or absence of need.

These exceptions eliminate about 95% of road projects. No doubt Route 150 would fall under both exceptions. And yet, I see people walking or biking along this route all the time, especially between the Glen Hollow shopping center and the nearby neighborhoods to the north, such as Sherwood Forrest, Rolling Acres, and Timberlane apartments.

Where Route 150 travels through older neighborhoods, pedestrians can use side streets because they’re through-streets on a grid pattern, and many of them run roughly parallel to Route 150. But in the northern parts of the city, residential streets are curvilinear and the only access between neighborhoods are large arterial roadways. Between the neighborhoods mentioned earlier and the nearest shopping, the shortest route is Route 150. Some sort of pedestrian access is sorely needed along this corridor.

Meanwhile, projects that do fall under the statute — Main Street improvements, Washington Street (Route 24) improvements, Sheridan Triangle reconstruction — are stalled for various reasons, but fundamentally due to lack of political will. It’s easy to blame money as the culprit, but our local taxing bodies have never let a lack of money get in the way of constructing things they really wanted (need I even give examples?).

Clearly, we’ve got a long way to go. And the longer we put off fixing the streets, the more pressure there is going to be for alternative corridors/trails. While those trails may be constructed and maintained by a different municipal body (the Park District, for example), the money all comes from the same source: the taxpayer. We shouldn’t settle for an inferior system of pedestrian accessibility under the false conception that it’s somehow saving us money. It’s not. It’s costing us, and it’s not filling the real need. It’s as inefficient as it is ineffective.

We need to put more pressure on our elected officials to provide complete streets. We need to develop creative ways to accommodate all users with our present corridors. And we need to do it sooner than later.

City of Peoria, Taxes

Tax confusion widespread in Peoria

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The local media started looking into (and publicizing) the story I posted a couple days ago about Peoria businesses charging too much tax. The Journal Star has two articles here and here, and WMBD Channel 31 did a piece on the 6:00 news tonight (the web version is here).

I just want to reiterate that you should really check your receipts. My mother-in-law took our family out to eat tonight at Chili’s (Glen and University) and they charged her 11% sales tax (it should be 10%). We told the manager, but there was nothing he could do because it has to go through the corporate office.

After reading the article in the paper, my dad checked his receipt from Best Buy — he bought a new HDTV earlier this month — and sure enough, they charged him 9% sales tax. Best Buy has since corrected the issue, and they refunded him the overcharge with no fuss.

Chili’s doesn’t appear on the official list (Exhibit B) that was released by the city today. Neither is CJ Banks (Northwoods Mall), which is charging 9% on clothing. I hear tell that someone’s keeping a list of businesses about whom residents are complaining overcharged them for tax — and it’s getting pretty long. Plus the Journal Star says the city’s Finance Department has received “hundreds” of calls.

It’s easy to see how these big corporations got confused. Take a look at Exhibit A on this memo. That’s the notice that the state sent to all businesses in Peoria letting them know that a small strip of land downtown was going to have a higher tax rate beginning July 1. To those of us who know what the Hospitality Improvement Zone (HIZ) is, this is easy as pie to follow. But suppose your company’s headquarters are in Minnesota. They would have no idea where the HIZ area was, and they would probably figure that if it didn’t affect them, the state wouldn’t be dumb enough to pay the postage to send them a notice that it’s changing.

That appears to be what is happening all over Peoria. So, double-check those receipts!

City of Peoria

Would “pay as you throw” make Peoria dirtier?

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We have grave reservations about charging Peorians a fee for garbage pick-up, and we think City Council members should, too.

Non-payment will be a problem. Littering will increase. So will illegal dumping: on county roads, in commercial Dumpsters, even on city streets and parking lots. Garbage very possibly will accumulate, indoors, out of sight of inspectors…. Peoria will be a dirtier city if garbage isn’t picked up at every home, every week. It will be a dirtier city if streets and gullies become dumping grounds for people who quit paying their trash collector.

