LaSalle Insider

Just a little note to wish our Cavaliers the best of luck tonight at Sterling.  I’m sure its going to be as bad or worse field conditions than last Friday.  But we all know the old adage…the conditions are the same for both teams!  Its been a great season thus far and here’s to hoping in continues after tonight.

Regardless the outcome (we are going to win..) just know that we locals are proud of the great regular season and the way you represented our City this past season…..

I read with interest the Matthew Baker article from the front page of the News Tribune on Thursday October 22nd. It dealt with the ongoing requests for signage which is unenforceable.

I have been on the council for over ten years and we have received requests for special signs since my first meeting.  The people mean well but usually are only seeing the request from their personal standpoint.

The article points out that a Wisconsin study backs up the opinion that the signs don’t accomplish what they are intended to do.  Besides the costs they sometimes stay up long after there is a need for them.  I am sure I can find slow children playing signs that the children they were meant to protect are now grandparents and still the sign is on their childhood street where they grew up.

We have posted handicap signs in front of homes where that person has long since moved.  The problem is there generally is no followup after a period of time and the signs become unnecessary and now represent more eye pollution than anything else!  I don’t know about you but I generally don’t need a sign to tell me that children are present.  I usually see the children in the street in front of me.  If I don’t it would be a result of not watching correctly as  I drive.  If that happens odds are I won’t see the sign either!

Think of all the signs we could have if we really want to be politically correct as some would suggest,

SLOW- FAMILY PET IN AREA SOMETIMES RUNS INTO STREET!

SLOW – GRANDPA (OR GRANDMA) SOMETIMES DON’T LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE CROSSING!

And another thought which comes to mind…..why do we want children playing in the street to begin with?  Shouldn’t they play in the park or yard?

And before you tell me that they do but sometimes they run into the street then I would reply so do pets, and some adults as well.  We can’t possibly cover every potential danger with signs…we need to be better drivers.

And a note to Alderman Demes who said”You need to support those people who elected you”  I’m sure he also answers concerns from those who may have voted for someone else.

Finally let’s all put the cell phone down when we drive, and practice some defensive driving….and kids remember what you were told along time ago..look both ways before you cross the street!

The funding (read loan) has arrived from the federal government for the construction of our new east end waste water treatment facility.  I must admit that I am torn between being happy that we are saving money on the cost of financing and concerned that at some point down the line we will have to pay additionally for the savings we receive today.  Let me explain.

When the opportunity first presented itself to our city council it was as if an early Christmas gift had arrived. After all here was an opportunity for the city to get great financing at a reduced rate  (0%) and forgiveness for a portion of the loan.  We would have 20 years to pay back and we don’t start repayment until project is completed!

But I am a taxpayer as well as a city alderman and I have learned that there is no such thing as a free lunch!  At some point , we the people will have to pay for the government’s recent trend of spending  our tax dollars at a speed of light pace.  After all this is really another welfare program for cities via the states.  I know its meant to stimulate the economy but thus far the program hasn’t been successful and its costing a great deal of money.  We started our project back in 2006 with the understanding that we would need the additional capacity with the growth of the east end and the water park development.  Unfortunately the economy went “south” and growth has been replaced with survive for now.  If this stimulus program wasn’t available the odds are we , as a city, would have put the plans on hold for now.  But because we were “shovel ready” under the definition of the plan we were able to do it now.

You know that there were projects that were created just to access these funds that might not have not been considered if only conventional financing was available for municipalities.

There in lies the problem.  Like some other social welfare programs, the federal government spends money needlessly and we  the taxpayers are left to pay the bill.  It reminds me of some on unemployment.  If the coverage lasts 26 weeks, it seems most are unemployed fore at least 26 weeks. If the Feds extend it to 52 weeks, guess what,most are unemployed for 52 weeks.  There is no incentive  for some, to find a job if there is still coverage which allows you not to.

Please note that I said some not all and its the same with the cities getting assistance.  The problem is when some cities create unneeded projects  now just for the purpose of getting cheap money and the larger group pays the overall bill.  Not all cities share equally in funding under the stimulus bill.

So my problem is, as a taxpayer, we need to curb the  unnecessary spending of the federal government.   Its like the Christmas present you receive and enjoy on Christmas morning but end up paying for long into the next year!

So the last time we saw a victory against Geneseo’s football team are horses might have been double parked?  90 years is a long time but hey it could be worse. We could all be Cub fans and still waiting after 101 years. Congratulations to Coach Sassano and all the members of the L-P Cavalier football team.  You can sense in the video  from earlier in the week that this team was ready to make it happen.  I have been impressed with the L-P football program ever since Coach Sassano got here.  He has made a huge difference in the direction the program has taken.  Jake Steele put the finishing touch on a great team effort and victory over an opponent that has been a pain for a long time.  Those farm boys from Geneseo always remind me of the Green Bay Packers in uniform colors as well as their size.  They seemed to be much larger than our boys when they were standing next to them on the field.

This victory was sweet and I know that the players will remember for the rest of their lives what took place on that field on a wet, cold, miserable night in Geneseo on friday October 9th, 2009.

Enjoy this victory and know that all of us alumni are just as jacked over the win as you are.  It seems like this could be a magical year for the team so don’t stop now.

