Tag Archives: Peoria Regional Museum

City of Peoria, Peoria County

City and County have golden opportunity to save $80 million+

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Both the city and county of Peoria are facing hard times. They’re in a budget shortfall and are looking at increasing revenue and cutting costs (which means services will be cut in some way). Each entity has unwisely committed themselves to large, approximately $40 million capital outlays for non-essential projects: the city for a private Marriott hotel downtown, and the county for a private museum that has received tepid support for multiple years.

Here’s the good news: Both of these projects have missed their contractual deadlines, meaning that the municipalities could easily cancel these agreements and save taxpayers a boatload of money, both in up-front capital costs and on-going operational expenses.

Here’s the bad news: They ain’t gonna do it. Despite a history of just these types of white elephants that have contributed to the current budget mess, you can bet your heavily-taxed bottom dollar that they’re still going to go through with them, even as they cry poverty when it comes to essential city services such as police protection and road maintenance.

It seems no one in the city is able to make the connection between large, non-essential projects, and high taxes. They all hate high taxes, and they all hate service cuts, yet they continue to support large, money-losing, unnecessary projects that swallow their tax money and give them little to nothing in return.

Residents are content to believe the tortured logic of their local politicians. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • “Canceling this capital project won’t do any good because the money to pay the debt can’t be reallocated to operational expenses; it can only be spent on this project.” — That’s true, but irrelevant. From the taxpayer’s perspective, canceling the project will save us money because we won’t have to support it with our tax money. It doesn’t matter that it can’t be reallocated; the municipalities are still going to have to plug their budgets with increased revenue from either taxes or fees. By canceling the agreements, that saves us from an even higher tax increase.
  • “This project will pay for itself.” — Let’s look at the hotel project. The developer can’t find financing for the rest of the project (apparently banks are a little more cautious with their money than the City of Peoria — which is saying something), and the Embassy Suites expansion in East Peoria was recently scrapped because, “The hospitality business as a whole in the country is experiencing extremely hard times.” Yeah, sounds like that will pay for itself, doesn’t it? Obviously the museum will never pay for itself; even ardent supporters don’t claim that.
  • “But the people voted for it.” This applies only to the museum, since the public didn’t know anything about the hotel until two days before the council voted on it, and basically had no voice in the matter. It’s not as if there isn’t precedent for the city council to ignore a vote by the people. They cut funding to the library expansion even after it was approved by a large majority of voters. This project was only narrowly approved, and mostly on the backs of Dunlap and North Peoria voters. It lost handily outside the city. I’ll bet if we had an referendum on increasing garbage fees, that would lose. Should the municipalities thus take that off the table? The fact is that any cuts in service or increases in revenue are going to be unpopular. Leadership requires that unpopular, but fiscally-responsible decisions be made in tough times.

The city and county need to cut the fat. They’re in debt. They can’t afford to provide basic services to their residents. If these developments are really the sure-fire money-makers they claim to be, let private interests finance them, not the taxpayers who are stretched already in this poor economy. Show some leadership.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Gee, if only we knew of some unnecessary capital project we could cut…

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This story popped up on the PJStar.com website tonight:

Peoria County faces $4 million deficit by year’s end

A sharp decline in revenue streams has Peoria County officials looking down the barrel of a $4 million deficit by year’s end that likely will affect budgets for years to come….

The picture has officials balancing needs with wants: What essential services are required by law, and what can be postponed?

“We’re kidding ourselves if we say we’re going to cut (our budget) and not cut staff,” board member Bob Baietto said. “We’re not going to get out of this without cutting.”

Hmmm… what can we cut? What large, completely unnecessary public expenditure could we eliminate to help plug this deficit? If only there were some new, fungible source of revenue coming on line next year that, while currently slated to go toward a non-essential project, could instead be redirected so that basic county services can continue to be provided. Can you guys think of anything? I’m drawing a blank here…..

Museum Block

“The Block” takes on water

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At the last Uplands Residential Association meeting, Kathleen Woith from Lakeview and Pat Barton made a sales pitch to encourage residents to vote for the upcoming sales tax referendum to support the proposed downtown museum. (In case you’re wondering, two of the ten people in attendance were outspoken supporters, and I was of course an outspoken opponent; the rest were either on the fence or didn’t tip their hand.)

But during the presentation, the question came up about flooding. Woith explained that the block as well as Water Street were both going to be raised above the flood plain. She used the railroad tracks downtown as a guide. She said we would notice that, even when it floods downtown, the tracks don’t get submerged because they were raised above the flood plain. The museum would be raised to the level of the railroad tracks, and thus would be protected from flooding.

