Peoria Pundit

NOTE: The agenda is here:

Executive session on three items.

Passed 10-0

Citizens to address to council: Item Sparks. Question about Item Y, why it passed? It’s a beer permit for a benefit for Youth Hockey. Mr. Sierra: Agrees regarding beer at youth event. Approves of District 150 open house. Charter schools, a councilman supports. Vigorously opposed to charter schools. Glad the sidewalk program is going through on South Side. Traffic on Hayes and Grinnell (check spelling) needs to be sidewalks there. Need to encourage children to walk on grass. They need to wear right footwear. A lot of kids have cell phones, but not appropriate footwear. On Northmoor, kids walking to Richwoods don;t have sidewalk. We need to address these problems.

New business:

7:42 p.m. Spain: Plug for District 150. Open house Saturday, Kick off of back to scool system. A handout was given out to the press. Holling: Alma Brown with City of Peoria did good job helping plan the event. Also, save snow maps. Don’t throw them away. Spain: Another attaboy to Linda Cooper help stuff backpacks for Saturday’s event. Gulley: Wearing “remarkable guy button.” Will start in September for next year’s “back to school event.” Wants elected official to sign up, choose a school to participate. Wants 1,000 men, wear buttons. Gals can come, but we are looking for remarkable guys. Studies show that when men help out, shows results. Asked employers to be lenient. Ardis: Tomorrow is Taste of Peoria on Riverfront. Great vendors. This weekend, grand nationals motorcycle racing. Parade is on Saturday morning. Also rumor is that Jacob will be Grand Marshal.

Unfinished business

Snow response program/snow routes/designated snow routes: Montelongo requested deferral, via Sandberg. Two weeks.

Passed 10-0.

Services contract with Gallagher related to health care consulting joint labor/management health care committee. Manning: Question about scopes of services. Needs to make sure Gallagher communicates well with city. Manning: Will requiring them to communicate to council, as well as to joint committee, increase costs. Answer: No. Jacob: Sent out to three dozen firms. Received responses from three firms. Some were non-responses. Needs feedback from staff while response rate was “extraordinarily low.” No local firms, even though local firms were capable of the work. Henry Holling: Municipal business very challenging. Felt not up to challenge in terms of staffing. Also Gallagher is looked on a one of best in nation. Kimberly (need her last name) Sent specific requests to local groups asking for them to respond to RFP (request for proposal). Some found city’s RFP process cumbersome. We will work with Gallagher to streamline the process. Jacob: We need to be able to find firms local that could handle this project. Wants staff to thoroughly vet (vett?) local firms. Jacob also wants very specific reporting reports from this firm to city council. Great deal of angst about performance last year. Ardis asked language be inserted into contract seeking quarterly reports.

Passed: 10-0.

7:28 p.m. Item 5: Off premise sign. Recommendation from staff to decline at 1418 N. Linn Street. Van Auken moves to defer for 2 weeks.

Passed 10-0.

7:26 p.m. Item 4: Motion supporting Chicago big for Olympic Games.

Nichting says there likely will be a state-wide tax to support construction of facilities. Manning agrees. Spears wants to look at the position. Some games could be held in Peoria area. Some current events underway now held in Japan, for example. We can show the world Peoria, our hospitality. Ardis says he and Daly discussed this. They need support from other nearby communities. Many folks would be living here for long periods of time as this is done.

Passed 10-0.

7:17 p.m.: Item 3: Addendum to Riverfront Village Redevelopment agreement. Ardis confused Turner and Van Auken. All you guys look alike. Sandberg won’t support. Doing the same thing over and over expecting the same result is the definition of insanity. Manning: Out economy is doing better than nationwide. Not sure this is valid reason for extension. Still waiting for new plans for project, but there have been many plans for raising funds. Been on hold for years and years now. Nichting says there has been an increase in office space. Trying to find someone to lease building that doesn’t exist is difficult. He says there is a “glut.” Sandberg: There may be a glut, but do you want an office building on top of the stilts as it is envisioned. But people still building and doing extensive remodeling. I don’t know what city council wants to continue with an extension of an agreement that started 10 years ago. Vision has changed.

Passed: 8-2. Sandberg and Manning, nay.

7:17 Item 2: Two week deferral on janitorial services contract.

Passed 10-0

7:11 p.m. Item U: Increase in taxi cap rates. Spears says instead of just raising rates due to high gas prices, lets defer this one month to get resolution urging Springfield to reduce their gasoline taxes on taxi cabs. Mayor Ardis: Do you really think they will do this in a month. Spears: Says governor says they aren’t doing anything anyway? We responded to request from taxi companies for an increase fairly quickly. Van Auken seconded motion. Nichting: Special sessions are for specific issues. Resolution would have to wait till November veto session. Spain: Notes that many out-of-state visitors use cabs, getting a pass on having to pay what residents do. Compares it to HRA tax, ie. revenue NOT on backs of local residents. Sandberg says that’s probably not true. The people I see riding in cabs are the people who can’t afford cars, using to go to grocery store. They are struggling as it is to buy groceries. Visitors use hospitality vans at the airports. Ardis: Will support Spears motion. Men and women who work as drivers pay for this directly. They’ve been paying these higher prices out of their pockets. Ardis appeals to state for relief for these people. City Manager Henry Holling. Taxi-cab business is very marginal. Management of these businesses are very challenging. Hard to attract and retain quality drivers. Drivers very helpful to customers. A months difference … could very well mean a job, a couple taxes out of service. I don;t think that serves anyone’s best interest. Spears changes motion. Wants vote on rate hike in two weeks, plus a vote on a resolution to Springfield. Van Auken agrees.

Passed 10-0

7:03 p.m. Item T: Sandberg wants more complete report, wants deferral. Van Auken seconded. Wants staff to bring it back.

Passed 10-0.

7:02 p.m. Item R: Sandberg just wanted to vote against enterprise zone application.

Passed 10-0 9-1.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.