It seems that the city of Peru is facing several dilemmas at the beginning of the 2014 year. I am sure there are numerous lawsuits and other illegal problems that the general public is not aware of that involve the city. A for instance is a city employee that was relieved of his job during the year but information from reliable people lead me to believe a lawsuit has been filed. Now we hope for a honest answer to the "misplaced dump truck" for which the city received an insurance settlement and I cannot believe that no one knew where it was and stepped forth.
Judge Balestri should have finished his investigation into payroll irregularities and the involvement of the mayor and some employees, will this be dealt with in an honest and fair manner? We will watching and listening and hope for a fair and honest decision.
Many people patiently awaited the retirement of the past SPW who was handed the job because the city council did not want the mayors choice (first term) for spw who was from out of the Illinois Valley. Looking back this may have been good or bad considering some of the more recent choices of the mayor who seems to have problems in stepping outside the box. Finally this past July, the city decided to hire a City Engineer/Supt of PW with one hire involving a combined position. Again this leads one to ask the question (good or bad) and I asked the question "Does a city civil engineer also want to be a Superintendent of Public Works?" And I would like to add, especially in a dept. with many long term employees who also happen to be a union shop. But the hire of Sean Mikos turned out to be a very good move even in hindsight. This young man came with no ties to anyone in the city or the government which is exactly what most people wanted. He could make good intelligent decisions without wondering if anyone would be offended...and he did do just that. Never a question about how he was doing his job and how the public felt about it because the large percentage of residents were delighted to finally have someone come into the city and look at our problems without being blind sided by a friend, relative, union or employer. And the rest is history. This leads to the question "will the mayor and council take the same route once again?" In the meantime we have now concentrated power of numerous positions into one called CO SUPERINTENDENTS OF PUBLIC WORKS. Time will tell how this works but on the surface it seems illogical. But these may have been the only 2 people that the mayor trusts implicitly.
If you are like me you now have more questions than before Supt. Bleck resigned because a very smart graduate civil engineer with the P.E. after his name has come and gone but left us with information brought forth of illegal and supervisory problems that exist in this administration. Mr Mikos did all the right things which did not sit well with this administration and has left us now to determine how this city should move forward. It is not as simple as hiring a new P.E. or SPW because our eyes have been opened and I realize and hope you do too, that running a city in 2014 involves more than the desire to have the title of Mayor before your name and also the same goes for Alderman.
The referendum coming before the voters in March will give us our first clue as to whether the people that live in Peru are ready to step up and ask for and work for better representation. I know and hope you do too, that we no longer need 2 alderman per ward in this time of instant communication and the technological advance of 2014. We also have been shown that we need a serious manager in charge of all that goes on at city hall and that is responsible for all departments running smoothly, honestly and efficiently. We can no longer just hope that the person we elect as mayor or alderman has the know how to get the job done, we must have a City Manager to lead the way. There will be bumps in the road but if we don't have the courage to try and work on the issue, they will get worse with time and our reputation as a crony city will continue to spread far and wide and it will be extremely difficult to get any quality in new people to be interested in being a part of our city administration.
58 comments:
Lois, Great blog, your comments are very thought provoking and motivate one to take a interest in Peru politics.
Although I don't comment myself I do read your blog and agree with comments posted. Not all of the time but surely a very high percentage of the time.
Your unsolved issues before the city in 2014 reveals some evident problems and some problems that Peru is facing which are behind the scenes.
First I,as a graduate human resource manager with additional degrees and years of experience both in private and public enterprise have to ask the Mayor and Public Works Alderman Committee why isn't the Human Resource Manager for the City of Peru allowed to do her job of creating means to attract and recruit Potential employees for all open jobs in the Peru City Government. Also she should be the towns point person and committee leader in recruitment not the Mayor whose occupation was as a Operating Engineer and who would not take charge of the PWD himself for a temporary time to gain needed experience in what he is offering. The two aldermen who comprise the Public Works committee are both in work fields which have no familiarity to any engineering education, experience or background. This leads me to the belief that Kim should be allowed to develop her own committee with possibilities that Alderman Radke who is a graduate chemical engineer of the U of I being included.
