Tag Archives: Peoria Riverfront Museum

2010 Election, Blogosphere, General News, Museum Block, Peoria County, Peoria Public Schools, Peoria Times-Observer

Saturday must-see links

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If you haven’t already seen these this week, you’ll want to check them out:

  • Outside the Horseshoe for January 26, 2010, from WCBU 89.9 FM radio. Tanya Koonce has a conversation with Peoria County Administrator Patrick Urich, Peoria County State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons, and County Board Members Andrew Rand (Dist. 4) and Stephen Morris (Dist. 10) about the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum project. What we can deduce from the conversation here is that, at least in the county’s perception, Lakeview Museum is trying to dominate and control the project. I suspect their perception is true; Caterpillar had similar problems working with Lakeview which led to their decision years ago to put their visitor center in a separate building instead of sharing space in the museum.

  • Blacktop Reform from DeWayne Bartels of the Peoria Times-Observer. You may be surprised to learn that the next time you want to get your driveway blacktopped, you’ll have to pay a lot more money and have fewer contractors from which to choose. The County Board is trying to run non-union blacktop paving contractors out of town. Let this be a lesson to current and future Board members: do your homework before you vote!

  • School Board Member Laura Petelle’s thoughts on the final candidate for District 150’s New Superintendent. She wants to assure everyone that the process this time was “far different and more comprehensive” than the past. In other words, they did a better job of vetting the candidates than the board that hired Kay Royster did. That should give residents some comfort.

  • Racism alleged within the Peoria County Democratic Central Committee. Rachael Parker is a sitting Peoria Board of Education member running for a seat on the Peoria County Board, and her campaign manager and communications director sent out a press release accusing local Democrats of being racist. They also questioned why the Peoria Journal Star did not interview Parker. I’m wondering how the Journal Star got a quote from Parker for their January 15 story if they didn’t interview her.

Happy reading/listening!

Caterpillar, Museum Block, Peoria County

CAT bullying County on museum

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Peoria County Board Member Merle Widmer is reporting that Caterpillar sent a threatening letter regarding the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum (PRM) to all County Board members demanding “a positive response from the Peoria County Board by February 12, 2010.” The letter, signed by CEO Jim Owens and CEO-elect Douglas R. Oberhelman, went on to say, “Failure to move forward in a responsive manner will result in Caterpillar withdrawing its funding for a PRM and termination of our plans to move forward with the Caterpillar Visitor Center.”

The bullies are back, and they want action.

You may recall that this isn’t the first time that Caterpillar has strong-armed community members to support the museum. In December 2008, they sent letters to the all the county school districts asking them not to put a tax referendum on the ballot that would have provided desperately-needed funds to the cash-strapped rural districts who don’t have access to the Public Building Commission. Why? Because it would have jeopardized passage of the museum tax referendum which was slated to be on the same ballot.

So the school districts lost out on education funding, and the museum referendum passed, raising the sales tax a quarter of a percent. Even after all that, the museum group was still unable to raise the remaining private funds they needed, despite promises from museum supporters that the shortfall would be easy to make up once the referendum passed. The County Board had the audacity to insist the museum group keep their word and raise the remaining money before starting construction, which has delayed the project considerably. Also contributing to the delay has been an apparent inability to agree on the makeup of the new museum’s board and operational bylaws.

Now Big Yellow has turned its muscle on the County Board, giving them an ultimatum. The county needs to move forward — presumably with a contract between the County, City, and Lakeview — by February or else Cat withdraws all its funding and its plans to build a visitors center. If the deal falls through, who will get the blame according to Cat? The county! Yes, it’s all their fault the museum can’t get its act together, I guess. Cat even included this little gem in their letter: “Delays (by the county) have cost our community $5 million dollars in New Market Tax Credits.” Et tu, Feles? After all the county has done for you? After successfully shepherding through a tax increase in the middle of a recession that will contribute $37.5 million to the cause, you’re going to throw them under the bus for your failed attempt to secure more taxpayer money? There’s gratitude for you.

Well, the bullying is already paying off. Just a couple hours after Widmer published his post on the matter, he received an e-mail informing him that “all misunderstandings have been cleared up and the collaboration contract will soon be ready for the County Board vote.” It looks like Peoria taxpayers’ milk money will be dutifully handed over by the deadline.

