Mayor Scott J. Harl
Statement of closing of JC Penny store
Friday March 17, 2017
Statement of closing of JC Penny store
Friday March 17, 2017
Today’s announcement of the pending closure of JC Penny stores across the state and nation including the Peru mall store is a great disappointment to all of us at the city of Peru. On behalf of everyone at the city of Peru, we are especially saddened for the many employees of the Peru store who may lose their employment.
While retail sales in Peru was at a record 600 million dollars last year and with Peru having one of the highest retail sales per capita in Illinois, the loss of any business and their employees is very sad.
The city of Peru, like all cities across the state and nation must be prepared to work towards a sustainable plan to maintain and grow our economic retail base. While that plan has been a continued work in progress, we are committed to not only attract new business but also work with existing business to maintain their local presence both in the north retail section and equally in our Rt 6 downtown business corridor. One need only look to these areas to see the many businesses that have either expanded or opened but we will not sit back and wait for business development. We will continue our aggressive business friendly plan that has benefited not only Peru but also the entire Illinois Valley area.
With that in mind the council members, all city department heads, the entire economic development team and I have been working diligently to continue to have the city of Peru to be recognized as a business friendly community.
We have been working with many developers to bring business to the north retail section with many pending development in the works. We also have had discussions with the ownership of the Peru Mall to lend our support towards any rebranding of the Peru Mall area to maintain existing business.
At the same time, we implemented our Rt 6 business incentive program that has been in existence these past three years and has been discussed for the past several months this new budget year is expected to have a major expansion of the program. We have also started the process of a downtown business TIF district to support our current and future businesses in downtown corridor.
These efforts as well as others will continue on behalf of everyone in the city of Peru.
9 comments:
While this article sounds sincere and heartfelt I still wonder why these same thoughts and ideas and sympathies were not expressed when other businesses announced their closing (i.e. M.C. Sports, Arriva, KMarts, etc.) Could it be because this is an election year? Just curious! Not making any accusations just wondering!
3:32 PM, The answer to your question is because an election is looming and like all phony politicians Harl is scrambling around in a constant state of paranoia at the thought of not being re-elected.
People like Harl, Vickrey, and most of Peru's elected and appointed officials are consumed by the need for staying in power and they will say and do whatever they have to in order to feed their massive egos. Harl is so afraid of the thought that enough Peru residents have come to know what a shallow, self-serving, narcissistic phony he is. Harl and Vickrey understand they are both deeply distrusted and disliked by many who have first-hand knowledge of their deeply flawed character and personality. What they also know is they can fool many people some of the time into thinking they are actually decent and honorable human beings, which of course they are not. So they promote themselves whenever they can and count on a totally disconnected and apathetic Peru electorate to do what they usually do on election day, STAY HOME so the incumbent wins again and again. It is entertaining watching Harl running scared at the possibility of defeat and having to spend many thousands of dollars of his dirty campaign money and sending out his flunky aldermen to knock on doors for him. The more things change in Peru, the more things stay the same.
After such a sad bit of news about J.C. Penney's closing all I've heard on the radio all morning is that Chipolte's is coming to Peru. You'd think we hit the jackpot. What I don't understand is why the big secret about it's location? I'm pretty sure most of us have figured it out but what I don't understand is why the secret??? Why release the information about Chipolte's coming before you can announce it's location? Is it supposed to ease the loss of Penney's?
Everything you see Harl and Vickrey doing right now with all the phony fanfare surrounding the announcement of the E-Coli restaurant chain Chipotle is designed to distract Peru voters from the devastating loss of JC Penney. The phony mayor and his perverted pal Grabby Bob Vickrey are blowing a lot of smoke so folks will forget about losing that big anchor-store at the mall. Those two political sneak-thieves are scared to death that Bergners or Sears might announce they are bailing out of the failing Peru Mall before the election in a couple weeks so they are scrambling to control the false narrative of the leader of the valley. If Harl doesn't get re-elected his political career at any level is over and Vickrey would lose his taxpayer subsidized business including free office space and all amenities included. So they do what all corrupt political insiders do. They promote themselves with photo-ops and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. These are some really creepy dudes.
12:54 Are you serious when you say that some of our aldermen are going door to door campaigning for mayor Harl? If you are, can you provide proof? Can someone step forward who had an alderman knocking on their door in behalf of the mayor?
Who the hell cares where this new restaurant locates? This is just election talk. They might even decide to drop their plans when they hear of all the store closings in Peru. You know Vickery hasn't been telling prospects any negative news. Soon, he'll have to throw away all that ribbon he's been stockpiling.
Now, regarding Penneys, they should contact the mall owners and have them turn that space into a country western dance/music hall. Plenty of parking available. One can only guess what they'll do with all that Sears space when that news hits.
SEARS is next folks. The phony Peru mayor and his creepy pal Vickrey are already working on the spin strategy for the newspaper story.
An interesting fact from Business Weekly is the closing of one major anchor store in a mall cuts its survivor rate by 50%! What would be the survival rate when the Peru Mall loses two anchor stores?
TODAY: Open house at new Public Works Building.
TOMORROW: Mayorial debate at library.
Your thoughts on the timing?
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