While these dire warnings may sound like they just came out of today’s paper, they didn’t. They were published in the Journal Star on June 24, 2003. The reason? Peoria was considering implementing a $6 per month garbage fee.

I wonder if anyone had the foresight to quantify how much illegal dumping there was before the fee went into effect so we can compare it to how much there is now. That might give us an accurate picture of how much there will be if Peoria goes to some sort of “pay as your throw” system next year. While there have been reports of illegal dumping since the garbage fee went into effect (one even appeared on this blog), it doesn’t appear to be the widespread plague of filth we were warned would happen.

I can’t help but think that maybe — just maybe — concerns about “pay as your throw” causing Peoria to degenerate into some kind of Lord of the Flies scenario might be similarly overstated. Nevertheless, I understand the drawbacks — specifically, the “pay” part of the proposal.

But the truth is that you’re going to pay no matter what. It’s not a matter of paying or not paying; it’s just a matter of how you’ll pay. If it’s not “pay as your throw,” how shall we pay for it? Raise property taxes? Sales taxes? The garbage fee? Pick your poison. Costs are going to go up even if we didn’t change a thing. Adding recycling is going to raise costs more. Property taxes would be a progressive way to pay for it; raising the garbage fee would be regressive. Putting the extra fee on the user would hit large families pretty hard, and in that sense could also be seen as regressive. Raising the sales tax… well… we have to save that for necessities like museums, civic centers, and hotels….

There are no easy answers, only more questions. But I doubt “pay as you throw,” if ultimately adopted, would turn Peoria residences into mini-landfills. Whatever the reason is for rejecting “pay as your throw,” it shouldn’t be that.

City of Peoria, Taxes

New HIZ tax being collected all over Peoria

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Are Peoria businesses charging you too much sales tax? If they are, good luck getting them to fix it; you won’t find any help from the city or state. Check your receipt. For general merchandise, you should only be charged 8% in most of the City of Peoria.

My dad knows that, which is why he was surprised when some clothes that my mom bought at Northwoods Mall today were taxed at 9%. He wrote me to ask when the tax rate was raised, and how he could have missed the news. My dad has been reading the Journal Star cover to cover every day for the past fifty years, and he pays particularly close attention to financial information, so it would be very unlikely he missed big news like the sales tax going up a whole percent city-wide. And I have some experience exposing businesses that charge too much sales tax.

I checked the city’s website and confirmed that it was still 8%, broken down as follows:

  • 6.25% State of Illinois
  • 1.50% City of Peoria
  • 0.25% County of Peoria

He called the store and told them that information, and they said “it went up July first in Peoria to 9% from 8 1/4.” Dad said it was never 8 1/4% ever in Peoria, and the salesperson said “it is all done from their corporate offices in Minnesota,” and gave him the phone number for their corporate office. Oh, and by the way, they added, you’ll have to sit through a long automated voice-activated system before you get to talk to a real person. That’s customer service for you. So the local business isn’t taking action to fix the error.

Well, I called up the finance department at the City, and they told me that the tax rate did go up July 1st in Peoria to 9%, but only within the boundaries of the Hospitality Improvement Zone, or HIZ. You may recall that the City imposed a 1% additional sales tax on a small area downtown that includes the Pere Marquette, Holiday Inn City Centre, and Mark Twain Hotel; that money is to go toward building a new Marriott next to the Pere Marquette, so the other hotels get the pleasure of contributing to their competition and put themselves out of business. But I digress.

The City’s finance department went on to say that they’ve gotten several calls about this problem (i.e., businesses outside of the HIZ charging 9% sales tax), and that there appears to be some confusion among the city’s businesses as to what tax rate they are supposed to be charging. The person I talked to said one man called in saying he got charged 9% at a North Peoria gas station, and that the station refunded the overage when he went back to complain after talking to the city. I asked if the city could do anything to correct the problem, and they said all they can do is refer me to the Illinois Department of Revenue, and they didn’t have the number, but I could get it by calling information. So the City isn’t taking action to fix the error.