Check Merle’s blog for the latest news.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Museum board agreement reached

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The Journal Star is reporting that an agreement has been made between Peoria County and the Museum Collaboration Group on who will run will the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum.

The agreement reached Monday – after the two sides appeared stalemated on Friday – calls for a governing board of between 17 and 22 people, according to [County Administrator Patrick] Urich. A minority of the members – eight, nine or 10, depending on the final size of the board – would be representatives of one of the five agencies that constitute the museum collaborative group. […] A majority of the board would be residents of the county unaffiliated with any group in the museum collaborative group. There would be no representative from county government.

Also:

Urich said the exact relationship between the museum board of directors and the county will be spelled out in the by-laws. The county would own the building, but the board would operate the museum.

And:

“We would be looking for the best and the brightest from the community for a seat on the board,” Urich said.

Here’s how this will work in practice: A bunch of people who are politically connected (the main requirement for being considered “best and brightest” in Peoria), but know nothing about how to operate a museum, will be appointed to the museum board. They will all look to the Lakeview appointees as the “experts” on museums, and vote in accordance with their recommendations. Eventually, they’ll get busy with other things and stop coming to a majority of the meetings — just enough will show up to maintain a quorum. At that point, the majority of those who actually attend will be Museum Collaboration Group members. Their meetings will not be open to the public. Poor decisions will continue to be made, leading to chronic underfunding problems, requiring tax revenue for operations. The project will be determined to be “too big to fail,” given its huge initial cost and prominent placement on the riverfront, so tax money will be diverted to keeping it afloat in perpetuity. It will draw the same number of annual visitors as the current Lakeview Museum by year three, at which point plans will be drawn up to expand the museum (at taxpayer expense, of course) so it can draw more visitors. Peoria County voters will approve more funding.

Museum Block

NY Times: “irrational exuberance” led to big museum building projects

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The New York Times recently published an article about big museum building projects that’s a must-read for all Peoria residents, leaders, and voters. The good news is, we haven’t actually built anything yet here in Peoria, so we still have time to correct our mistakes.

Within months of its opening in 1997, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao had given the language a new term and the world a new way of looking at culture. The “Bilbao effect,” many came to believe, was the answer to what ailed cities everywhere — it was a way to lure tourists and economic development — and a potential boon to cultural institutions.

Municipal governments and arts groups were soon pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into larger, flashier exhibition spaces and performance halls.

Now the economic downturn has reined in a lot of these big dreams and has also led to questions about whether ambitious building projects from Buffalo to Berkeley ever made sense to begin with. Some are arguing that arts administrators and their patrons succumbed to an irrational exuberance that rivaled the stock market’s in the boom years. […]

“Museums, when they saw how much money other museums were raising, said, ‘Oh, we can’t miss out on this,’ ” said Terry Riley, a former head of the Museum of Modern Art’s department of architecture and design, who helped oversee that museum’s renovation by Yoshio Taniguchi. In many cases, he added, “it’s almost as though money drove the decision.”

Later in the article, this observation is made by Adrian Ellis, introduced as “executive director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and the founder of AEA Consulting”:

“Cultural buildings became the way in which cities articulate their identity and vitality — they were driven not by the artistic community but by a civic agenda,” he said. Now the economy is pushing organizations into “deep reflection about what their purpose is and how best to realize it,” he said — reflection that can lead back to an arts-focused agenda, and to a renewed concern about “protecting their capacity to take artistic risks.”

“When you overexpand, you limit your ability to take those risks,” Mr. Ellis said. “Although expansion is usually seen as a sign of health, it is not always a sign of vitality.”

It’s time for the city, county, and arts community to wake up, abandon their “irrational exuberance,” and start working on a realistic, sustainable plan either to expand their current operation at Lakeview, or to build/renovate a smaller space downtown that is within their means. It’s painfully obvious that the stalled project they’ve been trying to build for the past five years is decided unrealistic.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Museum still stalled, but parking lot progresses

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From the Journal Star:

With the allocation of $140,000 in engineering fees for the Peoria Riverfront Museum, the Peoria County Board is moving forward with the $77 million project even as issues of just who will run the place, and how, remain unresolved.