So I went down to take a look:

build-the-block-flooding

If you’re looking for the tracks, you won’t see them in this picture because they’re underwater. Fortunately, Woith also said the museum will have flood insurance.

Museum Block

Bob Manning takes on his critics

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Bob Manning dared to criticize the proposed museum project last month when the council was asked to amend the museum’s redevelopment agreement for the third time. Since then, he’s been pummeled in the Forum section of the Journal Star by the likes of Jim Maloof and Jim Baldwin. Manning wrote his own letter to the editor, mostly responding to Baldwin’s letter, but shooting back at his critics in general with this paragraph:

Let this be a warning to anyone who considers running for the Peoria City Council. If you disagree with the agenda of the “self-anointed” leaders in this community, they will come after you with personal attacks. They will not debate the issues on substance. Rather, you will be criticized for standing in the way of “progress” (read “their pet projects”).

After writing this blog for three and a half years, I can understand Bob’s frustration. No matter how much you try to speak to the issues, it seems that there’s always someone on the other side of the argument that takes your comments personally, and responds with a personal attack on your character. I guess if you can’t win the argument on substance, then the argument of last resort is the ad hominem attack.

When those attacks happen as publicly and with as much vitriol as the recent forum letters from community “leaders” against Mr. Manning, they backfire. After Maloof’s letter was published, there was not one comment in the Journal Star’s comments section in favor of Mr. Maloof’s point of view. Ditto with Mr. Baldwin’s letter. Instead, there has been an outpouring of support for Manning, including letters to the editor defending him, and thanking him for speaking out.

If this museum project is as wonderful as its boosters say it is, it should be able to stand up to scrutiny on its own merits. If it can’t, then no amount of personal attacks are going to save it.

Museum Block, Peoria County, Taxes

County committee approves museum tax referendum

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From the Peoria County website:

The Peoria County Finance/Legislative Committee passed a resolution late this afternoon that would place a referendum on the April ballot asking voters to raise the sales tax rate 1/4 of one percent to help fund public facilities. The County Board must approve the resolution before the referendum can be added to the April ballot. The Board must make its decision by January 30; a special board meeting will be called to allow the full board to vote on the resolution. The date of that meeting has not yet been set.

Should the County Board pass the resolution, the voters will ultimately decide whether to support the sales tax increase. The referendum would include a sunset date, set 20 years from the effective date of the tax increase. If the referendum is on the April ballot and the voters support the sales tax increase, money raised from the increase will be used to help fund construction of the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

Interested persons may click here for more information on the museum funding. From the information library, please select MuseumPolicyConsideration-REPORT.pdf or MuseumPolicyConsideration-REPORTandATTACHMENTS.pdf.

Museum Block, Peoria County

County carrying museum-backers’ water

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The Journal Star has published the specific wording of the telephone poll recently completed by Peoria County regarding the proposed downtown museum:

The Peoria Riverfront Museum will enhance educational opportunities for all of central Illinois. The museum will house collections, a state-of-the-art planetarium, and an IMAX theater. The adjacent Caterpillar Visitor’s Center will welcome visitors from around the world. The project will create 250 union construction jobs, and upon completion will generate nearly $14 million annually to our local economy. The museum project is 86 percent funded.

This is practically the textbook definition of a push poll, which is inappropriate in general, but especially when perpetrated by the County government.

What do they mean it will “generate nearly $14 million annually to our local economy”? How do they figure that? According to a September 8, 2008, Journal Star article, “The annual operating budget [for the Peoria Regional Museum] is pegged at $4 million.” Where’s the other $10 million being generated? To just throw that out there as a fact is inappropriate; at best it should have read that “developers predict” it will generate $14 million annually or some other such clarification.

And the last line is really over the top. It states that “The museum project is 86 percent funded.” This is patently false. According to the Build the Block website, $73.7 million has been raised to date out of $119.4 million. That’s 61.7%. The overall funding for the project is divided into “public funding” and “private funding.” The “private funding” portion is reportedly at 86% ($67 million out of their $78 million goal). But this poll is about the public funding portion. It’s misleading to represent the “the museum project” — which can only be interpreted as the entire museum project, given that there is no context that would indicate otherwise — as “86% funded.” Even if the private funding were at 100% of their goal, the overall project would still only be 71% funded.

