I grew up in the Glen Oak School neighborhood. Hell, with the new configuration, there’s likely to be ang lot or a playground just across the street from my old home on the corner of Frye And Maryland.
I share the feelings expressed here. I’m NOT convinced that these spiffy super-sized campuses are the cure-all that [...]

Peoria School District 150 will build a new East Bluff “birth-through-8th-grade” school on the site of the current Glen Oak School. The exact configuration has not been determined.
It is, obviously, a huge victory for the people who live in and near the East Bluff who fought for this outcome from the very instant years ago [...]

Kudos to the Journal Star’s Clare Jellick. Once again, she’s used her j-blog to insert leftover material from her notebook into the public discussion, this time to provide some background to Tuesday’s article about Peoria School District 150’s sudden decision to consider locating its new East Bluff school at the site of the now-closed White [...]

Clare Jellick is reporting that the city is still willing to spend $500,000 to help them build a new school in the East Bluff to help replace Glen Oak School. First, it’s my understanding the offer was never off the table, just that District 150 wasn’t budging. Second: I reported two weeks ago that District [...]

Really, I don’t want to discourage any media organization from covering neighborhood issues in Peoria. And the reporter involved in a very lovely person. But I have to scratch my head at a report saying that an East Bluff neighborhood is creating a community watch organization when the participants live on West Virginia Avenue. I’ve [...]

Belated kudos to one of my favorite couples, who were among those honored at last week’s neighborhood awards banquet:
The awards given out that night recognized individual members of the community who gave unselfishly. The prestigious Mayor’s Award went to Mitch and Nancy Mitchell of East Bluff United Neighborhood Association. The award is for those [...]

Today’s links are via the Journal Star:

Clare Jellick’s article on the Manual restructuring is up. It includes the list of “recommendations” that the various subcommittees working on the plan asked the board to approve. The meat of the story is that they want the new Manual to operate under a longer school day, a longer [...]

I came away from tonight’s District 150 School Board meeting feeling better about the possibility that they will eventually decide to built two new schools to replace the three Woodruff High School feeder schools they plan to close.
The board meet as a committee of the whole today, a less former event that an official meeting, [...]

The city’s basketball hoop ordinance was supposed to help residents reclaim their streets from the toughs and punks. But too many people are telling me the ordinance isn’t enforced nearly enough. I was visiting a friend on East Thrush Street this morning. There’s a mobile basketball hoop set out in front of the house at [...]

Jerry Klein, in today’s Journal Star, bemoans the good-old-days when kids used to play in the streets. They are going to take away Jerry’s curmudgeon credentials for this. Usually, all you hear from the senior set are complaints about children running wild in the streets.
I pretty much ran wild as a kid, at least when [...]

Remember the rental property at 322 E. Thrush whose condition poor condition created questions for city hall and was the site of a rally by neighbors? A friend in the East Bluff tells me this morning that a for sale sign has gone up in front of the home. A recent inspection apparently found that [...]

The following are paragraphs from my upcoming column in The Community Word, due on newsstands next week.
Here is a tale that is truly conspiratorial. I have no idea if it is true or not. I’m printing it because once it’s out there, there’s a chance more information could come forth to confirm or deny it. [...]

The following was posted at the East Bluff Peoria Yahoo! group site:
Some neighbors have approached me about an opportunity we have to hold a problem landlord accountable. The house is 322 E Thrush. Tomorrow (Friday) morning at 10:45 citizens concerned may gather, peacefully and following all legalities, to let all property owners know that we [...]

I was struck by the tone of this paragraph:
Matheson said the location for the new school is final, but the programs that go into it are not. He encouraged the residents to be part of the process to design the school, which will take place in the coming months.
Matheson really thinks he’s in charge, doesn’t [...]

On the very same day that the Journal Star first reported on plans to build a Peoria School District 150’s “community school” on property owned by the Peoria Park District, the paper ran an glowing editorial calling it a fine example of inter-governmental partnership and a win for the community. The very next day, the [...]