Peoria Pundit

Phil Luciano does a fairly good job
of getting both sides
of the dispute over whether Trinity Lutheran Church should be able to
evict tenants at the Roanoke Apartments so it can build a day care
center. The correct position is, of course, that property owners should
be able to do whatever they want. It’s their property after all. But the
city wants to suck up to the historic preservation crowd, who see the
value in being able to drive down the street and say: “Hey, there’s a
nice-looking old building” without actually having to pay for upkeep.

In this case, the preservationists are keeping the church from building
a day care center. I wonder how many of these busybodies have also
complained about the lack of affordable day care in the city.

The last time there was a dispute over whether a church should be be
prevented from using its property in the way they wanted to was the
Unitarian Church, which wanted to sell its building to Methodist –
which would demolish it — and move services to a new facility with more
room to provide services.

A group of UU church members was opposed and tried to get the city to
declare the building historic, and thus off-limits. They even put up a
Website that urged people to contact the mayor
and other members of the council. The site shows a full-page ad that ran
in the JS urging the council to grant landmark status to the church.

Who owned that site? None other than /Journal Star/ reporter Elaine Hopkins.

She’s a member of the church and has a right to her opinion on the
issue. I do not like it when reporters taking a public side on a public
controversy. Elaine has never reported on the UU church herself, but she
has covered city government, fairly recently too.

From the letters I have received, there are more than a few people aware
that she owns the site and her involvement. A simple Internet search
reveled that she owned it. I was made aware by several emails.

One of the reasons smart newspapers forbid journalists from getting
involved in this sort of activity is to not only prevent real bias and
partisanship, it’s also to prevent the perception of the same.

This problem aside, I still think Elaine is one of the best reporters
the at JS has. Her recent coverage of District 150 food services
contract is proof of that.

But every time she writes about the council or Methodist or on the issue
of development in general, there will be those who think she has a
grudge or an agenda. If her reporting is a little tough, there is a hook
onto which critics can hang their complaints.

In the end, Elaine’s assistance didn’t help. The city denied the
request. And now, Elaine’s rep is a little tarnished. It’s not worth it.

This entry was posted 6 years, 2 months ago on Sunday, November 16th, 2003 at 10:27 am and is filed under Local. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.