The Community Word

October 22 was the last day GateHouse Media — the company that owns the Peoria Journal Star and most of the other daily and weekly newspapers in the area — was traded on the New York Stock exchange. Its trading price at the exchange closed? Seven cents per share. At one point, it sold at more than $20 per share.

It’s sold over the counter now.

I recently wrote on my blog — pundit.blogpeoria.com — that there was a very real possibility that GateHouse would be liquidated and sold off part by part. The Journal Star’s best option, I wrote, would be if the paper might be bought by a philanthropist with a love of local journalism.

But I recently came across a well-researched article that suggests that GateHouse will survive the drop in stock price, and that there will be no need to sell it off, piece by piece.

You can read the full article here: http://tinyurl.com/gatehouse1

But this is the part of the article I found interesting:

“Yet there is another side to the GateHouse story, and it seems equally plausible. In early August, during a conference call to discuss earnings, GateHouse chief executive Michael Reed said the company’s revenues — despite a quarterly loss of nearly $430 million — were holding up better than in the newspaper industry as a whole. With principal on the debt not due until 2014, Reed insisted, GateHouse has time to find a way out of its current morass. It’s a view supported by at least some financial analysts who follow the company.

“GateHouse’s ownership structure is also unusual, although it’s hard to say what effect that may have on its future. More than 24 million GateHouse shares are held by Fortress Investment Group, about two-fifths of the company’s outstanding shares. The chairman of the boards of both GateHouse and Fortress Investment is the same person: Wesley Edens. That has led to some speculation that Fortress won’t allow GateHouse to fail.”

What the writer is saying is that even though the stock price is, well, worthless, the company is making enough money to pay its debts until the current recession is over. And that is good news, in my opinion.

Contrary to what some people think, I do not hate the Journal Star. I grew up reading the PJS. Heck, I learned to read with the PJS. I delivered the newspaper as a kid, and I was an intern there in college. My feelings about GateHouse Media the company are less charitable, although I do sympathize with them and don’t really want them to fail. I hate their business plan, which is to buy up as many newspapers in a geographic area that they can, then consolidate operations. I think it stifles competition and overworks news staffs. Many disagree, thinking newspaper staffs are bloated. Current and former reporters I speak to strongly agree with me, and say morale is low. And when I chat with former co-workers at the Peoria Times-Observer, they say GateHouse is spending money on equipment that previous owners would not.

A few words about Aaron Schock

I was just getting used to Aaron Schock. He was serving his second term in the Illinois House of Representatives. He wasn’t much older than a college graduate when he beat incumbent Ricca Slone. He ran for re-election against a guy I know and like, Bill Spears. In both races, I considered him too young and too inexperienced to hold the office. But, after four years, he could hardly be considered inexperienced. So, it was likely I would have supported his re-election. He had been running as a moderate, and he supported 2nd Amendment rights, a cause I support. Too bad he didn’t stick around long enough to do something about it.

After all, the Democratic Party nominee turned out to be Jehan Gordon. She is about Schock’s age. But as we found out in the primary, she has a string of problems including an out-of-town shoplifting conviction and never earned the academic degree she claimed in campaign materials. And she didn’t pay the fine for that conviction until after it was discovered. And it is certain that had Schock not decided to run for the 18th District House seat held by retiring Ray LaHood, Gordon would not have faced a primary challenge. But Schock did seek to advance his career, and eventually Joan Krupa was picked to run for the Republicans. Krupa has spent almost entire life serving the public in one way or another. I found Gordon to be smart and concerned, but I’ve got to pick Krupa over her, considering.

But that leaves us with Schock. He had just started to grow into his job in the state legislature, and he was trying to move up the political food chain. You can’t tell now because just about every Republican politician who has ever lived has endorsed him, but at the beginning of the Congressional campaign, there were quite a few GOP members who agreed with me to be a Congressman who case votes about national security.

And lo and behold, right at the start of the campaign, Schock showed that relative lack of maturity. He proposed that the United States sell nuclear weapons to Taiwan. He thought the threat of this would force China to be less friendly to Iran. This idea was widely panned.

