Well Now that the Holidays are over

and before we slip into the gray days of another long Illinois winter and are all on our knees praying for spring, I have a suggestion to maybe brighten up the month a little bit..  I plan on attending the next Council meeting and asking where I might collect the money I have overpaid for the Garbage Fee since I don’t have a tote from PDC nor am I going to get one anytime soon.  At least that is according to the “cold” woman at PDC. 

BTW, PDC, you could get a friendly person to answer the phone.  We citizens are one of your biggest customers.  The lady you have now makes the Peoria Police dispatch woman sound warm. And we all know how fuzzy warm the police department is when you call.

Let make this clear once more on this whole issue:

1. I like the totes and before this whole Garbage Fee forced me to have one, I was considering renting one anyway.  It keeps the animals and rats out but I doubt the lowlife renters in my area, the ones who park their cars on the lawn, wash it every other day, and yet don’t own a lawn mower nor take the garbage out to the curb, will bother.  After all, they are the ones who drop their McD’s bags just before they get home.

2. The Garbage Fee was set up to help finance the police and one of their special tasks force.  Not Garbage collection.  Mayor Ransburg dreamed this up.  Since, the Garbage Fee is now directed to the general fund so who knows where the money goes.  Van Auken campaigned on and got first elected on the platform of getting rid of this unfair tax.  See how that worked out?

3.  The Mayor and Council knew people wouldn’t pay this unfair fee because it is unfair.  It targets homeowners only and yet OSF, CAT, and many other businesses use city services too.  What to do?  Well if one remembers, the city council just came off a heated discussion and vote on taking over the water company.  An option that has been written into the city charter (or something) since 1909 give or take, that the city has a right to buy out the water company every five years. It was decided by the council at the time, the city wouldn’t but not after a bitter battle from American-Illinois Water company and an ad campaign that must have cost millions. So…get in bed with the water company, quietly promise that the buyout issue will not come up again, and then pay $80,000 a year to IA to collect the Garbage Fee.  Problem solved.  No payment, no water. HeeHaw!  Now you never hear about the buyout of the water company.

4. Why name it the Garbage Fee if it doesn’t go to garbage collection?  My theory is that the council was in session, (executive session) and when Ransburg had the brain storm, they needed to call it something.  Rockford has a similar tax (but it DOES go to garbage collection) so why not slap the face of every working homeowner in Peoria and call it a Garbage Fee? I mean gee, there are cliff jumpers. Does that mean we all have to jump off cliffs?  No, but Peoria, being Peoria, said if Rockford can do it, so can we and besides, this is just a temporary fix.  It’ll never go up and we’ll charge it every 4 months on the water bill. Lies, lies and more lies.  Bet the ol pats on the back were abundant in that council room that night.

5.  Enter a few months later, good ol Councilman Turner.  He is concerned that the $24 Garbage Fee being paid every 4 months is hurting fixed income people.  What to do?  The right thing and abolish it? Ah hell no, not these concerned council people.  They never saw our money that they couldn’t spend.  So out of compassion, they started the $6 a month fee instead of the quarterly $24 fee.  So taking $72 a year away from fixed income is better doing it month at a time instead of every 4 months?  Christ! Why don’t you council people just come to my door and pee on my leg. At least I could have a warm feeling about it. What compassion.  $72 is $72 whether you lose it a little at a time or all at once but now that is now $156 a year at $13 a month which, I guess, $2 of, goes to tote rental, which we don’t have and won’t get,at least until June…..maybe.

6. Now, have you ever heard of anything more f*cked up than this whole scenario?  Why are we like sheep?  Do we just take it up the butt from these people?  I mean, last election, no one really lost and we got 2 more pretty much the same on the council.  I mean neither Weaver nor Akeson have exactly come out against this damn fee.  And yet, we continue to re-elect the same people over and over.  Maybe that’ll change with the coming of the District elections.  Let’s hope so.

7.  I think that since this Garbage Fee now includes tote rental from PDC, the Council can now claim the Garbage Fee does help with garbage collection and that years before, I believe the city was open to a law suit over this fee. I’m not a lawyer so I could be wrong. But I do know this. If you pay for something, be it a product or a service, then you should receive it.  I don’t want to pay it but I do like running water so I am stuck. I am however, going to the council meetings and demand my money back on tote rentals until I get the product. 

…and we wonder why this city is screwed up.  Cutting police when crime is everywhere (remember, we are not Chicago, but a small Midwest city) cutting fire, cutting city streets and yet building hotels, museums, giving money to wealthy owners in the warehouse district, talking about turnabouts, building new roads way out north that are not needed, helping with the building and relocation of a strip club, and basically watching our leaders fiddle as Rome burns…….

Fix?  RAISE THE PROPERTY TAX to cover the cost of doing business, do away with the stupid garbage fees, add police and get a handle on who really runs this town, the Gangs. They dictate on where the public goes and not goes. Think about it.  Improve the streets and stop investing in hotels.  Crack down on the thugs that run our public schools.  Once the streets are clean, crime is low, and the schools get the job done, people and businesses will come and guess what?  We, the City won’t have to loan them a dime to build.  If you worry that raising the property taxes will cause people to leave, well you are wrong.  People are leaving in droves right now.