Dear reader,
Please look carefully at the web address in the URL field of your browser. It should read ‘http://peoriapundit.com/blogpeoria‘. In case you see a web address containing the word ‘bitacle’ or ‘bitacle.org’, you’re not looking at the original page on which this text was posted. If this is the case, the text you are reading [...]

It’s a server issue with my host. They have been notified. I have no ETA for a return to service.
My host maintains a server status page. Just check the server “Sawyer” to determine wither it’s a server problem.
UPDATE: I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. Everything is back up and running, less than a minute [...]

I am alive. I just spent my entire Friday under the weather. Thanks to the wonderful care (and medication) I received from Dr. David Holden, I am up and running, albeit a little weak. So forgive the paucity of posts.
I was able to toss together some posts on Bill’s Content, my blog about things unrelated [...]

Not only is Chicago Sun-Times owner Conrad Black innocent of all racketeering and fraud charged, he’s a freedom fighter and will refuse any offer of a plea bargain.
Translation: I still have enough money hidden away in foreign accounts to buy my way out of this mess.
Conrad Black,Sun-Times

Who said this:
Unfortunately, several of our editorials … have been based on faulty facts, providing nothing but misinformation and misrepresentation. This is unacceptable, considering that the purpose of our opinions page is to facilitate meaningful dialogue among the members of the campus community and beyond.
Unfortunately, it was the Daily Illini, and not the Journal [...]

School Superintendent Ken Hinton knew when he handed his counter proposal for a new Glen Oak School to Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis, that it would be dead on arrival. The district is insisting pm building a huge suburban-style megaplex campus on the park. The option to build at the present site with acres in addition [...]

I’ve invested all my cash in Beanie Babies. And even if I had $1 million to donate anonymously, I wouldn’t pick Glen Oak Zoo expansion.
Glen Oak Zoo,Glen Oak Park

I’ve been getting a lot of grief from commenters about my most recent column in the Community Word. They feel I was way too harsh with employees of the City of Peoria. Nonsense, I replied. I was a tad critical, but only because I want to light a fire under poor performing employees and get [...]

Phil Luciano tells of a violent schoolyard fight that sent one child to the hospital. He wonders why kids don’t follow the rules that they did when he was a kid. My two cents: I don’t recall being in many of the kids of friendly spats Phil seems to recall. I recall having to [...]

The committee that’s running the naming contest for the new downtown Peoria museum decided to wait until next week to let us in on what choices voters will have. My two cents: These these names were decided by a committee, I’m not expecting anything remotely sensible. The place is going to be a financial [...]

They say switching to two-way traffic on Jefferson and Adams in downtown Peoria would cost something like $10 million. The Heart of Peoria Commission seems to love the idea, while public officials like public works director Steve Van Winkle do not. My two cents: I’d love for their to be two-way traffic on all [...]

Columnist Pam Adams uses the Gaslight Apartments mess to go on a rant about how neighborhood associations hate everyone who rents a home. Funny how I have never, ever encountered a neighborhood association activist who expressed any such sentiment. Do they generally prefer to have owner occupied homes? Yes. Do they hate all renters [...]

It turns out that the company the owners of Gaslight Square Apartments hired to manage the property, Alliance Residential Management of Houston, paid $7.5 million for a site in Denver, where it plans to build 227 apartments and retail complex. Too bad they couldn’t’ afford to even mow the freekin’ lawn, let alone fix [...]

After last year’s shooting inside Woodruff High School, the public demanded metal detectors. School Superintendent Ken Hinton responded by:
1. Saying he was seriously considering recommending they be installed.
2. Deciding, after consulting with building principals, not to do so because of cost and time concerns.
3. Never bothering to tell anybody, including certain school board members.
4. [...]

The Bielfeldt Foundation has increased its donations this year, but it still isn’t as charitable as it once was before all the mismanagement accusations. My two cents: I’m not capable of judging whether or not the organization was mismanaged or not. But I do notice that some of their donations seem to be going [...]