Secondly reading today's News Tribune I read on page B5 under a picture that states "Biederstedt Sworn In" that the City of Peru residential development has slowed. The city of Peru had four new homes built in 2013. It also states that commercial properties continue to grow on the north side of the city of Peru? Where did this expansion of commercial property take place on the North side of Peru, I drove North and did not see any new building, factories, or business.
The above paragraph is the reason for my last question. I've been informed that the Fire Chief of Peru held a position which paid him $4,000/year plus a pay for call outs and and a Fire Marshall salary which in all amounted to $14,000 per year. I am unaware who pays him as Fire Marshall.
I understand that recently the Mayor of Peru combined the Fire Chief with the Building Code Inspector. ALONG WITH THE ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES THE MAYOR INCLUDED A PAY RAISE OF THIS POSITION TO $84,000 PER YEAR! If there has been a minimum of building in Peru for the last number of years as all other localities of the country have experienced which results in reduction and lack of work why would the Mayor choose this as the time to grant such a enormous pay raise. How was this job advertised and how often? What are the qualifications for this specific job? What are the qualifications for the City Engineer/SPW job and has anyone involved realized that Peru's city officials made a tremendous error in combining the city engineer (normally a well educated introvert who choose the engineering field because this is what he enjoys) with the SPW (normally a extrovert with the attributes of a leader or person who enjoys being in charge of a group).
I hope to get viewpoints from others on my statements and questions and since I have enjoyed my time spent on my first ever comment. I will comment again. In summation Lois Thank you for time donated and having a extremely well thought out blog.
VERY CLASSY. Wishing all a great 2014
2:24- perus fire chief was also being paid additionally for being a fireman per call that he would go to at $33(approx. each call. In a period of one year depending on how many call were made could make this a significant amount of money. This was prior to Harls Oct.2013 appointment. 2:34, welcome to this forum. I suggest if you have time to read all the blogs from the previous years , you will have a lot of puzzle pieces, and the
Puzzle starts to come together.
@ 3:09 and all others including Mayor Harl, City Council Members City Administration and Mayors Appointments
If the blog has acknowledged puzzle pieces for years and the puzzle starts to come together why hasn't representation of Peru created a political environment which the citizen sees a decrease in the number of problems and their severity rather than a continuous increase.
Is there a standard bar set of Short and Long Range goals by which a citizen and present representation can evaluate the city's success and failure rate?
Is there a plan in action to achieve long and short range goals for the city and when was it last reviewed and is this action of review a continuous process?
Who or what group is in charge of evaluating the city's success or failure in the achievement of its short and long range goals.
How many and specifically what city representatives are active in the progress of short and long range goals?
Personally what is your evaluation of the present state of the city and what improvements do you believe should be taken in 2014 to further improve it?
What developments should be undertaken in 2014 which may take years to complete that would pay the citizenship back in huge dividends?
Thank you for your time and interest in reading my comment and I ask you to answer as many of my questions as you are concerned with and have time. As you can easily see I am not in utilizing the blog as a tool of personal vendetta but rather than a avenue for a better Peru.
11:22. These are all my opinions, if you would like follow-up I would be happy to provide it.
Question 1: The layer upon layer of government almost ensures that no one person is held accountable. If you have an issue, this makes it very difficult to get a straight-forward answer and resolution to your problem.
Question 2: Setting long range goals can be a very generic term. We all want to see a better city in the future: low crime rate, efficient government services, sound infrastructure, etc.., but in government, many adverse scenarios can occur. A law can change, revenue stream can be cut off, tax base shrink due to unfavorable tax or economic environment, etc. I was more in favor of setting short term goals (6 months-2 years) as more of a foundation. If the people we elect can't get short term goals accomplished, then what would make you think they can accomplish a long range goal? Another issue with a long term goal, lets say 5 years+, is if nothing gets accomplished within the first 2 years, you may have people shrug it off and say "well we still have three years to go, lets try to do better", essentially giving them a reason to drag their feet for the initial amount of time.