I called the Illinois Department of Revenue and they verified that the correct tax rate is 8% outside of the HIZ. It’s even on their website at http://tax.illinois.gov/ — you just click on the Tax Rate Finder link on the menu to the left and follow the prompts. The HIZ rate of 9% is listed first, which may be part of the confusion, but it also provides a list of the individual business addresses that are affected by the HIZ tax (there are only about 46 of them), and the next rate says “OUTSIDE ABOVE DISTRICT(S)” and lists the 8% rate.

I asked the representative what could be done about businesses overcharging, and she said that the correct rate is preprinted on the tax remittance form the businesses send to the state. She said the business can call Central Registration at 217-785-3707 with their Illinois Business Tax (IBT) number and verify the correct rate. But she said it probably wouldn’t do any good to report them to the “cheat line” (1-800-243-2811). As far as the state is concerned, as long as the business is remitting the total amount of tax they collect, they’re okay. It’s only tax fraud if they collect, say, 9%, but only remit 8%. As long as they remit the whole 9%, the state doesn’t care and is happy to keep the money. So the state isn’t taking action to fix the error.

Apparently no one is looking out for consumers in this town. Businesses can charge any additional tax amount they want and the city and state don’t give a rip. It’s up to you, the citizen, to take matters into your own hands and convince the businesses and/or their parent corporations that they’re overcharging us. There’s no penalty, no law against overtaxing. You have to take action to fix these business errors, and good luck doing it.

City of Peoria, Streets

Will these projects ever become reality?

6 Comments

I had a strange sense of deja vu last night.

I attended an open house meeting Wednesday at the Gateway Building to look at plans for Washington and Adams Streets (Route 24) from I-474 to Hamilton Blvd. There were lots of artist’s renderings of how it could look in the future, with wider sidewalks, on-street parking, street trees, shorter crossing distances for pedestrians, etc. But I got the distinct feeling I’d been through this exercise before.

Oh, that’s right — I have. I remember seeing the same thing at the Sheridan Triangle open house meetings. I see a pattern emerging here. The city gets finished with the feasibility study for these projects, then they don’t appropriate money for the engineering or construction of them, so they wither on the vine.

There’s $10 million in state construction money earmarked and set aside for Peoria to use. This was money that was secured years ago to move the S-curve where Adams and Jefferson meet north of downtown. That project never materialized either, so now the money is available for another project. But no one’s tapping into it.

Instead, lack of money is cited as the problem for pushing off these projects. Improvements to Main Street were put on the back burner by second district council member Barbara Van Auken because it’s estimated to cost $10 million. And in November of last year, the council decided to delay five large capital projects — including the Sheridan Triangle redevelopment — until some time in the future when they might possibly issue bonds to pay for them. No word on when that will show up on the agenda.

Meanwhile, the council has had no problem finding money or issuing bonds to give $39.5 million to a private hotel developer. Nor have they had any trouble spending $55 million overbuilding the Peoria Civic Center. There’s plenty of money to go around for non-necessities — and taxes imposed to pay for them. And these deals get through the council lickety-split.

So the problem isn’t money. It’s priorities.

City Council, City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

More bald-faced lies about the Kellar Branch (Updated)

19 Comments

At the last City Council meeting (not including executive sessions), the council deferred an agreement that will bring them closer to converting strategic infrastructure into a hiking/biking trail. Last week, the agreement was posted on the city’s website so we could all read it. But they haven’t posted the revisions. I guess they don’t want the little people to see the agreement before they vote on it next Tuesday.

What is posted includes this whopper of a statement (emphasis mine):

There have been numerous hearings concerning discontinuance of part of the Kellar Branch to a trail. No objections have been raised.

That last sentence is a bald-faced lie. I personally have objected to the discontinuance at those hearings, and so have several other rail supporters. It’s all on record, too. Look it up in the official minutes, Mr. Holling. You’re supposed to be presenting facts, not fantasy, to the council.

Also, if you haven’t seen it already, check out David Jordan’s excellent post comparing Davenport and Peoria.

