PeoriaStory

Heartland Festival Orchestra closes 5th season with Beethoven's 5th

WASHINGTON, IL -- How fitting that the Heartland Festival Orchestra should end its 5th season with Beethoven's 5th Symphony, one of the greatest classical pieces ever written.

The orchestra will be playing Beethoven's 6th Symphony next year, to open its 6th season, conductor and artistic director David Commanday told the audience. 

The Heartland Festival Orchestra is unusual in that its subscriptions are up, unlike many classical orchestras.  That's a tribute to Commanday and his musicians, who play beautifully the creative programs that Commanday develops.

The closing concert of the 5th season, on May 31 at Five Points Washington also featured Beethoven's 4th Symphony and Haydn's Sinfonia Concertante in B-Flat Major, Op. 84.

How exciting to hear these fabulous and familiar pieces expertly played, live. 

These works are timeless like great literature, which can be read again and again to reveal new meaning.  This music works the same way, it's familiar yet constantly surprises.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

 

The dangers of pesticides, herbicides

PEORIA, IL -- From a news release:

 

From PEORIA FAMILIES AGAINST TOXIC WASTE

 

He’s been interviewed by Steve Curwood on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” written articles published in peer-reviewed journals and worked as a physician for decades. Dr. Paul Winchester, medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Francis Hospital in Indianapolis, is urgently concerned about human exposure to environmental contaminants and has said that every person in this country has traces of these chemicals in their bodies, yet no one has given permission to become a toxic waste dump.

Winchester will talk about his research and his concerns at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 5, Universalist Unitarian Church, 3000 W. Richwoods Boulevard, Peoria. The public is invited to this free presentation.

 Dr. Winchester has done extensive research on environmental contaminants, most of which are endocrine disrupting chemicals. In one study he conducted, he found statistically significant correlations between birth defects among children conceived during peak periods of application of atrazine, an herbicide used widely in central Illinois. His further research found statistically significant correlations between learning disabilities among children conceived during peak periods of atrazine application.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals have been linked to certain cancers, obesity, diabetes, autism, asthma, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and ADHD. These are the epidemics of modern life and the scourges of public health.

Dr. Winchester will review historical trends, patterns of exposure, mechanism of action, health impacts and epigenetic effects. 30 -

 

 

 

Did the District 150 School Board violate the Illinois Open Meetings Act?

PEORIA, IL -- I didn't attend the oddly set up Peoria District 150 School Board meetings this week.  Had conflicts.

But why were there two meetings on two consecutive evenings, May 27-28.?  Why not just one? Makes no sense.

The first meeting was the final 'committee of the whole,' meeting which had become a farce.  I recommended that it be dropped, and thankfully, it was.

Good job, board.

But the second meeting was a puzzler.  How can it possibly be legal under the Illinois Open Meetings law for a school board to discuss for hours how to set up a process to select a new school board member when one is expected to resign?

That's a process. It's not interviewing candidates.  It should be discussed in public.

But that's what the board did on May 28. 

Public comments were allowed, so here's what activist Sharon Crews said:

In a TV interview, Dr. Lathan, you stated that a Committee of the Whole is “a meeting of the board held in public, not a public meeting.”  Then you added, “Unfortunately, it is displayed out in public.”

Unfortunately, you do not seem to understand that all board business is to be “displayed” in public—except for executive sessions.

I believe that you may misunderstand the purpose of executive sessions.  Handling personnel decisions behind closed doors is for the protection of employees.  Executive sessions are not meant to protect the decisions of the superintendent or the board from public scrutiny.

You are not the CEO of a company with trade secrets to be kept from competitors.  There should be no secret decisions in public schools.

We have uncovered many secrets that you intended to keep secret.  For instance, over 800 transactions totaling over $132,000 on catered food, mostly consumed by administrators.  None of you have ever tried publicly to justify eating up District funds meant to educate children.

You didn’t want us to know that you paid 13 lawyers over $130,000 to work over 580 hours over 4 months time to investigate alleged test irregularities at Charter Oak.  We have yet to hear the board’s justification for spending such an unprecedented amount of time and money on that investigation—an expense that convinces me to call the investigation a personal vendetta and witch hunt.

What is planned for the 27 teachers that are still on the RIF list?

