Peoria Illinoisan

Chance of freezing rain…snow and sleet in the morning…then freezing rain in the afternoon. Less than an inch of snow or sleet accumulation. Ice accumulation around one quarter of an inch. Highs in the lower 30s. Blustery. East winds 10 to 15 mph increasing to 20 to 25 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation 90 percent.

I’ll believe it when I see it. If I recall correctly, last Sunday’s forecast was 45 and sunny and I had plans to clean up the leaves in my yard and do a end of year lawn mowing.

It snowed.

If this ice storm prediction proves accurate, I plan on having a good time slip sliding away, ala Paul Simon. If not, maybe I can finally get around to that end of year yard clean-up.

The 20-car freight train was headed from Chicago to Elizabeth, New Jersey and authorities are not sure why the two trains were on the same track or which one was in the wrong area. At least six people were reported as having serious or critical injuries. All of those patients were Amtrak employees, Amtrak officials said. Among them was a conductor who was pinned inside, and was later removed on a stretcher.

No doubt you all know my disdain for this headline in yesterday’s Journal Star above the otherwise decent article announcing the matching gift program from Caterpillar to the Peoria PlayHouse, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a very pixelated PlayHouse logo on the You Page section of today’s Journal Star with this headline and comment:

The Junior League of Peoria expects that a matching gift donation from the Caterpillar Foundation will accelerate the fundraising effort for the $5.25 million Peoria PlayHouse children’s museum it hopes to bring to Glen Oak Park.

PJStar.com reader elma wrote: ‘This is the museum that the county should support. Lower budget and greater use from the community.’

Quite surprising indeed, especially if you consider the article only garnered three comments.

[Phone call to home from work. Son answers.]

Me: Hey, is your Mom around?
Son: No. She’s not here.
Me: Where is she?
Son: At a saloon.
Me: A saloon?
Son: Yea, she didn’t show up when school was out so we walked home and now I’m making the girls do their homework.
Me: Interesting…
[Wife in background]: “Would you give me the phone, please!?”

And it ain’t easy when there’s fireballs coming out of my fingertips, but you know the old saying… if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Peoria Journal Star, September 28, 2007:

Area organizations that get donations from Caterpillar Inc. and Caterpillar Foundation will have to better demonstrate the need in the future because of changes in the company’s contribution plan.

Peoria PlayHouse press release, November 27, 2007:

The Junior League of Peoria is pleased to announce The Caterpillar Foundation as the latest addition to its list of major supporters of The Peoria PlayHouse. The Foundation has pledged to match gifts by Caterpillar employees and retirees made in support of the In This House campaign, and has made those matches retroactive to all donations made since January, 2006.

“We congratulate the Junior League on its campaign plan and successes to date. We at The Caterpillar Foundation are proud to join with you in further strengthening the community’s cultural assets with the addition of this museum,” said Maryann S. Morrison, Administrator at the Foundation.

The PlayHouse Planner to benefit the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum

• It’s a spiral bound weekly calendar, so you can keep track of your busy family and know what’s happening each week at a glance.

• There are lots of pages with puzzles, games, and things to color to keep your kids busy while they wait for their food at a restaurant or sit in a doctor’s office.

• Fun holidays and rememberances are included in each month.

• Never be bored again! - You will find dates and information for family friendly events in our area and weekly activities to do.

• Learn more about The Peoria PlayHouse and enjoy pictures drawn by our art contest winners.

• 170 pages for only $15.00

• All proceeds benefit The Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum.

Click [here] to download a 16page pdf preview and go to Peoria PlayHouse.com to purchase. While you’re there, take a moment and join the mailing list to receive the PlayHouse Press quarterly newsletter.

Peoria Journal Star Word On The Street:

When it comes to the seemingly never ending Kellar Branch saga, the online community has gotten the attention of at least one mayor.

“Those online bloggers didn’t bother to show their faces when we have public meetings on it,” Peoria Heights Mayor Mark Allen said. “They are real strong and tough online, but when we have the public meetings, no one shows up and if they did, they are very quiet.”

I take serious issue with the implication that the bloggers who are speaking up on this issue are uninvolved in the political process. Of the many bloggers who write about the Kellar Rail, Billy Dennis and CJ Summers attend nearly every Peoria City Council meeting. Brad Carter ran unsuccessfully for a City Council seat and Randall Emert is considering a run himself.

