By Sharon McBride

The West Peoria Township annual meeting is 7:30 p.m. April 10, 2516 W. Rohmann Ave. Townships are mandated to hold an annual meetings to review the past year’s activities as well as plans for the current year. All voters are invited to attend.

Yard waste landscape pickup starts Friday April 6 and continues every Friday through the end of the year. Place your landscape waste, including bagged clipping and smaller bundled branches, at the curb for pick up. Large branches cannot be collected. Open burning is illegal in West Peoria. Leaves and grass clippings should not be blown into the streets because that can clog storm drains.

Garbage totes should be returned to their storage areas as soon as possible after pickup. To report code violations or to issue a complaint on any of the above, call the Code Enforcement Officer at 674-1993 or 370-1142.

One of the many positives about being in West Peoria is our very respected Boy Scout Troop 11. New to their roster of 69 hard-working, high achieving Scouts are Gabe Perry, whose project was a pollinator garden at Hollis Grade School, and Patrick Menke, whose project was a new message board and landscaping at St. Ann Church. Troop 11 Eagle Scouts have made our area and community better as well as shown their willingness to work hard, achieve and to participate in community projects. Boy Scout Troop 11 is led by Scout Master Robert DeSutter, 674-6668.

The West Peoria community wide yard sale, sponsored by the west Peoria Residents’ Association, will be 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 19. If you are interested in participating and having your addressed posted on the Community Yard sale flyer, contact Maggie Moore, 673-0535. Flyers will be available throughout the community closer to the sale date.

Upcoming WPRA April meetings will be 6 p.m. April 11 in City Hall with guest speaker Aimee Shinall, victim Services Coordinator with the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office, speaking on “Beware of new scams and review the old scams.” The West Peoria Residents Association will meet 6 p.m. April 19 at City Hall. Clark Abraham, CEO Eco-Lawn Organics, will speak about organic lawn care.

West Peoria’s annual July Fourth parade is central Illinois’ longest running and attracts thousands to our community. A person is honored at the event each year who has a history and an impact on our community through public service, volunteer work or social work.  Anyone wishing to submit a nomination should write a letter of recommendation and be sure to include contact information. No anonymous nominations are accepted. Submissions can be emailed to office@cityofwestpeoria.com marked to the attention of Grand Marshal Nomination or they can be left at City Hall. Volunteers are needed to assist with parade.

The West Peoria does not permit people to go door-to-door soliciting sales. If you encounter this, contact the Peoria County Sheriff’s office at 672-6011 or City Hall at 674-1993.

“Toxic Impacts of Coal Tar Sealants and Positive Alternatives” will be presented by Dr. Cindy Skrukrud, Illinois Chapter Sierra Club Clean Water Advocate, for the Peoria Area League of Women Voters Public Program on Thursday, April 5, 6:00 p.m. at AMT/ Advanced Medical Transport, 1718 N. Sterling Ave., Peoria.

Dr. Skrukrud will discuss toxic impacts of coal tar sealants, which are used as a coating on parking lots, driveways, and other asphalt surfaces. Coal tar sealants contain extremely high levels of PAHs, which are chemicals known to cause cancer and that are of particular developmental risks to children and infants.

The chemicals in the coal tar sealants can be Ingested when kids play on their hands and knees or do pavement activities like chalk art. The pollutants can also be tracked inside on your shoes and remain in carpeting where babies and young children then get the chemicals on their hands.

U.S. EPA studies have found that coal tar sealer runoff is toxic to aquatic life. Rain and other water run-off from parking lots and sealed surfaces moves pollutants into waterways and ponds. The agency recommends that local bans on coal tar sealants can help address this pollution source.

Currently there is proposed legislation in the Illinois House, House Bill 2958, and Senate, Senate Bill 237, to allow communities to ban coal tar sealants to protect public health and the environment. Information about the legislation will be available at the meeting.

The Peoria Area League of Women Voters Environmental Committee will also be conducting a sampling of area parking lots and doing an informal testing to identify if coal tar sealants have been used. Sign-up lists will be available for interested volunteers.

Safer alternatives to coal tar sealants should be used, although buyers must beware that some products without coal tar contain steam cracked asphalts or heavy pyrolysis oil and are not acceptable due to high levels of PAHs. Sealants should be PAH free and asphalt products that meet this standard are readily available.