I certainly hope you will never again waste money on attorney fees trying to use the reduction in force excuse for firing teachers. And, by what stretch of the imagination, are we to believe that you, Dr. Lathan, were not entangled in the 2011 RIF?

All in all, D150 just keeps getting weirder.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Nightmare mixups in Dist. 150 -- Why?

PEORIA, IL – Here’s a weird scandal/mixup, involving Peoria School District 150.

Parents and children who thought they were going to Washingon Gifted Middle School were send scrambling when the letters didn’t arrive, or went to the wrong parents.

One of the would-be Washington parents wrote the following account of what happened She asked that her name be withheld, for fear of retaliation.  As she tried to find out what was going on, she was lied to and treated disrespectfully, she says.

Her conclusion:  “Policies and procedures have been neglected throughout this whole process and someone should be held accountable.  From no review or verification of data, to mailing private information regarding minors to unauthorized persons, to failing to ask for ID for personal information regarding a minor, this has been a procedural breakdown and nightmare.”  

She had learned that other parents at some top primary schools, Charter Oak, Northmore, and Thomas Jefferson, also never received any letters. Other schools may have been affected but she never heard about them.  

Here’s what she did find out:  The initial letter was received by most parents on Thursday, May 15. The second letters were received Monday, May 19. According to her, what follows is the  breakdown of the mistakes and errors that occurred from the first, erroneous mailing.

When she heard letters had gone out to some parents, she dropped by the administration building on May 16 to request a copy of her missing letter.  “I met another parent there who also did not receive a first letter. The secretary called someone and then told us we had to have called ahead to schedule an appointment so the letter could be printed and waiting for us. I informed her that I did call...five times to be exact with five voicemail messages, but no one bothered to call me back.”

(My take: they’re not listening to their voice mail? Who knew!)

She continued: “The receptionist then called someone else out to deal with us.”  She never introduced herself.  “I don't know who she was.  She was from a different department.  She said that the entire Curriculum Department was gone all day for a training (session) and no one left at admin  building knew how to access the letters.  She said to call on Monday.”

However,  “my husband had called that morning and was told by Daphne Dixon that Shameika Sykes-Patterson and Nichole Burrell were out of the building until noon. That is why I showed up a little before 1 o'clock.”  

(Hummm…check those P-cards/aka credit cards, for nice lunches somewhere.)

The receptionist  “also said that with proper ID, any parent would be able to obtain the requested information. We told the woman to find someone higher up who could help us.  She sent out Tim Delinski, who was gunning for bear the moment he walked through the door.”

(Oops did he have to leave lunch early to cover for the others?)

“He announced his name and title and told us under no circumstances would we be leaving with a letter that day.  Neither he nor anyone left in the building could or would access the requested information.  He was rude, condescending, and argumentative.

 “I was expecting, foolishly, some level of deference, accommodation, and an apology for apparently mailing my son's information to a stranger who had no right to have it.”  

“I explained that what they did, inadvertently or not, was illegal.  He didn't seem to care much.  The other mom I was with suggested he contact someone from the Curriculum Dept. and ask them to either come back to admin to address this situation or tell him over the phone how to access and print off a couple of letters.  

“She also suggested that he contact Washington Principal Poehls, because he would have a copy of the list of children who were accepted.  He left to go do one of those, we still don't know which but I'm guessing he contacted Washington School.

“On his way out, I expressed my dismay that we were never offered an apology for their colossal error.  Delinski came storming back at me and we had another verbal altercation.  Funny...wasn't this the same man who has been on the Respect and Accountability Tour with Supt. Grenita Lathan on all the networks and radio shows?  Where was the respect and accountability during this fiasco?

“After about 35 minutes he finally returned and gave us verbal confirmation of our children's acceptance and then slammed the door behind him and left. Real peach of a guy!

There’s more.  According to what the mom learned, “most parents received letters that were addressed to children other than their own, but had their correct mailing address.  Some of those letters were opened.  The ones that were had information pertaining to a child other than their own, although a few letters had the name of a different child, yet the correct birthday for their child.

“Many parents had someone else receive their child's letter.  To this day, I don't know who received my son's letter, and administration has refused to track down this information for me.  I wanted to know if the letter had been returned to admin, and they would not tell me.

