Today’s news: Getting tough on landlords
Links via the Journal Star, unless noted:
- Once again, evil railroad tracks have lured someone into the path of an oncoming locomotive device. This time, it’s a pickup track that collided with a track sweeper.
- Speaking of rail, blogger C.J. Summers blisters the Journal Star for its illogical opposition to running the Rock Island Trail next to the existing Kellar Branch. Even if the Peoria Park District’s cost estimates are correct (and they aren’t, as they were pulled from thin air and lack any logical basis) it would still cost less than the districts’ zoo expansion project, which has failed to raise adequate donations and has resorted to involuntary donations — a tax increase. If the walking/biking path enjoys the popular support that its backers SAY it does, certainly they will put their money where their mouths are.
- By the way, HOI News tells us that Globe Energy wants to use the Kellar Branch. This might mean, hold onto your hat, good-paying manufacturing jobs. The sort of jobs that residential developer David Maloof told us aren’t to be had along the Kellar Branch.
- A local judge ruled for the city in this long-going dispute over equal pay for women. Now, 3rd District Court in Ottawa has unanimously ruled for the female employees. The difference is going to cost the city millions, unless it wins on appeal. Perhaps the city would benefit from a new, and unbiased set of eyes looking at the facts.
- My sympathies to the family and friends of Hung “John” Tien, who was found murdered in his home yesterday. This has all the earmarks of a home invasion gone wrong, or a stranger-on-stranger crime. That’s a rarity in Peoria, where it seems most of the murder is a case of one criminal killing another.
- As much as I despise bad landlords who rent to thugs, I have to wonder if giving the city the power to fine the hell out of landlords if they rent to people the police say are bad guys just might be giving too much power to the government. It amounts to giving the city government the power to deny people the right to live within the city limits. I might trust the police to be fair, but I’ve heard too many honor stories about Peoria’s housing court to have total faith in any city-run adjudication process. Is there any support in place to let landlords know when an applicant for a rental home or apartment might include a family member who is a known criminal? Certainly, the current system isn’t working. The source of this problem is a criminal justice system that tends to put criminals back on the street before the ink is dry on the arrest papers. The solution is to fix that problem (by electing tougher prosecutors and judges, and making sure there is room to put the criminals). But until this happens, I don’t blame the city for trying other solutions. But there needs to be safeguards to prevent abuse.
- It looks like Peoria County voters will have an opportunity to express their opinion on whether or not to provide additional taxpayer cash to pay for a museum on the former Sears Block. Perhaps after voters tell the county by a 2-1 margin to go to Hell, the movers and shakers will stop trying to shove this stupid idea down everyones throat.
UPDATE: Corrected the name of the developer. My apologies.
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 
It’s breathtaking how fast the museum turned into a boondoggle, even though all the signs were there from the beginning. But now that the rat hole has been created, it’s time to start shoveling decades of cash into it.
We need to get this done pronto, so tourists from all over the world can book their flights to Peoria.
Turn the museum block into a park.
I wish people would remember that it is about nuisance property which may be rental or it may be owner occupied. In the 9 years that I have lived on the East Bluff, the two biggest nuisance properties (drugs, theft, shootings, and other criminal behavior) were owner-occupied not rental.
If the city and others Peorians persist in fashioning rules about nuisance property with the false belief that kicking the bad renters out of the neighborhood will fix things then that leaves neighbors of ower occupied nuisance property with very little remedy.
Any bets on the name for the Museum’s version of “Libraries For All” or when we will see the first yard sign go up?
Billy,
I think you mean David Maloof, not David Joseph. Maloof has attended Peoria city council and Peoria Heights Village Board meetings and is the one that claimed Globe Energy is just “a heating supply contractor.”
Uh huh.
Is it the landlords responsibility to make sure that someone isn’t selling drugs out of that house? Sorry, I was under the impression that this was the job of the police.
Without rental properties, you would have hundreds of shit houses just sitting there falling apart. Is that what the city and taxpayers want?
Granted, you probably shouldn’t knowingly rent a house to a drug dealer, but to hold a landlord criminally responsible for what is going on in a rental house is ludicrous. And just another example of too much government.
“Granted, you probably shouldn’t knowingly rent a house to a drug dealer, but to hold a landlord criminally responsible for what is going on in a rental house is ludicrous.” Um, the ordinance would hold a landlord criminally repsonsible for what was going on, but responsible for its continuation once he/she has been notified.