But he’s taken criticism for stuff I consider silly. He was sent a bill by the city of Peoria for costs the city incurred while helping to protect President Bush during a fund raising event. He agreed to pay that bill, even though this previously was not done. He’s declined to release copies of his income tax returns, which isn’t required but is something his opponents have done. But the thing that’s really picked up some traction is the revelation that as a notary public, he backdated some documents for his father. That alone is an apparent violation of the law — a misdemeanor case of “official misconduct” — provided intent can be proven. No charges could possibly be filed because the statute of limitations ran out.

I think “backdate-gate” is a bit overwrought as scandals go. The underlying offense is so minor. But it’s playing with the public, to the benefit of Democratic opponent Colleen Callahan. In terms of life experiences and maturity, Callahan has it all over Schock. She comes from a political family, and no doubt picked up some tricks along the way. That’s why I find her preferable to Schock. I would have liked it had her ads (which is how most people learn about candidate’s positions) would have been about issues. But my concern about the negative advertising doesn’t convince me to go with Schock over her.

Lyons suffers from short man’s syndrome.

Take a look at this video from HOINews, then come back here. You can find it at http://tinyurl.com/kevinlyons.

Done? Good.

For those who didn’t look, I’ll recap. It was taken at a candidates forum. Darin LaHood, a candidate for Peoria County State’s attorney, says that if he is elected, he would diversity the office. He noted that while 70 percent of people prosecuted by the state’s attorney’s office are African American, but none of the office’s 31 attorneys are black.

When LaHood is finished, current State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons grabbed the microphone and angrily demanded the right to defend himself. The reason there’s no black attorneys on staff is because the former chief of felonies is now a judge. And he brags that the first face people see when they want into the state’s attorney’s office is a black face. And he said the person who manages the entire office is also black. I’m assuming that this refers to two people, because I doubt the office manager also is the receptionist.

All the while, he is angrily stabbing the air with his finger, coming very close to poking LaHood in the back on several occasions.

And then he half-tossed, half-dropped the microphone onto the table. And LaHood is sitting there, looking amused.

There’s nothing shocking about this. It is entirely within Lyons’ character. The man simply cannot abide being challenged, and it was inevitable during this campaign.

Years ago, I started calling Kevin Lyons “Catch and Release Kevin.” This was because of the complaints expressed by more than one member of the Peoria Police department that Lyons has a tendency to agree to release without charges many of the knuckleheads and neighborhood thugs that officers take into custody. It’s a cliche, but quite often officers would finish their paperwork and hit the streets to find that the person they arrested were back in the neighborhoods. This drove police officers AND members of Peoria’s neighborhood organizations crazy with frustration.

But Lyons has another nickname: “King Kevin.” It refers to his autocratic attitude. I attended a neighborhood meeting several years ago in which Lyons deigned to explain to members of Peoria’s neighborhood groups how his office works. He ended up telling them that he is best suited to decide what’s a crime, not cops and certainly not neighborhood activists. He excused away his refusal to participate in Mayor Jim Ardis’s crime task force as a waste of time. He came off as petulant and condescending.

People who deal with him on a regular basis say the man is arrogant and not a little belligerent with anyone who disagrees with him. Others who work with him compliment his legal skills and his fairness, and I have no reason to doubt them.

I’m not the first person to come to the conclusion Lyons suffers from short man’s syndrome. The guy is simply over compensating. Now, that’s not a bad thing if it leads to more convictions of bad guys. But Lyons directs much of this belligerency toward those who want to help improve Peoria’s crime problem.

He reminds me of that one person at your work who resists any and all change. He or she is a master of the process as it stands now. Anything different is wrong, because that’s not the way it’s always been done.

Lyons may be a good attorney. He certainly has his defenders. But I don’t think he’s a very good public servant, which requires a different set of skills than Lyons has demonstrated in the past, and in this video as well.

More anti-Ardis race-baiting from the PJS

Journal Star columnist Pam Adams is a bit of a race baiter. She can look at just about any issue, and describe it as an example of racism. This is especially true when the subject of Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis.

