For probably thirty years of more, my company and my immediate family did business with Pekin Insurance Company. My wife still has a Major Medical Policy with this company. She is at $10,000 deductible for the past 3 years. She has not come close to reaching her deductible in years so Pekin hasn't paid her back one dime. Yet, Saturday we received notice that her quarterly premiums have will rise this year from $1,082 to $1,313 effective February 1.
Is she paying to support other people who are turning in claims, don't pay their premiums, don't have insurance or perhaps excessive payments to their executives or employees? Is this governmental influence even before the planned staggering new health bill is rammed down our throats? My guess the fee premiun raise ccmes from govermental actions.
Or is she doing business with the wrong company. Any insurance people out their can give her a competitive quote. We are in the phone book.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Friday, January 08, 2010
Medicaid Abuse - Expansion of the Culture of Recent Decades
Whether or not Snopes confirmed this post, I agree with Dr. Jones and millions of other workers and retirees. In 2006, during a debt-ceiling debate, then Senator Barack Obama said, "Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."
That was $2 trillion ago, when someone else was President.
Sorry I couldn't forward the picture of Dr. Jones.
The contents of this blog were forwarded to me by a friend.
Merle Widmer
Subject: Fw: Culture Crisis, not Health Care Crisis
I did verify this on the Snopes link. Outrageous!
ONE OF THE BEST E-MAILS TO DATE CONCERNING THE ADMINISTRATION'S PENDING HEALTH CARE LEGISLATION....... PASS IT ON
Subject: Fw: It's A Culture Crisis - Not Health Care Crisis
Please meet Dr Starner Jones from Jackson , Mississippi . [see photo below].
His short 2-paragraph letter to the White House accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis". Its worth a quick read:
Starner Jones, MD
I am a seventh generation Mississippian and wanted to come back here after going somewhere else for college and medical school.. My extracurricular interests are golf, hunting, fishing and college football.
Dear Sirs:
"During my last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with an expensive shiny gold tooth, multiple elaborate expensive tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ringtone.. Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid. She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.
And our Congress expects me to pay for this woman's health care? Our nation's health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture ˜ a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow. Don't you agree?
STARNER JONES, MD
Jackson , MS
Check this out on
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/starner.asp
That was $2 trillion ago, when someone else was President.
Sorry I couldn't forward the picture of Dr. Jones.
The contents of this blog were forwarded to me by a friend.
Merle Widmer
Subject: Fw: Culture Crisis, not Health Care Crisis
I did verify this on the Snopes link. Outrageous!
ONE OF THE BEST E-MAILS TO DATE CONCERNING THE ADMINISTRATION'S PENDING HEALTH CARE LEGISLATION....... PASS IT ON
Subject: Fw: It's A Culture Crisis - Not Health Care Crisis
Please meet Dr Starner Jones from Jackson , Mississippi . [see photo below].
His short 2-paragraph letter to the White House accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis". Its worth a quick read:
Starner Jones, MD
I am a seventh generation Mississippian and wanted to come back here after going somewhere else for college and medical school.. My extracurricular interests are golf, hunting, fishing and college football.
Dear Sirs:
"During my last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with an expensive shiny gold tooth, multiple elaborate expensive tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ringtone.. Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid. She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.
And our Congress expects me to pay for this woman's health care? Our nation's health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture ˜ a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow. Don't you agree?
STARNER JONES, MD
Jackson , MS
Check this out on
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/starner.asp
The Community Word
This locally owned newspaper is more than an interesting read. And not just because they printed my "unedited" LTE in the January issue.
Advertisers and the community need to support small newspapers. These locally owned medias may be the only way we get "paper" information in the not too distant future. Readers can also find the Community Word on the Internet.
Advertisers and the community need to support small newspapers. These locally owned medias may be the only way we get "paper" information in the not too distant future. Readers can also find the Community Word on the Internet.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Books and Authors We Should Read
"The Sellout" by Charles Gasparino, also author of "King of the Club", both books deal with the Wall Street greed and government mismanagement.
Also "Catastrophe" by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, how Obama, Congress, and Special Interests are turning freedom into Socialism. The book also all the banks who received TARP bailout money.
Both should make your blood boil
Also "Catastrophe" by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, how Obama, Congress, and Special Interests are turning freedom into Socialism. The book also all the banks who received TARP bailout money.
Both should make your blood boil
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
"The Best and the Brightest" Now Running the Country
An email from my daughter. I didn't see the show or verify the figures but the figures look about right.
Thanks, Mary Jo
Did you happen to catch a recent Glenn Beck show? He had a graph up that showed past presidents and the percentage of each president's cabinet appointees who had previously worked in the private sector. You know a real life business, not a government job? Remember what that is? A private business???
Roosevelt - 38%
Taft - 40%
Wilson - 52%
Harding - 49%
Coolidge - 48%
Hoover - 42%
FDR - 50%
Truman - 50%
Eisenhower - 57%
Kennedy - 30%
LBJ - 47%
Nixon - 53%
Ford - 42%
Carter - 32%
Reagan - 56%
GHWB - 51%
Clinton - 39%
GWB - 55%
And the Winner is.......... ......... ......
Obama - 8%
YEP, EIGHT PERCENT!!!!! !!!!!!! And these are the guys holding a "job summit" this week? This ought to go really well!!!! I'm gonna go out on a limb here, I know, but I'm gonna go ahead and predict....we are toast.
__,_._,___
Thanks, Mary Jo
Did you happen to catch a recent Glenn Beck show? He had a graph up that showed past presidents and the percentage of each president's cabinet appointees who had previously worked in the private sector. You know a real life business, not a government job? Remember what that is? A private business???
Roosevelt - 38%
Taft - 40%
Wilson - 52%
Harding - 49%
Coolidge - 48%
Hoover - 42%
FDR - 50%
Truman - 50%
Eisenhower - 57%
Kennedy - 30%
LBJ - 47%
Nixon - 53%
Ford - 42%
Carter - 32%
Reagan - 56%
GHWB - 51%
Clinton - 39%
GWB - 55%
And the Winner is.......... ......... ......
Obama - 8%
YEP, EIGHT PERCENT!!!!! !!!!!!! And these are the guys holding a "job summit" this week? This ought to go really well!!!! I'm gonna go out on a limb here, I know, but I'm gonna go ahead and predict....we are toast.
__,_._,___
Frightening Health Care Bill
I am leaving Ross's email address if doubters may question the accuracy of his source which is similar to dozens of other reports I have read. Thanks, Ross.
Merle, from a long-time friend and insurance agent. Hope you and the breakfast club are well. Ross
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fw:
From: Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 13:16:47 -0500
To: rossamundson@hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession..
