Today’s news links
Today’s links are via the Peoria Journal Star:
- Peoria Airport Director Ken Spirito is leaving for a job at a larger airport on the East Coast
Spirito, 36, has been with the Peoria airport, now the General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport , for three years. He oversaw plans for the $65 million air terminal that broke ground in October.
My two cents: Some of the comments to this article make note of the higher taxes Peoria residents are paying due to the additions and renovations at the airport. I’m wondering if they ever got around to installing actual telephones to let arrivals make outgoing telephone calls.
- Average homeowners will see an increase of about $90 on their tax bills going toward Peoria School District 150 next year.
The School Board presented the tentative 2008 tax levy on Monday, requesting about $3.4 million more than last year, a 5.6 percent increase.
My two cents: Kudos to PJS reporter Dave haney for getting it. It’s not the property tax rate that causes your tax bill to go up. The amount of property taxes property owners pay is determined by the dollar amout of the levy set by local governments like the school district. The rate slides up and down to collect that amount of money. In this case, the rate did increase. But I’ve seen time and again where government decides to collect a huge increase in taxes, but the rate declines because of wild increases in property values. Incompetant reporters and editors sometimes tell readers that this is a tax decrease, when it isn’t. But Heny and his editors lede with real lede.
- School officials unveiled plans Monday for phase two of the “talent development high school,” calling for more small learning groups throughout the school [Manual High School] and partnering with area professionals in the health care, education and business sectors for work-based learning opportunities.
“Things are going to look very different next year,” Principal Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat told the crowd.
While student enrollment will remain similar to what it is now, plans show more of what educators call the “school-within-a-school” concept – smaller groups of teachers working with smaller groups of students in their own space; more of what’s already in place at Manual, which saw a seventh and eighth added this fall and making its ninth grade “self-contained.”
My two cents: I have several thoughts:
Manual High School was once called Manual Training High School, and was originally designed as a school that focused on vocational skills.
I seem to recall that this process began because the No child Left behind Act required changes be made if test scores indicated a lack of academic success. School officials hate the NCLB act because it supposedly punishes schools that don’t have middle and upper class students. But everyone is praising this new way ot teaching at MAnual High School. So, do the teachers and bureaucrats who are congratulating themselves for this new model have any prasise for NCLB? Not one word about it appears in this article.
- U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Peoria, thinks it is unlikely that either the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives will vote this week on a plan to bail out the beleaguered auto industry.
My two cents: This is what dot com giant Jason Calacanis says on his Twitter page about the auto industry bailout:
Obama is NUTS if he gives one penny to failed automakers like GM. those companies NEED TO FAIL. give grants to Tesla!
He has a point. From an ideological standpoint, it makes no difference which private company is getting a bailout. Why not give it to a company that’s innovating. GM has proven that it cant succeed, because it’s thinking is mired in the past. Eventually, we’re going to have to abandon fossile-fueled cars. Why not make it sooner rather than later. Easing Tesla’s credit crunch makes more sense because we’ll get more bang for the buck.
November 18th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Calacanis has a point, but on the flip side, GM employs several hundred thousand employees. If you let GM fail, you are essentially handing pink slips to all those people, let alone retirees losing health benefits and pensions. I think there needs to be a compromise here.
November 18th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
What I was reading today in the Financial Times was that the Big Three are saying they will be forced to go under before Obama takes office. Throw in an advertising campaign… yeah thats right the Big Three are advertising all the gloom n doom that will happen if they don’t get their money. Blackmail anyone? Let them file for Chapter 7 or 11.
Yeah Tesla needs a leg up. They had plans for a more family friendly electric or hybrid vehicle but had to suspend development cause of the financial mess that has unfolded.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I live in Lansing, MI now. This state sucks. It’s freakin terrible. Unemployment is through the roof. Getting a job is damn near impossible and I’ve been unemployed since leaving Peoria because no one is hiring. There are two GM plants in Lansing alone. If anything worse happens to the auto industry, there are going to be a lot of people out of a job…A LOT
I don’t disagree that this is the automakers fault, but it’s also the UAW’s fault. UAW in Peoria, take notice of what’s going on here. Just because Caterpillar is enjoying profits right now doesn’t mean they should share with you. When they hit hard times, you’ll be happy they “hoarded” their money when they don’t have to lay your sorry, uneducated, overpaid ass off.
The compromise needs to include a restructuring of the UAW contract. Wages are too high as is health insurance. The UAW says they’ve already conceeded. So what I’m hearing is they would rather be out of work than open up negotiations. There needs to be a loan, but there needs to be conditions. GM’s CEO needs to step down and the union contract needs to be opened. Be happy you have a job at all….I’m going on 8 months picking up odds and ends whenever I can.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Some people act like the Big Three are going to disappear if the government doesn’t step in, and ALL the jobs will disappear. That’s insanely ludicrous. They’ll enter bankruptcy, restructure & reorganize. One or more may be consumed by a foreign competitor … although all manufacturers of high-price commodities like cars are suffering right now, so I don’t know that Toyota or Honda will be looking for opportunities to expand at this point.
Let’s not get carried away. Yes, many plants would likely close during reorganization and certainly many jobs would be lost. That’s where government could and should step in … to help people, not bloated, inefficient corporate structures. These companies may be – SHOULD be – significantly transformed, but they will not fall off the Earth.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Knight I agree. Let them declare, restructure and reorganize. The unfortuanate reality is that people right now are not buying cars and until things change economically they won’t be. Detroit needs to retool, and be given tremendous incentives for becoming financially and environmentally responsible. They don’t need to simply be given money ala AIG.
November 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I think because I live in Michigan, that I disagree that the economy can withstand the Big 3 going bankrupt. Now, if I still lived in Illinois and I wasn’t seeing this firsthand, I would agree that the government should stay out.
Imagine if Caterpillar shut down and left Peoria. Imagine what would happen to the economy, the unemployment rate, the image of the region, and the morale of the citizens when the only jobs available are entry level $8/hr jobs (that’s the case in Lansing right now)
I just saw a soundbite with the Mayor of Lansing who said outgoing Republicans are seeing this as a way to finally break the UAW and maybe even get rid of it. If Detroit dies, the UAW goes with it. The foreign manufactures have been pretty successful at keeping the union out.
Like I said in my original post, no bailout should come without concessions from the UAW including the power they now wield. The fact is, GM still sold more cars than any manufacturer in the US last year and GM and Ford still produce more hybrids than Honda and Toyota. I’m not saying the UAW shoulders the blame here, but they are a part of it. The reason you don’t see Toyota, Honda, etc. struggling is because there is no unions in those plants. I’m not advocating that unions should go away either, but they carry too much power and they need to be a part of this solution. I know it’s hard to see from 300 miles away and six months ago, I would have been with you, but seeing it first hand has changed my mind.