PeoriaStory

WEEK-TV weather channel off the air

PEORIA -- The handy weather channel, formerly on WEEK-TV2 or on Comcast cable 431 in Peoria is off the air.

That was a handy place to see local weather and forecasts at any time, especially for people without cable TV or the Internet.  Now it's gone.  Why?

Mark Bullion, weekend weather anchor of WEEK-TV said in an email: "Our contract expired with that channel two nights ago and thus, as you noticed, is now off the air. It's unclear what the company will be doing with the channel as of right now. If you are getting our channels off of an antenna, you can always watch our newscasts for the latest weather....that would be tonight at 5:30 on ABC and at 10 on ABC and NBC."

Uh, not so fast.  What about people with other obligations at those times?  And those who want the weather when convenient or necessary for them?  It's a matter of public safety sometimes.

How sad that the obligations of those using the public airwaves have vanished, with only profits, not public service, motivating them.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

Petition to stop concealed carry in Illinois

PEORIA -- Here's a fascinating appeal from a group working to stop concealed carry in Illinois, and a petition to sign to send to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

If she wants to run for another office, governor or senator for example, she better act on this! 

 

From Lee Goodman of the Stop Concealed Carry Coalition:

On December 11, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit federal appellate court threw out Illinois' ban on carrying weapons in public. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan had a two week deadline to ask the entire Circuit Court to review the decision, but she received an extension until January 8. She has not yet announced whether she will ask the court to review the decision.

If she doesn't ask for the Circuit Court review, she could try to get the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case on appeal. But if she does nothing, the decision will become law, and it will be legal to carry concealed weapons in public in Illinois.

Some people think that Madigan is waiting to appeal the decision in hopes that the Illinois legislature will enact a new law that includes some controls on guns that were not in the old law. However, because the court decision said that the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to carry guns in public, unless the court decision is overturned, any new law would have to include a provision allowing people to carry guns.

The only way left to keep guns out of stores, schools, churches, parks, streets, and other public places is for Lisa Madigan to appeal the court's decision and for the legislature to refuse to enact a law that allows carrying concealed weapons in public. If the legislature enacts a law allowing guns in public, the appeal will become moot; neither the 7th Circuit nor the Supreme Court will take the case, and the court decision will stand forever.

Some newspapers have reported that Madigan may be hesitant to appeal because an unfavorable decision by the Supreme Court could require New York and California to revise their relatively strict gun laws. But Madigan is supposed to represent the people of Illinois, not those other states. If we win in the Supreme Court, we could continue to ban public guns, and the entire country would have a favorable ruling it could rely on. If we lose in the Supreme Court, we are no worse off than right now.

Members of our coalition like you have sent emails and made phone calls to Madigan urging her to appeal. We will be ramping up our efforts to encourage the appeal between now and the January 8 deadline, but first we need to increase the number of people in our coaltion.

Can you get one or two more people to sign up online? Please, right now, shout out to the person in the next room and ask that person to sign up at www.StopConcealedCarry.org. If no one else is home, send an email to a couple of friends or relatives, or phone them. And while you are at it, ask a few more of your friends to urge Madigan to appeal. Madigan can be reached at [email protected]  or 312-814-3000.

This is an all-volunteer coalition. We don't have a staff. We rely on you to build the coalition. All we are asking is a few moments of your time. All we can offer in return is a higher level of personal safety for you and everyone you care about. Please help.

Thank you,
Lee Goodman

-30-

Downstate Story, Vol. 21, Now on the Web

PEORIA --  Here's the news release for Vol. 21 of Downstate Story:

 Ten new short stories by Illinois and Midwestern writers are featured in the 2012 edition of Downstate Story, Peoria's only literary magazine. For the first time Downstate Story has been published only on the Web at www.downstatestory.com.

The writers in this issue are Pepper Bauer of Mapleton; Don Axt of Peoria; Susan Duke of East Peoria; Elaine Fowler Palencia of Champaign; Jim Courter of Macomb; Kent McDaniel of Chicago; Terry Cobb of Harris, Missouri; Gary Hoffman of Okeehobee, Fla.; Bonnie McCune of Denver, Colo.; and Stefani Christova of Longmont, Colo. 