The bigger problem is that the county is doing this polling (at public expense) for one purpose: to develop wording for the referendum question that will make it most likely to gain the favor of voters. That means they’re actively advocating for a “yes” vote on the museum tax referendum and using public funds to do it. As Billy Dennis points out in his blog, that’s illegal. 10 ILCS 5/9-25.1(b) states, in part, “No public funds shall be used to urge any elector to vote for or against any candidate or proposition, or be appropriated for political or campaign purposes to any candidate or political organization.”

Why is the County carrying the museum’s water?

Museum Block, Peoria County, State Legislation

Museum tax strategy revealed in latest telephone poll

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Regular commentator Mahkno has left a most interesting comment on the Peoria Pundit website that I’m going to shamelessly steal and quote in its entirety here:

Museum folks ran a very push orientated poll this eve. Had a good 30 second to full minute intro about how great the education benefits would be, how much revenue it would bring in (14 million), how many jobs it would create ([250] union jobs), its 86% paid for so far, and how low a burden it would be (25 cents per…).

Would you support a sales tax increase? Mmm no.

What if it were tied to other public service like firefighting and police? Mmmm… no.

What if the tax were only temporary, to expire at some point? LOL… Civic Center? … MMmmm No…

Done.

The statute under which this tax referendum falls is called the “Special County Retailers’ Occupation Tax For Public Safety, Public Facilities, or Transportation” (Sec. 5-1006.5). This statute has been around a while, actually, except that it used to be just for public safety and transportation. The legislature recently amended it to include “public facilities” for the expressed purpose of helping the museum project go forward.

Since the tax can cover not only facilities, but safety and transportation too, it looks like the county and museum officials are contemplating a common political strategy. It happens all the time in Congress. For instance, say you have a pork-barrel project that doesn’t stand a chance of getting through Congress on a pure up-or-down vote. What do you do? You put it in, say, a veterans hospital bill as an earmark. That way, in order to vote against the pork, representatives have to vote against veterans. No one wants to vote against veterans (and certainly no one wants to be on record as voting against veterans), so the bill passes, pork and all. Voila!

The county is at least contemplating the same strategy here. They have an unpopular sales tax referendum for an unpopular museum project, so how do they get residents to vote for it? Of course! Pair it with something people will be reluctant to vote against — like public safety! Who wants to vote against firefighters or police officers? Then they can market it as a public-safety tax instead of what it really is — a museum-funding tax.

Expect the museum-backers to pull out all the stops in this campaign. They’ve already started behind-the-scenes efforts to silence their critics (like me) through intimidation tactics. I suppose I should be flattered that my little blog is perceived as such a big threat.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Museum referendum: Why you should vote “No”

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By now, you all know that Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the bill that will allow Peoria County to ask voters to voluntarily raise their sales taxes to help pay for the Peoria Regional Museum. He might as well have; the legislature would have overridden his veto anyway, just like they did on SB2477 that allowed the school district to access Public Building Commission funds without a referendum.

There’s only one good thing about this turn of events: it does require a referendum. If the vote fails, there will be no tax increase, and likely no museum in its current form. This is probably the only way the citizens of Peoria can send a clear signal to the Museum Collaboration Group that, while we would like a Peoria history museum, the current plan is unacceptable; go back to the drawing board and try again.

The Journal Star gives us a little insight into the media blitz that will be coming our way to try to convince us that this museum plan is the best thing since sliced bread:

“Now it’s our job to reach out to the community and get a successful vote, something I think we can accomplish with hard work,” said Brad McMillan, the spokesman for the museum collaborative group that’s hoping to partner with Caterpillar to develop the old Sears block Downtown. “We need to show a majority of voters what a really great thing this project is for the future of this region for education, for quality of life and for its economic impact.”

So, there are the three things they’re going to try to push: education, quality of life, and economic impact. Let’s look at those.

  • Education. Any museum worth its salt will be educational, so that’s an easy value to sell to the public. But it misses the point. The question is, could we get just as educational of a museum without a sales tax increase? And the answer is yes. The reasons why this project is so expensive are:
    1. Design. The current design is inefficient and expensive. They want a whole city block to site an 80,000-square-foot one-story building. They want to put a parking deck underground for this building; not only is the parking deck completely unnecessary (there is plenty of parking surrounding the block), but the shape of the deck is different than the shape of the building that sits on top, which adds tremendous expense to the construction process. The waste inherent in this design is formidable.
    2. Scope. They are moving Lakeview Museum to the riverfront as part of this project. That’s unnecessary. Lakeview Museum already has a building and is self-sufficient. If the art and science museum were left where it’s currently located, the remaining history and achievement portions would be less expensive to house. They could be housed in a new building on a portion of the Sears block, or an old building could be renovated so the history museum could be in an actual historic building.

