Local: Museum projections do not add up
For a guy who swore off blogging with any regularity, C.J. Summers is churning out posts that shock full of common sense.
Consider this post, where he looks at the numbers supplied by the Built the Block crowd smells something fishy going on. Why isn’t Peoria’s only daily newspaper of record going over these numbers and pointing out how wildly unrealistic they are? Too busy doing lost dog stories, I suppose.
Not that it matters really. The powers-that-be are doing their damnedest to scare voters into passing a tax increase onto voters to pay to built it. And because it cannot possibly be self supporting, they WILL make this temporary tax permanent in order to keep it open. They have to, because people from all over the state will NOT travel to Peoria see it, and the vast majority of Peorians will not visit it more than once, if that.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
It’s all so predictable, isn’t it? The only way to stop it is immediate, massive, organized resistance.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Block the Block.
January 11th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
anotherexjser: Even with “immediate, massive, organized resistance,”
In Bloomington, there was “massive, organized” resistance against the US Cellular Coliseum project, to the point where the anti-coliseum crowd managed to get a referendum on the election ballot. The public responded in-kind, voting 70% AGAINST the project.
And then… it got built anyway. And then… all the city council members who voted in favor of the project were voted out of office in the next election. And then… three years passed and the project is STILL swimming in red ink, despite all the spin doctoring and number shifting that the facility’s management and the city council engage in.
These people don’t care about you, your money, or anything other than building their precious monument to themselves. They simply see the public as a nuisance, a pesky fly buzzing around their heads to be swatted away with TIF districts, sales tax increases and fees on basic services.
BLOCK THE BLOCK!
January 12th, 2009 at 7:00 am
“all the city council members who voted in favor of the project were voted out of office in the next election. ”
The residents of Bloomington have one up on us in this issue.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:35 am
It would be beautiful, wonderful if it had a chance, tovarich. Trouble is, look at all the other fine edifices that Create Jobs and Lose Money. When was the last time anyone saw traffic backed up on the road, waiting to get into Lakeview or Wheels ‘o Time? Yeah, I know, JS editorial writers, I’m nothing more than a short-sighted naysayer, and where would we be without “our” fine civic center to support? Nationally, we are in very deep trouble, with a debt that may well bring down the country. All we here are, is a microcosm.