The Bill will also eventually force private
insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government.
However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been
contemplated If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own.
The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, of all of your personal healthcare direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the
Constitution information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law It doesn't stop there though.
The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;
The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power
and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution." If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
Merle, from a long-time friend and insurance agent. Hope you and the breakfast club are well. Ross
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fw:
From: Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 13:16:47 -0500
To: rossamundson@hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession..
The Bill will also eventually force private
insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government.
However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been
contemplated If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own.
The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, of all of your personal healthcare direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the
Constitution information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law It doesn't stop there though.
The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;
The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power
and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution." If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
"Portrait of a Challenging Year"
The year 2009 was an uncomfortable one for the museum world. One museum after another cancelled programming, cut staff, froze pay, limited visitors hours and increased admissions in an attempt to reduce expenditures and raise some income. None have been immune from trouble. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for example, saw its cash and investments drop 23% while the investment portfolio of New York's Museum of Modern Art also shrank 23%. In February, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that its endowment lost over $700 million over the preceding 8months, resulting in the layoff of about 250 full-time and part-time employees. The Art institute of Chicago, which raised its admission fee to $16 from $12, the Philadelphia Museum of Art let go 7% of its staff and raised its fees from $14 to $16.
So what's a museum, with all its fixed costs, supposed to do at a time when people have less money to spend (or less confidence) to give? One solution may be to just give up. The Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo, Florida, the Claremont Museum or Art in Claremont, Ca. and the Las Vegas Art Museum all closed for good. North Carolina's Fayetteville-Cumberland County is on life support with $400,000 debt and its building for sale. Add to the list the Fresno Metropolitan Museum in Ca., which defaulted on a $15 million dollar loan is expected to close in the near future.
Another gripped by financial hardship is the Barnes Foundation.... All of this information is taken from an article by Daniel Grant and can be found in the Leisure Section of the Wall Street Journal's late December Edition.
This is the message many of us have been trying to give to the Administrator and County Board and community "movers and shakers); Peoria County, who will be the the owners of this still under-funded (from the git-go) Peoria Riverfront Museum scheduled to break ground in early 2010. The PRM will feature the Illinois High School Association Association, which pledged $2.7 million and the African-American Hall of Fame Museum, which pledged $12,000, along with the Peoria Historical Society who pledged------fill in the blanks, etc., an IMAX theatre although I am not aware of any contract signed. If there is an IMAX, will the IMAX structure to be considered "part of the building" the county would own? Guess I'll find out when I see the contract "Agreement reached on Museum Board" 12/24/09, JS, reporter Karen McDonald.
"We will be looking for the 'best and the brightest' from the community on this 17 to 22 member board". Wasn't it the 'best and the brightest' who got this country in the mess it's in with no strong positive outlook that the mess will ever be cleaned up??
No one on the County Board has asked what will happen to the current Lakeview Museum, the building with it's vault (the new PRM will not have a vault) being owned along with the land, by the Peoria Park District which Park Superintendent Noble wants to occupy as the Park District Headquarters. But only after the Children's Museum occupies the Pavilion. Last report, they were half way through their 4 year fund raising drive.
More news tomorrow on the rumored $6 million in New Market Tax Credits and if anyone now sitting on the PRM Committee will benefit financially in this tax payer funded bailout. (As rumored and rumored the NMTC were or will not be bid out).
Just as a reminder, a County document dated 10/30/08 , copy available, states that the "Museum folks have indicated that if the funding (for the museum) is not reached by July, 1, 2009, they would scrap the project."
Interesting, not?
This 7 to 8 year old project appears to still be a mess as our consultant, Mark Johnson called it a few months ago. Hopefully all the "messes" will be straightened out before the Peoria County Board accepts the contract to own and to.....?
So what's a museum, with all its fixed costs, supposed to do at a time when people have less money to spend (or less confidence) to give? One solution may be to just give up. The Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo, Florida, the Claremont Museum or Art in Claremont, Ca. and the Las Vegas Art Museum all closed for good. North Carolina's Fayetteville-Cumberland County is on life support with $400,000 debt and its building for sale. Add to the list the Fresno Metropolitan Museum in Ca., which defaulted on a $15 million dollar loan is expected to close in the near future.
Another gripped by financial hardship is the Barnes Foundation.... All of this information is taken from an article by Daniel Grant and can be found in the Leisure Section of the Wall Street Journal's late December Edition.
This is the message many of us have been trying to give to the Administrator and County Board and community "movers and shakers); Peoria County, who will be the the owners of this still under-funded (from the git-go) Peoria Riverfront Museum scheduled to break ground in early 2010. The PRM will feature the Illinois High School Association Association, which pledged $2.7 million and the African-American Hall of Fame Museum, which pledged $12,000, along with the Peoria Historical Society who pledged------fill in the blanks, etc., an IMAX theatre although I am not aware of any contract signed. If there is an IMAX, will the IMAX structure to be considered "part of the building" the county would own? Guess I'll find out when I see the contract "Agreement reached on Museum Board" 12/24/09, JS, reporter Karen McDonald.
"We will be looking for the 'best and the brightest' from the community on this 17 to 22 member board". Wasn't it the 'best and the brightest' who got this country in the mess it's in with no strong positive outlook that the mess will ever be cleaned up??
No one on the County Board has asked what will happen to the current Lakeview Museum, the building with it's vault (the new PRM will not have a vault) being owned along with the land, by the Peoria Park District which Park Superintendent Noble wants to occupy as the Park District Headquarters. But only after the Children's Museum occupies the Pavilion. Last report, they were half way through their 4 year fund raising drive.
More news tomorrow on the rumored $6 million in New Market Tax Credits and if anyone now sitting on the PRM Committee will benefit financially in this tax payer funded bailout. (As rumored and rumored the NMTC were or will not be bid out).
Just as a reminder, a County document dated 10/30/08 , copy available, states that the "Museum folks have indicated that if the funding (for the museum) is not reached by July, 1, 2009, they would scrap the project."
Interesting, not?
This 7 to 8 year old project appears to still be a mess as our consultant, Mark Johnson called it a few months ago. Hopefully all the "messes" will be straightened out before the Peoria County Board accepts the contract to own and to.....?
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Taxpayers Continue to Help Fund Peoria Riverfront Museum
Even though I am a member of the Peoria County Board, I did not learn until yesterday that the Federal Government through New Market Tax Credits(taxpayer dollars), approximately $6,201,572.00, will complete the funding of the PRM building bringing the total of local, state and federal taxpayer dollars being invested in this $78 million or more?? museum building or approximately 70% of the cost. The private sector, including Caterpillar and it's Foundation will make up the balance.
This still leaves the Endowment Fund short anywhere from $6-12.5 million. On October, 22, 2009, a request was received from the PRM Committee "asking the board to agree to fund the Endowment shortage of $5.3 million through the sales tax referendum".
It was less than 15 months ago that the Museum Committee turned to the County Administrator and asked that the County make up the $34.7-$40 million shortage to build the museum building. (The City of Peoria donated the land and the infrastructure work totaling $18.5 million per the City Manager. A recently disclosed additional $140,000 environmental and parking peer review will be paid from the quarter % sales tax..
Some of you may be weary of reading my museum blogs but you may be sorry later that you weren't paying attention. I'll sum up some of the mis-truths that were presented to the County Board through the PRM Committee and it's supporting medias:
In the April 2009 edition of InterBusiness Issues, Representative Leitch and Senator Koehler were quoted as saying "The HUGE benefits of Build the Block far outweigh the SMALL public investment being asked of Peoria County residents." Note that the words were carefully selected as the total amount of the project funded by taxpayers will be around $80 million. These men are used to dealing with billion dollar deficits so what a measly $80 million.
On 7/4/07, Kathleen Woith of Lakeview Museum was quoted in the JS, "The original building of 95,000 sq. ft. was going to cost us $32 million. Now it's going to cost us $37 million to build 81,000 sq. ft." The PRM Committee now says it is going to cost $47 million." An increase of $1O million in a time of recession??
On 3/7/09, only 10 months ago, Brad McMillan, Chairman, Friends of Build the Block, was quoted on the Opinion page of the JS, "The block is supported with 57% private funds." This statement was misleading because the "block" included the now the then $41 million Caterpillar Visitor Center plus $15.2 additional Caterpillar or its foundation donations to the parking garage, the museum ground clearing and the museum itself. (He also said Peoria County residents would receive a 15% discount on admissions to its galleries. Remember to ask for this discount)
In May 2008, the PRM Committee released a document saying that 29 PRM Ambassadors had pledged $17.2 million. In October, 2009, the committee released documents saying that pledges totaled $11+ million. However, only $4+ million remained in cash available as $10+ million was already spent.
I'm open for a challenge to any of these figures, $18.5 from the city, so far, $8 million early on from the ISHA, NASA, 2007 Highway bill; credit LaHood, $5 million recently announced by Dave Leitch, the New Market Tax Credits which it is rumored will be announced late next week, around $6 million, and $40 million from the Facility Sales Tax that we will be paying for 20 years. Property taxes after 20 years with the County owning the building and all liabilities?? And perhaps still a shortage in funds to operate the museum, estimated to be from $4.1-3 million??
Isn't anyone concerned about what will happen to the "old" Lakeview Museum? We know Bonnie wants it to become the Peoria Park District Headquarters, that' after they have spent over $2 million renovating the old IDOT building on Knoxville. And what is happening with the under funded Childrens Playhouse and the $5 million shortage to complete the zoo?
Well, anyway, Happy New Year,optimist, pessimist or realist.
This still leaves the Endowment Fund short anywhere from $6-12.5 million. On October, 22, 2009, a request was received from the PRM Committee "asking the board to agree to fund the Endowment shortage of $5.3 million through the sales tax referendum".
It was less than 15 months ago that the Museum Committee turned to the County Administrator and asked that the County make up the $34.7-$40 million shortage to build the museum building. (The City of Peoria donated the land and the infrastructure work totaling $18.5 million per the City Manager. A recently disclosed additional $140,000 environmental and parking peer review will be paid from the quarter % sales tax..
Some of you may be weary of reading my museum blogs but you may be sorry later that you weren't paying attention. I'll sum up some of the mis-truths that were presented to the County Board through the PRM Committee and it's supporting medias:
In the April 2009 edition of InterBusiness Issues, Representative Leitch and Senator Koehler were quoted as saying "The HUGE benefits of Build the Block far outweigh the SMALL public investment being asked of Peoria County residents." Note that the words were carefully selected as the total amount of the project funded by taxpayers will be around $80 million. These men are used to dealing with billion dollar deficits so what a measly $80 million.
On 7/4/07, Kathleen Woith of Lakeview Museum was quoted in the JS, "The original building of 95,000 sq. ft. was going to cost us $32 million. Now it's going to cost us $37 million to build 81,000 sq. ft." The PRM Committee now says it is going to cost $47 million." An increase of $1O million in a time of recession??
On 3/7/09, only 10 months ago, Brad McMillan, Chairman, Friends of Build the Block, was quoted on the Opinion page of the JS, "The block is supported with 57% private funds." This statement was misleading because the "block" included the now the then $41 million Caterpillar Visitor Center plus $15.2 additional Caterpillar or its foundation donations to the parking garage, the museum ground clearing and the museum itself. (He also said Peoria County residents would receive a 15% discount on admissions to its galleries. Remember to ask for this discount)
In May 2008, the PRM Committee released a document saying that 29 PRM Ambassadors had pledged $17.2 million. In October, 2009, the committee released documents saying that pledges totaled $11+ million. However, only $4+ million remained in cash available as $10+ million was already spent.
I'm open for a challenge to any of these figures, $18.5 from the city, so far, $8 million early on from the ISHA, NASA, 2007 Highway bill; credit LaHood, $5 million recently announced by Dave Leitch, the New Market Tax Credits which it is rumored will be announced late next week, around $6 million, and $40 million from the Facility Sales Tax that we will be paying for 20 years. Property taxes after 20 years with the County owning the building and all liabilities?? And perhaps still a shortage in funds to operate the museum, estimated to be from $4.1-3 million??
Isn't anyone concerned about what will happen to the "old" Lakeview Museum? We know Bonnie wants it to become the Peoria Park District Headquarters, that' after they have spent over $2 million renovating the old IDOT building on Knoxville. And what is happening with the under funded Childrens Playhouse and the $5 million shortage to complete the zoo?
Well, anyway, Happy New Year,optimist, pessimist or realist.
Wall Street Journal Opinion Page 12/30/2009
Obama and Our Post-Modern Race Problem
The president always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol.
By SHELBY STEELE
America still has a race problem, though not the one that conventional wisdom would suggest: the racism of whites toward blacks. Old fashioned white racism has lost its legitimacy in the world and become an almost universal disgrace.
The essence of our new "post-modern" race problem can be seen in the parable of the emperor's new clothes. The emperor was told by his swindling tailors that people who could not see his new clothes were stupid and incompetent. So when his new clothes arrived and he could not see them, he put them on anyway so that no one would think him stupid and incompetent. And when he appeared before his people in these new clothes, they too—not wanting to appear stupid and incompetent—exclaimed the beauty of his wardrobe. It was finally a mere child who said, "The emperor has no clothes."
