46 search results for "peoria riverfront museum"

Covering Peoria for 11 years, it was very easy for me to become jaded and dark, as the city and county invested in things that just didn’t seem to make much sense, and they turned out to be even bigger failures and calamities than even the skeptics had predicted at the outset. But before...
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Here’s an idea, Peoria City Council. Instead of throwing good money after bad building hotels and shiny glass riverfront museums, how about investing in something that WILL draw high0tech jobs to Peoria. Something like THIS: Google, the world’s biggest online search engine, wants to turbocharge your Internet connection. The company said Wednesday it is getting into...
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UPDATE: It turns out there was wrong information in the original article. The meeting in question was not closed to the public, so there would be no violation of the Open Meeting Act. My apologies. This is one of the most remarkable posts I’ve seen for a while. Peoria County Board member Merle Widmer listened...
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Merle Widmer printing the letter on his blog: All County Board members received a letter dated 1/20/10 from Jim Owens, Caterpillar Chairman and CEO, and from Douglas R. Oberhelman, Vice-Chairman and CEO Elect stating in part “Delays (by the county) have cost our community $5 million dollars in New Market Tax Credits”. The letter in...
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A long-time member of the Peoria Housing Authority board is getting replaced with a Caterpillar cemployee: Mayor Jim Ardis said Aurthur Perkins, who first joined the PHA board in 1996, is not being appointed to another term by him this week, though he noted that all commissioners do a “great job.” Ardis said a person...
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Merle Widmer has some breaking news about the Peoria Riverfront Museum: Even though I am a member of the Peoria County Board, I did not learn until yesterday that the Federal Government through New Market Tax Credits (taxpayer dollars), approximately $6,201,572.00, will complete the funding of the PRM building bringing the total of local, state...
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Brad Harding is having a tough time finding fellow members on the Peoria County Board willing stand up for taxpayers and demand that backers cough up the private funding that voters where promised for the riverfront museum project: Peoria County voters in April approved a quarter-cent sales tax increase to raise up to $40 million...
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Several yeahs ago, the powers that be in Bloomington decided that there HAD to be a new Coliseum in their fair city. Merle Widmer took a look at clippings from The Pantagraph and sees some parallels between their project and Peoria Riverfront Museum: I know that the museum pushers are going to say “but we...
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Bad news for people who count on their job at Caterpillar to pay their bills: Thousands of Caterpillar Inc. employees will be either on vacation or temporarily laid off in the Peoria area over the next two weeks, the company confirmed Friday. Too bad folks. I’m sure the band won’t mind you missing a payment. But all...
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Merle Widmer wants to know if Aaron Schock and the stimulus package will be used to bail out the museum project. I find these non-priority requests in the process of being authorized by a Republican who is always hammering the Democrats for giving away our tax dollars as being more than interesting. I’m still waiting...
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A reliable source who himself heard from a reliable source tells me that Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis has been talking to millionaire developer John Hammons about building a new hotel on the site of the former Sears in downtown Peoria. It if happens, that essentially kills the museum project on the site, I am...
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Hey, who says gridlock isn’t a good thing? They passed an “unbalanced” budget, which means Gov. Blagojevich will probably veto it. But here’s the good news for Peoria taxpayers: Among the bills ensnarled in the dispute – and unable to advance to the governor’s desk – are several pertaining to the Peoria area. Those measures would...
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Links are via the Journal Star. The snarky commentary is my own: We’re one step toward an involuntary county-wide tax to pay for a regional museum no one wants to pay for voluntarily. All it needs is approval from the House of representatives and the governor. Aaron Schock and David Leitch are already on board....
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Hat’s off to PeoriaIllinoisan, for catching this gem that I missed in today’s article about med school grads: Medical students around the country on Thursday performed the annual rites of Match Day, the day they learned where they will spend the next five years as medical residents. The 44 candidates for graduation...
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Note: This is a post from yesterday, but I bumped it up a bit. Wanna hear what goes on in Springfield? The intrepid radio reporter Dave Dahl sent me an mp3 file of the Illinois House debating whether or not there should be an opportunity to raise taxes county-wide to pay a $15 appropriation for...
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