Local: If District 150 wants to partner with the city, then let’s make it official
Peoria School District 150 board member Jim Stowell thinks the Cty of Peoria ought to cough up 10 percent of the cost of building a new school on the East Bluff. Apparently the $344,000 the city has promised the district (not to mention that $200,000 that MIGHT come their way) isn’t enough. He wants at least $2 million — 10 percent of the cost of building the school.
While I the mind boggles that a new school could cost $20 million, I do see Stowell’s point. I mean, tax money is tax money, right? I mean, aren’t we all in this together? And shouldn’t we all be putting our petty jurisdictional bickering aside? For God’s sake, think of the children!
Unfortunately, there are some issues that have to be addressed. First, not all Peoria taxpayers live in District 15o. Nor to all District 150 taxpayers live in the city, for that matter. So, the only fair thing to do is to redraw all the lines. The state legislature should draft a law making all property within the City of Peoria part of the same school district. Likewise, all property on the District 150 tax rolls that is outside city limits should be assigned to some other school district, like Dunlap, Limestone or Peoria Heights.
And once District 150 and the City of Peoria share the same borders, City of Peoria government — namely the Peoria City Council — should be made responsible for all spending on schools. Of course, this means that we really won’t need an elected School Board any longer. After all, we already have an elected City Council, whom the voters hold responsible for spending and taxes.
I’ve advocated for a city takeover of the school district for a long time. But takeover is such a harsh word. Call it a “collaborative” process.
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 
Bill lets go one better, consolidate all schools in Peoria County under one district and one superintendent, one board of education and no bussing across town/ townships. Any part of the current district that are outside of the County boundaries should be detached to the county in which it is located. Any district buildings in Peo county that serves mostly non Peo county residents shall be exempted from County consolidation.
If the City Council could handle city affairs perfectly (or close to it), and on time, this thought would make perfect sense.
It still makes more sense than keeping Dist. 150 in charge of anything… even the pop machines.
Carrot and sitck, Manning brings a carrot and Stowel brings a stick. It was Mr. Manning that offered to help #150 now Stowel want more$$$ What a joke. Mr Manning wants to set down and talk about the issues, I think #150 is risking loosing any partnershp with the city if they move from the Glen Oak site and press for more money.
#150 needs to sell the White property and the PROSPECT property now and build the new school The sale of both would help the construction $$$ and settle this issue.White school is landlocked on 2 sides and has value as to sale price acording to #150. They wanted an exsseive amount for durring the bidding, the old Glen Oak school value ?
If Stowel want more $$$ from the city fine. then the city needs to charge them for the closure of streets, moving of utlities,permits, and other items that the city will bear with the closure of streets. Also if #150 wishes to sell Glen Oak school they will need the blessing of the city on changes of use unless it becomes another school.
Stowel comes to the table with a” vocal minorty” chip. I guess he still can’t hear what the residents of the East Bluff said.
Bravo to Mr. Stowell. It seems the City was more than willing to make demands of the District and then turn a blind eye to the additional costs. I think the City should be called on it and much more.
It is not all the District’s fault that Peoria has eroded in the fashion that it has. The City Council has not made decisions that allowed Peoria to keep up with the times and remain an attractive place for families to reside.
[...] I have argued before (here and here), it makes sense for the city to operate the school system, since the economic viability [...]
[...] before on this site. Most recently, I wrote that I didn’t think much of his attempt to try to squeeze a bigger contribution from the city for the construction of a new Glen Oak School. You see, Mr. Stowell was the member of [...]