The lie of seeing clothes where there were none amounted to a sophistication—joining oneself to an obvious falsehood in order to achieve social acceptance. In such a sophistication there is an unspoken agreement not to see what one clearly sees—in this case the emperor's flagrant nakedness.
America's primary race problem today is our new "sophistication" around racial matters. Political correctness is a compendium of sophistications in which we join ourselves to obvious falsehoods ("diversity") and refuse to see obvious realities (the irrelevance of diversity to minority development). I would argue further that Barack Obama's election to the presidency of the United States was essentially an American sophistication, a national exercise in seeing what was not there and a refusal to see what was there—all to escape the stigma not of stupidity but of racism.
Barack Obama, elegant and professorially articulate, was an invitation to sophistication that America simply could not bring itself to turn down. If "hope and change" was an empty political slogan, it was also beautiful clothing that people could passionately describe without ever having seen.
Mr. Obama won the presidency by achieving a symbiotic bond with the American people: He would labor not to show himself, and Americans would labor not to see him. As providence would have it, this was a very effective symbiosis politically. And yet, without self-disclosure on the one hand or cross-examination on the other, Mr. Obama became arguably the least known man ever to step into the American presidency.
Our new race problem—the sophistication of seeing what isn't there rather than what is—has surprised us with a president who hides his lack of economic understanding behind a drama of scale. Hundreds of billions moving into trillions. Dramatic, history-making numbers. But where is the economic logic behind a stimulus package that doesn't fully click in for a number of years? How is every stimulus dollar spent actually going to stimulate? Why bailouts to institutions that only hoard the money? How is vast government spending simultaneously a kind of prudence that will not "add to the deficit?" How can such spending not trigger smothering levels of taxation?
Mr. Obama's economic thinking (or lack thereof) adds up to a kind of rudderless cowboyism combined with wishful thinking. You would think that in the two solid years of daily campaigning leading up to his election this nakedness would have been seen.
On the foreign front he has been given much credit for his new policy on the Afghan war, and especially for the "rational" and "earnest" way he went about arriving at the decision to surge 30,000 new troops into battle. But here also were three months of presidential equivocation for all the world to see, only to end up essentially where he started out.
And here again was the lack of a larger framework of meaning. How is this surge of a piece with America's role in the world? Are we the world's exceptional power and thereby charged with enforcing a certain balance of power, or are we now embracing European self-effacement and nonengagement? Where is the clear center in all this?
I think that Mr. Obama is not just inexperienced; he is also hampered by a distinct inner emptiness—not an emptiness that comes from stupidity or a lack of ability but an emptiness that has been actually nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the political world.
The nature of this emptiness becomes clear in the contrast between him and Ronald Reagan. Reagan reached the White House through a great deal of what is called "individuating"—that is he took principled positions throughout his long career that jeopardized his popularity, and in so doing he came to know who he was as a man and what he truly believed.
He became Ronald Reagan through dissent, not conformity. And when he was finally elected president, it was because America at last wanted the vision that he had evolved over a lifetime of challenging conventional wisdom. By the time Reagan became president, he had fought his way to a remarkable certainty about who he was, what he believed, and where he wanted to lead the nation.
Mr. Obama's ascendancy to the presidency could not have been more different. There seems to have been very little individuation, no real argument with conventional wisdom, and no willingness to jeopardize popularity for principle. To the contrary, he has come forward in American politics by emptying himself of strong convictions, by rejecting principled stands as "ideological," and by promising to deliver us from the "tired" culture-war debates of the past. He aspires to be "post-ideological," "post-racial" and "post-partisan," which is to say that he defines himself by a series of "nots"—thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself.
But then Mr. Obama always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol. He always wore the bargainer's mask—winning the loyalty and gratitude of whites by flattering them with his racial trust: I will presume that you are not a racist if you will not hold my race against me. Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and yes, Tiger Woods have all been superb bargainers, eliciting almost reverential support among whites for all that they were not—not angry or militant, not political, not using their moral authority as blacks to exact a wage from white guilt.
But this mask comes at a high price. When blacks become humanly visible, when their true beliefs are known, their mask shatters and their symbiotic bond with whites is broken. Think of Tiger Woods, now so humanly visible. Or think of Bill Cosby, who in recent years has challenged the politically correct view and let the world know what he truly thinks about the responsibility of blacks in their own uplift.
It doesn't matter that Mr. Woods lost his bargainer's charm through self-destructive behavior and that Mr. Cosby lost his through a courageous determination to individuate—to take public responsibility for his true convictions. The appeal of both men—as objects of white identification—was diminished as their human reality emerged. Many whites still love Mr. Cosby, but they worry now that expressing their affection openly may identify them with his ideas, thus putting them at risk of being seen as racist. Tiger Woods, of course, is now so tragically human as to have, as the Bible put it, "no name in the street."
A greater problem for our nation today is that we have a president whose benign—and therefore desirable—blackness exempted him from the political individuation process that makes for strong, clear-headed leaders. He has not had to gamble his popularity on his principles, and it is impossible to know one's true beliefs without this. In the future he may stumble now and then into a right action, but there is no hard-earned center to the man out of which he might truly lead.
And yes, white America conditioned Barack Obama to emptiness—valued him all along for his "articulate and clean" blackness, so flattering to American innocence. He is a president come to us out of our national insecurities.
Mr. Steele is a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
The president always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol.
By SHELBY STEELE
America still has a race problem, though not the one that conventional wisdom would suggest: the racism of whites toward blacks. Old fashioned white racism has lost its legitimacy in the world and become an almost universal disgrace.
The essence of our new "post-modern" race problem can be seen in the parable of the emperor's new clothes. The emperor was told by his swindling tailors that people who could not see his new clothes were stupid and incompetent. So when his new clothes arrived and he could not see them, he put them on anyway so that no one would think him stupid and incompetent. And when he appeared before his people in these new clothes, they too—not wanting to appear stupid and incompetent—exclaimed the beauty of his wardrobe. It was finally a mere child who said, "The emperor has no clothes."
The lie of seeing clothes where there were none amounted to a sophistication—joining oneself to an obvious falsehood in order to achieve social acceptance. In such a sophistication there is an unspoken agreement not to see what one clearly sees—in this case the emperor's flagrant nakedness.
America's primary race problem today is our new "sophistication" around racial matters. Political correctness is a compendium of sophistications in which we join ourselves to obvious falsehoods ("diversity") and refuse to see obvious realities (the irrelevance of diversity to minority development). I would argue further that Barack Obama's election to the presidency of the United States was essentially an American sophistication, a national exercise in seeing what was not there and a refusal to see what was there—all to escape the stigma not of stupidity but of racism.