  • Quality of Life. What is “quality of life”? One definition is, “Those aspects of the economic, social and physical environment that make a community a desirable place in which to live or do business.” So let’s look at those items.
    1. Economic. Economically, a sales tax increase is certainly not a quality-of-life enhancement, but rather a detraction. It means that whenever you go out to eat, instead of paying 10% tax on your meal — already higher than all surrounding communities — you’ll be paying 10.25% or 10.5%, depending on how much money the museum needs. It means that whenever you go shopping for clothes or appliances or other retail items, you’re going to be paying higher taxes.
    2. Social. I would point out again that we already have Lakeview Museum which is self-sufficient and contributing to Peoria’s quality of life. It’s unclear how moving that museum four and a half miles southeast is going to improve the quality of life socially for Peorians. A Peoria history museum would add to the social quality-of-life aspects, but it can arguably be done without a sales tax increase.
    3. Physical. Physically, the museum is a travesty. Its architecture, siting, and size are all regrettable. It’s a suburban design right in the heart of an urban setting. It’s not big enough to house the museum collections that are not on display. In the 1970s, the city hired a city planner for advice on what to do downtown; on this block specifically, Demetriou advised dense, mixed-use development with residential and retail components. In 2002, the city again hired an urban planner for advice on what to do downtown; after holding numerous charrettes to solicit public input on what they’d like to see downtown (and specifically on this block), Duany advised dense, mixed-use development with residential and retail components. One would think that listening to the public and heeding the advice of urban planners would be the best way to enhance quality of life. Yet the Museum Collaboration Group has decided to do the antithesis — a single-use, nine-to-five, suburban-style development.

  • Economic Impact. We have two city blocks that will be bringing in no tax revenue to the community, but will instead be subsidized by a sales tax increase, and they want us to believe that it will have positive economic impact? It will not. Are they hoping for subsidiary development around the museum block? Where would it go? In the new office building they want to build on the Riverfront Village stilts? And if civic projects with this type of design are surefire economic engines, where is all the subsidiary development around the Civic Center and Chiefs ballpark? They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results; by that definition, expecting positive economic impact from the museum project as currently proposed is insane. Mr. McMillan did provide one example of economic impact in an earlier Journal Star article:

    “This project would bring hundreds of construction jobs to the region at the exact time there is talk of national economic stimulus and infrastructure improvements designed to keep people working,” McMillan said.

    In other words, make-work jobs at taxpayer expense. Only the government could say with a straight face that taking your tax dollars to pay construction workers for 18 months or so is a positive economic impact on the city. Also, consider the economic impact of higher sales taxes. How many people will continue shopping and eating out in Peoria if surrounding communities (read: East Peoria) have considerably lower taxes? Won’t that make things worse for businesses in Peoria?

We don’t need to raise sales taxes or any other taxes. There’s another solution. The solution is to go back to the Heart of Peoria Plan and develop the block the right way. The solution is to leave Lakeview Museum where it is and establish a history and achievement museum downtown, either in a new building on a small part of the Sears block with an efficient and affordable design, or in a renovated historic building elsewhere downtown. That way, the city and county can collect tax revenue from the mixed-use development on the Sears block, and a self-sufficient history museum can be established. All of these things will raise the quality of life in Peoria, without having to raise taxes to do it.

The Museum Collaboration doesn’t need sales tax revenue, they need a new plan. You can send them that message by voting “no” on the museum tax referendum.

Museum Block

The museum and the economy

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Several people have asked (rhetorically, no doubt) how the City can still be considering building a museum given the current economic climate. So I posed a few questions about that to the Museum Collaboration Group, and they graciously responded:

Q: In light of the current economic conditions, especially the so-called credit crunch, how would this museum be built even in your current fundraising goals were met?

A: “We have always said we would not begin building until we had met our fund-raising goals. We won’t start with a partially funded building. So, if our funding goals are met, we’ll build the museum.”

Q: Would you have access to the funds you would need to borrow to make this project a reality?

A: “We have never planned to take out long-term loans to build the museum. Some short-term bridge loans have always been factored into the plans, and we do not expect that these loans will be unavailable.”

Q: How is the current economic climate affecting your efforts?

A: “We are concerned about the current economic climate, but to date we are still on plan with our fundraising efforts.”