Peoria Illinoisan

An age old computer lesson that I somehow forgot while working for nearly an hour updating Name This Peoria Landmark (yep, still plugging away.) To say I was a bit PO’d would be an understatement, and normally I would have thrown my hands up in the air and moved on to something else, but I happened to be working on one of the more interesting spots in Peoria that I have visited in quite a while so I felt I had to do it justice… the hidden and historic Peoria Mineral Springs.

I took a friend there who isn’t necessarily into history, but did find it nearly as cool as I do. He commented “In a town of over 100,000 I’ll bet only 5,000 people have even heard about this place.”

Fittingly, blogger Scott O’Brien recently asked “And why to this day, does the City of Peoria and its residents still remain oblivious to its fascinating history”

I can’t answer that question, but I often wonder about that myself.

The intersection of Maplewood Ave & Columbia Terrace in the Uplands due to construction of a stop light at Maplewood and Main St.

Ya think the city could’ve put those signs on the street instead of the sidewalk? This prompted my daughter to ask if she could to ride her bike in the street because the sidewalk was blocked.

Just be mindful of traffic…

Now that my blog is back online I believe I am required by some strange blogger law to write something, so how about this from Tuesday’s City Council meeting via the Journal Star-

The City Council voted 10-1 Tuesday to pay $12,000 to Camiros Ltd. to study a M-shaped area around the Peoria Civic Center and Downtown’s three largest hotels to see if they should be included within a TIF district.

At-large Councilman Gary Sandberg was the one to vote against the contract. “There is absolutely no reason to waste $12,000,” he said. [...]

Sandberg questioned whether Camiros has ever actually determined an area was unfit for a TIF district.

The company has previously approved two other areas in Peoria as TIF districts – the Warehouse District south of Downtown and an area in South Peoria called Eagle View. In Peoria, there is no known instance of Camiros recommending the council deny a TIF district within a specified area.

Remember this post when the the City Council approves the downtown TIF with a vote in favor 11-1 as they would have anyway … but now with the backing of a Chicago consulting firm at a cost of a mere $12,000.

I’m baaack. Miss me?

In other news, the Journal Star seems to have turned off comments to all articles and delete those from the past. Odd.

Debbie Wolfmeyer, District 150 School Board Member: “It is not my role as a Board member to meet with individuals or groups.”

This in response to Diane Vespa and other concerned District 150 parents trying to reason with the school board members to reconsider their ignorant vote to shorten the primary school day by 45 minutes and to lay off teachers specializing in art, phys ed, and music.

According to a teacher friend I know before these teachers came aboard, art was a joke, phys ed was nothing more than another free-for-all recess and music class consisted of playing a CD.

For religious reasons, my children attend private school, as did I, but I care deeply about District 150 and its oh so obvious mis-steps because I am a Peorian … Born and raised. The school district and the city work hand in hand in that as the schools go, so does the city, and I don’t want this city to become the failed hub of successful spokes such as Dunlap, East Peoria, and Metamora.

The degradation of our school district and our proud city must stop now, but it won’t stop if elected representatives of our school district refuse to listen to their constituents.

Charge your customers tax, but don’t actually record the sales transaction…

A recent visit to a long standing liquor/wine store near the geographic center of Peoria got me thinking (scary, I know) … I had previously picked up a vibe that this business preferred cash over credit, but wrote it off as a small businessman trying to save on credit card fees, which I know can be excessive.

My latest visit was interesting in that the manager saw me pulling change from my pocket, signaling that I would be paying cash. He totaled the tax on a small calculator instead of the register. I paid and he hit a button on the register with a ‘ding’ to open the drawer.

Cash transaction. No receipt, no record. He might as well had put my (tax added) cash in his pocket.

I am certain that this practice is not uncommon, but I’ve never seen it with my own eyes, and he was very friendly, natural and sly in his actions. Had he not asked in previous visits if I wanted a receipt and had I not joked and agreed with a friend about him preferring cash, I am certain that I would have never noticed his tax cheating ways.

Taxes suck. Tax evaders suck more.

This goes against my general good natured trusting self, but watching WEEK’s report on last night’s school board meeting left a bad taste in my mouth for two reasons.

1. Mr. Hinton is going to meet with concerned parents split into two groups. Isn’t that what interrogators do? Will it be easier for him to convince the group that what he wants to do is in the best interest of the children if they are split up? Divide and conquer, as they say.