“My main issue is the legality of having my son's personal,  private information sent to an unauthorized person.  This would have included his name, birthdate, test scores and IQ scores.  I was told by Nichole Burrell that it didn't matter if someone else received my son's letter because all of the information was incorrect.

(Hello identity theft in a few years.) 

“She said the first round of letters had random data assigned, so none of the information would have been accurate anyway.”

 (Really? This is nuts!)

 “I checked with two parents who received both letters.  And although there were clearly errors in the data, not all of the data was incorrect as Nichole would have had me believe.  I assume she was instructed to tell worried parents this lie so that the legality issue could be contained.  But it just isn't true. Also, she told me it was a spreadsheet error, while another parent was told it was a mail merge error.  Apparently they had never used mail merge before and no one really knew what they were doing.  This was according to Sykes-Patterson. 

 “The mistakes that the first letters contained included: wrong addressee, wrong birth dates, wrong test scores (CogAT & NWEA), and missing information (the Gifted Characteristic Checklist box was left off of 2 letters entirely.  This is the same as the Teacher Referral score).

“One parent whose letter was missing the Gifted Characteristic Checklist box was told by Shameika Sykes-Patterson that they 'forgot' to factor that information into her child's overall score.  That criteria alone is worth a total of 10 possible points and could very well change the final list of accepted children.  Her child was denied acceptance.  To date, she still doesn't know if her child is accepted or not with the corrected data.

“Some children were denied acceptance in their first letter, yet accepted in the second letter.

 “I know of two instances, two at Charter Oak and one at Thomas Jefferson, where children were accepted in the first letter and then denied acceptance either in the follow-up letter or via a phone call from admin.

 “When parents explained how reprehensible this was to do to a child and wanted to know if they would honor the initial acceptance, admin told them 'no'. A Charter Oak parent had a meeting with Shameika Sykes-Patterson and Dr. LaToy Kennedy last week regarding the flip-flopping of acceptance.  She was met with rudeness by Dr. Kennedy and NEVER received so much as an apology for this colossal error.”

(Maybe they were late for lunch on the P-card.)  

 “She was told that her child's, plus two other children's data had ended up on one letter. When she was in the room alone with Sykes-Patterson, she was told that her child would definitely get in because she was number 76 on the overall list, meaning number one on the waiting list.

“When Kennedy came into the room and the parent asked for verification of this,  Kennedy told her that her child was number 80 on the list, or number 5 on the wait list.  She would offer no explanation for the discrepancy.

 “This parent is (sending) her child to Quest next year, to follow a sibling.

 “The bottom line is that parents are still not satisfied that the data they received in the second mailing was accurate.  I know that my son's average NWEA scores are unable to be duplicated in my records, even though I have access to his last three test scores, which is what they use to come up with a score.  Other parents have said the same thing.

(Good thing these high priced administrators are not taking the tests students take, or they would cause the entire D150 to fail, not just most of it.)

“Also, the parent of the child whose Gifted Characteristics Checklist was not factored in to the overall score has yet to find out if that omission kept her from a well-earned spot at Washington.  If she ends up being accepted, doesn't that mean another child would have to be bumped off the list again? When?

 “Here is the wording of the second letter that parents received.  NO apology or accountability AT ALL. Written completely in the passive voice:

 "Your child was recently reviewed for Gifted and Talented Services.  It has been determined that you may have received an incorrect student letter concerning these results in our recent mailing on May 15, 2014.  In this error, the incorrect student letter was mailed to your current home address.

Please find in this mailing the correct letter as well as your student's results from our recent identification process.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our office at the information listed below.

Sincerely,

Office of Student Assignment"

 

“The other bit of information comes from the PSD150 website.  Under Curriculum & Instruction-Gifted Education-Referral/Application Process for Washington Gifted-Overview of Selection Process, it states under Number 6:

A list of the ranked students is generated and reviewed by the Data and Research Department and the Office of Student Assignment to verify accuracy of calculations.  

“Did review and verification not occur in EITHER department?  If it had, surely someone would have noticed that the scores, birth dates, names and addresses were all screwed up!"