That’s right, they’re going to do an environmental assessment and engineering review of the proposed parking lot design. This is a parking lot that all studies have shown isn’t necessary in the first place. But here they are, getting ready to build it, despite a lack of funds for the museum building itself.

On the bright side, several county board members are getting frustrated with the museum group. Whereas Merle Widmer used to be the only dissenting vote on museum matters, these latest actions have seen five board members vote nay. All we need are four more to switch sides and we can finally put a stake through this ill-conceived plan.

Museum Block, Peoria County

Museum odds and ends (UPDATED)

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  • From the Wall Street Journal: “Ten Things Museums Won’t Tell You.” Number 7: “Our priceless treasures are languishing in storage.” Number 9: “You think our building is ugly; we say it’s one of a kind.”
  • The County is still hashing out a redevelopment agreement with the Peoria Riverfront Museum (PRM), the City of Peoria, and Caterpillar. I received a draft copy anonymously through the mail. One of the items: “PRM will commence construction of the Project if and when all conditions precedent are satisfied, including receipt of funds equal to the entire Project Budget, plus a project contingency in a to be determined amount.” Another interesting provision states that once PRM is up and running, Lakeview Museum will cease to exist. I’ll post a copy of the document this evening.
  • So, how much is the entire “Project Budget” and how much in funding has been received? According to an October 22 letter to the County, the total project budget is $79,486,662. The total pledged dollars: $73,285,140. Since then, the state has passed a bill (still waiting for the governor’s signature, I believe) allocating $5 million in additional funds to the museum, which would bring that total up to $78,285,140. That leaves a remaining funding gap of $1,201,522. However, most interesting is this statement (emphasis mine): “The total amount collected for the project to this point is $14,244,543.”
  • Merle Widmer has his own update on the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum.

UPDATE: As promised, PDF Link here is the document.

Museum Block

More tax money going to museum

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The proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum is poised to get $5 million more of our tax dollars if Gov. Quinn signs Senate Bill 1181 into law. It includes this provision:

Sec. 213. The sum of $5,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated from the Capital Development Fund to the Department of Natural Resources for capital grants to Peoria County for costs associated with construction and development of the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

Now, based on a July 21 Journal Star report, “Officials are trying to bridge a $5 million gap in public and private dollars still needed.” So, this $5 million infusion of cash from the state should finally get the museum fully funded, right?

Surprisingly, no. According to this new Journal Star report, “The museum project presently has a funding gap of about $6 million, and $5 million from the state would nearly close that, he [Jim Richerson] said.” How can we explain this discrepancy? Was the report in July incorrect? Or did the museum lose $1 million between July and October? If the latter, how was the money lost?

It’s worth pointing out again that during the time leading up to April’s referendum, museum officials assured everyone that the remaining $11 million would be raised through private donations, aided largely by the CEO Roundtable. Now they are seeking to plug these gaps with more public money — that is, more of our tax money.

At the same time, according to yet another Journal Star report, the state’s spending plan “reduces or eliminates funding for dozens of other [educational] programs. Agricultural education, for instance, will lose half of the funding it got last year, leaving it with almost $1.7 million. Funding for early childhood education is being cut by a third, and bilingual education programs will see a 25 percent reduction.”

But they’ve got $5 million for a museum in Peoria! Priorities, you know.

City of Peoria, Museum Block

Will someone please be a leader and kill the museum project now?

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This week’s Issues Update from the city includes this information on the current status of the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum (emphasis added):

Per the terms of the Third Amendment to the Peoria/Museum Block Redevelopment Agreement, (the Third Amendment was approved by the Council on December 9, 2008), the Project Closing was to have occurred on or before June 30, 2009. The Agreement further provides that if that condition is not met, and it obviously has not been met, any party to the Agreement may terminate the Agreement by written notice to the other parties, provided such notice is received by the other parties before such conditions are satisfied. To date, none of the parties to the Agreement, the Museum, City, nor Caterpillar, have terminated the Agreement. Any party could terminate the contract. The anticipation is that there will be a four-way Redevelopment Agreement to include the County, which will supersede the current Redevelopment Agreement.