The rest of us might just be just a bunch of cyber thugs, but in this particular instance there is no need to attend, as is pointed out by CJ in the same article:

Summers, who is a member of the Heart of Peoria Commission, said the reason pro-rail proponents likely haven’t spoke up at public meetings is because, ultimately, it is up to the federal Surface Transportation Board to determine the outcome of the Kellar Branch and not local governments.

And now back to our regularly scheduled cyber bullying.

While perusing the internet, I ran across this article in the New York Daily News.

As of Sunday, the NYPD counted 428 homicides throughout the city, down 16.2% from 511 at the same time in 2006.

At the current rate, the city should expect to register about 485 homicides, or 1.3 per day.

“Back around 1990, our murder rate was 30 per 100,000 people,” explained Thomas Reppetto, a criminologist and coauthor of “NYPD: A City and Its Police.” “Now it’s running around six per 100,000. That is truly a phenomenal accomplishment by the NYPD.”

Here in the River City, we have a population of just over 113,000 and recorded 15 homicides so far in 2007 after having 18 in 2006

As CJ Summers recently pointed out, Illinois does not report crime in a manner compatible with other states for comparison, but they do report murders, and those can be easily compared.

Here are the top 20 of 285 cities with populations between 100,000 and 250,000 ranked by their 2006 homicide rate as compiled on Wikipedia. Worth noting in this list is our ranking is based on only 15 murders, not 18. I guess a few of them weren’t heinous enough.

1. 45.7 - 118,256 - Flint, MI
2. 44.5 - 233,577 - Birmingham, AL
3. 40.7 - 103,106 - Richmond, CA
4. 38.8 - 195,708 - Richmond, VA
5. 31.2 - 115,498 - Inglewood, CA
6. 31.1 - 186,670 - Little Rock, AR
7. 31.0 - 145,229 - Kansas City, KS
8. 27.1 - 210,486 - Baton Rouge, LA
9. 23.3 - 159,067 - Dayton, OH
10. 23.2 - 211,656 - Rochester, NY
11. 23.0 - 200,338 - San Bernadino, CA
12. 22.6 - 216,819 - Orlando, FL
13. 22.6 - 177,334 - Jackson, MS
14. 21.2 - 108,371 - Charleston, SC
15. 20.2 - 138,791 - Bridgeport, CT
16. 19.3 - 124,203 - Hartfort, CT
17. 17.8 - 101,167 - Portsmouth, VA
18. 17.8 - 101,115 - Miami Gardens, FL
19. 15.0 - 113,291 - Peoria, IL
20. (tie) 14.9 - 107,087 - Allentown, PA / 188,505 - Shreveport, LA

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Update: Peoria.Com - Fix Your Database!

Regarding the Kellar Rail and the recent ruling from the Federal Surface Transportation Board, the fine 5th district councilman had this to say in today’s Journal Star: “There are options.”

What are the options, Mr. Nichting?

“litigation and possibly doing a Meigs Field operation. There one day and gone the next.”

In other news, Ray LaHood is actually using some common sense and suggests the park district look into constructing the trail next to the tracks.

If you haven’t been following the news about the Kellar Branch rail line at the Peoria Chronicle, here’s a few tidbits from the STB’s latest ruling.

the Cities reiterate that they wish to convert part of the Kellar Branch into a recreational trail. But they provide no evidence or explanation to show that there is no longer public benefit in keeping the Kellar Branch as an active rail line.

The record also suggests the potential for the development of new rail traffic on the Kellar Branch in the future. Specifically, PIRY has indicated that at least two other businesses have expressed an interest in shipping over the Branch if PIRY’s service is restored, and CIRY has conceded that at least one new shipper is interested in rail service via the Branch. In these circumstances, we cannot find that the record presented on reopening supports withdrawing our protective jurisdiction over this property so as to defer to local interests at this time.

The City has not shown that the benefits of removing our primary jurisdiction would outweigh the harm to Carver Lumber, PIRY, and interstate commerce in general. The adverse discontinuance application will therefore be denied.

