‘Ardis better watch his ass’

I had dinner with Dad at Haddad’s this past Friday. He had a gyro, I had pepper steak. We split an order of cabbage rolls. Haddad’s Restaurant at the corner of West Main and Bourland is one of only a handful of local, family-owned eateries left in Peoria. They have great food, often served by a son or daughter of the owners. The pretty young lady who took our orders was the daughter of the daughter of the owners and I remember this little girl crawling around on the floor of the place.

I’m mentioning this because I wanted to explain why I should have been in a wonderful mood. But I wasn’t. Right out of the blue, Dad said something annoying: “Ardis better watch his ass.”

Oh, brother. This was two days after the state of the state message. Dad was still fuming about it.

“It’s an obscenity,” he said. They are going to raise taxes to built that museum, but they won’t raise taxes to keep schools open.

He then muttered something rude about Mayor Ardis.

I didn’t have anything to say in the mayor’s defense. Yeah, he’s good on crime. It’s what got him elected. But he’s in trouble.

There’s no primary in the race for Mayor of Peoria. That means incumbent Jim Ardis will face challenger General Parker in April.

I almost wish there was a primary. I think Mayor Ardis needs some shock therapy.

Consider this statement, made during the state of the city address:

“That ledge that we’re on, tipping one way or another is basically on the backs of school district 150. And if that house does not get put in order by whatever it takes a lot of what we’re doing, it’s not going to have success,” said Mayor Ardis. He says District 150 has to close a high school. He won’t say which one, but the only plan on the table is the one District 150 has been developing in secret.

Peoria School District 150 officials is faced with a big deficit — the exact amount depends on who you ask and when you ask. Behind closed doors, they reconsidered a plan thought to be abandoned by almost everyone but the anonymous editorial writers of the Peoria Journal Star — Close a high school. The Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce came out and praised the district for trying to get a handle on things. What bull. This was the easiest, quickest way to close a gap. A harder decision would have been for the district to lay off administrators and fire consultants (most of whom are retired administrators). A harder decision would have been to dump the contract with Edison schools.

I don’t think he gets just how unhappy people are with District 150 and their sneaky revival of plans to close schools. And by “people” I do not mean members of the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce. They would be happy with any plan, I think, that keeps property taxes low and prevents big money institutions like Bradley University and the three hospitals from paying extra utility taxes to make up for the fact that they don’t pay property taxes. They issued a statement saying it “supports the district’s efforts to make those tough changes for the future of our educational system.” These gutless wonders didn’t even have the testicular fortitude to mention schools are going to get closed.

The people Mayor Ardis really ought to be trying harder to please are the people who have made the decision to NOT abandon the central city and Peoria’s public schools.

Dad doesn’t know much about General Parker. He called him “Colonel” Parker twice. But he knows he’s not happy with Ardis. The good news for the mayor is that Dad doesn’t live in the city.

But make no mistake, there are thousands of people out there who just as mad at the state of politics in Peoria. They are fed up. They think that things couldn’t get any worse with Parker as mayor.

I really hope that sometime between now and April, Jim Ardis realizes this.

More boondoggle news

As predicted, the Peoria County Board voted almost unanimously to put a referendum on the ballot for a .25 percent sales tax to fund construction of the downtown museum fiasco.

Only Merle Widmer had the foresight and fortitude to vote against the referendum, which Caterpillar wants to see happen because they want the museum to accompany their own shiny new toy, a visitor center that would be located next door to the museum. After all, John Deere has one, and by God, they want Peorians to help foot the bill for theirs.

Now that voters will see this boondoggle on the April 7 ballot, expect to see a campaign of lies and deceptions designed to both over promise the benefits and scare voters by convincing them Caterpillar will leave.

Among the lies:

* Grossly over estimating the number of visitors this whole project will attract, this overstating the incoming revenue AND the positive impact on the local economy.

* Claiming that Caterpillar will move its World Headquarters if the museum doesn’t get built.

* Claiming the sales tax cannot possibly become permanent (when revenue doesn’t meet the overinflated expectations, they WILL extant the tax to operate the facility and/or finance additional expansions, just like they did with the Peoria Civic Center).

* Impugning the character of those who publicly oppose public financing.

And the lies have already begun! As blogger C.J. Summers pointed out the Peoria County Website claims the government isn’t officially advocating passage of the referendum. But they go and sponsor forums organized and featuring presentations by those who really, really want to see this tax burden placed on voters.

Media Merry-Go-Round

Peoria’s mainstream media kept me pretty busy this month.

One rumor after another came my way about how a WEEK was this close to assuming control of WHOI’s news operations. Supposedly, there’s something called a management agreement being worked that would let this happen. Apparently, both newscasts woduld be done out of WEEK’s East Peoria studio. Supposedly, they are building a replica of HOI News’ current set at WEEK. There would be room for a handful of people from WHOI at WEEK, and even some WEEK people would be let go. Several different sources brought forth several different deadlines for this to happen. All came and passed without any announcement.

Another rumor has Granite Broadcasting outsourcing its weather reportage to a central facility in Indiana of all places. Local viewers would get a regional weather report, without a lot of details about specific communities. WEEK has already outsourced some of its behind the scenes work — like running the control booth on weekends — to an outside company.

And this is the rumor that blew my mind: The Newspaper Guild is actively working with members of the state legislature and bankers to secure passage of legislation creating a new type of corporation called an L3C. Basically, it’s a hybrid of a not-for-profit organization and a for-profit business. It would allow a business to have investors who can expect a return on their investment, but still let people donate money. The L3C company must serve the public interests, just like non-profits must.

When I got into the business, the culture that permeated everything was that newspapering was a semi-public institution. Sure, the publishers got rich. Filthy rich even. But when push came to shove, it was understood that newspapers had obligations to keep. Brother, that era has passed.

So these spiffy new L3Cs seem to codify into law this traditional attitude, the concept of newspapers being “semi-public.” I’m left wondering, however, how this applied to the Journal Star. I can’t imagine the corporate whiz-kids at GateHouse would want to sell a profitable newspaper like the Journal Star without getting a ton of cash.

But something needs to be done. The buzz is that there are only eight full-time reporters working beats at the Peoria Journal Star these days. And there are more layoffs coming.

The rise of citizen journalism in Peoria

I operate a blog called ‘Peoria Pundit.” It’s located here: http://pundit.blogpeporia.com. This is one of many blogs at The Blog Peoria Project, which is found at: http://blogpeoria.com. I own and operate this site, which was created to give Peorians an opportunity to blog about their city in a networked environment. I saw it as a way for bloggers to work together in a virtual, online newsroom to create outstanding community-based citizen journalism.

I am mentioning this now because the site has recently gone through a major upgrade. The site has never been easier to use. And citizen journalism has never been as important. The local mainstream news media is collapsing under the greed and poor planning. Bloggers like C.J. Summers: http://peoriachronicle.com and Merle Wider: http://widmer-peoria-watch.blogspot.com are producing some outstanding citizen journalism these days. David Jordan blogs about transportation issues: http://peoriastation.blogpeoria.com/. Diane Vespa blogs about school issues: http://peoriarocks.blogspot.com and occasionally on my site. There are dozens of other bloggers who also occasionally delve to the fray as well.

But with these upgrades, it’s never been easier to join the Blog Peoria Project. It’s completely free, although donations are accepted and advertising is for sale, as well. Just go to http://blogpeoria.com and click on “sign up now.”

This is different than using Blogger.com or even siting using similar platforms. This is blogging and FOR local people, FOR local audiences. This is a great way for neighborhood organizations to get the message out to members and the community.