Saturday, September 19, 2015

Peoria Chamber of Commerce Chief Touts the Chamber's Accomplishments

Such as the money losing supposedly privately funded ball park (approx. $6 million from local taxpayers, $2 from the fraud we had as Governor before a bigger fraud I call Blago, $1 1/2 million forgiven by the City recently and who knows about this recently ended season but attendance figures didn't look very good. Accomplishments such as he PRM whose attendance was last reported as 40% below projections, the RiverPlex who couldn't pay off the loan in 10 years as projected and maybe not even paid off now, a Glen Oak Park that is in bad need of erosion control and flowers around the LeTourneau statute, missing this year, an African Exhibit reputed to have cost around $27 million but was partially bailed out by Glen Barton and the the Park Foundation Board, clay tennis courts that were a cloud of dust, saved only by the constant rainfall, no funds for the highly touted Sports Complex on the 40 acre Bradley University swap that evidently never happened, etc. And why not some census figures from the Chamber touted Marriott complex? And why did the Civic Center lose money again when "they" said the hotel expansion was the answer to drawing bigger 'draws" to Peoria???? Did I forget the basically defunct FireFly the Chamber touted? Have some, like I and Gary Sandberg, questioned that the Chamber might be part of the problem of Peoria's anemic growth? Kind of like Freddie and Fannie and the Federal Reserve and their drag on the economy as seen again Friday. Oh, well, I was partially wrong about the Cubs much to the chagrin of local Cardinal fans who seldom packed Dozer Field this summer. What is the old saying that "liars figure but figures don't lie". Even that oldie is wrong because figures do LIE depending on who is doing the figuring. Hmm.

No comments: