Peru Alderman suggests considering sales tax hike to fund municipal pool

Alderman Jamey Mertel (1st Ward) encouraged his counterparts in the city council to consider raising the city sales tax in order to fund any future municipal pool project. This rather bold move by Mertel took more than a few of us by surprise. Jack O'Beirnes mouth dropped open in complete confusion again. Even more so than usual. Of course none of the other aldermen commented on the idea for fear of being linked in any way to such a blasphemous suggestion. Mayor Harl commented that all ideas should be considered and he repeated his hopes of allowing for an advisory referendum on the November Ballot with a question asking Peru voters if they want to proceed with planning and paying for a new public swimming pool. I give Mertel credit for stepping up with what will certainly be a very controversial suggestion. He seems to be working without a safety net and I suspect he will get a serious scolding from the other aldermen for deviating from their plan of forcing the Mayor to make all the tough choices. I do not see Mertel making that suggestion if Dave Potthoff were in the room last night. Potthoff arrived late for the meeting after Mertel had already stunned the crowd. We must remember that sales tax in Peru has always been the "Golden Goose" or "Sacred Cow" that enabled "The Don" to always play fast and loose with city finances. Those sales tax bucks (and the Electric Light Fund) allowed Baker to subsidize or prop up any and all other city funds that were failing to pay for themselves. Those bucks allowed for a bloated "full time" employee payroll and an even more bloated "part-time" patronage summer program. Those bucks provided the under-funding of the Peru Library for years. Those bucks allowed Baker to spend virtually any amount on any thing (Peru Municipal Building) at any time. And as long as those sales tax bucks rolled in Baker could abate taxes and be hailed as The Messiah. Those days and those bucks are long gone and at present we have a sluggish economy and lagging sales tax reciepts in Peru. How will our city sales tax rate compare with surrounding communities and how will area consumers react to an increase in Peru's sales tax? Is Alderman Mertel threatening to kill the Golden Goose? I recall a bit of a backlash when the rate was raised to fund Parkside School. I'm all for a healthy debate in open meeting about this one folks. I think we may see some of the alliances that banded together against Mayor Harl will become a bit strained over this issue. This is good stuff!

Peru Township in Perspective in LaSalle County

I believe that the twp of Peru is the smallest in the county and it is a good question as to why they needed to raise our twp taxes by the large percentage that they did.

Thanks for Stopping to Read the Peru Town Forum

Sending our thanks to the bloggers out there who are stopping by to read the Peru Town Forum, some on a regular basis and others occasionally.  An average of 50 to 60 per day depending on the topic being discussed. We have topped over 100 per day when people have a lot to say.
Coming from 36 cities in Illinois and at present 11 different states. Both those numbers vary depending on topic and day of the week. The stats usually include several foreign countries and today that included Germany and Brazil.
Of the cities in Illinois of course Peru provides the most interested readers but also includes larger cities like Chicago, Wheaton, Naperville, Lockport, Bloomington and Glen Ellyn.
And of course we would like to hear your comments too.

Aldermen to Trovero: "Kiss my asphalt good-bye"

With the recent unanimous vote to reject the lone bid for our annual street program, I wonder if there is some way to determine how our engineering estimate compares to other nearby communities for similar work. As Lois reported in a previous post, Ottawa decided to accept the bid from Advanced Asphalt which was also over their engineering estimate, albeit not to the extent that Peru's was. I am not an engineer, although I did play one on T.V in the 90's, on Baywatch. Those were the days when Pam Anderson was not quite as "big" a celebrity as she is now. Anyway. What I am wondering is if it would be possible to compare the quantitiy of work bid in each city and the engineering estimates for the proposed work in each city in order to try to determine what caused the disparities between estimates and bids. Can someone get to work on that and report back to us? I know the aldermen in Peru are convinced that Trovero was just trying to "turn the screws" on us and that is always a possibility, but I am not convinced that was the case. I am not saying they should have awarded the bid. I wish they would have left themselves other options in order to get some work done this season. They could have scrutinized the engineering estimates and the bids of other local cities (LaSalle also) as I suggested or possibly even allow the contractor an opportunity to shed some light on the situation if he still feels his bid is a fair one. Something that was left "unsaid" during the discussion of this matter on Wednesday was that there exists an "unwritten understanding" between some contractors in the area that they will not encroach on each others geographic base of operations when bidding certain projects. That of course does not allow for a very effective bidding process. We would hope that a local contracor would not see it as just an opportunity to inflate his bid. They are after all, our neighbors and local residents themselves. This situation is going to have to be replayed before too long and I hope our elected officials are looking for ways to come to terms with it. My personal opinion is that the city consider making a committment to proceed with a plan to perform at least a portion of the asphalt resurfacing program "in-house". Yes, it means a considerable capital investment for some of the speacialized equipment needed. We make significant capital investments in our city all the time. Why not do so for the purpose of performing our own street paving. We have Street Department employees represented by Operating Engineers who have the finest training and skill improvement facility in the country. Peru city employees can get hands-on instruction on this equipment at little or no cost to the taxpayers of Peru. Now, before you "union-bashers" start piling on......No, I don't want or need a job with the city! No, I don't believe Mayor Harl will hire "a bunch of his union buddies!". No, I don't have paving equipment to sell to the city! No! No! No! It's an idea. Maybe it could work? Too progressive? Too expensive? You tell me!

