Tag Archives: Merle Widmer

City of Peoria, Internet, Peoria County

Peoria to try to woo Google

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From a press release:

Mayor Jim Ardis will hold a news conference on February 23, 2010, at 1:30 p.m. The news conference will be held at the PeoriaNEXT Innovation Center (801 W. Main Street, Peoria). The Mayor will be joined by community leaders to discuss our efforts to submit an application to become a test market for Google.

County Board member Merle Widmer has some additional information on his blog, including an e-mail from Mayor Ardis:

As you may have recently seen, Google announced an effort to bring 1GB Internet service to a test market somewhere in the United States. This would be a phenomenal service that would deliver speed up to 100x faster than the best current system available. The impact on economic development will be enormous.

You might also have seen me talk about the importance of this opportunity to Peoria. The City of Peoria has started an application and has now joined the County of Peoria in working collaboratively.

You can read the rest at Merle’s blog, but you get the idea. Here’s some more information on Google’s effort from their official blog.

Museum Block, Peoria County

County caving to Cat on museum

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Looks like the Peoria County Board is set to capitulate to Caterpillar’s demands. In Caterpillar’s letter of January 20, they gave this ultimatum:

Our message to the Peoria County Board is clear: We must have a deadline or the work for the museum project will continue to languish; the county must modify its governance demands to allow museum activists and professionals to run the PRM; and the Board must help close the funding gap caused by the loss of New Marketing Tax Credits … the county’s contribution needs to be the full $40 million authorized.

In the absence of a positive response from the Peoria County Board by February 12, 2010, Caterpillar doesn’t believe this project can be viable. Failure to move forward in a responsive manner will result in Caterpillar withdrawing its funding commitment for a PRM and termination of our plans to move forward with the Caterpillar Visitor Center.

According to Peoria County Board member Merle Widmer, the County has drawn up an agreement that dutifully complies with Caterpillar’s demands. “The board will be asked to increase the amount voted to give the museum committee to $40 million instead of the $34.7 million the board voted on to help make up the shortage in the endowment,” he reports. “To accept ownership of the building, the County Board will be asked to approve a minimum of three contracts totaling 120 pages . . . and containing such language ‘that a board member can be removed without cause’, an advisory committee (all agreeing to the museum mission) of not more than 60, several layers of boards with the county owning the building forever.”

And if you ever thought the County Board was a professional, deliberative body, looking out for the best interests of taxpayers and thoughtfully considering both sides of an issue, Mr. Widmer adds an account of this conversation, recorded in closed session when at a meeting from which he was absent: “…Mike Phelan, Democrat County Board member [told] the Executive Committee to disregard Merle Widmer and get on with building this museum. He said the public voted on it and the public wants this museum…. He also said board members comments should be limited tommorrow afternoon and Board Chairman, Tom O’Neill said something about ‘putting a sleeping pill in his water.'”

Impolite comments about fellow board members aside, Mr. Phelan forgets that voters were told in town hall meetings that the county would be financing $34.7 million of the cost, and that the museum group would be responsible for raising the rest of the money. Caterpillar is blaming the County for the supposed loss of $5 million in New Market Tax Credits, and are demanding $5.3 million in additional funding from sales tax receipts. No independent proof of this supposed “loss” has been produced, at least publicly. Nevertheless, it appears the County is willing to take the rap for the alleged loss and plug the hole with yet more public funding. All the while, there is still a huge question of whether the other private money that has been supposedly raised will materialize. Most of it is in the form of pledges that have yet to be collected.

A Committee of the Whole meeting will take place today (Thursday) at 3 p.m. at the Peoria County Courthouse.