Peoria Area issues and concerns
I had some thoughts on some of Peoria’s recent news items that I thought I’d share with the Community Word readers.
The first item of interest is District 150’s latest cost-saving efforts. While it is usually quite acceptable by taxpayers for schools to be conscientious of their spending, no one truly believes that cutting 45 minutes off of the grade school’ day is a cost-saving effort. Nor do they believe that this would be of great educational value for the students. My two grown kids are products of District 150 and I was an active parent doing all I could to support the school system. I was a Parent-Teacher officer on several PTO boards within District 150. In fact, when my husband and I decided to move 15 years ago, we made a concerted decision to stay within District 150. Not too sure I’d make that same decision today. Some years ago the school district pushed for year round school, saying they desperately needed more time with the students in order to teach them everything they needed to teach. And, now they say less time is better. hmmmm. I’m no longer “plugged in” at the school district and cannot really make any proclamations on this decision. But, I do know enough to understand that something is up. I applaud receent parents’ efforts to make their opinions known, to apply pressure, and to make preparations to focus on future school board elections.
Another “hot topic” in the city, one that’s a true sign of summer weather, seems to be about loud stereo systems loudly playing as the drivers tool around town. While I am bothered by those loud systems shaking my car and blocking out my ability to talk to my passengers or listen to my radio, or even to hear necessary traffic noises, I’m equally bothered by the fact that besides getting tickets for their noise pollution, their cars are impounded. Excuse me? Do we impound cars for other tickets? If I get a speeding ticket, my car is not impounded. I encourage the police to continue to write the tickets. But, I’d also encourage city leaders to reconsider the impounding of vehicles for this infraction.
Another topic of concern does not relate to only Peoria, but rather to all Americans that filed an income tax return. And, that topic concerns those people who have or will receive a 2007 income tax return. They are eligible for a “stimulus check.” Our president wants us to spend this money in order to stimulate the economy. Whether or not this works remains to be seen. But, the various “rules and regulations” used to deny or to restrict access to such payments makes one wonder just how badly they really want us to spend this money. First of all, we learn that many college students who qualify for this money in every other way, do NOT get a stimulus check because they’re listed as a dependent on their parents’ income tax return. In spite of advice and/or opinions from others, the money does NOT go to the parents’ return either because a qualifying child is under the age of 18. But, I recently heard (via an email) from the very popular TurboTax, the software program I used to file my tax return. It seems that if I e-filed through TurboTax, we do NOT get our automatic deposit in May, as promised and promoted everywhere. There’s a quirky thing, they explain, that because TurboTax uses a bank to deposit funds into individuals’ bank accounts, the IRS cannot deposit the stimulus money into the taxpayers’ accounts. So, believe it or not, those of us who filed with TurboTax will have to wait for paper checks to be written and MAILED to our homes. It will be at least mid-June before those checks will arrive. Stimulate the economy when?