In other words, now is the perfect time to drive a stake into the downtown museum project. Yes, we had the vote back in April, but what has happened since then? The museum group has missed their deadlines again (this is the fourth time). The city’s deficit has risen to $14.5 million. The museum group has been unable to raise the rest of the money they need to start construction, and they’ve been unable to reach a consensus on a new redevelopment agreement. They haven’t kept their promises during their campaign to provide jobs during the recession, making this project our area’s own little economic stimulus. There’s still no contract with IMAX theater, despite earlier assertions from museum supporters that there was a contract sitting on their desk just waiting to be signed once the tax referendum passed. The failure of the museum group has continued, but no one is willing or responsible enough to pull the plug on this white elephant.

The city is in desperate need of more revenue — not just this year, but in future years. As we have been reminded time and time again, we’re facing a structural deficit, and we need to look at long-term solutions. Taking prime real estate off the market and giving it to a non-profit organization so they can build a single-use building that has no adaptive reuse potential is the height of irresponsibility.

Museum supporters famously claimed that the block would remain vacant for years if left up to the free market. Ironically, it’s the museum’s inability to raise money that has kept the block vacant for the past several years. A serious free market solution has never been tried. Once Sears closed its downtown store in order to move to Northwoods Mall, the city immediately bought the land. Since all the parcels have been assembled and the buildings demolished, the property has never been put on the market. If it were, I believe it would be snatched up in short order and developed, and would start generating tax income for the city.

But even if it didn’t sell right away, so what? We’re looking at long-term solutions here. In the long term, the museum would tie up that land for at least 99 years (going by the last redevelopment agreement) and generate no property tax revenue. Even if the property were to remain vacant for ten years before a commercial venture bought it, it would still be revenue-producing after that in perpetuity. And the city will need that revenue, not to mention the jobs and residents it would provide.

What about the county’s public facilities tax? What would happen to it if we were to get out of the museum deal? Well, that money was never tied specifically to the museum. It just has to be used on public facilities. It could be put to other use improving the county’s infrastructure; part of it would likely be used to build a new Belwood Nursing Home.

If you have any doubts about the folly of this project, consider this: The city, the county, Caterpillar, Methodist, the Journal Star, Illinois Mutual, Bradley University, numerous other large employers in the area, organized labor, local school districts, Illinois state legislators, Congressmen LaHood and Schock, and even a majority of the voters in the April election have worked together to make this project a reality over a period of several years. And yet, it still hasn’t happened. Now you have to ask yourself, how can this be?

Answer: Flawed plan, poorly executed. It’s time to kill this project and move on.

Museum Block

Museum Update

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Merle Widmer has an update on the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum:

No Museum construction this year. No Caterpillar Visitors Construction this year. Why not? The private sector hasn’t come up with the money they promised the county before the county agreed to put the issue on a referendum. Now officials are saying that no ground on either project will be broken until the middle of 2010.

They’re still short on funds, and negotiations between the city, county, and museum group aren’t going very well. Gives you a lot of confidence that this thing will really be successful if it ever gets built, doesn’t it?

Museum Block, Peoria County

County takes charge of museum project

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PRM LogoI received a copy of the following letter in the mail from an anonymous source. The letter is on State’s Attorney letterhead and is signed by Kevin Lyons. It’s not addressed to anyone in particular — in fact, it looks more like a memo than a letter:

RE: Persons and organizations vested in the Peoria Riverfront Museum project

On Thursday, August 13, 2009, the Peoria County Board certified a necessary resolution that will inform the Illinois Department of Revenue that, commencing January 1, 2010, a special sales tax shall be collected throughout the County of Peoria (County) to carry out the objectives of the March, 2009, referendum. The County is pleased to partner with your efforts, and with the fine men and women of Caterpillar, to organize and shape a superior project that, when complemented by The Caterpillar Experience, will serve well the many interests of this enterprise and all of Central Illinois.

To that end, the County of Peoria will provide the appropriate guidance for creating the organization(s) necessary to develop and to carry out the objectives of the project. As this is no time to learn as we go, I have engaged well experienced counsel at the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery to help provide for this important detail and direction. I have, in part, carefully selected this reputable firm because of their long history of experience with issues relative to museums, including those public and private and blended, and their appreciation for the broad collaboration of interests that birthed and brought this project to its place today.

