Peoria County Application for Status as a "Low Income Community"?

Sort of flies in the face of what our leaders have been telling us. Maybe we need to have more taxpayer funded enhancements such as the Peoria RiverFront Museum, new public libraries, new HUD projects, new Taj Mahal public schools, $55 million new county nursing home, housing 160 Medicaid clients and 160 union employees, etc., or more grant money for a new Peoria Park District Headquarters.

Back in 2009, PPD's Proctor Center received somewhere between $212,500.00 and $425,000 despite the fact that Proctor Center is gang controlled with light usage and loses somewhere around $300,000 a year according to park records. Part of the money from the state was to be used for a "splash pool" that would close at 5:00 PM. My observation is that the pool never opened this summer.

I am trying to confirm a RUMOR that the PPD has applied for a multi-million grant to refurbish the soon to be old Lakeview Museum as their new headquarters, 33,000 sq. ft. so the unfunded Playhouse can start their $5.25 million refurbishing project of the soon to be former PPD headquarters. The Playhouse was to occupy the Pavilion in 2007.

Just a note. I was merely attempting to call attention to all the MISSED projections in Peoria when some one reminded me the Playhouse was all volunteer and volunteer funding. However, the JS reported on 7/29/09 that the Junior League of Peoria "gets $25,000 for Peoria Playhouse infrastructure from the recently passed Illinois Jobs Now! capital fund plan. But that is just the beginning. Local projects are still competing for $1.3 billion of environmental funding. And its tricky to get firm details on the money or FIGURE OUT WHERE THE FUNDS MAY GO."

Hmmm.

Just to refresh your memory, by 2008 the the PPD was to have moved to the old partially newly refurbished, IDOT building on Knoxville and the Children's Playhouse was to have by now been located in the newly refurbished, $5.25 million worth, former park headquarters now located in the Pavilion.

These projects are sure to lift us out of our "low income" status.

Right?