Question 3-Not that I'm aware of.
Question 4-You, the taxpayer are responsible for reviewing the city's success/failure.
Question 5-Any individual who is elected/appointed should be active in the progress of our community. Volunteers play a big role as well, but bear no obligation to do so.
Question 6-In my opinion, we could be doing so much better. With the constituents I've spoken to, their main concerns are persistent litigation, threats of major businesses leaving and no bid contracts top the list. We can do better than this.
Question 7-I feel we need more people to people interaction, solidify relationships to get people to invest here. I'm personally unaware of anyone at City Hall who is taking an ACTIVE approach to bring commerce to Peru. We have access to railroads, intersection of 2 major interstates, an airport, river, etc. Yes, we do have a website listing all these qualities, but this is where an elected representative should be asking "why aren't more companies investing here?" I'm sure if you go down to city hall and ask that question, the first words out of one elected officials mouth will be "In this economy...."--which would be a blatant admission that they DON'T want to take an active approach, and would rather wait for people to contact them.
Somebody was saying that on FB, city plows were done at 4 today and will start up in the morning. Why would this be? It's snowing lightly and has been, but the drifting is the problem. Don't we pay taxes to clear out streets?
Justin Loger follow up from you is always appreciated.
Remember last year when some of the industries in Peru wee unhappy with the electric rates they were being charged. Shortly after that Unytite began to look into possibly taking their corporation at last partly to LaSalle where Ameren would be the company for electricity saying they could save quite a bit of money.
Lately I am hearing noise about this once again. Anyone else?
were not wee
Unytite has already purchased property in lasalle. They're relocating part of their operation.
What are the last three businesses (retail, commercial, service, industrial etc.) that have started in Peru? How long ago did they start?
How many are employed at each and are they still in business? Which of the four Peru promoters was directly involved MRC, Robert Vickery, the Lobbyist in Springfied or the Illinois Valley Area Chamber of Commerce? I know that some of Perus best representation has huge expectations for development in 2014 but isn't it time to evaluate which promoters are producing and which are not? Peru as LaSalle has expenditures of over $50,000 in promotional costs . The only difference is that Peru is paying many to do a little and LaSalle is paying one to do a lot. If you don't believe this statement drive thru the downtown of each city and observe which is developing the most. LaSalle is really moving forward and its efforts, similar to Ottawa, are showing the positive effects. If in doubt count the vehicles in downtown of each.
Why would they only relocate part of their operation if it's a matter of saving money because of the electric rates?
In a time which city governments are cutting expenses down to the bone I understand Peru was missing a dump truck long before they realized it? Since they did not know immediately that they were missing a dump truck and were functioning without it just as if it was still there what justified the city to buy another dump truck?
Who and what determined that Peru needed another dump truck that to replace a dump truck that no one discovered was missing? Does Peru presently have 2 dump trucks that they don't need or 1? The second extra dump truck will be the one the insurance company is going to sell back to Peru.
Remember when all the supplies were to be sold from the shut down swimming pool? Upon going into the bath house and comparing the inventory that was there at the pool closing and what was actually there was not the same? What was the result of that investigation?