Barack Obama, elegant and professorially articulate, was an invitation to sophistication that America simply could not bring itself to turn down. If "hope and change" was an empty political slogan, it was also beautiful clothing that people could passionately describe without ever having seen.
Mr. Obama won the presidency by achieving a symbiotic bond with the American people: He would labor not to show himself, and Americans would labor not to see him. As providence would have it, this was a very effective symbiosis politically. And yet, without self-disclosure on the one hand or cross-examination on the other, Mr. Obama became arguably the least known man ever to step into the American presidency.
Our new race problem—the sophistication of seeing what isn't there rather than what is—has surprised us with a president who hides his lack of economic understanding behind a drama of scale. Hundreds of billions moving into trillions. Dramatic, history-making numbers. But where is the economic logic behind a stimulus package that doesn't fully click in for a number of years? How is every stimulus dollar spent actually going to stimulate? Why bailouts to institutions that only hoard the money? How is vast government spending simultaneously a kind of prudence that will not "add to the deficit?" How can such spending not trigger smothering levels of taxation?
Mr. Obama's economic thinking (or lack thereof) adds up to a kind of rudderless cowboyism combined with wishful thinking. You would think that in the two solid years of daily campaigning leading up to his election this nakedness would have been seen.
On the foreign front he has been given much credit for his new policy on the Afghan war, and especially for the "rational" and "earnest" way he went about arriving at the decision to surge 30,000 new troops into battle. But here also were three months of presidential equivocation for all the world to see, only to end up essentially where he started out.
And here again was the lack of a larger framework of meaning. How is this surge of a piece with America's role in the world? Are we the world's exceptional power and thereby charged with enforcing a certain balance of power, or are we now embracing European self-effacement and nonengagement? Where is the clear center in all this?
I think that Mr. Obama is not just inexperienced; he is also hampered by a distinct inner emptiness—not an emptiness that comes from stupidity or a lack of ability but an emptiness that has been actually nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the political world.
The nature of this emptiness becomes clear in the contrast between him and Ronald Reagan. Reagan reached the White House through a great deal of what is called "individuating"—that is he took principled positions throughout his long career that jeopardized his popularity, and in so doing he came to know who he was as a man and what he truly believed.
He became Ronald Reagan through dissent, not conformity. And when he was finally elected president, it was because America at last wanted the vision that he had evolved over a lifetime of challenging conventional wisdom. By the time Reagan became president, he had fought his way to a remarkable certainty about who he was, what he believed, and where he wanted to lead the nation.
Mr. Obama's ascendancy to the presidency could not have been more different. There seems to have been very little individuation, no real argument with conventional wisdom, and no willingness to jeopardize popularity for principle. To the contrary, he has come forward in American politics by emptying himself of strong convictions, by rejecting principled stands as "ideological," and by promising to deliver us from the "tired" culture-war debates of the past. He aspires to be "post-ideological," "post-racial" and "post-partisan," which is to say that he defines himself by a series of "nots"—thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself.
But then Mr. Obama always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol. He always wore the bargainer's mask—winning the loyalty and gratitude of whites by flattering them with his racial trust: I will presume that you are not a racist if you will not hold my race against me. Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and yes, Tiger Woods have all been superb bargainers, eliciting almost reverential support among whites for all that they were not—not angry or militant, not political, not using their moral authority as blacks to exact a wage from white guilt.
But this mask comes at a high price. When blacks become humanly visible, when their true beliefs are known, their mask shatters and their symbiotic bond with whites is broken. Think of Tiger Woods, now so humanly visible. Or think of Bill Cosby, who in recent years has challenged the politically correct view and let the world know what he truly thinks about the responsibility of blacks in their own uplift.
It doesn't matter that Mr. Woods lost his bargainer's charm through self-destructive behavior and that Mr. Cosby lost his through a courageous determination to individuate—to take public responsibility for his true convictions. The appeal of both men—as objects of white identification—was diminished as their human reality emerged. Many whites still love Mr. Cosby, but they worry now that expressing their affection openly may identify them with his ideas, thus putting them at risk of being seen as racist. Tiger Woods, of course, is now so tragically human as to have, as the Bible put it, "no name in the street."
A greater problem for our nation today is that we have a president whose benign—and therefore desirable—blackness exempted him from the political individuation process that makes for strong, clear-headed leaders. He has not had to gamble his popularity on his principles, and it is impossible to know one's true beliefs without this. In the future he may stumble now and then into a right action, but there is no hard-earned center to the man out of which he might truly lead.
And yes, white America conditioned Barack Obama to emptiness—valued him all along for his "articulate and clean" blackness, so flattering to American innocence. He is a president come to us out of our national insecurities.
Mr. Steele is a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
Words and Deeds Equal?
No, words are just words and not equal to deeds. Most of us our wasting our time if we are listening to what people and politicians promise us WITHOUT ourselves delving into their backgrounds. Classic examples - President Barack Obama, Barbara Peolsi, Charles Rangle, Boxer and Waters from California, Ray Burris, Durbin and ex governors, Blagovich and Jim Ryan from Illinois, Madoff and Mozzila, most consultants, World Com, Enron, Global Crossing and Adelphia, all "best of the brightest" and I could fill a small book with those who said one thing and did another, most of them with no intention of doing what they said. That's once they have convinced a majority with their "words".
I realize that approximately those who received the handouts promised them are satisfied with the status quo. Special interest groups such as "to big to fail" organizations, federal workers and unions. Those who believe we are heading in the right direction, anywhere from 35% to 48% of all who live here, including illegals.
Even those who had good intentions become overwhelmed with their power once power was gained, locally and nationally. Overwhelmed with the pressure of special interest groups or those who make substantial contributions to them or their causes.
The problem is that most people once aware that they were misled will stay the course because they do not want to admit, even to themselves that they could be wrong.
Sure, don't be a pessimist, be an optimist. Reminds me of the kid while unwrapping his birthday gifts smelled horseshit and was sure he was getting the pony he asked for. That's called "realism". For most of the unemployed who want to work, you're going to get the words (smell) without a job (pony) paying a living wage.
But of course, you will have the circuses you helped pay for whether you wanted them or not, promised to you to go to just like those "circuses" that helped the fall of the Roman Empire. Can't pay to go because you were fired, laid off, no living wage job available or higher than expected taxes and fees? Don't worry, the answer if on hand, no jobs but a "taking" from the more monied wealthy, "spreading wealth" to make us all "equal" just as Obama and and the Democrat controlled Congress promised. You still won't have the satisfaction of a job you might enjoy but you can be a non-paid volunteer to service the ones who never learned how to work of could but don't want to work.