Published by Downstate Story, Inc., an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, the annual publication aims to present original fiction by Illinois writers and writers with ties to Illinois and the Midwest as a quality alternative to today's mass-market publishing.

For this edition, Readers are asked for donations to help defray publishing costs on the Web.  

Downstate Story’s new Facebook page can be accessed at www.Facebook.com/downstatestory.

 

      DOWNSTATE STORY,   Vol. 21,   THE FACTS

 1.  Politically correct.  Contributors paid for their work.  No government funds used. 

 2.  Something for everyone.  Stories reflect diversity of authors, and include romance, horror, fantasy, mainstream fiction.

 3.  Promotes quality reading.  Content  realistic but not X-rated.

 4.  Promotes Illinois and Midwestern writers and artists.

 5.  Unusual concept for the arts.  Provides outlet for local writers and artists to reach local audiences free.

 6.  Original work.  None ever published before.

 7.  Quality work.  Stories and art comparable to work in Harpers,  Atlantic, The New Yorker.

 8. No poetry.

 9. No advertising.

 10. Unique experiment in publishing, asking for donations instead of fee.

 DOWNSTATE STORY, Vol. 21. 

Authors:  (Telephone numbers available on request)

Pepper L. Bauer, Mapleton, Il., [email protected]

Jim Courter, Macomb, Il., [email protected]

Don Azt, Peoria, [email protected]

Susan F. Duke, East Peoria, Il., [email protected]

Kent McDaniel, Chicago, Il., [email protected]

Elaine Fowler Palencia, Champaign, Il. [email protected]

Terry Cobb, Harris, Missouri, [email protected]

Gary R. Hoffman, Okeechobee, Fla., [email protected]

B.F. McCune, Denver, Colo., [email protected]

Stefani Christova, Longmont, Colo., [email protected]

 - 30 -

 

 

 

Catch a Rising Star, from East Peoria

EAST PEORIA -- The following piece is by Connie Stepe, who has also written for the print edition of Downstate Story.  It concerns her son, 44, who could be the next big star.He now lives in Brooklyn New York, and successfully recruited musicians from an opera company for his latest CD.

FROM PUNK MUSIC TO "CHAOS IN SEASON"--                                                               A MUSICIAN'S LONG JOURNEY

By Connie Stepe

If you're over forty years old, the name Chopper Stepe may sound familiar to you.  You may remember him as the new kid from Chicago when you were a student at East Peoria high school. Or maybe you went skateboarding with him in downtown Peoria. Or you listened to him play an acoustic guitar in his band "Caustic Defiance" in someone's basement or backyard. That is, if you liked punk music. It was new to the Peoria area.

Punk music wasn't new to Chopper. He preferred playing it because he could create his own music and lyrics.  Just a few years earlier, he had been involved in Chicago's hardcore punk scene. At the age of twelve, he played in a punk band called, "Negative Element," which had put out its one and only record that is still sought after today. 

After attending Illinois Central College, he returned to Chicago and enrolled in a sound engineering program.  He also teamed up with some friends and played in a hard rock band called, "The Kill City Boys."

The band broke up a few years later.  That was to set a pattern for the following fifteen years: working a full time job during the day and joining different bands and playing everything from punk, to hard rock, to country music on  weekends.

 

In 2005, he settled in Orlando, Florida where he became a machinist and tried to forget about joining any more bands. It didn't last too long. He played in a punk band that almost made it. After that, he played for awhile in a country band just for fun.

Chopper recognized that Orlando had a very supportive musical community. He decided to form his own band appropriately called   "Chopper Stepe."  He returned to writing his own music and lyrics. This time he wanted it to be different. Instead of being in the background playing his guitar, he became the lead singer in his band. 

His band produced two CDs. The Orlando Weekly newspaper described the band as having a rock and roll sound that's like country music for greasers.