Following the massacre of 17 at a Florida high school last month, thousands of frustrated students across the country walked out of school for a 17-minute protest Wednesday morning. At Eureka High School, more than a dozen students emerged from the school to a round of applause from about 50 community members who had gathered outside to show support and advocate for gun reform.

Among those supporting the students was Junius Rodriguez, a candidate for the 18^th Congressional District. Rodriquez said the second amendment to the Constitution will not be

repealed by reasonable reforms to gun regulation.

In Peoria, the Catholic Diocese issued a statement explaining why it prohibited students from participating in the nationwide student walkout. The statement read, in part: “Unfortunately, some of the sponsors of the National School Walkout advocate for positions that are contrary to the (Catholic) church’s teachings on the sanctity of human life in all of its stages.”

That statement is in reference to some in the Women’s March who support the universal right to reproductive choice including the right to abortion.

Editor’s Note: The City of Peoria has indefinitely postponed the Saturday March 10 opening of the clean syringe exchange program at 1411 NE Adams Street. An official stated the building cannot be occupied until there is further clarification of the zoning use and the city has inspected the space for building and fire code compliance.

BY CLARE HOWARD

A textbook example of how NOT to open a clean syringe exchange program unfolded Wednesday evening at the GAR Hall on Hamilton Boulevard.

Detweiller Marina Neighborhood Association invited Jolt Foundation to a community conversation. Topic of discussion was recent publicity that Jolt was looking at a site in the neighborhood to open a syringe exchange program after having to withdraw from a location in the NAACP offices on MacArthur Highway due to neighborhood objections.

About 50 residents attended the GAR Hall meeting. Speaking on behalf of Jolt was a doctor living in Dunlap, a community educator living in Delavan and a retired radiologist. They sold the concept for more than an hour, vacillating between science, morality and marketing only to drop the bombshell: a lease had already been signed and the syringe exchange was opening in three days.

The home owners had never been consulted nor informed . . . despite past experience and past warnings from several city council members that building neighborhood consensus is critical.

This was clearly not a meeting to discuss, inform and build consensus. It was ramming a fait accompli down the throat of an already fragile, struggling neighborhood. Anyone who objected was dismissed on moral grounds – in at least one case with an insulting retort.

Everyone in the room that night recognized the need and wanted a clean syringe exchange program to succeed. But the process in this case was arrogant, disrespectful, condescending and dishonest. That does not bode well.

Jolt clearly has good intentions, born from the heartbreak of a mother losing her son to a drug overdose, but perhaps Jolt is not the right driver for this program, at least not at this stage.

For more information: Constance Romanus, 309-264-9113, cromanus1249@yahoo.com

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF GREATER PEORIA EVENT

DRINKS & DIALOGUE, Wednesday, March 21, 2018, 5:30 – 6:30 pm

Lariat Steakhouse, 2232 W. Glen Avenue, Peoria

The League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria will present a program on Civility, at its Drinks & Dialogue series on Wed., March 21, at 5:30 pm at the Lariat Steakhouse, 2232 W. Glen Avenue, Peoria.

Portia Adams, Social Work Program Director and Associate Professor, Department of Sociology at Bradley University will guide the discussion.

Civility has been defined as “more than just politeness, although politeness is a necessary first step. It is about disagreeing without disrespect, seeking common ground as a starting point for dialogue about differences, listening past one’s preconceptions and teaching others to do the same. Civility is the hard work of staying present even with those with whom we have deep-rooted and fierce disagreements. It is political in the sense that it is a necessary prerequisite for civic action. But it is political, too, in the sense that it is about negotiating interpersonal power such that everyone’s voice is heard, and nobody’s is ignored.”

— The Institute for Civility in Government – info@institute for civility.org

The event is free and open to the public. Social time is 5:00 PM-5:30. Refreshments are available for purchase.

Drinks & Dialogue is offered on the 3^rd Wednesday of the month, starting at 5:30 pm and ending promptly at 6:30 pm, always at a local restaurant, to discuss local, state and national topics relating to approved LWV positions, aimed at “Making Democracy Work.”

Are you curious about what your senator, congressman or congresswoman has accepted in political contributions from the National Rifle Association, America’s leading advocate for irrational public policy on guns?

Thank Everytown for Gun Safety for this two-page ad in The New York Times. The ad includes a list:  “These Members of Congress Take NRA Money, But Refuse to Take Action to Pass Gun Safety Legislation.”

https://everytown.org/documents/2018/02/throw-them-out-nyt.pdf