Thursday, March 20, 2014

'Builders dominate list of donors to Peoria City Council members'

The biggest contributors to Peoria City Council campaigns for office are central Illinois building trades unions, as well as the contractors, engineers and architects who employ them, and the developers who hire them to build projects. A list was compiled from donation reports filed with the Illinois Board of Elections. Often these donations came in from out of town, and sometimes from out of state, making it hard for these donations to be explained as the donor taking an interest in civic affairs. The donations listed start in 2003 (the earliest date the records are available) and end in December 2013. No donations made in 2014 are yet available.
Read the rest at The Peoria Pundit.

Wednesday, March 05, 2014

'Peoria's new water franchise agreement has the makings of a boondoggle'

Read the latest on The Peoria Pundit:
It seems like taxpayers are giving up a lot (their right to buy the water company every five years), while the water company is gaining a lot (the ability to NOT have to fight off a buy out over five years). But residents are getting a perky new “tax” in the form of higher water bills. I’m trying to figure out how taxpayers benefit at all.