Believe what I've described above sounds like socialism. Problem is that socialism has never proved to work except for a few decades or less.
On July 10, 1999, the JSEB asked "whether our economic development efforts and strategies have been misdirected over the past decade, gobbling up precious public dollars that would have been more wisely spent elsewhere." I answered the question in a LTE "Now that most of these "turkeys" (think Gateway Building, One Technology Center. etc.) are coming home to roost, those who freely spent those dollars had better hope that some of these (turkeys) lay golden eggs."
Here we are a decade later and local governments are in a position that the only way they can keep spending is to raise taxes and fees which they have already done and will do a lot more in the next decade.
Good luck to all who mostly agree.
I realize that approximately those who received the handouts promised them are satisfied with the status quo. Special interest groups such as "to big to fail" organizations, federal workers and unions. Those who believe we are heading in the right direction, anywhere from 35% to 48% of all who live here, including illegals.
Even those who had good intentions become overwhelmed with their power once power was gained, locally and nationally. Overwhelmed with the pressure of special interest groups or those who make substantial contributions to them or their causes.
The problem is that most people once aware that they were misled will stay the course because they do not want to admit, even to themselves that they could be wrong.
Sure, don't be a pessimist, be an optimist. Reminds me of the kid while unwrapping his birthday gifts smelled horseshit and was sure he was getting the pony he asked for. That's called "realism". For most of the unemployed who want to work, you're going to get the words (smell) without a job (pony) paying a living wage.
But of course, you will have the circuses you helped pay for whether you wanted them or not, promised to you to go to just like those "circuses" that helped the fall of the Roman Empire. Can't pay to go because you were fired, laid off, no living wage job available or higher than expected taxes and fees? Don't worry, the answer if on hand, no jobs but a "taking" from the more monied wealthy, "spreading wealth" to make us all "equal" just as Obama and and the Democrat controlled Congress promised. You still won't have the satisfaction of a job you might enjoy but you can be a non-paid volunteer to service the ones who never learned how to work of could but don't want to work.
Believe what I've described above sounds like socialism. Problem is that socialism has never proved to work except for a few decades or less.
On July 10, 1999, the JSEB asked "whether our economic development efforts and strategies have been misdirected over the past decade, gobbling up precious public dollars that would have been more wisely spent elsewhere." I answered the question in a LTE "Now that most of these "turkeys" (think Gateway Building, One Technology Center. etc.) are coming home to roost, those who freely spent those dollars had better hope that some of these (turkeys) lay golden eggs."
Here we are a decade later and local governments are in a position that the only way they can keep spending is to raise taxes and fees which they have already done and will do a lot more in the next decade.
Good luck to all who mostly agree.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Some Stocks I am Following
Symbol News Chart Last Change Shares
My Watchlist
$COMPX 2,308.42 39.27
$INDU 10,583.96 155.91
$INX 1,132.99 17.89
A 31.30 0.23
AA 16.65 0.53
AAI 5.18 -0.04
ACI 23.48 1.23
ADM 31.47 0.16
AGO 22.62 0.86
AMAT 14.30 0.36
AMCS 5.43 -0.01
AMD 9.70 0.02
AONE 22.80 0.36
AUY 11.79 0.41
AWC 6.97 0.42
AYE 23.52 0.04
BAC 15.69 0.63
BPOP 2.39 0.13
CAT 58.55 1.56
CBI 20.66 0.44
CX 12.32 0.50
DRYS 6.14 0.32
F 10.28 0.28
GE 15.45 0.32
GLW 19.56 0.25
GOL 15.38 0.03
GU 1.35 0.03
INCY 9.50 0.39
IVAC 14.00 2.53
JEF 24.27 0.54
KBW 27.98 0.62
KHD 13.50 -0.11
LINE 28.45 0.57
LOW 23.16 -0.23
MSFT 30.95 0.47
MTW 10.43 0.46
NVDA 18.49 -0.19
OI 34.44 1.57
OSUR 5.29 0.21
SMSI 9.24 0.09
SWHC 4.14 0.05
TTWO 10.40 0.35
UNH 31.53 1.05
USG 14.51 0.46
VALE 30.25 1.22
VG 1.46 0.06
VLO 17.89 1.14
VZ 33.28 0.15
WGO 12.35 0.15
ZION 13.33 0.50
Total: $0.00 Today's change: ---
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My Watchlist
$COMPX 2,308.42 39.27
$INDU 10,583.96 155.91
$INX 1,132.99 17.89
A 31.30 0.23
AA 16.65 0.53
AAI 5.18 -0.04
ACI 23.48 1.23
ADM 31.47 0.16
AGO 22.62 0.86
AMAT 14.30 0.36
AMCS 5.43 -0.01
AMD 9.70 0.02
AONE 22.80 0.36
AUY 11.79 0.41
AWC 6.97 0.42
AYE 23.52 0.04
BAC 15.69 0.63
BPOP 2.39 0.13
CAT 58.55 1.56
CBI 20.66 0.44
CX 12.32 0.50
DRYS 6.14 0.32
F 10.28 0.28
GE 15.45 0.32
GLW 19.56 0.25
GOL 15.38 0.03
GU 1.35 0.03
INCY 9.50 0.39
IVAC 14.00 2.53
JEF 24.27 0.54
KBW 27.98 0.62
KHD 13.50 -0.11
LINE 28.45 0.57
LOW 23.16 -0.23
MSFT 30.95 0.47
MTW 10.43 0.46
NVDA 18.49 -0.19
OI 34.44 1.57
OSUR 5.29 0.21
SMSI 9.24 0.09
SWHC 4.14 0.05
TTWO 10.40 0.35
UNH 31.53 1.05
USG 14.51 0.46
VALE 30.25 1.22
VG 1.46 0.06
VLO 17.89 1.14
VZ 33.28 0.15
WGO 12.35 0.15
ZION 13.33 0.50
Total: $0.00 Today's change: ---
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A Look Back From the 90's Through 2009 - Part 4
IDOT believes the half billion in upgrades to I-74 gives a new front door to the community and will help lure businesses downtown. (JS 11/16/06)
What businesses that pay good wages and pay all the taxes they should, have come downtown since the renovation of I-74? IDOT touts the Gateway Center (loses $500,000 a year and a burden on the city, now to be recovered by passing the Humane Animal Center back to the county saving the city over $500,000 a year), the RiverPlex, that loses money every year and is a tax COLLECTOR: 40% of the users live outside of the taxing area and pay no property taxes to support this Peoria Park District" a venture into the private sector; "O'Brien Field"(still called O'Brien Field because no takers were found after O'Brien cancelled their naming contract before last season started), Rt, 74 has no real bearing on this money-loser, Hooters, wow, but Damons Restaurant closed and River Station went broke. (sitting empty now) As to the subsidized Water Street Apartments; Rt. 74 has no bearing as these residents moved downtown so they would have less use of their vehicles. Then, of course, the under-funded hole in the ground (new 'world class' museum) where State and Federal Earmarks and City and County grants and a 1/4% sales tax assessed almost all buyers of merchandise in Peoria County for at least 20 years still leaves the museum project underfunded by millions of dollars. Evidently not much help from an upgraded I-74, actually more costs because of city street upgrades and sewer line relocations.