2. Mr. Hinton says he is open to suggestions so long as the primary schools can keep what is called common prep time. What!? Could you repeat that!? I thought 45 minutes of the school day was lopped off, teachers fired, and classes cut to save money! Now the argument is about the benefits of common prep time? So to get him to change his stance, the citizens of Peoria not only have to find $600,000+ in the schools budget, they have to reconfigure the teacher’s schedules?

I could be totally wrong here, but it looks to me as if Mr. Hinton, with the school board in tow, has dug his trench and is awaiting battle.

Why is it that when a car speeds up and cuts into traffic at the last minute before a construction zone it invariably has a duct tape on it somewhere, be it holding down plastic sheeting which serves as a temporary window or holding its tail-light in place?

According to the Journal Star, D150’s Ken Hinton will meet with a group of outspoken parents opposed to cutting art and science programs with the shortening of the primary school day by 45 minutes. That’s great news, except, as usual, it appears that he’s the one who will be doing most of the talking and has no interest in actually listening to their concerns.

He seemed to kinda talk in circles, so I’ll rephrase what I think he was trying to say: “I’d be happy to meet with Ms.Vespa and other concerned parents now that the vote has been made. I am not sure if I will be able to persuade them, but I am quite a charming guy, and we always do what’s best for the children.

Even if I can’t persuade them, it really doesn’t matter because we’re not going to do what the public wants anyway. We never have in the past, so I ask, why start now? The role of a good administrator is to remain consistent and I plan on being consistently stubborn.

If they continue to be a thorn in my side I’ll dangle a carrot in front of them in the form of the promise that this is only a one year test and this could be revisited next year. That should appease them. What I won’t tell them is that next year it will be nearly impossible to bring back the 45 minutes of lost school time because money won’t be budgeted to cover lengthening of the school day and hiring extra teachers.”

A few weeks ago I was in my car at the intersection of Bourland and Main, facing North, trying to take a left onto Main (point of reference, exiting Campustown) waiting for a left turn signal that never came. The lights changed twice allowing southbound traffic to spill out onto Main, but my light never budged. I eventually took a right and did a u-turn; others just ran the red light.

I returned a few days later to the same scenario when I recalled a post by CJ Summers about the Peoria Cares hotline… so I gave them a buzz…

A nice young man answered; I described the situation and he said he would put this right in to the traffic department. A few days later I returned the intersection, got a green left turn arrow and smiled.

Peoria Cares.

No, not ham type spam, but blog spam. Everyone gets email spam but bloggers get spam too in the form of computer generated troll comments. It’s generally what you would expect- porn and sex related links. Wordpress users taking advantage of the Akismet spam filter get most of the sludge filtered out, but a few still show up.

I was going through my comments and removing the spam, most of it being pretty innocuous, advertising such things as Florida Homeowners Insurance and Replica Rolex Watches, but as I was clicking on the delete button, one caught my eye that I had never seen before…

Bob Dylan Ticket Stubs

Now who in the world would want a Bob Dylan Ticket Stub and is there really such a market for them that it would be sent out as bulk spam?

I eBay’d it, and found out that vintage Dylan ticket stubs sell anywhere from 10 to 50 bucks. Who knew?

I googled it, and what do you know … DylanStubs.com – The Bob Dylan Ticket Stub & Concert Poster Archive.

They aren’t for purchase, but viewable are all kinds of vintage ticket stubs, such as Bob Dylan at Wilson High School in Long Beach, 1964 ($3 admission)

… or the infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival where Dylan shocked his audience to the core when he showed up in a garish Polka Dot suit with an electric guitar backed by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

…or the Rolling Thunder Revue’s 4+ hour concert at Astro Stadium in Houston, 1976, dubbed “The Night of the Hurricane” which helped raise funds for the boxer convicted of murder, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s defense fund (he was released and cleared of all charges in 1988, after serving nearly 20 years in federal prison).

In the end, I did delete the spam comment, but I enjoyed both looking back at some history and laughing at the fanaticism of some Dylan fans (some might throw me into that category), so I suppose not all spam is bad spam.

