Peoria Pundit

News and Media from River City

Local: Meanwhile, pro-museum-tax vandals continue to operate

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on March 27, 2009 by Billy Dennis

Via Merle:

Four more “Vote No” signs were vandalized and 2 were stolen … No other signs have I seen vandalized. We ordered a lot of signs and events like these revive my energy.

Merle thinks these are kids. Kids aren’t that organized. Trust me, I’ve seen this before. These are adults and they are organized.

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Local: Today’s museum wrapup

Posted in Local with tags , on February 11, 2009 by Billy Dennis

No Peoria blogger is providing more solid evidence against the necessity and wisdom the museum sales tax than Merle Widmer. That’s understandable, considering that he’s the only member of the Peoria County board with the testicular fortitude to vote against placing the .25 percentage point sales task increase at the ballot.

Three good posts:

If you want accurate data instead of speculation and made-to-order studies, then Widmer-Peoria-Watch is the blog to visit.

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Local: Will Cat dump support for museum? Will Peoria media get around to covering IMAX failure?

Posted in Local with tags , , , on January 22, 2009 by Billy Dennis

Merle Widmer, who recently tipped us off to the failure of the Cedar Rapics IMAX, says he thinks Caterpillar stockholders who are nervous about how the economy is affecting their stock price, may put pressure on Caterpillar bosses to stop wasting money on this museum/visitor center thing.

By the way: Has ANYONE in the Peoria media mentioned the Cedar Rapids thing? I mean, the Build the Block ads make a huge frigging deal about IMAX, but it’s apparently not the sure-fire money maker that some people claim it is. You would think that the mainstream media would report on that sort of thing .. well, at least when they aren’t running down stories about lost dogs.

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Local: Prather out as county board chair

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on November 26, 2008 by Billy Dennis

Via Merle Widmer:

Peoria County Board Chairman William (Bill) Prather called me Monday to inform me that for health reasons, he will not run for reelection at our Full Board Meeting Monday December 1, at 6:00. I had previously announced I would not run for a third term as Vice-Chairman. These two Chairmanship office positions will be determined next Monday evening. I understand Bob Baietto, a Republican and Tom O’Neill, a Democrat are interested in the Chairman’s position. While the VC is often considered merely a title, I did conduct four full board county meetings and four Executive Meetings. The VC is automatically a member of the Executive Committee.

Merle has more details here.

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