“Additionally,  I know of one parent who returned her incorrect first letter to admin and picked up her child's letter.  They never asked for ID.  When the other parent and I visited admin and finally got verbal verification from Delinski that our children were accepted, we did not have to show ID or prove who we were.

“Policies and procedures have been neglected throughout this whole process and someone should be held accountable.  From no review or verification of data, to mailing private information regarding minors to unauthorized persons, to failing to ask for ID for personal information regarding a minor, this has been a procedural breakdown and nightmare.”  

 

My take:  is this a plot to get rid of Washington Gifted School?  Charter Oak has been taken down, so maybe Washingon is next. 

 

--Elaine Hopkins

Ordinary Days a little too ordinary

PEORIA, IL -- A tiny musical with a tiny company opened on Friday, May 16 and runs again on Saturday, May 17. 

Ordinary Days, 7:30 p.m. at the Apollo Theater on Main Street, across from the courthouse, reminded us of a sketch that the actors in the recent TV series Smash might have concocted.

This show has played in New York City where it was reviewed by the New York Times, been on tour, and has its own CD. 

In the Peoria version it was amusing but sparce, and once again reveals the enormous talent required of a really successful musical comedy.

This show aims high and the performers have some "chops" both as actors and singers, but this genre is inherently difficult and would be a challenge to even top-notch professionals.  Kudos to the cast for undertaking this Sondheim-inspired vehicle.  They're musically pretty good in a show with limited spoken dialogue.

The sole instrumentalist, pianist Jeff Driscoll, does a fine job but sometimes overshadows the lyrics, which the audience then can't hear.

Since the witty lyrics carry the plot, that can be a problem.

(Note to all actors everywhere, including on TV:  speak slowly. Enunciate dialogue and lyrics. Pretend you're on the stage in London.)

The story focuses on four 20-something New Yorkers trying to make it personally and romantically in the big city. It never moves much beyond that scenario.  In other words, it's too "ordinary" and thus lacks the edge that makes a show really interesting.

They interact, go to the Met, discuss art, hale a taxi.  Ho hum, as the title promises.

Would this show be 1,000 percent better in the hands of very skilled actors, singers and musicians?  Perhaps. The plot is still weak however, and the music is a little too off beat to carry it, at least as sung by these actors, who are good, but not great as singers.

Still, it's worth seeing for 90 minutes, at $10, just to wonder whether you would have bankrolled it on Broadway if this had been the tryout.

 -- Elaine and George Hopkins

Here's a review from Peoria's Live Theater League.

Twittergate: the latest so far

UPDATE 5/17/14: DATE:  See the Peoria ACLU chapter website for more links, including a good PJS editorial on Twittergate.

 

 

PEORIA, IL -- Here's the latest on Twittergate, below.  The city, etc., likely will be sued.  Thanks, Ardis. The taxpayers really love you now.

 

Statement of Edwin C. Yohnka
Director of Communications and Public Policy
American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois
RE: Twitter Parody Controversy in Peoria, 
Illinois.
May 13, 2014

In recent days, the ACLU of Illinois has received
 a number of inquiries from Peoria media about  
whether  our organization intends to become involved
in the matter concerning   the response by
Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis and Peoria police  to a Twitter
account that sought to parody the Mayor.  

The ACLU of Illinois is  very concerned about this matter. Parody of
public officials is a long tradition in this country and in most
democratic societies. It is  a form of speech that enjoys a high level
of protection under the First Amendment.   Many elected officials,
professional athletes, actors and celebrities are subjects of  parody
accounts on social media  but this is the first instance, to our
knowledge, in which a public official called  on the power of the
police to target those who author such accounts.  

Political parody, according to some estimates, is at least 2,400 years
old, dating back to the Greek dramatist Aristophanes' critiques
of Athenian strategy in the Peloponnesian War.   Other notable
parodies of political leaders and movements can be seen in Jonathan
Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the political cartoons of Thomas Nast
(who created the modern symbols for our national political parties),
up to the modern day, with Jon Stewart's Daily Show, one of the most
widely watched programs on cable television.  

This parody never should have led to the procurement of a warrant,
a search of a private home, the detention  of any individual who
resides in the residence and the seizure of electronic communication
devices from the residence.  Previously, we took steps to represent
the interests of some of the persons  affected.   In late April, the
ACLU acted on behalf of two individuals, John Daniel and Jacob Elliot,
demanding that City police and the State's Attorney immediately
return all the cell phones, computer tablets, laptops and processors
that were taken in the course of the search of these individual's
residence on April 15th. Those items were subsequently returned.      