If your drunk ass is walking around Harrison Homes looking for a party at which you decide to start doing shots with three other guys you’ve never met … don’t talk smack about one of their girlfriends … at 3am …

… and if you do talk smack about one of their girlfriends and end up getting the shit beat out of you … try to remember where the party house was when you flag down the cops.

A man walking from Bartonville to South Peoria early Tuesday was beat up by three men near the Harrison Homes after he got into an argument with them after drinking shots of cognac.

The 22-year-old victim told police about 3 a.m. he was walking on Adams Street from Bartonville, and once he crossed into Peoria, he stopped at a house by the Harrison Homes.

Though he could not describe the house to police, the victim said while he was there he drank Hennessy with three males he didn’t know. As they hung out, the victim and his newly acquired friends got into an argument about a girl, police reports stated.

The victim told police the dispute spilled outside where he was pushed to the ground and repeatedly hit and kicked by the males. After the attack, the victim ran away and flagged down an officer for help.

If your stoned ass is driving on I74 at night in a car that the cops are looking for and it just so happens to be loaded with drugs … don’t speed.

Police said they found about 63 grams of crack cocaine and 115 grams of marijuana in the car when they arrested Wesley E. Mooney, 34, and Tanara L. Chandler, 29. They also found an undetermined amount of currency.

The Peoria Multi-Drug Enforcement Group alerted area police that a car believed to be transporting drugs left Peoria and traveled west.

An Illinois state trooper stopped the car on Interstate 74 for traveling 75 mph in a 65 mph zone. The Peoria County K-9 unit was called, and the dog alerted officers to the presence of drugs.

Mooney and Chandler are charged in Knox County court with possession of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, possession of marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to deliver.

And finally, if you are a certified crazy woman who likes to get into fist fights with Kindergarten teachers … don’t have 100 Ecstacy pills sitting around your house the night before you begin serving your 6 month sentence or you might just end up in Prison 30 for years.

Maisha Rickmon was to begin serving a six-month jail sentence tomorrow but she wound up behind bars a little sooner than she expected after being arrested at her house with more than 100 Ecstasy pills.

Rickmon, 26, of 1029 W. Johnson St. had just been sentenced Friday for attacking her son’s kindergarten teacher last year. Later that day, she was arrested by officers of Peoria’s Vice and Narcotics unit who had obtained a search warrant for her home.

Once inside, officers found more than 100 Ecstasy pills. Now, she faces a charge of possession of more than 15 but less than 100 grams of Ecstasy with intent to deliver, a felony that could send her to prison for at least six and possibly up to 30 years.

You can thank me later.

My hats off to Diane Vespa for leading the charge against District 150 and its misguided vote to shorten the school day for primary students.

Did anyone really think I was going to let this opportunity pass? You might call this a companion to my Maplewood video.

As much as I tried to use only original photographs, I filled in a few gaps by borrowing from outside sources, including postcards from peoriahistory.com and a dramatic shot that Jonathan Ahl took from his office window.

I was visiting WMBD-TV’s website, which for some silly reason is now called Central Illinois Proud, when I ran across a poll on the Kellar Rail/Trail.

It simply asked “Do you support the Kellar Trail?” but the only available answers were Yes, No, or No Opinion.

I wanted to vote Yes, that I do support a trail along the Kellar rail branch, but there was no option for compromises such as a side by side rail/trail or a slight re-routing of the trail – it was simply Yes or No. Figuring my Yes vote would be mischaracterized and potentially used by the RTA (Rail to Trail Association) to support ripping out the tracks, I voted No.

In reality I do want the trail, and I’ve said this many times, but not at the expense of currently existing rail users. I believe that the trail could either run side by side with the rail line or rerouted along the riverfront in conjunction with the proposed green edge plan and up Grand View drive.

But that’s not really the point of this post. Quite frankly, I was aghast at the ignorance of a local news outlet on this issue as displayed by their useless and uninformed poll, besides the fact that it showed, on a very local level, how a poll can be slanted even if it is out of ignorance … so after consulting a few friends to temper my own bias, I made up my own poll and published it on Peoria.com:

The Kellar Rail Spur: Should it remain as is to service current and future potential rail customers or be ripped out and used to extend the Rock Island hiking\biking trail?

A. Rip out the tracks & build a trail.

B. A trail is unnecessary, the rail is vital.

C. If feasible, build the trail wherever possible next to the rail.

D. Kellar what?

You may cast your vote [here]