It’s jarring when reality thumps wishful thinking. But “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” as it’s said. (Maybe the central Illinois equivalent is, “If wishes were caterpillars, butterflies would come.”) Anyway, the Peoria economy seems to be crying, “My…
Author Archive for Bill Knight
Peoria hospital ventures can be for-profit
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on Peoria hospital ventures can be for-profit
Taxpayers who feel they already underwrite hotels, retailers or private development through publicly funded incentives or financing may lump in hospitals as businesses at the trough. Although hospitals are appreciated and respected institutions that provide communities with health care and…
Kindred heals, discharges patients
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on Kindred heals, discharges patients
Hospitals soothe pain and save lives, which is advertised by Peoria’s well-known medical centers. A less familiar facility is Kindred Hospital on Romeo B. Garrett Avenue, the community’s only for-profit hospital, which some may mistakenly think is where seriously ill…
Is Illinois torturing its inmates?
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on Is Illinois torturing its inmates?
Imagine sitting in your bathroom. Now imagine staying there. For more than a year. That’s how long some 30 percent of Illinois inmates are in solitary confinement, concedes the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC). Another 10 percent suffers such isolation…
Does where you live determine where you’ll go?
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on Does where you live determine where you’ll go?
By BILL KNIGHT As Peoria’s City-County Citizen Leadership Academy starts this month with help from neighborhood activists, two recent studies seem to indicate a struggling Peoria and the need for strong neighborhoods to be the backbones of cities. The new…
Putting human faces on our Congressional candidates
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on Putting human faces on our Congressional candidates
Between now and Sept. 10, when the special election for the 18th Congressional seat will be decided, candidates Darin LaHood and Rob Mellon will be campaigning throughout the 19 downstate counties. In the low-turnout July 7 primary, LaHood won…
More questions than answers
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on More questions than answers
Power brokers or power vacuum? BY BILL KNIGHT The increasing vibrancy of the Warehouse District is seen when crowds hear the Peoria Municipal Band play on Water Street, and the livelier downtown is showcased in Caterpillar’s Visitors Center or the…
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on
Talking about drugs’ side effects, the late comic Robin Williams said, “There’s a product called Olestra, which is a very strange thing. ‘Olestra? What is that?’ It’s said on the little side of the chips: ‘May cause anal leakage.’ That’s…
Is Rauner’s ‘turnaround’ fair play?
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on Is Rauner’s ‘turnaround’ fair play?
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s turnaround agenda could seriously hurt everyday people. And it wouldn’t be a double-whammy. It would be more like a quadruple-whammy. Squared. The Republican’s proposed cuts to human services in particular could weaken everything from health care and…
Peoria safer than Springfield, Rockford Crime stats can’t tell whole story
by Bill Knight • • Comments Off on Peoria safer than Springfield, Rockford Crime stats can’t tell whole story
TV news audiences understandably could conclude mayhem rules, but that’s a flawed impression. Broadcasters can decide “if it bleeds, it leads” newscasts because people care, or it’s usually cheap and easy (officials comment; there aren’t “pro-crime” lobbyists or advertisers to…