The ACLU of Illinois now represents Mr. Daniel, the creator of the
Twitter parody. Mr. Daniel, like other parodists, has  a First
Amendment right to post these tweets.   He was engaging in a
time-honored tradition of poking fun at public officials -- even
when the public official doesn't like it.  Because Mr. Daniel's
activities were protected, they should never have led to a
warrant and search of his home.  The police activity in this case
was unnecessary and contrary to both the First and Fourth
Amendment  protections to which he was entitled.   

In the coming weeks, the ACLU of Illinois anticipates bringing
legal action in support of Mr. Daniel against those officials who
are responsible for the violations of his rights.   We hope this
action will send a strong signal to all that wrongful use of the
police power  to suppress protected speech, even when it is
critical or makes fun of public officials is an abuse of power
and is not acceptable. - 30 -

____________________________________________________


http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140513/NEWS/140519742 

UPDATE:  Late today, Elliott was indicted.
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140513/NEWS/140519647 

This is outrageous in my opinion. Consider that the powers-that-be
can draw up a bogus search warrant, enter your home and
find or plant anything that looks illegal.  Zonk-- your life is ruined.
 -- Elaine Hopkins 

 

The Charter Oak School issue won't disappear

PEORIA, IL -- The firing of principal John Wetterauer at Charter Oak School just won't disappear.

Parents, grandparents and activists talked about it during the public comments at the May 12 meeting of the Peoria District 150 School Board.

Activist Terry Knapp detailed the Illinois State Board of Education's refusal to meet with him and others, or wait for the teacher grievance to be resolved, and how instead they rubber stamped the board attorney's report. He's sending a letter to legislators, the attorney general and governor asking for an independent investigation.

He and activist Sharon Crews talked about the $130,000 the district spent on its investigation, which involved 13 lawyers. Crews acquired the legal bills through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The board did not spend any money investigating other schools where testing irregularities took place, she said.  This effort at Charter Oak, to discredit and humiliate the principal was pointless, as he could have been reprimanded then fired at the end of the school year, she said.  Her comment and Knapp's comment are  attached below. 

Kathleen Deffenbaugh called the situation at Charter Oak a "witch hunt," and said her grandchildren who attend the school have been affected.  The principal that replaced Wetterauer "had testing irregularities at her school" and was not punished, she said.

"You removed two wonderful teachers for no reason."  Families are leaving the district "because of what you did," she said.

Mimi McDonald talked about her granddaughter, who has been head butted and punched by a Charter Oak classmate. School officials refused to take her out of the 2nd grade class, she said. 

Her son James McDonald said a meeting with the teacher was a waste of time. The school also had no security and doors were not locked.  His daughter is now scared to go to school, he said, adding if it happens again he will file a police report and "you will need more lawyers."

Tammy Lott said her son doesn't want to go to school now, and reported a fist fight recently.

In her response, Supt. Grenita Lathan said Wetterauer was not targeted. "This was not a witch hunt," she said, adding "we will address parent concerns."

Here is a recording of the public comments: 

Dist150 May 12

 -- Elaine Hopkins 

 

Sharon Crews' comment:

 

On January 13 the public did not know that any other schools except Charter Oak had been accused of testing irregularities.  We still would not have known if other cases hadn’t been revealed through FOIA requests.  When asked why the 41 testing irregularities at Lincoln were treated so very differently than the 26 at Charter Oak, Lathan replied that all cases are different.  Many of us don’t see the difference.  Just exactly how are these cases different? 

 

Attorney Eisenhammer’s quote in the PJStar hinted that the difference was that irregularities occurred over several years at Charter Oak.  I guess he didn’t know, because he wasn’t asked to investigate, the 2010, 11, and 12 irregularities at Franklin and the principal was not punished.

 

 

 

John Wetterauer has been blamed for not reporting testing irregularities       at his school.  Why would he report what he didn’t see?  Principals aren’t      asked to compare their test results with those of any other schools.  Such      investigations should take place on Wisconsin Avenue.  Instead Lathan paid      $8,000 to a Chicago PR firm to hype the very scores she is now questioning. 

