Problems are for Solving

No Museum Tax.org
Brought to you by Citizens for Responsible Spending

Vote NO April 7
The ballot question will be called Sales Tax to Support Public Facilities. Please vote NO on election day or during the early voting period of March 16 through April 2.

Vote NO on Public Facilities Sales Tax
On April 7, 2009, voters who live in Peoria County will decide whether to approve a .25% sales tax increase for public facilities purposes — specifically, to help construct the proposed Peoria Riverfront Museum. We believe Peoria County residents should vote NO.

http://www.nomuseumtax.org/

I voted early, and an enthusiastic no. If it only takes $17 per person to get this done, (btw that’s more for my large family–but I still only got one vote at the ballot box) then it should be easy to raise the funds. Especially if they’d spent all the money they spent lobbying and advertising for taking my money without consent.

Last night I ate at Two25, a new restaurant at the Mark Twain.

It was a freebee, a chance to go as a local blogger and review the restaurant for advertising purposes. Before I get into the review proper, let me say that Shane, a manger there, made a brilliant move having a group of local bloggers come out and eat there for free and write reviews. It shows that the management there understands that the way of the future is the web, and that local bloggers are a great source of positive publicity.

Of course it could have backfired. We could have hated it.

<backtrack to 2003>

My wife and I had a favorite restaurant in Peoria. We loved it. When we wanted something special, we went there, to Dominick’s. It was great. Pasta, steak, great service, beautiful decor. We loved it. And it closed.

Since then, we’ve found local places we liked at different times, and in different moods. But we’ve not found a place that I considered “fine dining” in all the ways I liked to replace Dominick’s since it closed.

Until last night.

I showed up a little before 7 and sat down and there were already a half dozen bloggers there. I’ve met quite a few local bloggers at blogger bashes and such before the evening, but none of them were there. Another 3-4 showed up before we got started and it was a good group.

I have this habit of sitting in the middle of a group and trying to take part in all the conversations. It never works but I keep trying. I didn’t write down the names or the blogs represented, but the ones I remember are Morton Malaise and Keep Passing the Open Windows (I’ll add more when I remember them).

I ordered an IPA to start out and looked over the menu. After some discussion with my neighbors at the table two of us decided to split the Calmari, which was the best I’ve had to date. It often is a little too chewy for me, but this was just perfect. I also got to try some of the Crab & Artichoke Au Gratin and some of the Escargot.

All of the appetizers I tried were fantastic. I would try any of them again, and I would have loved to try the Mushrooms or the Brie.

Then the salad came. I ventured out and had the Pear Salad, which came with dried cranberries, bleu cheese, walnuts and a strawberry vinaigrette.

I wasn’t sure how the tastes were going to work together, but since it was the most out of the ordinary, I had to try it. They had a house salad, and a spinach salad, and a Caesar–but I had to try the Pear.

I wasn’t disappointed. The amount of dressing on the salad was just right for my taste, and the flavors of the varied ingredients were just fantastic together.

With dinner I ordered a bottle of the Ridge vineyard Geyserville (2006 vintage) Zinfandel. We shared it around the table, and it was one of the finest Zins I have had–ever. They mentioned changing the wine list soon, and I hope that they keep the wines from that vineyard.

After a great deal of deliberation (they had veal and duck on the menu which I have a hard time turning down) I ordered the Rack of Lamb. It was cooked exactly as I had asked and served with asparagus and their 30 Layer Potato Au Gratin (a specialty) and everything was just beautiful. And flavorful. And delicious. And…. I loved it. I saved some to bring home (the wife couldn’t come) but I enjoyed every bite.

Dessert was the only mildly disappointing part–and only because I didn’t ask my questions before I ordered. I had the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, which isn’t made on site. For a dessert purchased off site, it was still pretty good, but had I asked before I ordered, I would have had the chocolate mousse with Chambord glaze. I tasted my neighbor’s and it was just lovely. Definitely getting that next time. Enjoyed the dessert nonetheless and ordered a Booker’s (neat) to go with it. This is a small batch bourbon not often found in local restaurants, and I enjoyed it greatly.