The second CD earned him the "Songwriter of Year" award in 2011.

Encouraged, he decided to put out a professionally produced CD entitled  "Chaos in Season"  which was recently reviewed in the Orlando Sentinel.

All of Chopper Stepe's music is available for free listening/downloading at his Website, chopperstepe.com.

 -30-

Les Miserables: good!

PEORIA -- How can it be that the film version of the Broadway musical Les Miserables has become controversial?

But that's what has happened, with a snide review in the New York Times as a prime example.

And this, from David Edelstein the NPR film critic: "what I saw on-screen was a transcendentally tasteless bombardment, an absolute horror show that in a just world would send people screaming from the theater."

Well, if some critics don't like it, they're wrong.

I saw Les Miserables as a holiday treat and it's terrific. It is what it is, a traditional costume drama with music, and it's beautifully filmed with skillful camera work and actors who can also sing, and sing well.

It's a 19th century Victor Hugo novel, done with 21st century technology.  It works. The criticism -- weak singing, too much religion, too much grime -- isn't justified. All that is part of the story, and the film is well worth seeing. 

I saw it in the Chicago suburbs, at a sold-out venue.  We bought tickets in advance, on line, or we would not have gotten into the theater.  We saw it as a  digital production, the only way to see a film like this.

The audience applauded at the end.

Don't miss it.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

PHA drags its feet, kicks out the spectators from meeting

PEORIA -- Six months ago Hedy Elliott Gardner and I spoke to the Peoria Housing Authority asking the board to develop due process for those on the notorious Trespass List, so that inclusion on the list isn't a life sentence.

(See the June 25, 2012 story easily accessible by clicking on the 'civil rights' category, on the list on the right of this page.)

Gardner, who teaches GED classes at housing authority sites knew that the huge list, with many similar names, included people who are dead or serving life terms in prison.

We found that any employee of the PHA can place a name on the list, for any reason or no reason, so the person is subject to arrest.

There's no appeal process to get off the list. The potential for corruption is obviously there, especially if a person's relatives live at one of the PHA sites.

The security chief of the PHA also devotes much of his time to monitoring the list, according to his reports. So there's an incentive to make sure the list grows.

We asked the PHA board, appointed by the Peoria mayor, to develop an appeals process, an independent committee to hear appeals if someone wants off the list.

To date, nothing has happened, and now the PHA has added a new twist to its meetings.  It schedules closed sessions first, before public comments, to discourage people who might be critical of what's going on.

That's what happened on Dec. 17. Gardner was there, to make a comment, namely to ask why dead people's names are still on the list, and why nothing has been done about setting up a system for due process.

But before she could comment, the closed session was called, as the first order of business.  An audience of a dozen people, including me and an observer for the Peoria Area League of Women Voters, was ushered out of the room. I protested and was told I was out of order.

The League member and I left. It's the holiday season and we're busy. Gardner decided to stay after someone told her the closed session would last only 15 minutes.

Forty minutes later the closed session was still taking place so Gardner had to leave.  Who knows how long it went on, but obviously long enough to discourage public comments and perhaps news coverage, as reporters also are busy people.

Oddly there was another closed session on the agenda scheduled for the end of the meeting.  That's where all closed sessions should take place for the convenience of the audience whose taxes support the PHA.  

Why two closed sessions?  No one offered an answer.

This is very poor public policy. 

The long time board president Richard Zuckerman was replaced at the end of his term in November, and a new regime is taking over. Election of officers also was on the agenda, but likely there will be no one left to witness the election, which may be the way this board wants it.

Very sad.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Guns for sale now

PEORIA -- Author and activist Burt Raabe looked at the Peoria Journal Star and found plenty of guns available. He writes:

Sunday's PJStar included an ad supplement from Gander Mtn.  Advertised is a Bushmaster .223 semi  automatic rifle with a 30 round magazine (save $100).

This is the same weapon used in the Newtown school shooting. It was also used by the D.C. sniper some years ago.