Sometimes this stuff can get a bit heavy which is why most people don’t understand it or even care, and I don’t claim to be an expert by any means, but in a nutshell the STB (Surface Transportation Board) ruled that PIRY (Pioneer Rail Corp) can also service customers on the Kellar Branch (which runs from Downtown and cuts through Peoria and the Heights out to Pioneer Park,) against the city of Peoria’s wishes, along with CIRY (Central Illinois Railroad) who is the City’s chosen carrier because they were thought to be the least competent and most likely to help abandon the line for a recreational trail. CIRY, for specific reasons unknown to me, changed their mind and has been working on bringing the track back to working condition.

So what does this mean and where does that put us? We have two carriers wishing to offer their services on the Kellar rail branch to service one customer with the suggestion of at least one and maybe two more customers who would like to ship economically by rail- something that has been proven cannot be done by utilizing the city funded ‘western connection.’

If the Peoria Park District and trail-only advocates would give up their pipe dream of ripping out the tracks we would likely attract more heavy industrial business to the Pioneer Park area once the cloud of uncertainty is lifted.

Personally, I would love to have a trail that connected from downtown out to the Rock Island Trail, and I do believe it would substantially benefit the quality of life issues that we all crave, but not at the expense of tax paying industry and jobs.

As I’ve said before, we can have this connecting trail, but only if the trail-only advocates deal with the reality of the situation and figure out an alternate solution instead of trying stunt growth and encourage businesses to locate out of town.

The Journal Star wrote an editorial about you.

Huh?

“In this Bradley situation, we’re especially troubled by anecdotal reports of some teens involved spilling over onto private property nearby and getting into a confrontation with the homeowner. Things like that can get out of hand in a hurry.”

Funny, eh?

Yea…

It all started with BlogPeoria member ‘katearch1978′ complaining on a local forum about all the spam she was receiving on her Wordpress blog, Notes From The Trailerhood, and having some knowledge of this subject, I offered my assistance and helped set up her Akismet Spam filter.

Not long after, I saw another comment in which she expressed her frustration with BlogPeoria because she couldn’t figure out how to add a sitemeter to her blog, even though she’d been studying computer science.

I emailed her a not-so-brief and somewhat rambling explanation as to why she was having trouble and what she could do to add the sitemeter.

Along with a thank you, I got this as a response:

I have one more question for you, if you don’t mind…

In the Blog Peoria site admin area, under ‘Manage’ on the ‘Referers’ tab, wouldn’t that show where people are coming from throughout the day? That is a bit of a stat counter then, right?

Whoa, I just got schooled! After all this time, I’ve never clicked on that tab!

* I am not a teacher, nor do I feel katearch1978 is a pupil, but if someone is looking for information on something I find myself knowledgeable of, I will offer my help.

* ‘katearch1978′ is a new Junior League member and is considering joining a committee that is near and dear to my heart. I’d volunteer too, but it’s a girls club. No boys allowed.

* Don’t ever ask for my help because I might just take over.

* Don’t ever ask for my opinion because I’m full of it.

As per usual at this time of year, the Salvation Army bell ringers are out in full force. Now I’ve got nothing against the Salvation Army, whatever it is they exactly do with the money, but I hate hate hate walking into a store with a bell ringer staring me down. Yesterday I was faced with that situation for the first time this season.

A short aside- while sitting in the drive-up tellers at National City Bank at the corner of Pioneer Parkway and University, who do I see pull up and get out of the car at the nearby Walgreens? None other than Billy Dennis picking up whatever blogfathers pick up at Walgreens. Of course, there is a bell-ringer at the door of Walgreens. As I’m watching Billy while waiting for my deposit receipt, I wonder if he’ll drop in some coin. They exchanged pleasantries … probably something like ‘Cold Enough For You?’ ‘Does the Salvation Army Play in Peoria?’ or ‘Does your wrist ever get tired?,’ but no donation from Billy. Now to be fair, he could’ve dropped something in as he left, but seeing how I’m only an amateur citizen journalist, I didn’t stick around to find out.

But back to my point. I don’t want to be forced to donate and I especially don’t want to be forced to donate by guilt. The Catholic Church takes care of that for me already. If I want to donate something more, I’ll donate to something of my choosing, which I do quite a bit of with both my time and money.

So how did I do on my first confrontation with a bell-ringer? I dropped fifty cents into the bucket and received a ‘Happy Holidays’ response. Argh!