Pave the way: Asphalt work to cost $632,500 - My Web Times

Pave the way: Asphalt work to cost $632,500  Ottawa decides to pave while Peru decides to wait. Peru took the advice of Chamlin and Associates and decided not to accept the higher bid while Ottawa chose to accept the higher bid and repair streets with the motor fuel taxes at a higher than estimated cost.

Are Peru's streets so bad that we should have accepted the high bid even though it was$416,854.46 which was 27 percent over the engineer’s estimate of $329,195. I assume the engineer in Peru meant Chamlin and in Ottawa it was the city engineer.

We all know our streets are BAD so can we be assured that by bumping our way through another year, the city will pay less?. Advanced Asphalt of Princeton is the high bidder on the Ottawa projects and Len Trovero was the high bidder on the Peru projects. UC was rejected by both cities. There is some concern that the number of contractors seems to be dwindling and if this is a trend, will we be held hostage for higher project costs..

The Ottawa project was only 26,000 over the prebid estimate while the Peru project was 87,659 over estimate.

http://www.mywebtimes.com/archives/ottawa/display.php?id=409249

Concerned resident gets the "Council Crunch"

Peru resident Brian Foster approached the Peru city council last evening with an idea of providing an incentive of $250.00 to city employees who offer suggestions that could result in saving taxpayer dollars in excess of $5,000.00. Sounded good to me. Mayor Harl thanked Mr. Foster and pledged $250.00 also for the second suggestion. All is well right? What Mr. Foster could not have anticipated was the bizarre rejection of his harmless presentation by a couple of our finest. If I had not seen this one in person I might not believe it. Alderman Dave Waldorf (3rd Ward) was emphatic in his opposition to the idea because this would as he put it be rewarding city employees "For just doing their job". By all means alderman, lets discourage citizen involvement in local government every chance we get. Now I have seen these aldermen berate and gang up on many individuals in open meeting who they determine are trying to encroach on their little domain. People with complaints about neighbors who don't cut their lawns or folks who are annoyed by the heavy-metal band playing at the neighborhood tavern. Even the family whose home along Church Street was inundated by stormwater in the great "100 year flood" of 2007 who asked Mayor Baker and the aldermen what the city could do to help them in front of a packed council chamber in the old Mirror Building? Baker looked directly at Mr. Smith and calmly replied, "We are not going to anything for you", and every alderman to a man sat their silent and indifferent because Don had made the decision and they all toppled like little tin soldiers. I have witnessed some pretty shabby treatment of many citizens who dare question the wisdom of our city council. To his credit, Alderman Bob Ankiewicz did sail quickly to the defense of a fellow swabby. Ahoy Bob! Yeomans work indeed! Then another classic Jack moment when O'Beirne who just seconds earlier had agreed with Waldorf that this was an ill conceived idea by Mr. Foster, pulled a complete 180 and says "I changed my mind and now I agree with Alderman Ankiewicz". It was Priceless. Thank You to Brian Foster for stepping forward to make a difference in your community. But in the spirit of our aldermen I must say, Just watch your step mister!

Crucial vote under Electric Committee at council meeting tonight

A Cost of Service / Rate Study Proposal for the Electric Department will be voted on at the regular council meeting tonight. This is a proposal that was recommended by IMEA officials for the purpose of providing a detailed evaluation of how our electric department is operating and how we can expect it to operate in the coming years. This is essentially an audit that will provide an accurate account of how efficiently the department is operating and how it's operation can be improved. As far as I'm concerned this audit is years overdue. The Peru Electric Department, like the majority of city departments in Peru, is in serious need of review. We need an accurate accounting of operating expenses, capital requirements for future funding of improvements, and here's my favorite. Overall Debt Analysis. I have often wondered how the Peru Hydro-Electric Plant pay-off has progressed over the years or if it has progressed at all. I know there have been re-issuing or re-financing of the hydro debt at least a couple of times in recent years and it will be interesting to see if we are making any progress in paying off that debt. What we are likely to hear from at least one alderman tonight(Dave Potthoff) is that this study is not needed and is to expensive at $22,850.00. Alderman Potthoff will tell us that this study will only provide us with advice on how to bill our residential, commercial, and industrial customers. In fact, it will tell us how the department has been run in previous years under the supervision of Joe Prazen and Don Baker, with Dave Potthoff as Chairman of the Electric Committee and how it must be run now in order to always be profitable for the citizens of Peru. I have recently confirmed that there have been instances in the past ten years where the city of Peru was actually "losing" money on a regular basis on at least two of it's biggest industrial customers. That's right, O'Neal Steel and United Steel Deck were paying us less than it cost us to provide them with electricity. Exactly how this type of mis-management could have occurred is open for discussion and I will not comment on it just yet. Hopefully this study will shed some light on this issue and point our electric department in the right direction. The consultant is Barnes, Henry, Meisenheimer & Gende, Inc. of St. Louis and they are also experts in the field of Water and Wastewater systems operation and management. How bout' that! I suspect there will be at least a couple elected officials and contractors in the council chamber tonight who will be quite uncomfortable knowing there are knowledgable professionals nearby who could expose their sweetheart deal in no time at all if just given the opportunity.

