Liveblogging: Peoria City Council, 6

Item 10: Rezoning 921 W. Hampshire Road.

Motion deny approved.

Unfinished business, fleet maintenance.

Councilman Gary Sandberg, says denial not only about cost. City not meeting requirements in own Request For Proposals (RFP)? Oliver says he’s not aware of this email. Performance standards of city as not as high as what they were asking bidders to meet. Are we comparing apples with apples? Assistant City Manager: We did measure costs, comparing two systems. Councilman George Jacob. Says we were asking bedders to run two minute mile. Challenge is for city to test new things. It’s important we not just go through the motions but to get comparable data. Before council goes further, and perhaps ask for tax increases, we get all the data we can.

Passed 10-1, Jacob votes no.

Unfinished business: Motion to approve ordinance for impounding non-inoculated animals.

Passed unanimously.

Unfinished business: Parental responsibility. Turner wants to table allow us to set a date for city wide forum on initiative. Wants input from faith-based community. Nichting seconds, wants it like charrette process used to draft the Heart of Peoria Plan. Direction from citizens. There will be folks who won’t like this because it asks folks to change behavior.

I thought they couldn’t discuss issue when the motion is to table.  Shaun Newell of WMBD leans over and asks me the same thing.

Manning is talking about issue itself, not tabling. He is stating examples of what these forums could discuss. He reigns it in and stops.

Passed, tabled.

New business: Spears asks  for report on what they do in Chicago, namely giving precincts the power to vote themselves dry. Forces bars to get along with neighborhoods. ALL bars close. Passes.

Gulley: Wants gun buy backs on agenda. Done.

Sandberg: Peoria AZ invited Peoria representative to its anniversary. Peoria AZ was founded by four Peoria IL families. Sandberg attended. “I really didn’t cause much trouble.” It’s a fascinating council, three woman, three men, mayor. Two council members are teachers. Two are directly affiliated with water company. In Peoria AZ, you cannot build anything unless you can prove a 100 years supply of water.

Nichting: People are having sticker shock when they receive assessed valuation. It’s imperative we have our assessor come and lay out Illinois law and how she is required to do certain things by law. Wants public to know the city has a very small role in determining people’s property taxes.

Ardis: Addressed joint meeting, school district. He said the meeting identified several areas on which the city can help: magnet school model, enhancing communities surrounding the schools.

Also, Ardis sent an email to everyone regarding agenda distribution. Staff meetings will be on off-meeting Tuesdays, agenda distributed following Wednesdays.

Firefly Energy awarded Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award. Puts a lot of credibility to decision to support them financially (I will have to follow up on this, I was promised a copy of this press release when it happened, and I never got it).
New reporter covering us, Jennifer Davis got out of here without us mentioning anything. Welcome to John Sharp.

Jacob: Says there is a communication an issue. There needs to be clearing house to promote all the activities going on in neighborhoods, so council members will not miss them.

Gulley: Needs to be a calender on the Web where anyone can send information and have it posted.

Oliver: Web shows meetings, often not special events. We need to be “sacred” as we decide who to allow to post.

Annual town financial report. Vote to receive and file and accept passes.