Tag Archives: East Bluff Neighborhood Housing Service

City of Peoria, East Bluff

EBNHS board full of vacancies, website out of date only four months after getting tax funding

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The East Bluff Neighborhood Housing Service (EBNHS) gets its funding from taxpayers living in a special service district on the East Bluff. Because of past problems with the EBNHS, the City Council decided to approve levying the tax on an annual basis hopefully to increase their performance accountability.

The FY2011 tax levy was approved in November 2010 after the EBNHS gave an update to the Peoria City Council showing all the progress they had made. Their accomplishments included having a “full and complete EBNHS board — all 13 positions filled,” publishing the monthly minutes and agendas on their new website (http://www.ebnhs.com/), and having a “loan committee actively meeting and pursuing creating proper loan criteria and documents with object to begin loan process again in near future.”

Upon reviewing the website, it’s interesting to note that the last minutes published were December 2010, and the last agenda published was January 2011. It seems that after they received the tax money, their diligence in keeping the site up to date waned almost immediately. It kind of makes it difficult to determine if they’re following through on their commitment “to begin [the] loan process again in [the] near future.”

There are now three vacancies on the board according to the website, so the “full and complete EBNHS board” was rather short-lived as well. In fact, the EBNHS gave their report to the City Council celebrating their full board in November, then created two vacancies as of the very next meeting, according to their December 2010 minutes. It appears those vacancies have yet to be filled.

What we do know from the website is this:

  • They gave $643 to Boys and Girls Clubs to sponsor an East Bluff child for a ski trip to the Ski Snowstar Winter Sports Park in Andalusia, Illinois, in January.

  • They paid Williamson Blind & Drapery $3,945 to make custom window dressing for the EBNHS House at Nebraska and Wisconsin. This house acts as the EBNHS office, and also the home of the EBNHS Executive Director Peggy Shadid, who receives a $43,191 salary and stays in the house for free, courtesy of the special service district taxpayers.

Speaking of the Executive Director, as the only employee of the EBNHS, and the one who has “general direction over the operations of the Corporation” according to the bylaws (including the responsibility to “keep the permanent minutes of the meetings” and “see that all notices are duly given”), one would assume it would be her responsibility to keep their website up to date with the latest minutes and agendas. However, there is no requirement in the bylaws that the website be kept up to date.

My guess is that the website will eventually get updated — at least by November, when it’s time to ask the City Council for more tax money.