I was thoroughly impressed with everything (and the decor was nice too!) last night, and will certainly be back. Probably next month for my anniversary.

Thanks for the invite, Shane! It is one of the finest meals I’ve had, and rivals some of the restaurants in big cities like DC. I’ll be back as often as I can afford it.

And you bloggers that didn’t take him up on the invite–Shame on you! You missed out on a great meal and a great time.

Two25 is a great local restaurant and a credit to Peoria. Be sure to check it out soon!

For the year 2009, 43 out of the 50 states have budget problems. Most of those states had surpluses from 2005-2007. How many of those 43 states put funds away from the surplus for the lean years that might come? Not very many.

Why are the states having budget problems? Because tax revenues are down. The real estate market crash and the recession we’re entering will affect the state budgets by billions of dollars across our nation.

Local governments are not immune to the problem either. My own city just published a press release here on the changes they’re making to deal with the economic downturn.

Before I quote from the press release, look at this article detailing how the public sector pays 11% more in benefits and wages than the private sector. That’s state and local government numbers only, btw, not including Federal salaries. If you’re a state government employee or local government employee, on average you’ll be making 11% more than if you worked for a for-profit company, let alone a non-profit private charity.

I believe this is because government pay scales get instituted during private booms and are unadjusted when the bear markets come. So now, when layoffs and pay and benefit cuts are looming nationwide, government employees will enjoy the same benefits and automatic salary increases they enjoyed last year, while tax revenues plummet. The solution often chosen at these times is to raise taxes, rather than cut spending, which will only compound the problem. The fewer dollars able to be spent in the private market (because they were taken as taxes), the worse the economy will get.

Now to the release. Here are the changes Peoria is making:

The City always looks to use tax dollars most efficiently, but those efforts will be re-doubled in the coming months.”

Beyond the measures taken during the budget process, the City is identifying a number of cost-cutting steps. Those steps include:

• Instituting a sensible hiring freeze starting on January 1, 2009;
• Implementing recommendations from a recently completed report by the Energy Efficiency Task Force that will reduce fuel and electricity costs;
• Reducing the number of employee take-home cars; and,
• Realizing a savings of approximately $150,000 in the City’s refuse collection contract.

In early January, at the direction of the City Council, the entire senior staff of the City will gather for a series of workshops that will identify further contingency plans to be enacted if revenues are depressed. The finance staff is constantly monitoring receipts in order to identify trends before they become realities.

Starting at the bottom. In January the high paid city staff (senior staff for the city make six figure incomes) will gather for workshops. I’m guessing these workshops cost money.

Next line up: what does “realizing a savings” mean? Does that mean that they’re cutting the services back? That Waste Management just suddenly cut their prices? The whole phrase sounds suspicious.

Reducing take home cars? Why do public employees need take home cars? It’s a nice fringe benefit, but when taxes are high enough, those ought to have gone out the window in favor of a rainy day fund for times like this.

And a hiring freeze? What about a wage freeze? A benefit cut? Caterpillar has frozen all wages corporation wide, and management bonuses will be next to non-existent. And still people are losing jobs.

Mitch Daniels spoke at an event I attended recently and talked about how he turned Indiana from a huge deficit to a surplus in four years. Are you sitting down? He said “we spent less than we took in.” They didn’t raise taxes, they adjusted spending.

We are likely only at the beginning of what could be the biggest recession since the 1930’s. If the City of Peoria means business, they need to look ahead at what’s coming and prepare for it by taking big steps now, and finding unessential services that can be cut, and therefore jobs. Scale back benefits to be equal to what workers in the private sector have. Save money for when it gets worse.

And they can start by tossing out the idea of raising the sales tax to support a museum that not enough people want and trash this $40M taxpayer subsidy for a private hotel.

