One of the things you will notice about Peoria Pundit is that this blog doesn’t waste a lot of bandwidth agonizing over how the recession/depression/whatever is affecting city and state budgets.
Actually, I absolutely love the fact that the lack of “revenue” (incoming taxes) is causing politicians to have to actually make decisions and THINK about how they spend taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.
And it looks like the city of Peoria is looking to take care of essential services first. ‘vaporize’ service.
Emergency care for infants, rehabilitation for the mentally ill, after-school programs and soup kitchens are a sampling of the nearly two dozen programs that could take a significant hit so the city can patch its gaping $10 million budget deficit.
The concerns by community service agencies in Peoria are manifested by uncertainty on how much of a hit they might have to endure from state lawmakers who are battling a $9.2 billion deficit and are proposing 50 percent in statewide cuts to service agencies.
None of these agencies are part of Peoria city government. They are private groups with their own ways to get funding. No one is going to be holding a fund-raiser to pay for police salaries.
There are a lot of worthy charities, but it should be left to individual people to device on their own to give them money. They have no right to bypass ME and take money out of my wallet.
If we are going to be asking wage and salary freezes for police and fire, we can’t justify feel-good spending.
And frankly, I object to the tone of the article, as if the natural state of the universe is for these specific agencies to get money from the city.
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 
Am I wrong in thinking that some the social service agencies in question enter into a competitive process to obtain grants from a portion of the Community Development Block Grant funds from the federal government? I agree that the city needs to carefully budget it’s limited funds. It is too late now, but I would much rather see a grant for emergency care for infants than all the money being spent of changing to a new city logo. Now, that was a really a “wise” investment in meeting a need in the community.
It is more than the cuts from city funding, add to that the cuts in state funding and you have a serious impact of services that enhance the quality of life in Peoria. Center for Prevention of Abuse serves victims of domestic violence from all over the city and the need is great. What if half their staff and services go away? Crittendon Center provides emergency care for children in times of need. It is a long list of providers that do raise their own funds, but need to fill a gap.
While the city is trying to fill it’s gap, I hope it doesn’t do it all on the backs of all the programs that meet crisis needs. The quality of life for all of us is involved. Cut wisely, please.
The list of worthy charities is much, much longer than those who receive these CDBG from the city. If the criteria for handing them money is “are they worthy, then ALL of them should be getting the money. So, obviously, the value of the charity is not the criteria for giving them the cash.
And the criteria cannot be “We, we spent money in the past on dumb stuff, like a new city logo.” The answer to that is “we need to spend less on dumb stuff, and more on essential stuff, period” not “We need to divert spending away from dumb stuff to not-essential stuff.”
Look at it this way: I receive a certain amount of money in my paycheck. Before I can even think of giving any of this cash to a charity, I have to make sure my essential needs are met. I have to pay for rent, food, clothes, medical bills. THEN I think about how donating to charity.
And we are not helping any Peorian by doing reducing the number of police on the street.
Reducing police on the street? In the ‘arrests’ I have witnessed, namely peaceful protesters against war or animal abuse, dozens of police and vehicles appeared to collar one or two people.
Overkill, big time. Time and money wasted. But that’s a ’safe’ arrest, as the ‘perp’ is a non-violent protester.
Incidentally the SAtty didn’t prosecute these people, a wise decision.
Do the police need more money or staff? Based on these situations, I would say no. But their workload will increase if basic services for the poor are ‘vaporized,’ and desperate people turn to crime.
Do we want Peoria to be a 3rd world city, a few rich and thousands of desperate poor, a la Latin America? That’s where we’re headed with these kinds of decisions. So an elite few will live in guarded, gated communities, and the rest of us will take our chances.
Elaine: Yes, that’s why Peoria has a crime problem: The countless man hours the police are spending harassing peaceful protesters. End sarcasm. In most arrests I have covered, police respond in force when they arrest individual persons for drunk driving, domestic abuse, outstanding warrants, etc.
And we can attribute the growth of gated communities to the lack of faith those of us with money have in the adequacy of the police to handle crime. The poor don’t have that option. They have to rely on the police for security. A reduction in the essential service of police protection will only hurt those who CANNOT AFFORD to live in gates communities.
I could start with no more arbors, no new infrastructure in Dunlap school district, no more hotels, hold off on the museum until…..well just until, hold off on library expansion. I don’t mind paying for the toters, heck I don’t even mind the $6 garbage fee. Just keep the police on the beat and basic safety net programs afloat.
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