No concessions, so no city council meeting tomorrow
From a press release:
Date: November 16, 2009
Released by: Alma Brown, Communications Manager
Subject: CANCELLATION OF COUNCIL MEETING
Pursuant to Rule 32 of the Council Rules, the Peoria City Council Meeting scheduled for November 17, 2009 is hereby canceled.
The cancellation is due to the City Council’s inability to make budget decisions necessary to close the deficit and bring forward a balanced budget in the absence of specific concession information from our Police Benevolent and AFSCME bargaining units.
The City Council has directed staff to continue meeting with these units in order to reach agreement on the requested concessions.
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 
Village of Henry is looking for a Police Chief. So maybe one of soon to be laid off Peoria’s finest will find a comfy place to work nearby.
As a veteran of many small-town newspapers, I assure you that many if not ALL of the problems facing big city cops are also found in small towns. And the politics are not as troublesome in Peoria as they are in smaller towns. I’m sure that residents of Chicago and New York consider the PPD to be something akin to Andy and Barney.
This memo sounds similar to the old whine, “If they’re not gonna play by our rules, we’ll take our bat and ball and go home.”
I agree — what a cop-out (pun intended). Seems like the City budget could use a few more hours of attention whether the issue of concessions are on the table or not. There are clearly many other issues that should be discussed “in public” to begin to tackle the larger issue — what so many are overlooking is that this is NOT a one year issue but a major structural financial problem the city is facing. It is certainly worth a few hours of our Councilmembers time to discuss alternatives necessary to close the gap and reposition the City to live within it’s revenue streams.
Are you *#@! kidding me?! Staff (not the Council) is going to continue to work with these groups behind the scenes, but the Council won’t show up for work Tuesday night to work on the numerous other challenges facing Peoria?! Niiiiiiiiiiiice. Only government could come up with such a rule.