Last night after attending the meeting of the Peoria Neighborhood Alliance, Theresa and I needed to get some supper that wasn’t white flour pizza (the refreshment/supper at the meeting). TC wasn’t in the mood for One World, so we headed downtown.

Our default restaurant is Kelleher’s, but I was in the mood for something different, or even new. TC reminded me that we had talked about trying Richard’s on Main for a while now and still hadn’t.

We parked in front of the restaurant, arriving a little before 8, and got a prime parking spot. We rooted around for change before realizing that meters don’t need to be fed in the evening–a good start for our dinner!

The place was pretty empty (it’s Monday after all) and we decided to get a table rather than sit at the bar and be distracted by the football game.

Our appetites have been changing, and we’ve finally decided that it’s a better investment to not buy two entrees and end up taking half of both home, or overeating (we’d both like to lose weight). So after perusing the menu, we settled on splitting the fried portabello caps (hand breaded, we found out later) and the Ribeye with sautéed mushrooms. TC’s cutting back on carbs so we chose cottage cheese for the side order. Oh, and I had an Erdinger’s draught.

The beer was bigger than I expected, and Erdinger’s is a wonderful wheat ale (Bavarian) that I very much enjoy. Light and tasty. (My friend Ralph turned me on to it). The food arrived and we dug in.

The steak was prepared perfectly, and was tender and juicy and mmmmm so good. The mushrooms were very good, served with a side of ranch dress sing.

I liked the decor, it’s a beautifully done basement with tin ceiling tiles. I could have gone for the game being a bit quieter, but it was not as noisy, even then, as Kelleher’s would have been.

We’ll be back.

Saturday night Seth and Crystal and my dear wife and I spontaneously dropped out for a drink. I’d found out about a week ago about Water Street Wines, Cafe and Coffee from another local blog.

The place is in the former Big Easy Cafe location, around the corner from Rhodell’s and next to Rizzi’s on State, across the way from WTVP. It’s owned by the same owners as the Mackinaw Valley Vineyard, and should be a good investment for them to get their wines better known in the area. Between us all we tried seven different wines, and TC and I left with a bottle of Alexander’s Conquest, a lovely full-bodied red that I’m looking forward to popping open the next time we have a heavy beef meal. We also shared a piece of their Italian Cream Cake that was just fantastic to eat, especially on the heels of the flight of white wines, before starting into the reds. Seth and Crystal had a scone and I heard no complaints.

Because we were the only table there for a while, the manager spent a good deal of time talking with us and we got the whole story. The place hasn’t been opened long, and I’m pretty sure we’ll become regulars there before too long. Like many of the places on the river, they’ve used the warehouse architecture for their benefit, rather than covering up what used to be there. They have a couple of private rooms that could be used for meetings or parties (small ones). I’ve added them to my Peoria Links section of the sidebar and we will certainly be back!

…we will see you soon if the Lord wills.

Today a truck pulls away from Hopedale filled with the belongings of the Evans family. They are moving to Tennessee as the Lord calls Bryan and his family to a different ministry. We will sorely miss them, in so many ways, but we will see them as often as we can. Thankfully they’ll be visiting family and such here at least a couple of times each year and we’ll see them then, and we plan to go down for their baby’s baptism in August and to visit on our way to Arkansas in May.

A couple of weeks ago we took them to a Peoria Rivermen game at the Civic Center. Home town boys won 5-0! Here are a few pictures from the game:

The zamboni between periods (above) as Samuel Logan (below) watches eagerly:

Continue Reading »

I’ve been doing better at posting lately, and don’t want to get people into the habit of not checking my blog, but this week is a crazy one at work and I’ll not have time for much personal writing.

So I’m going to post some interesting (at least to me) links this week. I’ll start with the best (so you’ll be more confident in following the rest of them–seeing the fine quality of this one). This is a recent post by my goodly wife, and it was a reminder of why I have become very different in my approach to community and progress over the past few years.

