With Rep. Leitch’s help, museum’s ‘Plan B’ is to screw taxpayers yet again
Peoria City Council member Robert Manning relentlessly grilled Lakeview Museum Board President Jim Vergon what their “Plan B” is should the state not come up with the New Market Tax Credits that backers all but assured the city is a done deal. He never really came up with an answer, other than sputtering some vague generalities.Well, C.J. Summers has heard from different sources what “Plan B†is, and taxpayers should be prepared to take one in the shorts if it’s true:
But I’ve heard a rumor that the real “plan B†is for the museum to get money through the Public Building Commission, which of course would be collected through property taxes, all without a referendum or any council action whatsoever. “How can that be,†you ask, “when they’re a private organization and not a public one?†The rumor mill says that Rep. Dave Leitch is already working on legislation that would take care of that problem. Hey, he did it for District 150 — who says he couldn’t amend the law again to allow a “public†museum? He got the city council to use public dollars to guarantee a private loan for Firefly Energy. I wouldn’t be too quick to pass this off as an impossibility.
This is exactly the sort of sneaky, backdoor thing Leitch does. While former State Sen. George Shadid and former State Rep. Ricca Slone was trying to get newly elected Gov. Rod Blagojevich to re-open the Zeller Mental Health Center, Leitch was sneaking through an agreement to lease the facility to Illinois Central College for virtually no payback to the state at all. The negative effect of Zeller’s closing is still being felt.
Remember also, that Leitch helped grease the wheels for the city’s backing of loans for Firefly Energy. The bank making the loans? National City bank, of course, the same bank where Leitch is a vice president.
Leitch is tight with his former co-workers at the Peoria Journal Star, which never seems to call him out. Here’s what’s wrong with using the Public Building Commission: It was designed help local governments raise money by selling bonds to pay for public works project. What public project? Caterpillar’s planned visitor center? Hardly. The new museum? No, it’s going to be owned by Lakeview Museum, a privately run non-for-profit organization. Not one member of Lakeview’s board is elected by the public. Indeed, Vergon argued strongly for the right of the museum to be able to control it’s own destiny without interference from the elected Peoria City Council.
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 
