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 Development Code were “open to interpretation” — which is to say, meaningless. That was enlightening.
Yes, it certainly was enlightening.
I think it shows we don’t need zoning codes. Everyone thinks that is we don’t have a cadre of anal-retentive zoning inspectors running all over the place, enforcing the ruless, the city will become an a nightmare. One example I am constantly given when I make this argument is that pig farms will up next to private homes.
The horror, the horror.
Actually folks, no one wants to put a pig farm next to your home. However, someone MAY may want to open a mom-and-pop store on your block, because thy think they can make a buck doing it. Zoning the city government’s way of saying: “No, you should try to make a buck HERE, where our developer pal has built a strip mall.”
Yes, some people will complain about having a store on your block will ruin property values. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t wish they didn’t have to drive a mile from their house to buy a friggin’ half-gallon of milk at a store owned by a corporation.
Another thing zoning codes usually do is keep little old ladies from building a fence in their yard, or hassle property owners about the size of their awnings. Zoning codes almost never stand in the way of developers, as this example shows.
So, I propose that — as an experiment — the city simply does away with zoning rules for about one year. We’ll see if any pig farms and rendering plants go up next to the castles on Grand View Drive. I strongly suspect there will be a building boom. And the general ugliness will be at the exact same level, as will the agitation neighbors feel when the eyesore they have gotten used to is replaced with the unknown.
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.
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, they promised not to block access to Hamilton for people who live in the 200 block of Randolph. And of course, they did exactly that very thing.
In my column in this week’s printedition, 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 job and start selling ads like crazy and manage to consistently get 15-20 times the ad revenue I currently get, I can make a living from full-time blogging. At least I have a head start over those saps at Chicago Now.
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 the Philippines. Weeks later, they all printed the same press release (exception: WMBD1470 did a brief story) . No stories about the company history, no interviews with employees about the impact on their lives. Nada.
Next time I try to tip off the media, I’ll hand out free donuts.
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 & Web-based E-mail Access
Email Spam & Virus Filtering
Nightly Backups
WordPress MU Issue Support
100 Days Money Back Guarantee
The size of this site if far, far, far less and my monthly transfer rate does not approach this.
I resolved previous problems with down time by reducing server load. I did that by moving my personal blog (which you are reading now) off the Blog Peoria Project and onto it’s own server. I also removed a TON of plugins that added functionality and extra features for member bloggers.
I’ve reinstalled BuddyPress (much more stable than previous installations) and added some new plugins and widgets that users might want to play around with.
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.
The notorious HipKat has migrated his blog from Blogger — where it was languishing with few readers — to the Blog Peoria Project. Now, his is part of the small but growing community of Peoria-area bloggers.
HipKat also is active in the Peoria.com community.
Merle Widmer wants to know if Aaron Schock and the stimulus package will be used to bail out the museum project.
I find these non-priority requests in the process of being authorized by a Republican who is always hammering the Democrats for giving away our tax dollars as being more than interesting. I’m still waiting for the announcement of x-millions coming from the stimulus bill or some other bill, all taxpayers dollars, coming to Peoria to bail out the $17 million or more the Peoria Riverfront Museum shortfall.
Now, now, Merle. When other Congressman do it, it’s pork. When our guy does it, it’s called bringing home our fair share.
OK, current and former Peoria broadcast newsies … haven’t you wanted to do this at least once?
I can see WEEK’s Tom McIntyre clocking a drunk. WMBD’s Bob Larson, not so much. WHOI’s Jen Christensen? I’m thinking she can kick ass if she has to. But I’ve got $5 that says WEEK sports guy Marc Strauss carries a garrote for just such an occasion.
Wanna make some noise about a band you’ve heard for the first time? A dining experience left a bad taste in your mouth? Wasted a good two hours at the movie theater you’ll never get back? Sick of the crap on television?
By all means let the Blog Peoria Network know. Current BP members can contact me, and I’ll sign ‘em up as contributor editors of Upon Further Review.
Now that Blog Peoria is on a vigorous server than can handle WPMu, I’m looking to resurrect some blogs.
Just visit the site for an idea of what I am looking for.
For the family of Neda Agha Soltan: Mourning is an important ritual in Iranian culture, and it is strongly tied to protest. Public mourning rituals are held 3 days, 7 days, and 40 days after a death, and they can turn into demonstrations against injustice. In an effort to discredit/suppress a young martyr, the government of Iran not only buried Neda without her family’s knowledge and banned all mourning rituals for her, but they forced the family out their apartment and cut them off from the community that would have embraced them in their grief. So we must mourn and we must protest for them
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates The Blog Peoria Project, which promotes community-based citizen journalism in his hometown, Peoria IL.
July 11-12, the Peoria PlayHouse will be soaring at the Prairie Air Show with engaging activities to entertain even the littlest pilots! Check out each of the PlayHouse Passport locations to have a passport stamped and receive a prize at the PlayHouse tent! Enjoy a weekend of airplanes and PLAY!
The fourth annual State Farm Tournament of Champions is a 4-day event that will take place on Thanksgiving weekend of November 2009. The dates of the event are Wednesday, November 23rd through Saturday, November 28th and will be held at Washington Community High School. The arena will play host to four separate national high school and prep school basketball challenges.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