 

If  (and I say “if”) there were such blatant irregularities for three years, Lathan  is the one responsible for not noticing.  But she received a $10,000 bonus.

 

 

You chose to make the Charter Oak case so very public while never mentioning the others?  The four-month Charter Oak investigation  cost taxpayers $130,000.   One or more of thirteen lawyers worked on this case every day for 86 days.  Lawyers spent 581 hours questioning the test results of probably considerably less than 26 special ed students one to two years after the test was given?

 

Go online to IllinoisEducationPundit to read her January 13 entry.  With the benefit of her own expertise, Mary Beth tears apart all illusions about the importance of this so-called investigation.  She rightly and strongly makes the point that the bias of these investigators—that would be a $130,000 bias—was ignored and denied by the Board.  Certainly, you know that lawyers do not bite the hand that feeds them.  Mary Beth points out that the lawyers did not present any raw data.  Surely, you realize that no testing irregularities can be proven without analyzing the tests themselves—the lawyers had no access to the tests.  We aren’t as stupid as you seem to think.

 

 

Why was this investigation conducted and what did it accomplish?  According to the reports of other testing irregularities, the only action taken was to report them to the ISBE, which appears to be all that is required.  Why was the Charter Oak case handled so differently?

 

 

Principals have no union protection.  Principals can be transferred while keeping them at their one-year contract salary until the end of the year.  I believe Lathan could have and would have fired John at the end of the year.  His only option would be to sue the District.  The investigation didn’t preclude legal action.

 

My guess is that one reason for the investigation was to discredit and humiliate John publicly—it was not required by the ISBE.  We now have reason to believe that the ISBE has been swayed by District 150’s kangaroo court.  Shame on them!

 

You wasted $130,000. Why did the lawyers continue to work on this investigation for a month and a half after their report was presented at the board meeting?  I assume you made the decision behind closed doors at an executive session to allow a 4-month investigation.  Where have you hidden this expense in your financial records?

 

 

The lawyers were paid for over 100 events during which they conferred with one or more people—names all redacted, of course.  I believe we have a right to know whether or not lawyers in this firm were paid to talk to one another?  There is no doubt that with 13 lawyers involved, they had to update each other on their activities—did we pay for that?

 

Only one or two lawyers showed entries for travel.  Lawyer AAC reported travel as no charge for November but the travel entries for the next three months were not listed as no charge.  If the lawyers did not come to Peoria, how did they conduct a credible investigation from Chicago?  How often were P-cards used to feed or to pay for overnight accommodations for these “visiting” lawyers?  The length and cost of this investigation was meant to be a secret.  Sorry—not!

Terry Knapp's comment:

The Illinois State Board of Education

1 – Refused to do an independent investigation of the Charter Oak School test irregularities.

2 – Refused to wait for Charter Oak teacher legal process to be concluded.

3 – Refused to meet in Springfield with leaders of concerned Peoria community groups.

4 – Merely rubber-stamped District 150’s report on Charter Oak’s supposed testing violations.

Since ISBE has taken a cavalier attitude by issuing a very incomplete report to District 150 without regard to any of the above considerations, I believe that ISBE and its leaders (Jim Palmer,  ISAT principal consultant; Angela Chamness, Division Administrator of Student Assessment;  and Mary O’Brian, Director of Student Assessment) have acted in concert with Peoria School District 150’s school board, superintendent, and attorneys to deprive Charter Oak students, parents, teachers, principal, and taxpayer supporters of any due process.

The animus that Superintendent Grenita Lathan has displayed toward the Charter Oak Community and staff is obvious as evidenced by the legal onslaught carried out by the District and its attorneys.  The District’s refusal to provide an independent investigation left no choice but to appeal to ISBE, who, in turn, refused to an independent investigation.

A letter will be prepared and sent to the State Legislature, the Attorney General, and the Governor, asking for an independent investigation, long overdue in Peoria and refused by ISBE.

