A major part of the the reputed $640,000 spent by the Lakeview Museum Committee to "educate" the public, contained constant references to the riverfront museum having a main attraction feature: An IMAX Theater theater installed in the PRM. (One source - FACTS ABOUT THE PEORIA RIVERFRONT MUSEUM - 8/14/08).
Now that it appears there will be no IMAX, or maybe never was going to be an IMAX in the PRM. Peoria County Board Member Andrew Rand was quoted in the JS as saying that a "large digital theater would be just the same thing." Advertise a name brand and substitute a generic? And it be a MAJOR seller? I think not.
And Rand is a "businessman"? And Chairman of the PRM Construction Committee??
Another widely circulated document "Building on the Legacy promised an opening by 2009 with an Endowment of $8,000,000. How about after all these years and Endowment of MAYBE $3,600,000?? Lot's of problems in keeping promises for what started out as an 110,000 sq. ft. and is now projected to be 81,000 sq. ft.
The problem, lack of Peoria's "big hitters" who backed these promises to come up with the funding. The County Board approved the selling of the bonds, cost of over a million dollars just to sell the bonds, without even having title to the land, the missing money for the Endowment, the uncertainty of the validity of the $19 million in outstanding pledges, over $1 million in pledges deemed noncollectable as of June 30, 2009 and no requested indication of additional uncollectables for the past 13 recent months.
Had all the real facts been known by the public, this referendum would have never passes. Nor will it live up to it's projections once built.
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