Merle Widmer's Negativeness

Some people have told me my blogs would be more widely read if I wasn't so negative. Interesting. I first came to Peoria when I was 36 and came to stay and open Widmer Office Products at the age of 39. With 2 employees and $5,000 , mostly borrowed. I sold it  in 1992 for approximately $2.250 million. No office equiment company has eever been sold for that amount of money in Peoria. The buyer still uses my name. (Widmer Interiors)

So I'm a a negative person. Because I opposed the RiverPlex, still not paid for by taxpayer money and a park district so strapped for cash that they were never able to build the ball diamonds both Noble and Cassidy many times promised, nor instigated proper erosion controls on the 9.000 acres they own. See the growing delta on the west side of the Illinois River largely formed by erosion from park owned land.
And operating as a property tax free entity while it's competitors pay property taxes?

And the ball club which I said could become a white elephant, I was probably wrong because I should have known the City Council and the taxpayers would bail them out or some other PRIVATE investor would have bought and continued the ball club.

I knew a lot of lies would be told about "Heddington Oaks" and many truths stretched. Want to see the evidence? I have it all. Beautiful building? From the outside and maybe someday I will see the inside, (It was supposed to up and running with residents transferred by June 1) And $53 million not $45-48 million reported constantly and probably more later . And not the false figures that a totally Democrat Committee who met with the Illinois Health Commission in Chicago,who approved the construction based on these false figures.

And PRM. Getting off to the bad start I so often predicted and I was so badly misquoted by the JS, never saying that  Merle Widmer was constantly asking "show me the money' the elites and their followers promised. The original amount to be shouldered by tax payers was to be 1/3rd of the now $97 million museum, probably more, with the taxpayers winding up paying 2/3rds, not 1/3rd of the cost. Yes, my Bankers Box full of evidence  is available for any doubters to study.Peoria has a lot of wealthy people. Much of it inherited. They aren't wealthy by by free spending all their own money. They want those who may not be able to afford it ti spend their money too.

Many who pledged to the PRM didn't produce which was one of the major reasons the PRM staff couldn't produce a financial statement for the year ending June 30, 2012.

Where was the board of directors? Staff and administration is supposed to report to the board, a system usually disregarded by the "movers and shakers" in Peoria. And the JSEB saying "give the museum a chance". Did they forget that the museum board spent $630,000 promoting a referendum that out of 30,000 votes cast was passed by a slim majority of 400 votes?

Enough for one day from a guy who has lost the "fire in his belly".