Thank you.

Rainfall in the City of Peoria has caused a sewer overflow into the Illinois River recently from one or more locations shown on the map located here.

When this warning is posted, please avoid full-body contact with the Illinois River in the area downstream from Detweiller Marina, as shown on the map. You may get sick if you swallow river water while swimming, Jet Skiing, or water skiing in these areas after a sewer overflow.

The City of Peoria is developing a long-term plan to reduce sewage overflows to the river during wet weather, as required under the Clean Water Act.

Do we go to the Washington Post?

Palin’s decision to exit the governorship was as sudden and unexpected as her arrival on the national stage when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) defied all predictions and selected her to be his 2008 vice presidential running mate. From that day in August, to yesterday’s announcement that she plans to step down, she has been one of the country’s most compelling and controversial politicians — and almost always one of the most enigmatic.

Analysis? It’s like the guy sat down and just rattled off some stream-of-conscious nonsense.

Instead, we can go to The Brad Blog:

Okay, I’ve now been able to get independent information from multiple sources that all of this precedes what are said to be possible federal indictments against Palin, concerning an embezzlement scandal related to the building of Palin’s house and the Wasilla Sports Complex built during her tenure as Mayor. Both structures, it is said, feature the “same windows, same wood, same products.” Federal investigators have been looking into this for some time, and indictments could be imminent, according to the Alaska sources.

And then there is Max Blumenthal over at the Daily Beast:

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide-open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

So why are the deep thinkers of the MSM going “wha th’?” while the bloggers are able to come up with rational explanations backed up by details? Because the bloggers did much of the original reporting, that’s why. They kept on top of the story about the developers, while the MSM focused its attention on lame-ass, nothing issues like whether Dave Letterman was going to apologize for *gasp* telling a rude joke.

As is usually the case with these sorts of things, the project as originally described back when the developers brought it up isn’t exactly what is appearing on paper. The neighbors are opposed — well, some of them — and don;t want the variances to be granted.

C.J. doesn’t like some of the variances and says the project should be changed. That didn’t happen and he’s ticked off.

It passed the Zoning Commission with next to no deliberation. Marj Klise was the only “no” vote. One of the commissioners said that provisions in the Land Development Code were “open to interpretation” — which is to say, meaningless. That was enlightening.

Yes, it certainly was enlightening.

I think it shows we don’t need zoning codes. Everyone thinks that is we don’t have a cadre of anal-retentive zoning  inspectors running all over the place, enforcing the ruless, the city will become an a nightmare. One example I am constantly given when I make this argument is that pig farms will up next to private homes.

The horror, the horror.

Actually folks, no one wants to put a pig farm next to your home. However, someone MAY may want to open a mom-and-pop store on your block, because thy think they can make a buck doing it. Zoning the city government’s way of saying: “No, you should try to make a buck HERE, where our developer pal has built a strip mall.”

Yes, some people will complain about having a store on your block will ruin property values.  I don’t know anyone who doesn’t wish they didn’t have to drive a mile from their house to buy a friggin’ half-gallon of milk at a store owned by a corporation.

Another thing zoning codes usually do is keep little old ladies from building a fence in their yard, or hassle property owners about the size of their awnings. Zoning codes almost never stand in the way of developers, as this example shows.

So, I propose that — as an experiment — the city simply does away with zoning rules for about one year. We’ll see if any pig farms and rendering plants go up next to the castles on Grand View Drive. I strongly suspect there will be a building boom. And the general ugliness will be at the exact same level, as will the agitation neighbors feel when the eyesore they have gotten used to is replaced with the unknown.

It might be worthwhile to attend. I can think of all sorts of wonderful questions to ask.

NOTICE FOR JULY 7, 2009, FEMA 003 (.PDF format)

Date: July 2, 2009
Released by: Alma Brown, Communications Manager, 494-8554
Subject: Road Closure

Turner Construction is planning to kick off the major portion of phase I for the Hamilton Boulevard reconstruction on Monday, July 6, 2009. Hamilton Blvd. will be closed to all traffic from the south side of Crescent Ave to the north side of Glen Oak until October 23, 2009. Southbound Hamilton traffic will detour to Randolph Ave. to North St. to Main St. to Glen Oak. Northbound Hamilton will detour to Glen Oak, to Main St., to Crescent Ave. The Emergency Department remains open with access via Crescent Ave. from Main St. or southbound Hamilton.

Attached, please find a map to clarify the closure.

At least they aren’t detouring traffic down MY block on Randolph, nor are they blocking off traffic.

But then, the last time the Greater Peoria Sanitation District did work on that area, they promised not to block access to Hamilton for people who live in the 200 block of Randolph. And of course, they did exactly that very thing.

So, I anticipate the worst.

In my column in this week’s print edition, I mistakenly said the Tribune was paying Chicago Now bloggers $5 per 10,000 hits. I called that the equivalent of carfare.

I stand corrected: the Tribune’s paying $5 per 1,000 local hits, the equivalent of — well, carfare. Bill Adee, the paper’s innovation chief, tells me Chicago Now has some 65 bloggers and last month recorded 700,000 pageviews. That works out to $3,500 split 65 ways, or about $54 a blogger for the month.

I sat down and added up all my add revenue during the course of a year, divided by 12 and concluded that I earned roughly $150 a month. Of course, Site Meter tells me my pageviews are roughly 50,000 a month.

It’s carfare. But it’s also Web hosting fare. And ISP fare. If I quit my job and start selling ads like crazy and manage to consistently get 15-20 times the ad revenue I currently get, I can make a living from full-time blogging. At least I have a head start over those saps at Chicago Now.

Woo Hoo!

First: I am sorry to see any local business going out of business. Well, not really. There are SOME local businesses I’d like to see ridden out of town on a rail, with its owners and managers covered in hot tar and chicken feathers. But Lester’s Donuts is not one of them.

Second: The media picks and chooses which “local business looks like it MAY close” story to report. About a year ago, I was trying to get ANY local media outlet to report that my then employer — for the former SVI Media — had changed hands yet again and they they were outsourcing their call center to the Philippines. Weeks later, they all printed the same press release (exception: WMBD1470 did a brief story) . No stories about the company history, no interviews with employees about the impact on their lives. Nada.

Next time I try to tip off the media, I’ll hand out free donuts.

There’s never been a better time to sign up. If you are very concerned about preserving your anonymity, I can work with you and still benefit from blogging on a local blogging/social network.

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The size of this site if far, far, far less and my monthly transfer rate does not approach this.

I resolved previous problems with down time by reducing server load. I did that by moving my personal blog (which you are reading now) off the Blog Peoria Project and onto it’s own server. I also removed a TON of plugins that added functionality and extra features for member bloggers.

I’ve reinstalled BuddyPress (much more stable than previous installations) and added some new plugins and widgets that users might want to play around with.

Check it out: