The resignation of Brent Lonteen, President and CEO of the Peoria Area Visitors and Convention Bureau was made public Friday. His three week absence from his office created a period of public speculation which continues today. Maybe the problem is with the organization. My contact with the PVC has been infrequent starting with criticism I received from Greg Edwards who held Brent's position at one time. Greg's brother Rick has been and is chairman of the PCB board.
Greg criticized me for resigning from the Prairie States Games Board in Peoria when I learned the organization wasn't organized at all. It had been kicked out of various communities, the last location Bloomington. The leaders were more interested in socializing at bars and fund raising efforts, (they left Peoria owing local businesses an alleged $40,000) than developing venues for youth. Next year they were gone from Peoria and again have had trouble finding a home roving from city to city. I searched for PSG on the net and found they had finally landed in Bensenville with much hype. The net and other sources say they had the same problems in Bensenville. I could not find where they were active this year.
The JSEB criticized me also for resigning. Had they asked the sports desk who was familiar with the problems Peoria was encountering, but in those days certain people on the JSEB "knew it all". Years later, 1999, the JS wrote that this "mickey mouse" operation should be shut down.
When Dave Williams was chair of the Peoria County Board, he noticed that no one from the county had filled an open PCB advisory seat or board seat for years. Dave submitted a qualified board member only to be told that Peoria County no longer was invited to sit on any PCB board or committee.
Maybe the problems at the PCB are just that; PCB problems.
4 comments:
Good Article
Well from what a little birdie told me regarding Lonteen:
A situation in Vegas.
A situation at a golf outing.
A situation in St. Louis at Augie Busch’s house.
And others.
The press release announcing his resignation was written about a month ago; from then on the lawyers were hashing things out (hence all the “no comments” regarding this story). Supposedly Brent will land comfortably with a years severance, in the neighborhood of 100 grand.
Just what I’ve been told.
And Merle, is this posting supposed to be about Lonteen and the PVCB or Merle Widmer and the PVCB? The title is a bit misleading.
Thanks for the info. As to the the title; both. The more input from community action groups, the better to determine where and how to spend the budget money to accomplish the mission. More visitors that spend money and maybe settle here.
Well it looks like The EDC will be ready to take over the tourism aspect now. Since they all went to work for big Mc and the EDC is now the EDC Tourism Council (cracking a funny here).
Ms. Clark is just waiting to get that job that she was passed over 1,000 times because she wasn't qualified for but EDC did get her. Now back to the PCVB for her and her peeps. Good Luck.
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