Because it will be largely funded by public money, through sale of non-general obligation revenue bonds, it is important that the project commence and operate in compliance with public policy and statutes. A gathering of all interested parties will be planned for September so that the County may provide detailed framework that can be followed in order to formally organize, commence, develop, construct, and carry through the project.

This will involve, but certainly not be limited to, the following items:

  1. The organization and eventual tax exempt qualification of a museum authority. The museum authority would serve as lead coordinator for the project’s space, programming, and development.
  2. A description of roles and responsibilities of a museum authority and the steps required to form a board of directors and all other necessary project components.
  3. An explanation of how funding will be delivered and how the County and the museum authority will develop and refine the project, and how entities (licensees) will occupy and operate within the project.
  4. As with any County capital development project, construction of the project would be bid, let and overseen/administered by the County.
  5. The County would engage the museum authority to operate the project pursuant to the terms of an operating agreement and, upon completion of construction of the project, and pursuant to the operating agreement, the county would deliver the project to the museum authority for operation.
  6. The museum authority would annually account to the County regarding financial performance and community benefit.
  7. A clear and partnered coordination with Caterpillar, Inc., to insure that the project and The Caterpillar Experience, and the many shared goals and responsibilities attendant thereto, are smoothly addressed and accomplished.
  8. Although licensees and entities may be otherwise self-identified, it is understood that the project will be named exclusively Peoria Riverfront Museum.

    9. Your overwhelming efforts, along with ballot box support and the work of others, can permit you and your communities to now step closer to the realization of a magnificent facility along the Peoria riverfront. A September gathering will further assist everyone in understanding, in greater detail, how this significant project can now launch and grow.

    Thank you for your meaningful contributions on behalf of the citizens of Peoria County and all of the greater Peoria area.

    Very truly yours,
    KEVIN W. LYONS
    State’s Attorney

There are a few notable things here:

  • Transfer of Power: First of all, the letter states that in order for “the project [to] commence and operate in compliance with public policy and statutes,” a tax-exempt “museum authority” would need to be organized. This is interesting because there’s already a tax-exempt umbrella organization called the Museum Collaboration Group (MCG). The MCG has, to this point, been calling the shots on everything regarding the proposed museum. But now, it appears that will be coming to an end.

    The new “museum authority,” under the guidance of a newly-established board of directors, will “serve as lead coordinator for the project’s space, programming, and development.” It will be a separate entity from the County, and will also be in charge of museum operations.

    This can be characterized as nothing less than a transfer of power. I suppose it could just be a renaming/reorganization of the MCG, but why that would be necessary (other than providing some additional billing for lawyers) is mysterious to me. It will be most interesting to see who gets a seat on the new museum authority’s board of directors . . . and who doesn’t get a seat.

  • Bidding/letting overseen by County: Museum representatives have long touted their “unprecedented agreement among Caterpillar, the Museum Collaboration Group and the Greater Peoria Area Contractors and Suppliers Association,” promising that “both the Peoria Riverfront Museum and the Caterpillar Experience would be built with 100 percent local union labor.” However, that may be a promise they can’t keep, given that Peoria County Code 6.5-21(9) requires:

    All bids and contracts for the purposes of public works, as defined and provided for by the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act (Act), 820 ILCS 130/1 et seq., prohibit the prime contractor and all participating subcontractors from discriminating in employment practices. This act requires that the prevailing wage shall apply to these projects. [820 ILCS 130/2 specifies: “‘Public works’ means all fixed works constructed by any public body, other than work done directly by any public utility company, whether or not done under public supervision or direction, or paid for wholly or in part out of public funds.”]

    Clearly, under this statute, a non-local and non-union shop could very well have the winning bid, and the County would have to award it. This isn’t a new revelation. The question came up during the County’s public forums on the referendum, but the local unions continued to support the referendum anyway, and museum supporters continued to promise that local union labor would definitely be used. It will be interesting to see what bids come in, and who wins.

  • Don’t change the name: It looks they want to avoid this fiasco from happening again. Apparently the name of the Peoria Riverfront Museum is now non-negotiable.