Being that Peru has replaced the stolen dump truck and probably will buy the stolen dump truck back will they have to increase their manpower to drive the dump trucks they didn't know they were missing? Who or how many on the Peru city administration are advocates of The Theories of Abbot and Costello 101 Management and specialist in the chapter "Who's on First"? This is proof why a certain aldermans committee cannot survive without TEST and Chamlain Engineering Consultants. How soon is the upcoming election to have 4 ward aldermen and 2 at large? As you can tell I am sick and tired of the present 8 and their spend, spend, spend attitude. Peru has two outstanding aldermen in Dave Potthoff and Rodney Perez but presently the certifications stop there. These two representatives deserve their city position and stand on their own two feet.
unytite bought the farm west of flying j. have already hired a contractor to build the building,
and have drawings being reviewed by LaSalle for a building permit.
ground breading as soon as the snow melts.
freido
Anon 9:37 Does anyone know how many dump trucks the city owns? How large is the current fleet of vehicles that Peru owns broken down by department? How many of these vehicles are driven to homes during employee off shift times and how are parked in a city motor pool? I have been told that one Department Foreman who has a recently purchased city pick up uses it as his own private vehicle and this has been turned in to the Mayor with proof of photos and nothing was ever done about it.
freido is correct! I understand that Unytite is first moving a department with its heaviest electrical usage. At the time that this decided upon there was some confusion between Peru and approximately four companies in regards to electric rates.By now this confusion should be straightened out. For years the city lived off of the electrical department and the sales tax. The Mayor on down had been told not to disturb the Golden Goose. Come to your own conclusion I've come to mine.
last year the city adjusted peak usage fees up. That is why they company is "sheading" some of the load by moving its high use process to LaSalle and negotiating with Ameren. Peru decided that it was better, politically, to incrase business and industrial peak usage rates instead of residential rates.
There was a research company hired for approximately $22K to study the Peru electrical program. There were two corporations working the day shift only during peak usage that the city was selling electricity to at a loss.
This is a technical problem which a professional research company was hired to analyze. It is way too specific for the average person who does not have a background in the field to second guess the professionals.
During the last election the topic came up about corporations being upset and some of the candidates for Mayor met with them.
I do know that it makes no sense to give a company more than they add to your local economy. Also most corporations are operating with a big, open beggars hand which will take all of the incentives that local government will give them plus they will come back asking for more. If a local corporation utilizes LaSalle vs. Peru as their leverage what would your approach to handling the situation be. Remember you can never give them enough and they will always continue looking even after making a commitment.
11:44 Do you know the name of the company that the city hired, and would there be a copy of their report available at city hall?
What is all this talk about persistent litigation? Or is it a new catch phrase? There has been no news about litigation in Peru.
Maybe its more coffee shop talk.
10:57 AM
Not talk just facts, it is well known that there are numerous litigations going on behind the scenes and it is not "talk". Do I have details, the answer is NO. One thing that comes to mind is the north TIF district.
11:44 - you say corporations like it is a 4 letter word. You should remember that corporations are simply people trying to make a product or provide a service at a profit for the owners of the corporation.
Regarding the issue of peak power usage. You misrepresent the concept of Peak Demand. As originally intended, the Peak Demand or Peak load is the maximum power that the utility can provide to a customer for a sustained period of time. The agreements are only used with commercial / industrial users. These agreements are necessary to prevent a particular user from exceeding the capacity of the local grid. When a customer exceeds their Peak Demand, they pay a particularly high premium. This is incentive to keep electric usage down. The customer also has an expectation that the utility will maintain adequate infrastructure to be able to supply the Peak Demand according to the agreement. If you remember several years ago, Oglesby got into a bit of trouble with Advantage Logistics because they did not build a sub-station as agreed. Back to the point - Peru has or has attempted to renegotiate the Peak Demand, lowering it so that the industrial users would exceed their usage and be forced to pay the premium. This was not done to finance infrastructure to support a larger load, it was done purely to make the industrial users pay the penalty rate more often. Peru did this without any thought to the expansion needs of the companies involved. Now, as the economy starts to heat up, these companies can't expand without paying the penalty electric rate.
Facts are called real evidence, like filing of lawsuits. There has been no evidence or news reports about filing of lawsuits in Peru. If you have accurate reports then why not discuss details instead of rumors.
