Let’s replace zoning in-name-only with no zoning at all
C.J. Summers has been attending meetings and doing good work on the Main Street Commons issue. Basically, some developers want to turn the former Walgreens at the corner of Bourland and West Main Street into a condominium project catering to Bradley students. In order to do the project as envisioned, they are going to seen some zoning variances.
As is usually the case with these sorts of things, the project as originally described back when the developers brought it up isn’t exactly what is appearing on paper. The neighbors are opposed — well, some of them — and don;t want the variances to be granted.
C.J. doesn’t like some of the variances and says the project should be changed. That didn’t happen and he’s ticked off.
It passed the Zoning Commission with next to no deliberation. Marj Klise was the only “no” vote. One of the commissioners said that provisions in the Land [...]
Original post by Billy Dennis
Let’s replacing zoning in name only with no zoning at all
C.J. Summers has been attending meetings and doing good work on the Main Street Commons issue. Basically, some developers want to turn the former Walgreens at the corner of Bourland and West Main Street into a condominium project catering to Bradley students. In order to do the project as envisioned, they are going to seen some zoning variances.
As is usually the case with these sorts of things, the project as originally described back when the developers brought it up isn’t exactly what is appearing on paper. The neighbors are opposed — well, some of them — and don;t want the variances to be granted.
C.J. doesn’t like some of the variances and says the project should be changed. That didn’t happen and he’s ticked off.
It passed the Zoning Commission with next to no deliberation. Marj Klise was the only “no” vote. One of the commissioners said that provisions in the Land [...]
Original post by Billy Dennis
FEMA flood management meetings and open house are Tuesday
It always bugs the Hell out of me when the government sends out official notices to the public in the form of Adobe PDF format. It’s just gets in the way of copy and paste and generally wastes my time. Still, this is all boilerplate stuff. Basically, there is a meeting with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2-4 p.m. Tuesday, July 7, at the Peoria Public Library Auditorium. A “flood risk” open house will follow from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
It might be worthwhile to attend. I can think of all sorts of wonderful questions to ask.
NOTICE FOR JULY 7, 2009, FEMA 003 (.PDF format)
Original post by Billy Dennis
The conspiracy to make my neighborhood roads unusable continues
From my inbox:
Date: July 2, 2009
Released by: Alma Brown, Communications Manager, 494-8554
Subject: Road Closure
Turner Construction is planning to kick off the major portion of phase I for the Hamilton Boulevard reconstruction on Monday, July 6, 2009. Hamilton Blvd. will be closed to all traffic from the south side of Crescent Ave to the north side of Glen Oak until October 23, 2009. Southbound Hamilton traffic will detour to Randolph Ave. to North St. to Main St. to Glen Oak. Northbound Hamilton will detour to Glen Oak, to Main St., to Crescent Ave. The Emergency Department remains open with access via Crescent Ave. from Main St. or southbound Hamilton.
Attached, please find a map to clarify the closure.
At least they aren’t detouring traffic down MY block on Randolph, nor are they blocking off traffic.
But then, the last time the Greater Peoria Sanitation District did work on that area, [...]
Original post by Billy Dennis
I am a big money blogger, relatively speaking
I got a huge chuckle out of this tidbit from Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader;
In my column in this week’s print edition, I mistakenly said the Tribune was paying Chicago Now bloggers $5 per 10,000 hits. I called that the equivalent of carfare.
I stand corrected: the Tribune’s paying $5 per 1,000 local hits, the equivalent of — well, carfare. Bill Adee, the paper’s innovation chief, tells me Chicago Now has some 65 bloggers and last month recorded 700,000 pageviews. That works out to $3,500 split 65 ways, or about $54 a blogger for the month.
I sat down and added up all my add revenue during the course of a year, divided by 12 and concluded that I earned roughly $150 a month. Of course, Site Meter tells me my pageviews are roughly 50,000 a month.
It’s carfare. But it’s also Web hosting fare. And ISP fare. If I quit my [...]
Original post by Billy Dennis
If you want the media’s attention, give away donuts
The Peoria Journal Star’s Steve Tarter has an article about how the local Lester Donut’s chain has closed all but one of its stores, and is not selling anything at it’s lcat store, but is only giving donuts away one at a time.
First: I am sorry to see any local business going out of business. Well, not really. There are SOME local businesses I’d like to see ridden out of town on a rail, with its owners and managers covered in hot tar and chicken feathers. But Lester’s Donuts is not one of them.
Second: The media picks and chooses which “local business looks like it MAY close” story to report. About a year ago, I was trying to get ANY local media outlet to report that my then employer — for the former SVI Media — had changed hands yet again and they they were outsourcing their call center to [...]
Original post by Billy Dennis
The Blog Peoria Project gets its second wind
I wanted let current and potential users know about the new and improved specifications for the Blog Peoria Project. Our new host is a company called WPWebhost. We are using the “Buddy Plan,” which is designed for WordPress Multi-User sites that powers Blog Peoria.
There’s never been a better time to sign up. If you are very concerned about preserving your anonymity, I can work with you and still benefit from blogging on a local blogging/social network.
Specifications and features (for the site, NOT individual bloggers):
Total Web Space: 100GB
Monthly Data Transfer: 1TB (1000GB)
Host up to 100 domain names per account
Intel Quad Core Xeon 5504 2.0Ghz / 4.8TG
CPU: 2X Intel Quad Core Xeon 5504 2.0Ghz / 4.8TG
RAM: 12GB ECC/DDR2 Buffered
Perfect Hosting Environment for WordPress MU
BuddyPress Friendly
99.5% Uptime Guarantee
Unlimited Subdomains
Compatible for PHP, MySQL Database, and Perl scripts
Unlimited MySQL Database
eCommerce Ready for SSL encryption
Free WordPress MU installation
Unlimited FTP Accounts
FTP & FrontPage Access
Unlimited Email Accounts
POP3, IMAP [...]
Original post by Billy Dennis
‘Cooking with BuddyPress’
I thought this might be of use to potential and current members of the Blog Peoria Project. I’ve installed Buddy press on BPP and I am much happier with it now than before.
Check it out:
Original post by Billy Dennis
Happy belated Blogoversaries
The following folks celebrated blogging birthdays during June:
1: Peoria County Politics (2005)
2: ?! (2008)
3: Peoria Anti-Pundit (2007)
21: Morton Malaise (2006)
25: Chef Kevin’s Culinary Rants and Raves (2005)
You can check out my running list of Blogoversaries at The Blog Peoria Project.
If you want you site to be includes, contact me and include the date.
Original post by Billy Dennis
Morally Superior
Original post by Anon E. Mouse
85 days 1 hour ago.
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