In today’s column, Adams looks over minutes from the September meeting of the Peoria Race Relations Commission. She excerpts sentences and paragraphs and “translates” them. Well, she calls them “translations,” but if any United Nations translator were to take the agenda-based liberties Adams does, they would be shipped back to their home countries:

For example:

“Mayor Ardis had hoped more commissioners would have attended today so he could have addressed the entire group but trusted his comments would be conveyed to all commissioners.”

(I didn’t come to listen to your dialogue, I came to make my own.)

Adams doesn’t like Ardis, so a simple statement that he wishes more people were there gets “translated” into Ardis being an autocratic ogre. I’ve sat in on council meetings ranging back to when Dick Carver was mayor. Ardis might be the least autocratic, although he does like meetings to move along.

From what I can tell, there’s a bit a coup attempt in program on this commission. Some folks don’t like that it’s being chaired by Amir Al-Khafaji. At the time he was appointed, the grumbling I heard was that some black people thought a black person should be in charge. Adams doesn’t mention the reason behind the discontent, which is too bad because it would be good if the Peoria Journal Star’s lone black columnist, and the only columnist who almost exclusively covers race issues, would in fact cover an issue involving prejudice against a person of color.

Last week, Adams brought Willie Horton into the Peoria County State’s Attorney’s race. She implied Republican candidate Darin LaHood was a racist. Why? Because he wanted to speak to the father of a white rape victim, when the other victims of the black man accused of the crime were black. Therefore, Adams somehow concludes, LaHood was planning Willie Horton-style ads against Kevin Lyons.

There are several problems with this conclusion, the most obvious of which is that Adams doesn’t possess the powers of precognition any more than she posses the powers of telepathy in regards to what Mayor Ardis was thinking.

The other is that LaHood didn’t exactly pull the name of Monterius Hinkle from a hat. The vast majority of Americans had Peorians who pay attention to crime already knew about the guy and what he is accused of doing. I think that most Peorians assumed that because of the location of the crimes, ALL the victims were black. That’s what I assumed until I read Adams article. Not that it mattered to me as much as it does to Adams.

And here’s a point that Adams doesn’t mention. The basic facts of the Willie Horton ads were true. He was a convicted murderer given a furlough. He did flee to another state and commit rape and murder. Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, didn’t create the furlough program, but he did support it vigorously.

But then the facts don’t matter. Horton was black, therefore the ads were racist. It’s always that was with Adams.

And what are the facts of the Monterius Hinkle case, as they relate to State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons? He declined to prosecute the first time Hinkle was under arrest, saying he didn’t have enough evidence and willing testimony from victims. This last crime happened after Hinkle was released. Would LaHood have mentioned these facts if Lyons had not staged his disastrous press conference accusing LaHood of interfering with the case? Clairvoyant Pam says yes.

And since Adams is concerned about how Peoria’s power structure ignores the concerns of black people, including police brutality, I am wondering when she will mention that association of black ministers have endorsed a candidate for Peoria County State’s Attorney, saying they are convinced this candidate would listen to their concerns, and would actually diversify the office.

They endorsed Darin LaHood, the man Adams implies is racist because cops like him.

Also, Jim Ardis has endorsed LaHood, which no doubt is further evidence of racism, as far as Adams is concerned.

Adams has always implied that candidates who run on anti-crime platforms are really just trying to scare white voters, never mind that most crime victims are black and that most of the people who are forced by economics to live among crack houses and gang violence are black.

Four years ago, then mayoral candidate Ardis and Eric Turner held a press conference in front of two crack house on Peoria’s South Side. She complained that Ardis was using black people.

There are two types of people who insist that in all discussion of crime, black people are somehow involved: White supremacists, who litter my Website and the Journal Star comments; and folks like Pam Adams, who cannot conceive that anyone who makes crime an issue is not, somehow, complaining about how black people commit crimes.

Perhaps one day, we will have a columnist at the Journal Star who is willing to engage in honest discussion of race from all perspectives, and not just be the organ for those with one view on the matter.