On 9/7/08, almost two years after the dedication of the new 74, JS reporter, John Sharp, gave us the news that should have shocked the "MS's in Peoria. John wrote, "Drivers sticking to alternate roads rather than using I-74". He quoted average usage figures that were startling, at least to the MS's, such as in 2003, traffic counts along six areas along Rt. 74 totaled 251,000 compared to 186,000 two years after the new highway was opened. So 65,000 less vehicles used the new highway than used the old highway through 2008.
And what happened to the great growth this highway, now 4 years old, has brought to Peoria. Please don't say the Shoppes. Most traffic to the Shoppes come down old Rt. 150. To the downtown, most businesses who came and left would have done so anyway and many of those "new" facilities pay little or no taxes. One reason why the City of Peoria faced a $14 million budget deficit and may face a bigger one next year.
By the way, I attended two of the first planning Rt. 74 input meetings conducted by IDOT and the estimated cost was then around $199 million. Costs are now well over $500 million and growing as IDOT continues to enhance the freeway areas.
Overall, looking back from the 1990's finds quite a period of missed projections where public dollars were spent and still are being spent like the unfinished Zoo and the unfunded museum. Question marks such as fiscal sustainability, still hang over the expanded Civic Center. We know that a financial commitment by the city may allow another hotel to be built while the old Jumers is vacant and City Center is asking $8 million from the city to help them survive.
JS reporter Omar Sofradzija wrote that the "road to Chicago" had little outside support on June 2, 2001. A few months later Omar was gone from the JS and Peoria. Many more realists left since 2001 and some now write back from Arizona, Naperville, and Colorado to tell us how great a city we live in. I suggest they send money instead of LTE's.
And where was Congressman LaHood from 2000 to 2009? On 4/13/97 the JSEB wrote "Chicago route LaHood's transportation priority", Congressman won't support "ring road" until a four lane highway to the Windy City exists. "I have never considered the ring road a high priority, LaHood said. "I have made it clear to the Department of Transportation that the ring road is a secondary road in terms of our priority".
On 8/04/04, the JSEB said, "LaHood had come full circle". They continued, "Unfortunately, it looks like no road will be built here. High speed highways are NOT the total reason, but they can help explain why so many Illinois cities are booming and others, like Peoria, are not". Could they have been talking about Rockford with it's 15% unemployment, possibly the highest in the state? Or LaSalle-Peru? What growth there? Didn't a big steel mill just close in LaSalle County, no iot was Putnam County, next door, and wasn't a 13 mile freeway built to accommodate this steel mill? The answer is, yes. Or Bloomington with their debt ridden Colliseum and General Electric closing up shop? On 7/9/06, the JSEB was still trying, "Not too late to look at sensible highway to Chicago." Yes, the JS buys paper and ink by the railroad car, just a LOT less recently.
LaHood IS now the head of the U.S. Transportation Department and the MS's are back hitting on a new ring road. From what I was told, they didn't plan to dust off the old plans, just hire consultants and engineers, this figure now well over $24 million, maybe over $30 million and growing; these "roads to ruin" keeping all the highly paid planners, managers, department heads like the EDC, engineers, consultants, all paid with taxpayer dollars.
But here comes the crusher. You know how are MS's are big on consultants? Well, back in 2006, our County Administrator convinced the County Board to combine with the City Council and hire the national renowned consultant firm, Ady International Co., to tell us why we weren't attracting new business to Peoria. Ady report was buried by the JS and other MS"s because here is what Ady told us: Peoria needs to expand its availability of sites to companies if it wants to attract new businesses. Among the advantages Peoria has, is its higher education, HIGHWAY ACCESS and culture. The Times newspapers told it like it was, "Consultant says direct highway to Chicago not that important to success. Peoria's disadvantages include crime, LOCAL PROPERTY TAXES, community appearance and workman's compensation costs." Ady said, "Peoria has all the highway access it needs and that few communities have better access than Peoria."
The city and county didn't need to hire Ady International. In a LTE to the JS, I wrote back in 1998, "Lack of highways is excuse for economic failure". I was tired of the JSEB whine "that if only we had a highway to Chicago, we would have gotten this deal or that deal. I distinctly remember one big deal we lost to Rockford. It came and left Rockford stuck holding the bag. And remember when we lost Spiegel to Morton? Spiegel has long ago gone bankrupt.
When renowned community developer Duany came to Peoria a few years ago, he couldn't believe that this highway was being built to the tune of $500,000,000 and said he would have tried to get it stopped because it divided Peoria into two parts, making coordinated growth impossible. And cross country traffic traveling at high speed THROUGH the city, no slowing down to stop and shop.
What Peoria needs are more consultants (out of the area experts who couldn't make it running their own businesses but tell us what to do that most of us who have ever run a business and met a payroll could tell many of these "local" dreamers. That's what former newspaper editor, Don Axt said when on occasion writes about Peoria , "Dreamsville" with a "Baseball World Series some day between Peoria and Rockford."
Dream on, you MS's but in the meantime figure out how to get more money out of the community without raising taxes. Otherwise, as Ady International said, and any else with "common sense"; higher taxes will drive business out, not bring business in. As does #150, the uneducated and at least two, belligerent unions.
My next blog will be about more looking back at history and then I'll blog soon about what lies ahead. My projections have been nearly 100% accurate except that I did not believe Bergners could support two stores in Peoria "without a highway to Chicago" As to bankruptcies predicted? Some have come and more are in progress or soon will be. The future of Peoria is not about to get any better except for those who are tenured, work for any government body and many unions and/or already have guaranteed fat pensions. You can no longer count on Caterpillar and did I not hear "rumors" about the closing of a major hospital in Peoria?
I hope not but this community sure had done a lot of medical building space and more being built.