I remember when the Bear’s head Coach Lovie Smith was first interviewed after he got the position in Chicago.  He was asked what his plans were and he responded with ” first we are going to beat Green Bay !”

I wonder if coach Sassano had the same feeling when he first took over at L-P in regards to Geneseo.  After all, they do bear a striking resemblence to that Wisconsin team in colors and reputation.

I don’t want to belabor this point but the city of LaSalle must stop wasting YOUR TAX DOLLARS ON UNNECESSARY PROMOTIONAL ADVERTISING!  We discussed this topic again last Monday with no decision being made.  It seems the finance committee can’t come up with a recommendation. Chairman Green decided to hold an extended finance meeting starting at 6pm  on the 19th of this month before our regular council meeting.  I will be unable to attend this meeting due to another commitment.   I was hopeful we could put this issue to bed once and for all.This past week we placed ads in the News Tribune on Wednesday October 7th and Thursday October 8th.

If you saw Wednesday’s paper  it was on page A6 and A7.  It was the ad for the Jazz’n the street 2009 for this Saturday the 10th.  While I realize that this is a LaSalle event do we really have to put the Mayor’s picture along with all the names of the current city officials in the ad? What good does that do except for the News Tribune’s bottom line and the official’s free political ad getting our names in front of the public?  And guess what….your tax dollars paid for it! The business’s ads make sense because they are advertising themselves to the public. We don’t need to advertise the city of LaSalle to the Illinois Valley area, that’s just plain stupid!

If you go to the next page you will see an ad that states the City of LaSalle is proud to support the fine arts of our areas schools.  Tell me something. If we don’t put this ad in does that mean that everybody will think the city doesn’t support the fine arts of area schools?  On the next page is an ad for the same thing featuring Frank Mautino’s name.  The difference is its paid for by guess who……Frank Mautino, not the tax payer.

But just when I thought I had seen it all I got Thursday’s paper with an insert titled “Who’s Who in the Illinois Valley 2009.  In it on page 3 we have a half page ad showing a picture of Don Aleksy and Sam McNeilly at our Rotary park site.  Apparently these are two important guys in the Illinois Valley!  I’m sorry you other cities in the Illinois Valley don’t have anybody as important as we do on staff.  It must be very embarrassing!  I must note here that no other city chose to advertise in this section so the above statement must be true!

Have I made my point yet?  Isn’t it time we woke up and stopped this wasteful spending?  It should be noted that I have held this belief ever since I was first elected AND when our current Mayor was an alderman he supported the same belief.  My how times have changed.  I have been told I would tie the mayor’s hands if we ran this through the council first before approving any ads.  That reasoning is beyond stupid!  We don’t need to advertise in this fashion at all.  There is no decision to make.  The council decides if and when we donate tax dollars to charity.  Lets stop this craziness now. While I don’t blame the News Tribune for asking , its time we quit throwing your tax dollars away only to improve the News Tribune’s bottom line!

Call your aldermen and Mayor and tell them to stop this misuse of tax dollars NOW!

For those of you who want to know what actually happened at our last council meeting, let me fill you in.  First let me say I like Matt Baker and I think he has a talent for writing.  I don’t understand where he goes when he’s at our council meetings.  I know he is there physically but he must go somewhere else mentally.  Unless his editor is changing his stories after they are written, he is missing a lot of what takes place.  He reported that we had a tentative agreement passed in regard to the two cities sharing equipment.  THIS DID NOT HAPPEN!  What did happen was that our city attorney passed out a sample ordinance to get our thoughts on it.  No action was taken and there is no agreement at this time to share equipment.  Peru would also have to approve any agreement that we would submit before any exchange of equipment was done. The Mayor asked each alderman to comment on the idea and received various thoughts. These ranged from Boo Herndon stating “its a great idea, our superintendents of public works are great and our mayors our great!”  I don’t think Boo has had a negative comment come out of his mouth since he became an alderman.  Tom Ptak questioned who was getting a better deal since the discrepancy between  the value of equipment requested between the cities was huge.  We want to use a $30, 000 leaf sucker and they want to use our sewer televising vactor valued at $300,000.

Alderman Salazar just wants the two cities to get over what he  perceives as a  decades long dislike for each other.

I have a concern about the costs of manpower if we send our workers to operate our equipment in another city.  Its no secret that we don’t have an overabundance of help in the city and sending some of our people to work in Peru and forgoing their responsibilities here seems like the taxpayer would get shortchanged.  How do we balance that out?  Do we require they make up equal time in our city?  Who keeps track?   I am all for emergency help between our neighboring cities when necessary, but the day to day exchange seems like it will be more costly than any benefit either city would derive from this agreement.  We really have only discussed the two pieces of equipment mentioned above.  If that’s all we are interested in then we should look into buying our own leaf machine and running it ourselves.

So Matt after the meetings, if you have any questions as to what took place, ask me.  I would be happy to help you out.

What do you think?  Do we want to share equipment,and employees between cities? Are we better off if we do?  Let me know what you think…

I have just received an email that the committee has canceled the site tours for Rotary Park for Saturday October 10th.  They have rescheduled the tours for next Saturday October 17th.  The area is just too wet for touring tomorrow.

Please make a note to join us next Saturday October 17th for your opportunity to see what all the excitement is about.  I will see you there.