The thing that keeps everyone at least reasonably honest in the "real economy" is electrical aggregation. The way it is set up now, since we have a municipal power plant, we have only one choice for electricity. And that is Peru. Harl is trying a typical redistribution scheme - make the EVIL CORPORATIONS pay more so the good residential VOTERS can pay less. The average Peru residential electric bill is half that of LaSalle. The average business electric bill is double that of LaSalle.
Peru was once thought of as "The Leader in the Illinois Valley". I see little in this blog which promotes the City of Peru, but is negative and promotes negativity. Why not start the new year with a new outlook...find the positive promote that and work through those things we do not like with conversation and cooperation!
1:34 again this is not factual. Please check accurate facts.
4:10 Do you want footnotes and sources. Come on this is a blog. AKA a internet conversation. Do you footnote everything you say when talking face to face. This is the same thing, except it is typed on the internet. If you disagree with what is posted, post a counter to it. Say it's not true and why you believe it is not true. Footnote it if you want, but that is not required in a friendly conversation.
I can't be the only one who thinks that our streets were not plowed in a timely manner or were done efficiently. As of midnight last night they were terrible in my opinion.
The main roads were nasty at 8pm last night. Shooting park, rt.6. Can tolerate side streets due to the amount of snow, but the main one not so much.
What did the Judge say? No time clock no Proof! Sorry that's how IL law logic is folks!
4:31 - Although I can't quote sources or post footnotes with factual informaton, it is my opinion that the streets are cleared about as good as they can get until the temperature comes back up. Way back when we had colder winters and we all got used to the streets being like this. However, for at least the last five years, it has been a little warmer and thus eaiser to clear the snow and ice.
However, I have no way to prove this other than the fact that I lived through it and remember it. I'm searching through cards and letters looking for factual information so I can footnote this. All I can find is an old news trib article with some kids hitching a ride by hanging on the bumber of a car, sliding on the ice. I don't have any proof or factual information, but this may have been or could have been called bumper riding back then. But there is no absolute proof that this is what it was called.
Did the judge submit his findings and if so to whom? Does anyone know what was determined in the investigation? I hope the general public will be informed after all it's their tax dollar that is being questioned.
i would like to thank the street department for the great job they did clearing the roads-check any other city/town around and i bet peru's streets would win. these were extreme days and we all need to be a little more tolerant.
I can tell you for fact that many years ago I was told by IP that if I could control my peak usage I could have a rate that would save the company thousands of dollars. I controlled the usage for over a year then IP changed the rate and our savings went POOF. Unytite will find out that playing games with Ameren/IP is risky and contracts contain fine print that can't be read.
Are you seriously complaining about the streets last night at 8:00 p.m.? Who are you people? Is all you do complain? Some of the comments on this blog are just ugly.
But Amerin IP is supposed to make a profit. City of Peru is not. Peru Electric needs to pay for its costs and finance expansion and that is it. It is not suppposed to pay for every city expense.
11:40 AM I do not understand how someone could try to misquote another as much as you and think that your intentions are not evident. 11:44 stated "There were two corporations working the day shift only during peak usage that the city was selling electricity to at a loss".
Your claim that 11:44 misrepresents the concept of peak demand as originally intended is a sad attempt to mislead other readers as it is very easy to understand the true meaning of 11:44's meaning of the "peak usage"
terminology.
In reading your comment I must say that 11:44 should have placed his/her paragraph of "This is a technical problem which a professional research company was hired to analyze. It is way too specific for the average person who does not have a background in the field to second guess the professionals" at the beginning of the comment for sake of emphasis.
In ending I will respond to your own trick of twisting words from ones intentional meaning to making it into what someone else wants it to sound like. I would have said corporation as if it is a four letter word similar to auto, talk, salt or fork but it is not a four letter work nor did I say it, I communicated it on the computer.
Peru Electric will be along time in paying for its own costs as it still owes approximately $14,000,000 on its Hydro Plant. As this plant ages the frequency of needed upkeep and repairs will also increase. Upkeep and repairs are both very expensive on hydro plants and I have been told that needed repairs were put off for years similar to the streets in Peru.