Coming Up September Fest Peru Officials IML Convention

Just last year for the first time, citizens questioned the need for  city officials en masse attending the annual Illinois Municipal League Convention at the cities expense. It was brought to the attention of the Council last July and August that it was an unnecessary expense to the city for all to go to Chicago on the cities dollar.
I reported that the Council did approve on June 30 2010 paid expenses to the convention by City Officials this year. What they did not tell us was how many were going and how much money was being budgeted for the trip. Was this an open ended expense allotment?  Like anything goes.

I did some research on past conventions since 2004 and how much it cost Peru for those trips annually.

 2004 -8986.01
2005 - 6630.86
2006 - 10,200.03 (like to hear an explanation of this year)
2007 - 9862.64
2008 - 9117.45
New administration New Mayor
2009 - 1025.33

And to think that all these expenses were approved like they all deserved this bonus fun time. I am sure that most of the citizens  were not aware of this yearly fest. Lets see if we can again convince our officials to be conservative and only send a few at city expense and others at their own expense if they feel a need to go.
We must remember that most times wives went along also.

Daily Herald: Greater transparency requires effort | Americans for Prosperity

Daily Herald: Greater transparency requires effort | Americans for Prosperity

LaSalle Station Provides Funding for Local Communities

http://www.mywebtimes.com/archives/ottawa/display.php?id=408518

Not sure how far their outreach for funding goes but perhaps we should stretch out our hands.

Peru Action Committee calls for PAC members and Jack attacks

The formation of the Peru Action committee has drawn attention from new members as well as more incoherent jibberish from our old pal Jack O'Beirne. In another bizarre performance in the city council chamber last Wednesday Jack went off on N-T reporter Jeff Dankert and the PAC about the recent N-T article explaining our goals and intentions to support the most qualified candidates in upcoming local elections. Apparently O'Beirne feels "Those People" as he referred to us, have no right to participate or interfere with the way he likes "His" city to operate. The fact that Jack actually believes that citizens have no right to form a group to support quality representation tells you how completely out of touch this guy is from what representative government is intended to be. "Back-Pedalin' Jack's" tenure as an alderman in Peru has certainly never been scrutinized or graded for ability, knowledge or performance. I can understand why the last thing O'Beirne wants to see is someone actually paying close attention to his behavior as an alderman. Jack is a relic from a time of "Good ol' Boy politics whose only real passion in office has been to sponsor and enrich a specific city employee or two and to protect TEST, Inc. from ever having to compete competitively for the very lucrative Water/Wastewater contract with the city. I am convinced that Jack has no clue that he is actually accountable to the people of Peru. I really believe he thinks of himself as being "above" the rest of us. But, his tirades in open meeting are entertaining and I thank him for that. Jack O'Beirne is the poster boy for why we need qualified and dedicated public servants in Peru. That is exactly why the Peru Action Committee has formed. Our goal is to support the candidates who best support us, the citizens of Peru. We have been observing our elected officials for several years as they conduct our business and it has not been encouraging to watch. We encouragage the people of Peru to get actively involved and understand how their elected officials are representing them. We will do this by attending public meetings and getting the facts first hand. We will inform the public in detail what is happening in our city and why it is happening. And, we will have some fun and fellowship while we do it! We will not be welcome by many of the elected officials in Peru as has always been the case. We will not be deterred. When a group of citizens come together to improve their city and they are chastised and criticized by those who only serve at our convenience.......You know you have work to do. So contact Lois or myself for info and stay tuned to this blog for more details. Better yet, come to a council meeting and introduce yourself. You will be welcome when you choose to Run with the PAC.

Kaskaskia Alliance Trail

http://denali.physics.indiana.edu/pipermail/libnews/2005-August/000532.html


http://www.illinoistocht.com/1/post/2009/08/hennepin-trail-survey.html


I found very little information on the proposed Kaskaskia Alliance Trail beginning in LaSalle and unless there has been some recent unpublished information, this appears to have numerous obstacles in its path.  If you know more please post to update all of us. Please notice the dates on most of the links.