I can’t help thinking that we are too quick to do away with our history in the name of progress. A splash of Peoria piquancy was lost, leaving bland commercial sameness. And so, as I load my 6 pounds of baby carrots into the van, I sadly avert my eyes from that muddy, empty spot over yonder.

Read the rest here!

I’ve decided that I want to avoid chain restaurants as much as possible. I wouldn’t mind if we completely drove them out of Peoria, in fact.

One way to love our neighbors is to frequent their businesses. That way they can help ours. Thinking locally means being willing to pay more for something that doesn’t come from a bigboxmart type store.

Thursday TC and I had what is probably our last date before Little Engine arrives. We had a midwife appointment and then headed down to the riverfront to eat dinner at Kelleher’s Irish Pub. We had a wonderful dinner there of Irish fare and will be back soon–but on a less busy night. Between Bo Diddly and game 7 of the NLCS starring the “local” Cardinals it was crowded and pretty loud. The food and service were great. We bumped into our district councilperson and met the owner and I will enjoy going back and trying more of the Irish specialties.

After escaping the noise we decided to find someplace quiet to sit down and have some coffee. We went to Kade’s on War Memorial. It was nice and quiet, soft jazz playing on the speakers. Fantastic service and great coffee, plus they had loose tea available by the cup. We had a nice time talking there before heading out shopping for a few minutes and then home.

Support local peoria businesses! Eat, drink, spend money–and help build a thriving community here.

This post may get me into trouble, but it was such a nice event today that I had to share it with friends and family.

Today was a full day, despite only working a half day. We went to Lacon to check out a dog we were thinking about adopting (we didn’t) and came home for supper. While supper was being finished I went out shopping, and was out early enough to make it by Harrington Press before it closed today at 5:30.

First some history. Last year (8/9/05) my wife wanted to get me a trip to Rhodell’s to make my own beer. While I love Rhodell’s and it sounded fun, it was expensive.

After a little research we found out that I could buy the equipment to brew my own ale and beer for about the same price. So that was what she was going to get me.

Long story short . . . it never happened. I did get a book about that time from TC, though, The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian.

A few weeks ago I noticed a local place (Harrington) on Sheridan that sold supplies for beer and winemaking. They were never open, though, when I went by. Finally I called the number on the sign and found out their hours. M-F 3:30-5:30, Saturday 9-1.

So today I found myself in town before 5:30.

I stopped in.

It’s a small shop and the guy was knowledgeable. I wasn’t sure when I walked in, but just his demeanor and knowledge and my waiting for this for a while caused me to decide to leave with equipment and ingredients for one batch.

Tonight I invited some friends (Seth and Jon) to come over and help me start the first batch.

It took longer than I thought–three and a half hours from when they got here to when they left–but right now there is a big bucket of beer fermenting in my basement.

It was a nice evening, talking, stirring, waiting, stirring, talking, mixing, pouring. We had great conversation and I shared my first brewing experience with dear friends. I’m sure they’ll be back to help me drink it, too.

A quick post to round out the day:

Today we had a nice morning (I slept in a bit) and then headed off to the Itoo Hall on Farmington Road for a gem show, yet another science passport event. The children learned a bunch and had a great time before we finally had to head home for lunch.

After lunch TC took a nap while we began cleaning the basement up–bringing up boxes of books so they won’t get ruined in anticipation of a future total basement reorganizing rush. A lot of progress was made, and we’re glad to have gotten that done.

This evening Theresa and I went on a date, which included a record store (actual records, but no purchases), Sushi Popo (a Japanese restaurant), Just for Fun game store, Kohl’s, Kroger and Blockbuster.

We rented a movie only to find out (after trying several times) that our DVD player is finally dead. Maybe somone will loan me one tomorrow so I can finish the movie–I got really interested and that’s why it took so long to give up the ghost of “maybe this time it will work”. Thirty miniutes in and I’m hooked. I’ll tell you about it if I get to finish it.

Off to bed!