By a whopping 70%, Peoria County voters said the office of County Auditor should be closed. Members of the County Board had overwhelmingly stated there was no need for an elected auditor.

Auditor Jessica Thomas was expected to accept the wishes of the electorate last November and seek new employment, but she did not. Thomas hired an attorney, at taxpayer expense, and filed lawsuits, one with the support of community activist, Karrie Alms. Primary purpose of the lawsuits is to keep Thomas on the county payroll. And it’s working. She continues to receive her $98,000 salary plus benefits, even though the office is closed.

A judge has ruled because the referendum did not provide a specific date for when the office should close, Thomas is entitled to receive a regular check. Thomas believes she should be paid until her term expires.

MAJOR NEWS GOOF

I really felt sorry for CBS news and its local affiliate, WMBD-TV, when President Biden flew to Ukraine to meet with President Zelensky. NBC and Fox News had wall-to-wall coverage of the meeting while CBS and Channel 31 were reporting at the same time that President Biden was leaving Washington for Poland. It was 4:30 in the morning when I turned on Channel 25 to learn that Biden and the Secret Service had quietly flown Biden, not to Poland as announced, but to Ukraine.

It was done so smoothly they fooled CBS and probably the Russians as well. CBS anchor Anne Marie Greene calmly reported that Biden would soon be leaving for Poland when he was already talking with Zelensky in Kiev.

WHERE DID THE PJSTAR REPORTERS GO?

I think readers will agree, the Peoria paper is nothing like it once was. Then again, neither am I. The newspaper lost a lot of very good reporters in the newsrooms. Making career adjustments is not easy. One reporter decided to become a marketer, then a fundraiser, and tried a third occupation. None went well for her. Another worked at CILCO and then for Bradley, before retiring to the sidelines.

However, some stuck to what they know best — writing. When WTVP-TV decided to use its taxpayer supported monies to buy “Peoria Magazine,” it presented golden opportunities for former Journal Star employees Mike Bailey, Steve Tarter, Phil Luciano, Nick Vlahos, Steve Stein, and Chris Kaergard.

All write for the slick magazine. Kaergard even became an instant historian at the The Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin. Executive Director Tiffany White, a former Congressional aide, hired Kaergard and gave him the title of associate historian.

White replaced Dr. Frank A. Mackaman, Historian Emeritus, and former director of the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum. He received his Ph.D. in American History from the University of Missouri and was a frequent guest on our morning radio show on FM 90.7.

DOWNTOWN TO BECOME “AWESOME”

I read “Peoria Magazine” each month with interest. The former owners even asked me to write a history of great central Illinois sports heroes for one of their issues. It took a lot of research, but I was pleased with the final piece.

Mike Bailey is now Editor-in-Chief, similar to the title he had at the Peoria Journal. To be transparent, I crossed political swords with Bailey on more than one occasion.

He was a big supporter of spending $40 million for a new county nursing home to replace Bel-Wood. I was not, based on 25 years in healthcare while serving 22 years on the County Board, including a stint as chairman of the county’s Health Services Committee and a member of the City/County Health Department board. I knew the financial facts. He didn’t. Everyone knows the nursing home, unfortunately, had to close. Taxpayers are the losers.

Bailey has another pie-in-the-sky perspective about the future of downtown Peoria articulated in the March issue of his magazine. He thinks our Downtown will be awesome if Peoria will just follow what they’re doing in Peoria Heights and Normal. The Heights, he notes, “… has its popular Restaurant Row.” In a feature article about Normal, the author points to a Children’s Museum and the Amtrak rail station and a couple of hotels as anchors for downtown development. Okay.

Peoria has a couple of fine downtown restaurants such as Jim’s Steakhouse and the Blue Duck Tavern at the former River Station. It also has a modern bus station and a few things Normal doesn’t have, like the Civic Center, the “popular” Big Al’s, and far more hotels with another planned.

With apologies to Second District Councilman Chuck Grayeb, a strong cheerleader for the rebirth of Peoria’s downtown, the current environment is not favorable. There are three major shopping centers — Sheridan Village, Northwoods, and the Shoppes at Grand Prairie, plus the Metro Center and Westlake, and multiple strip malls. Across the river are restaurants, hotels, and retail stores in East Peoria’s Levee District. A big apartment complex is on the way in the district. Illinois monies are paying for an even more modern Bob Michel Bridge to make it easier to go from Peoria to East Peoria to shop and eat.

Like Heddington Oaks, I hope my assessment about Peoria’s downtown is wrong and Bailey is right this time, but I doubt it.

I remember with fondness what downtown Peoria once was. Thanks to my old age, I recall it was a place to go by trolley bus from Averyville where my family lived, and street cars from other areas of the city. The streets and stores were alive with shoppers. The Hartman brothers had news stands on Main at Jefferson and Adams. Theaters — the Madison, Palace, Rialto, Apollo, Princess and Columbia — brought thousands downtown as did retail stores like Bergner’s, Block & Kuhl, Crawford’s Shoes, Johnson’s Clothing, Schradski’s, Peoria Dry Goods, Montgomery Ward, Sears, Voss Bike Shop, Modern Wallpaper and Paint, Peoria Barber College, Ketay’s Pawn Shop, Cohen’s Furniture, World Drug, S.S. Kresge’s, the Nut House, Palace Cafeteria, Bishop’s, and Swinger’s World (Well, maybe not the dirty book store). Even the Creve Coeur Club was a busy place.

Peoria’s downtown was so popular that people often came to sit on the small concrete wall surrounding the old Courthouse to people watch. It was “awesome.” The wall, the old Courthouse, and all the other places I mentioned, are gone.

So are the people. I guess we can at least be hopeful.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.”
— Martin Luther