If Alderman Potthoff's financial plan of putting 10% of the profit of the electric plant into a savings years ago when he had proposed instead of just recently Peru would have a healthy amount of money in its electric fund. Instead of saving too many others were and still are much happier to spend. The profits from the electric department were transferred to the general fund and than to the department of need. It works much better than going out and having to obtain money from outside sources and having to keep a continuous paper trail of how the city is spending money. The transfer method is simpler to implement and harder to keep track of, all you have to do is make a mud ball throw it against the wall, walk to the wall and place it wherever you want repeat the process one or two more times and it becomes untraceable where you started, relocated to before getting to your intended destination. That so called accounting marvel, GASP34, doesn't even come close to Home Rule or Mudball and the Wall accounting.
By the way how many dump trucks does the city have?
What progress has the City of Peru made in its attempts to hire a electric engineer and a civil engineer. How much has been spend on computer programs which were to be used by Sean Mikos, the former civil engineer of Peru? Being a 8 - 0 vote by the city council to spend the money for these programs because Sean convinced them of how much money they would save the city if purchased. Sean was questioned if he could use these programs and in answering yes he was told by a alderman that truthfully this is why he was hired. Sadly all that is left are the programs which are not programmed to use themselves. Most realize that Sean was a good investment and should be replaced as a civil engineer.
Possibly after the Police Chief and the Fire Chief accomplish the challenges of being Co Superintendents of the Public Works Department and everything is settled down the Mayor could take charge of the PWD and delegate much of the previous responsibilities of the SPW to the two foremen. This would be a major savings.
Noticeable in the last 2 nights of the Daily News is that the City of LaSalle has a ad for a Civil Engineer. I have not seen any ads for a electrical or civil engineer for Peru.
Does anyone know what progress Peru is making, and who is involved in making the progress?
The Promised Month of January is 25% history and still no High Noon. Some say mum is the word and everybody is quiet. Nobody is saying nothing.
Did you ever notice how quiet it gets before a storm?
Peru may end up another Big Al's of Peoria. Sometimes known as The Bucket of Blood.
We should just sell the assets to Ameren or the highest bidder. It is obvious that Peru is incapable of managing the Electric Department. Along with it we can sell the hydro plant and the debt. Clean break. Reduce the city payroll considerabley. Get rid of the billing and other accounting responsibilities.
11:18 PM - Your post is not factual. Please stick to factual information as everthing you "typed" is conjecture and not based on any fact that can be verified. Furthermore, these things cannot be understood by people outside of the City Administration. It is just way to complicated and we should trust the Electric Department and the Mayor becasue they know better and we can't possibly understand the facts even if they are given to us.
4:30 I guess that footnotes and actual information is much better than unfounded rumors. If your going to post some information anywhere you should have something more than made up stories. That's being a responsible human being! The difference between educated vs ignorant.
9:35 how do you know they are made up? Maybe the sources can't be disclosed for fear of retribution. After being lied to and patronized by city of Peru officials so many times, many people just assume that anything said by Harl and his gang is a lie anyway, therefore it is a safe bet that the opposite is the truth. As far as I am concerned I will never believe a word said by Harl, Vickery, Bernabie, King, Waldorf, Lukosus, Mueller, Farrari, Radtke, Sapienza, or Hylla. At the worst they are liars, at best they are patronizing and refuse to discuss anything with citizens.
FIRST OF ALL THE STREETS WERE DONE VERY WELL CONSIDERING THE AMOUNT OF SNOW AND THE TEMPERATOR.
SECOND: IF THE ALDERMEN WOULD HAVE BACKED MAYOR HARL AT THE VERY BEGINNING WITH HIREING OUTSIDE THE CITY FOR SPW, WE WOULDN'T HAVE HAD THIS PROBLEM.
THIRD: MAYOR BAKER BROUGHT IN THE UNION, SO DON'T BLAME HARL. I'M SO SICK OF YOU PEOPLE BLAMING EVERYTHING ON THE UNION. YOU ALL HAVE A SCREW LOSE.