On the same page is an ad for 2000 rounds of ammo for $799 (save $200).

I really do not know what purpose a weapon of this kind has in Illinois.

It is legal to hunt deer only with a three shell loaded shotgun or a muzzle loader (one shot for a muzzle loader).

I called the store but of course got the old "thank you for your comment" routine.

 -- Burt Raabe

My take: boycott any store selling this stuff.

  -- Elaine Hopkins

Plan the future

PEORIA -- From a news release: Here's an interesting event.

When: Tuesday, December 18, 2012 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM

Where: Rhythm Kitchen, 305 Southwest Water Street, Peoria, IL

Focus Forward CI is inviting young community stakeholders and citizens in Peoria, Tazewell, Woodford, and Mason Counties to come together to learn, discuss, and discover information about the regional economic development initiative currently underway.

What does this mean?

Economic development is a process to turn our regional assets into opportunities that can attract and grow the kinds of private investment that generate good jobs and income. It's designed to engage all populations in a regional effort to transform mindset, economic performance, environment, and leadership throughout the Peoria area.

The region is currently refocusing its economic development efforts to a model that will help create a better future for ourselves, our children,and our communities.

Let's put our future into our own hands. The schedule:

5:30 - 6:00 hors d'oeuvres/social;    6:00 - 7:30 presentation and discussion.

This meeting is open to the general public and will last approximately two hours. Registration is required. Learn more at www.FocusForwardCI.com.

My take:  What many young people today need and want is a cheap or free course in how to start their own busisnesses.  Not a semester-long college course,and the costs associated with that, but an intensive weekend or night class seminar on the basics: the government requirements, do-it-yourself accounting, public relations and advertising/marketing on the cheap, etc. Better yet, a web course.  With free child care.  Will that happen?

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Schock's real views: be shocked!

UPDATE - 12/14/12:  Schock is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, Politico has reported.  He's already spent $94,000 on defense attorneys, it says.

 

PEORIA -- Who recently said in "a harsh letter sent during the 46th State Senate District campaign between incumbent Democrat Dave Koehler and Republican businessman Pat Sullivan" that "Democrats have “a socialist economic philosophy” and that Koehler is “an unrepentant left-wing fanatic,” “strident and extreme” and with “a nanny state mentality” who’s cast “radical liberal votes?”

Yes, Aaron Schock wrote that.

In a well researched and highly revealing column by journalist Bill Knight, Schock is stripped bare (sorry no photo) to reveal his extreme right wing views and votes in Congress. 

Read this and be shocked that Republican Schock remains the 18th District Congressman representing central Illinois and part of Peoria.

Scroll down to the Dec. 7 column.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

Rocky Glen protected!

PEORIA -- The Peoria City Council on Dec. 11 approved the purchase of Rocky Glen for $230,000.

That means the 70-acre historic site will be protected and accessible to the public, likely as a park or natural area.

Only council members Gary Sandberg and Beth Akeson voted against the purchase.  They both said the site deserves protection but disagreed about the funding source, and the machinations behind it.

Rocky Glen is in West Peoria, but borders property owned by the Peoria Park District and the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The political sausage-making behind the grant funding got a long explanation from Mayor Ardis and city manager Patrick Urich.  In effect, the grant funds were earmarked for the purchase of open space, and the city needed to buy some to replace open space assigned to or earmarked for development.

"This is about getting us out of debt" Sandberg said. "IDNR will give us a credit balance so another development can take place on the riverfront."

"I'm sure the people in the audience in favor of Rocky Glen don't want to see the riverfront screwed up more than it already is," Akeson said.

Ardis said Peoria residents will be able to visit Rocky Glen.  "This is an oustanding solution to something we've been kicking down the road."

My take:  such situations are never pure.  Remember the Kellar Trail?  It became a trail only because the railroads were paid off, a disgusting action that really should not have been necessary. But it occurred. Now the trail is being developed and is a great asset to Peoria.

This is political sausage-making, and if the end justifies the means for such amenities, so be it.

 -- Elaine Hopkins