Charter Oak school and its community deserve a fresh look at how the District treated them in a disparate manner when compared to the treatment given nine other schools in Peoria with test irregularities. - 30 -

 

Twitter petition

PEORIA, IL -- Since I have no first hand knowledge of what went down on the now famous Twitter raid, I have not commented on it.  But the Peoria Journal Star is doing a good job of getting the documents and covering it, as we learn more and more about how it came about. 

It is disheartening, even outrageous to know that the mayor, the police chief, the state's attorney and three judges had so little regard for the lst Amendment of the US Constitution that they signed search warrants and organized the raid without even knowing the law.

I have been told that the raid victims still have not yet had their electronic equipment returned.  What are they searching for? And would finding something illegal make an arrest legal? 

If so, no one is safe in their homes, in violation of the US Constitution's 4th amendment.  An illegal search warrant could be issued for anyone to search for anything.

Then there's the case of the hapless guy who admitted the marijuana was his. I was told the police threatened to arrest everyone unless someone admitted ownership.He took the fall.

So an illegal search resulted in his arrest, and fighting it will cost thousands. 

Now comes news of a petition and a demonstration, via email.  Here it is, below. I signed the petition, and plan to be at the City Council on May 14: 

 

 

Hold our public officials accountable and share your voice at the Peoria City Council Meeting in Room 400 of City Hall (419 Fulton Street) this Tuesday evening at 6:15.

Specifically, Jake Elliott's grandmother requests our presence at the meeting to speak out in the public comments section in support of her grandson, who was targeted in an unlawful raid by the PPD, Mayor, and various city officials last month.

This abuse of power was orchestrated in retaliation against the free speech of the creator of the parody Twitter account @peoriamayor. Subsequent FOIA responses and public comments have substantiated this claim.

HAVE YOU SIGNED THE PETITION ~ PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE ~ THANK YOU!

https://www.change.org/petitions/jerry-brady-state-s-attorney-drop-all-criminal-charges-against-jake-elliott#share

Simon Speaks on Accountability

PEORIA, IL -- Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon was the featured speaker at the annual dinner of the Peoria County Democratic Women, on May 4. 

She's a good speaker, and has a compelling message.  It's a shame she's not running for governor.

Simon, a Democrat, is seeking the office of Illinois Comptroller, now held Republican Judy Barr Topinka, who has good name recognition.  She's one of the few sane Republicans on their ticket, so it's also two bad that these worthy women are running against each other, when either one would be better in the governor's chair or as Lt. Gov. But that's the way it turned out in the slating meetings behind closed doors.

Simon called for more accountability in state government, and said: "there is so much more that could be done with that office than is being done now."

Illinois is paying bills late, then pays interest on the late payments.  It would be more efficient to take out low interest loans to pay the bills, to avoid high interest rates on late payments, she said.

In addition, some state vendors call the state to beg to jump the line to get paid, she said. Some are successful, some not. "There's no transparency on how these decisions are made," she said. 

There should be guidelines, so that a policy is set up that works "whether you know somebody or not."

The comptroller's office gets financial reports from every local government except school districts.  But the data is not analysed in a way that allows for easy comparison, she said.  "The Comptroller could show comparative figures" which might have alerted Dixon, IL residents that thefts were taking place, she said.

Accountability matters, she said, because the public needs to trust that public officials are operating fairly and in the public interest.

She addressed the 2014 election in November, where a low turnout is expected, a situation that may not favor Democratic candidates. "It's going to take energy to get people to turn out and vote," she said.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

The Addams Family: Good show

PEORIA, IL -- The Addams Family, the musical, danced into the Peoria Civic Center on May 5, and plays again on May 6.  It's worth seeing.

This is a slick, professional production with great sets, very competent players and an amusing book (plot).

The musical is based on the cartoons of New Yorker contributor Charles Addams, which also inspired the TV series and film.  At heart it's a satire on our ernest, sentimental, goofy pop culture.  "Follow your bliss" one character says, referring to something disgusting. 

When the lead couple, Gomez and Morticia Addams, decide to vacation in Paris to revive their love, they pick the worst hotel (minus three stars), with plenty of roaches.  They plan to spent their time in the Paris sewers.

The comic and satiric lines whiz by, as do the musical numbers, many with sharp dancing.

There's a full orchestra, and a helpful program, but visit the Wikipedia page for an in-depth explanation of the history of the production and its plot. 

 -- Elaine Hopkins