Tax breaks and drainage on tap for City Council
The agenda for the Aug. 14 Peoria City Council meeting is on the Web:
- Prairie Farms is asking the city to extend its enterprise zone to it’s facility in the 2000 block of North University. The expansion would let the city waive sales and property taxes to help pay for a $1 million expansion. The total exemption would be for $40,000. Of that, $12,500 would come from the city, the rest from other taxing bodies.
Nothing in the document in the council packet mentions any additional jobs this could create. No doubt this will be described as job retention.
- The appointment of Frank McCabe and Andrew D. Cassidy is again on the council agenda. McCabe is a resident of Edwards, not Peoria. The residency issue was discussed briefly at the last meeting, three weeks ago. Frankly, I am more concerned about whether or not any existing liquor commission members are involved in the bar business, either as an owner or landlord, or an employee of an owner or landlord.
- The change in plans for the Museum Square project are also on the agenda. There’s been a reduction in parking spaces, and and the administration is warning against allowing the designs to postpone construction of the retail paces that were in the original plans. The belief is that if they aren’t built now, they never will be. Planners made the changes to reflect the difficulty in raising enough money to build the structure as originally planned.
- The Gang of 11 also will discuss awarding a $250,000 contract bid from Illinois Civil Contractors for a drainage project at 5546 N. Prospect Road. Councilman Bill Spears — whose 4th District has numerous, long standing drainage problems — has questioned why this project suddenly vaulted at the top of the list. City Engineer Gene Hewitt says there are private buildings at risk of damage if the drainage problems are not fixed.
- Council member wants to change the rules to let the city pay for the entire $230,000 cost of an street lighting project in the Orchard District (also known as the Flora-Ellis neighborhood). Normally, the neighborhood district residents would have to foot 50 percent of the costs. An earlier attempt to secure funding from the neighborhood residents failed. There would have to be Community Development Block Grant money available and the neighborhood association would have to approve.
I can imagine there might be some concerns expressed about the rules change and the cost involved
That’s enough for now. I might have some more outtakes later.
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 
Billy: do you have sodme information that some proposed or present member of the Liquor commission has an interest in a tavern? You so indicated in your column!