What businesses that pay good wages and pay all the taxes they should, have come downtown since the renovation of I-74? IDOT touts the Gateway Center (loses $500,000 a year and a burden on the city, now to be recovered by passing the Humane Animal Center back to the county saving the city over $500,000 a year), the RiverPlex, that loses money every year and is a tax COLLECTOR: 40% of the users live outside of the taxing area and pay no property taxes to support this Peoria Park District" a venture into the private sector; "O'Brien Field"(still called O'Brien Field because no takers were found after O'Brien cancelled their naming contract before last season started), Rt, 74 has no real bearing on this money-loser, Hooters, wow, but Damons Restaurant closed and River Station went broke. (sitting empty now) As to the subsidized Water Street Apartments; Rt. 74 has no bearing as these residents moved downtown so they would have less use of their vehicles. Then, of course, the under-funded hole in the ground (new 'world class' museum) where State and Federal Earmarks and City and County grants and a 1/4% sales tax assessed almost all buyers of merchandise in Peoria County for at least 20 years still leaves the museum project underfunded by millions of dollars. Evidently not much help from an upgraded I-74, actually more costs because of city street upgrades and sewer line relocations.
On 9/7/08, almost two years after the dedication of the new 74, JS reporter, John Sharp, gave us the news that should have shocked the "MS's in Peoria. John wrote, "Drivers sticking to alternate roads rather than using I-74". He quoted average usage figures that were startling, at least to the MS's, such as in 2003, traffic counts along six areas along Rt. 74 totaled 251,000 compared to 186,000 two years after the new highway was opened. So 65,000 less vehicles used the new highway than used the old highway through 2008.
And what happened to the great growth this highway, now 4 years old, has brought to Peoria. Please don't say the Shoppes. Most traffic to the Shoppes come down old Rt. 150. To the downtown, most businesses who came and left would have done so anyway and many of those "new" facilities pay little or no taxes. One reason why the City of Peoria faced a $14 million budget deficit and may face a bigger one next year.
By the way, I attended two of the first planning Rt. 74 input meetings conducted by IDOT and the estimated cost was then around $199 million. Costs are now well over $500 million and growing as IDOT continues to enhance the freeway areas.
Overall, looking back from the 1990's finds quite a period of missed projections where public dollars were spent and still are being spent like the unfinished Zoo and the unfunded museum. Question marks such as fiscal sustainability, still hang over the expanded Civic Center. We know that a financial commitment by the city may allow another hotel to be built while the old Jumers is vacant and City Center is asking $8 million from the city to help them survive.
JS reporter Omar Sofradzija wrote that the "road to Chicago" had little outside support on June 2, 2001. A few months later Omar was gone from the JS and Peoria. Many more realists left since 2001 and some now write back from Arizona, Naperville, and Colorado to tell us how great a city we live in. I suggest they send money instead of LTE's.
And where was Congressman LaHood from 2000 to 2009? On 4/13/97 the JSEB wrote "Chicago route LaHood's transportation priority", Congressman won't support "ring road" until a four lane highway to the Windy City exists. "I have never considered the ring road a high priority, LaHood said. "I have made it clear to the Department of Transportation that the ring road is a secondary road in terms of our priority".
On 8/04/04, the JSEB said, "LaHood had come full circle". They continued, "Unfortunately, it looks like no road will be built here. High speed highways are NOT the total reason, but they can help explain why so many Illinois cities are booming and others, like Peoria, are not". Could they have been talking about Rockford with it's 15% unemployment, possibly the highest in the state? Or LaSalle-Peru? What growth there? Didn't a big steel mill just close in LaSalle County, no iot was Putnam County, next door, and wasn't a 13 mile freeway built to accommodate this steel mill? The answer is, yes. Or Bloomington with their debt ridden Colliseum and General Electric closing up shop? On 7/9/06, the JSEB was still trying, "Not too late to look at sensible highway to Chicago." Yes, the JS buys paper and ink by the railroad car, just a LOT less recently.
LaHood IS now the head of the U.S. Transportation Department and the MS's are back hitting on a new ring road. From what I was told, they didn't plan to dust off the old plans, just hire consultants and engineers, this figure now well over $24 million, maybe over $30 million and growing; these "roads to ruin" keeping all the highly paid planners, managers, department heads like the EDC, engineers, consultants, all paid with taxpayer dollars.
But here comes the crusher. You know how are MS's are big on consultants? Well, back in 2006, our County Administrator convinced the County Board to combine with the City Council and hire the national renowned consultant firm, Ady International Co., to tell us why we weren't attracting new business to Peoria. Ady report was buried by the JS and other MS"s because here is what Ady told us: Peoria needs to expand its availability of sites to companies if it wants to attract new businesses. Among the advantages Peoria has, is its higher education, HIGHWAY ACCESS and culture. The Times newspapers told it like it was, "Consultant says direct highway to Chicago not that important to success. Peoria's disadvantages include crime, LOCAL PROPERTY TAXES, community appearance and workman's compensation costs." Ady said, "Peoria has all the highway access it needs and that few communities have better access than Peoria."
The city and county didn't need to hire Ady International. In a LTE to the JS, I wrote back in 1998, "Lack of highways is excuse for economic failure". I was tired of the JSEB whine "that if only we had a highway to Chicago, we would have gotten this deal or that deal. I distinctly remember one big deal we lost to Rockford. It came and left Rockford stuck holding the bag. And remember when we lost Spiegel to Morton? Spiegel has long ago gone bankrupt.
When renowned community developer Duany came to Peoria a few years ago, he couldn't believe that this highway was being built to the tune of $500,000,000 and said he would have tried to get it stopped because it divided Peoria into two parts, making coordinated growth impossible. And cross country traffic traveling at high speed THROUGH the city, no slowing down to stop and shop.
What Peoria needs are more consultants (out of the area experts who couldn't make it running their own businesses but tell us what to do that most of us who have ever run a business and met a payroll could tell many of these "local" dreamers. That's what former newspaper editor, Don Axt said when on occasion writes about Peoria , "Dreamsville" with a "Baseball World Series some day between Peoria and Rockford."
Dream on, you MS's but in the meantime figure out how to get more money out of the community without raising taxes. Otherwise, as Ady International said, and any else with "common sense"; higher taxes will drive business out, not bring business in. As does #150, the uneducated and at least two, belligerent unions.
My next blog will be about more looking back at history and then I'll blog soon about what lies ahead. My projections have been nearly 100% accurate except that I did not believe Bergners could support two stores in Peoria "without a highway to Chicago" As to bankruptcies predicted? Some have come and more are in progress or soon will be. The future of Peoria is not about to get any better except for those who are tenured, work for any government body and many unions and/or already have guaranteed fat pensions. You can no longer count on Caterpillar and did I not hear "rumors" about the closing of a major hospital in Peoria?
I hope not but this community sure had done a lot of medical building space and more being built.
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