Failure of Projected Attendance Or Census in Partially Taxpayer Funded Facilities in Peoria - Why So Important?

Factual projected attendance at the PRM and the renamed Oberhelman Caterpillar Visitors Center missed by a mile. The renamed Dozer Ballpark has been missing attendance by a quarter mile. Heddington Oaks has 214 beds with an average census of 160, the PPD Riverplex lack of membership is adding to the Park District's financial problems (along with maintenance of the 31,000 foot Administration Building), the lack of attendance at the African Zoo and declining revenue from the golf courses, the maintenance of the the Park owned Playhouse, the strange and unreported census and financial situation of the Pere Hotel, etc.

Louisville Slugger Complex promised 600 to 800 thousand new visitors to Peoria. Hardly no mention of happenings in the JS this year. No word of any National Softball Tournament they were to capture ( nothing about Eastside sponsoring any National Softball this year). If I missed a National held here, I'm sorry an perhaps someone will comment on this site.

That fact is interesting after all the hype.

So retail sales are down with big box stores closing with at least one and maybe two closings in the next 12 months or sooner. If all these projected attendance from all over the region had come true, there would have probably been no closings of retail then and in the future.

I bought a sweater and a pair of slacks at a major retail store this week. I saw a TON of merchandise that looks unsaleable. Markdowns in progress will be expanded as in all other years, but with less buyers.

Peoria is called by the experts a "rural" community. Nationwide, many rural communities or cities are not doing well. Blame it on the Internet?  The enhanced use of hand helds' with more sophisticated devices on the way? Both and much more.

Or on the climate change which has been happening for maybe a trillion years. Might want to read the book, "The Worst Hard Times", by Timothy Egan, somewhat similar to "Steinbeck's"Grapes of Wrath", both books describing in detail the horrific event called the "Dust Bowl" caused by lack of common sense or greed, both by settlers and the government. And during the Great Depression. The pollution was 'dirt', not factory emissions.

Retail in most of five states as part of the Great Plains was not doing very either. For about 8 sad years.

One of the songs popular at that time was "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries". That is until the dust stating raining out of the sky over Chicago and New York, Then the song changed to "Life is Just a Bowl of Dust".The dust missed Congerville, but I watched the clouds of dust miles high in the air from our farm house doorstep. My wise Dad rotated crops, didn't believe in artificial fertilizer and too many pesticides, thus no dust bowl, that are ruining our once fertile natural soil; now and in the next hundred years or sooner.

We had drought and every type of pest that ate our corn and other crops. We didn't help the retail stores much then when income was $4,000 and expenditures were $4500 a year. With payments on a new 5 bedroom house built in 1923 and still in great shape today, Mom, despite bearing 9 kids, maintained both a garden and truck patch. Most city kids today don't live in a home with a garden, much less a truck patch that I would have to explain what one or both actually are to today's youth, especially from the SouthSide of Peoria.

Nope, life is not a bowl of cherries to 80% of the residents of this ball called Earth.