UPDATE: The agreement is now on the City’s website here. It was added Friday afternoon. Also, according to a report on WMBD-TV, channel 31, the city says they were misunderstood when they said no objections had been made to abandoning a portion of the Kellar Branch. They say they meant only that no neighbors abutting the branch line had objected.

I guess they forgot about this one from the minutes of February 20, 2007:

Mr. Joe Marmon, President of Carver Lumber Company, said although the western connection was constructed to supplement the advent of the closure of Keller Branch, the western connection had caused Carver Lumber to compromise service and competitive pricing. He said Carver was forced to use alternative methods for distribution. He said he had not used the western branch for several months, due to the pricing problems. He spoke in support of services provided by Pioneer Rail, and he urged the Council to keep Keller Branch open for future economic development.

Not only was Mr. Marmon a neighbor directly abutting the tracks, but a user of rail service as well. It should be pointed out that the city promised Carver Lumber in writing that there would be “no interruption in rail service” while the western spur was being built, and that the city would intercede on their behalf if service lagged or costs rose. In fact, service was interrupted, and the city did nothing. Then when service was restored via the western connection, the city did nothing to help. The city continues to show its contempt for this business; it doesn’t even acknowledge their objections which are clearly on the record.

Oh, I know what they’ll say — Carver Lumber doesn’t directly abut the portion of the branch to be abandoned. That’s true. I guess if you define “neighborhood concerns” narrowly enough, you can make it exclude any objectors and make it easier to push through unwise agreements.

City Council, City of Peoria

Eliminate alley garbage pickup? What about blind alleys?

5 Comments

On the City Council agenda for Tuesday, July 28, is a request from Public Works to send out bids for a new garbage collection contract. They want to get separate pricing on five different scenarios. These are all well and good, except for alternative #5:

The Proposer will be requested to provide the price for the collection of all garbage at curbside only in all sections of the City. This will be a monthly fee based on 39,000 homes served. Pricing will be requested for collection as included in the Base Bid and as proposed in Alternatives #2, #3 and #4.

To try to quell an uproar from residents in the older parts of town, the council communication emphasizes that “Staff is not recommending any one service over another, but is only seeking City Council approval to develop the Request for Proposals based on the attached outline of services and alternates.”

But look, folks, there’s only one reason why that alternative is included in the quote: Staff thinks money can be saved there, and they want to quantify it so they can sell it to the council as a cost-saving measure. If that wasn’t the reason, they wouldn’t ask for it.

The council needs to tell the staff that elimination of alley pickup is not an option, and demand that they remove that alternative from the bid package.

“Why?” you ask. “Shouldn’t we look at all the ways we can save money on the contract?”

Sure! Let’s look at all the options. I’ll bet you that we could save a bunch of money if people who lived on cul-de-sacs brought their garbage out to the nearest through street. That would eliminate a significant amount of time and effort on the part of the garbage haulers, and I’m sure would lead to a lot of savings.

I’m not joking!

I see little difference between alleys and cul-de-sacs. In fact, do you know what another name for “cul-de-sac” is? “Blind alley.” Alleys and cul-de-sacs function almost identically. Whereas neighborhood streets on a grid provide a thoroughfare useful to all residents, alleys only benefit the immediately-adjacent residents. Cul-de-sacs are the same — they benefit only adjacent residents, while collector streets benefit all residents of a subdivision. Alleys provide access for service vehicles (like garbage trucks) and to private garages away from busy thoroughfares. So do cul-de-sacs. It’s harder for larger trucks to navigate alleys; it’s also harder for larger trucks to navigate cul-de-sacs, especially at the end when they have to turn around or back out.

So if we’re going to look at eliminating alley garbage pickup for some of the city’s residents, why don’t we look at eliminating “blind alley” (cul-de-sac) garbage pickup for the rest of the city’s residents? Of course, they’ll never consider that. They’ll tell me that’s crazy talk. It’s not even considered an option.

And that’s my point. Elimination of alley garbage pickup in the older parts of town shouldn’t be an option either. It’s just as crazy.