Sorry 10:59 but I think you're wrong. I believe mayor Baker was against the union. I think mayor Harl helped the workers in joining the union. If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me and that's okay if it's the truth. But, i'M pretty sure I had heard that mayor Baker was against unions.
There was no union under Baker except for the Police.
"Americans cannot maintain their essential faith in government if there are two Americas, in which the private sector's work subsidizes the disproportionate pay and benefits of this new public sector elite." Mort Zuckerman
Well well, it started again. Blame all the problems on the last guy even though he has been out of office for five years. Typical Left Wing Democrat (aka New Progressive) crapola.
Scott Harl has been Mayor of Peru for nearly five full years. It is accepted that a new incumbent has one year to bring up and follow up any accusations or wrongdoings or he becomes part of the problem if there is a problem.
Taking office in 2009 enough time has elapsed that it is only fair that Mayor Harl accepts all responsibility of being Mayor.
I would believe that Mayor Harl agrees with this.
My understanding is that Mayor Baker fought the PPD long, hard and spent a lot of money in a tremendous effort to keep the police from becoming unionized. It is evident that he retaliated by discontinuing promoting from within and brought his last two Chiefs of Police into the department as Chiefs of Police.
I am not positive that Mayor Baker was against unions but I do believe that he was against government workers becoming unionized. There is a huge difference. There has to be a line created between management and union and for any organization to be successful this line has to be maintained.
10:59 YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT WHO BROUGHT IN THE UNION! It was Harl who finished the job, Baker was fighting it all the way and that is why the city employees backed Harl. Also in my opinion companies left because of high priced unions. People should run their own business and pay all expenses so then they would understand what it takes to operate and survive. Maybe then they would not be so greedy. Unions had their place at one time but now it is overdone with wages and benefits. Right to work for Illinois is the way to go. I know that you worked for the union and are a big union pusher and I also believe that when it comes to hiring another union contractor, you will hire non-union because it is cheaper and the work is just as good!
6:42 Your comment doesn't make sense. Exactly who brought in the union then if Harl "finished the job?" P.S. Not all city employees backed Harl. Pretty sure they voted on organizing long before Harl's name came into politics. Could it be that they were fed up with the "family run business" at that time? Also, companies "don't run" from unionized states. Many of your largest manufacturers in the country are unionized and profitable AND their employees are not "living off the public welfare system" in order to survive. Not trying to switch gears too fast, but did I just read that one of the candidates for governor wants to drop minimum wage? Wow, don't we have enough people in Illinois on the welfare rolls? Companies move to states that are development friendly with incentives. Why does everybody always jump on the band wagon to blame the unions for all your troubles? Better management and long term planning might be a better way to solve issues.
10:10 - the Chicagocrats are taking Bruce Rauner's stand out of context. He want's the Illinois minimum wage to match the national minimum wage. He supports raising the national minimum wage.
Furthermore, minimum wage jobs are entry level. They are not intended to be the primary means of employment. They are mostly for high school and college kids. Instead of all this hoopla over the minimum wage, we shoud be concerned about the reasons that higher skill employment is not available. One of the reaons is the union pay scale. For example, a union laborer is paid about $25 per hour in Illinois. That's $52K for unskilled work. The City of Peru awarded this salary for a new hire laberor within the last two years.
So the problem is not the minimum wage. The probleme is the union wage.
Does anyone know where a list of corporations that have built in the last 10 years and in what state?
Freeze ALL wages and things will straighten out.
10:10 I have to say that 6:42 is not wrong. Baker fought the union from coming in and Harl when elected completed the act of bringing in the union.
In 2008 was the fire department in a union? How about in 2009 when Harl was elected? How did this work?
"THE CURRENCY OF GREAT LEADERSHIP IS TRANSPARENCY AND TRUTH." Howard Schultz-CEO Starbucks.
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