Peru City Structure Revised - Something For All of Us to Think About

Click to enlarge diagram

Why Did The City Council Tonight Vote to Put the Cart Before the Horse?

Suddenly in the last few weeks we started to hear different variations of establishing bike paths where there are no sidewalks in Peru particularly on Marquette Rd  Tonight we hear another version of the story in that we want to connect to the Kaskaskia Alliance Trail that would connect east to the IM Canal and west to St. Bede and further west.
By now you might be asking yourself, What does the heavy traffic on Marquette Rd have to do with a linkage to the Kaskaskia Trail?
 Yesterday people were questioning How can we get over or under Route 251? Where will we get the funding? What's the purpose of all this?
Or with all the heavy traffic on Marquette Road, would a yellow line on the side of the road keep bikers and walkers safe?

And tonight I am just wondering why we awarded a contract to Chamlin for $3000 when the Committee was only set in place a week or 2 ago and today without even one meeting by this new Bicycle Path Committee we are awarding a contract to draw up routes. Without one bit of public comment by hardly anyone in the public sector. Not counting me as I am now setting my views down to be read. We meaning the City now want to be a part of the Safe Route To School Program for access to funding, ok that is fine although I believe the kids living east of 251 are bussed since all schools in Peru are west of that highway. Are we going to establish bike paths throughout all of west and northwest Peru so kids can go to Parkside on their bikes?

One bit of good news that the new Bicycle Path committee meetings will be now open to the public so watch the city web site if you are interested and I will try to post meeting dates.

The city would be counting on "grant money" from the State of Illinois disregarding the fact that the state is now 13 BILLION dollars in debt.
 Makes our 45 million dollar debt look rather minute.

"Elected Officials" Float" Turns Out To Be a Slap in the Face

    If you saw the Peru Parade on Saturday, you might have noticed a float with the title of "Peru Elected Officials".As we went by I thought how strange that the word "elected" was in the name as simply a float called City of Peru or something similar would have been fine and to be expected. It turns our that the name was drawn up by City Clerk Bartley Most of the aldermen rode on the float except Ankiewicz who was on the American Legion one and O'Beirne was on the Coldwell Bankers float/car. No problem.

Also Mayor Harl chose not to ride on the float but chose an antique truck to travel in.

Not asked to be a part of the city float, Gary Hylla, C Treasurer rode with his wife on a motorcycle.

Let me remind everyone that Gary Hylla is filling an elected officials position as Treasurer BECAUSE.......Jack O'Beirne the person who ran for the office of  Treasurer and was elected decided that he did not want the position and wished to remain on the City Council as alderman of the second ward.

    Remember that that left Peru without a Treasurer, a necessary position in any city government except the previous one of Mayor Baker. I'm sure you have connected the dots by now. It is all past history except the Mayor now had to replace the elected treasurer O"Beirne and chose Gary Hylla who has been doing an excellent job. Appointed and not elected and not to be on the 'elected officials float".  I hope the City Clerk has a good explanation for this.



 Former Mayor Baker could do a lot to alleviate the tension by making a public announcement that he is no longer Mayor of Peru and he would like the Council to work with and cooperate with Mayor Harl for the betterment of Peru and all its fine citizens.

Peru's Big 175th Celebration, Parade and Dedication

I'm really interested in any comments on the Veterans Memorial Dedication as I didn't get there to see it. We were a part of the parade and missing seeing it from the sidelines. I was disappointed that there were no marching bands, hard to imagine a parade without music but that is what we had. The rumor was that the city did not have enough money to pay a Drum and Bugle Corp band. No LP Band is understandable as that program is pretty much in chaos at this time.

Beautiful day at Centennial Park and a few activities for most ages. Music was by the Guy Lombardo Band directed by Al Pierson (Al Pizzamiglio) formerly of Depue. Great big band sound that we enjoyed as did some of the residents using the grassy areas for a dance floor.

Pretty noisy fireworks are now ending the day. If you were there hope you had a good time.

Request Post: What Do You Think About the Bike Path Idea for North Peru

Do you think a bike path for the Marquette Road area is a good idea?

Personally I think a bike walking path to the Mall should have been constructed years ago. Many times I have seen residents walking along 251 coming and going to places like HyVee and north.

Just a Reminder Be Respectful to Our Posting Partners.

This is a community forum and we are looking forward to you the reader expressing your opinions on our comments and being a part of all our discussions.

You are welcome to come and agree or disagree but please do it in a manner that is respectful to those who are reading this blog and contributing their ideas or searching for answers.

 

City business can be discussed without involving anyones personal life unless it impacts upon decisions made that affect the city.

What the Mayor or anyone working for the city does with their salaries is not our business unless it is immoral or illegal.