kyleamoore.com

Last night during the Quincy City Council meeting I voiced my concern with the funding mechanism for the proposed Multi-Modal transportation project that was awarded to the City of Quincy. The State has awarded the City $6 million dollars in their 2009 Capital Bill, which has been funded by additional bonding. In order to make future bond payments, the State of Illinois had to find additional revenue, which included the expansion of video gambling.  The revenues from the expansion of gambling were estimated to be 30% of the cost of the Capital Bill.  The plan was to have the expansion of video gambling up and running by the end of 2010.

While researching the project, my concerns began to grow on if the State of Illinois would see the revenues they had projected when the bill was signed. While technically this pool of money is separate than the general fund, I was concerned that if the revenues fell short of expectations, and the State had no plan to make up the revenues, that the State would either cut the costs of projects, raise additional taxes and fees or use money out of the general fund to pay for the difference in lost revenue.

As of today, the State is about 6 months behind schedule on the expansion and implementation of video  gambling.  One lawmaker in the article that I linked said if revenues fell short of expectation, the General Assembly would have to delay issuing more bonds or scale back some projects. A spokesman for Quinn’s budget office said the General Assembly would have to find additional sources of revenue in next year’s budget.

It is clear that the State’s reliance on video gambling, an unreliable source to pay for the Capital program, may cause funding issues for the grant program. It concerns me that with this unreliable source, the city might be left without money that is owed to them, much like our schools, hospitals and nursing homes.  I urge the City Administration to make sure the funds are available before spending any local tax dollars or expending local resources if they insist on moving forward with the Multi-Modal Project.

The website is back online after a few weeks of maintenance. This past summer we learned we had to transfer the website to a new server; this took a bit longer than expected due to being out of town during the summer. Thank you to my friend Steve Saul who is the webmaster for the site. He updated the site with a new banner and has made some new improvements to the site. He does the work for free and I can not thank him enough.

I will have a new post soon and please check back often for updates.

From Open Illinois.ORG:

http://www.openillinois.org/successful-transparency/2556/

Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Last week marked my one year anniversary of serving as 3rd Ward Alderman. I can certainly tell you the year went by quick. The past year the city of Quincy has made great strides in community participation by hosting forums in the late summer on the bond proposals, creating a third ward website, posting the city’s financial information online, hosting our first 3rd Ward town hall, and introducing a public forum once a month to the City Council’s agenda. All of these measure would not be a success if it had not been for the citizens of Quincy welcoming the measures with open arms by responding and participating when called upon.

I can tell you that being new to the City Council is not easy. Over the year I have had a lot of questions, and I thank Alderman Paul Havermale for taking the time out to give me the history of a situation and what solutions were discussed in the past. Paul is a vastly knowledgeable alderman, with over 6 years of experience serving the residents of the 3rd Ward, and I relied on him heavily over the past year. I am fortunate to have him as my seatmate on the City Council.

One of the most impressive things I have found in my past year is the hard work and dedication of the men and women who work for the city. Many city department heads are quick to answer a question and do not hesitate to make sure a problem is solved to the satisfaction of the people involved with an issue. As a citizen you always hear the bad stories of a select few, but rarely do you get to hear the good. One of the things I like about being alderman, is I get to hear the good. The amount of compliments I receive about the work and the speed of which a problem has been solved, far outweighs the few complaints I have received.

I hope you will find that over the past year I have represented you well on the city council. You can always check under my “platform” section of the web page and hold me accountable for what I promised during the election. I hope you will continue to be an active participant in our city. If you have any thoughts or suggestions for the upcoming year, I hope you will call or email me.

Best Regards,

Kyle

Dear Neighbors,

During my race for City Council, I offered a proposal to improve infrastructure within the 3^rd Ward, by asking for a more equitable distribution of ward maintenance funds. The City of Quincy currently divides up maintenance funds equally between all seven wards, regardless of size or growth of the ward. My plan called for us to end this unfair practice and divide maintenance funds by ward miles, thus recognizing the maintenance needs of larger and growing wards.

When I made this proposal the city had two ways to fund infrastructure improvements out of its general fund. The first is through ward maintenance funds, which the dollar amount changes year to year. The second was through Mayor Spring’s “Neighborhood Enhancement Program.” The goal of the NEP, as I understood, was to set aside $2 million per year to fund larger projects that would be too costly to pay for out of ward funds. The goal was to set aside the $2 million every year for four years, and while each ward would get more or less their fair share of the funds, the more urgent projects would be put first on the list. Under my proposal, Quincy would have a funding program that recognizes larger and growing ward with the yearly maintenance funds, and would also have a funding program based on need with the “Neighborhood Enhancement Program.”

The first year of the program was 2009-2010, and under the program, the 3^rd Ward was first on the list and was able to accomplish new sewers and overlays for Oak Street and North College Street. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints the administration has decided to halt their investment in the “Neighborhood Enhancement Program.” This means other wards will not get their improvements in infrastructure as promised.

With this in mind, I have decided not to offer my proposal to redistribute ward funds based on miles this budget cycle. I did not feel it would be fair to the other wards, who are feeling the hurt due to budget constraints, to offer a plan in which the 3^rd Ward would only gain a few thousand dollars. I will continue to push for this plan the next budget cycle and will offer my proposal up some time this year. I hope you will understand my decision, while I feel it is important for me to advocate for our ward, I also believe all wards are in it together.

Best Regards,

Kyle

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Alderman Havermale and I are proud to announce we will be hosting a 3rd Ward Town Hall on Tuesday, April 20th from 5:30-6:30 PM. The Town Hall will take place in the Community Room located inside the Quincy Mall. Alderman Havermale and I will be giving a brief overview of the proposed 2010-2011 Quincy City Budget. We will then open the floor up to questions and concerns to constituents.

This is your opportunity to help us identify problems within the ward that need to be solved, hear your ideas on where we can save money, and make sure your views are being represented on the Quincy City Council.

We hope you will be able to attend. Light refreshments will be served and we look forward to seeing you at the Town Hall!!

Best Regards,

Kyle
3rd Ward Alderman
217-316-6548
kyleamoore2009@gmail.com
www.kyleamoore.com

This past year we have made great strides in the city with transparency and our budget process. Before I was on the council, citizens had no easy access to our current budget and no ability to track spending. If someone wanted to get involved in our budget process, it took many trips to city hall for someone to get the information they needed.

In June, with the help of the Mayor, the City Council, Comptroller Ann Scott and IT Director Jim Murphy, we started to change and modernize our budget process, making it easier for citizens to get involved. The first step we took was placing our current budget online, which also gives the ability to track spending as we do on the City Council. The next step was the creating of a “21 Day Online Public Inspection” Ordinance, which puts into our law that the city must post proposed budgets online 21 days before the City Council votes on the budget.

A few weeks ago, a citizen of Quincy suggested to me that we place our Comprehensive Annual Report from the previous fiscal year online, giving citizens the ability to see how we actually spent their money in the past. I suggested this to Ann Scott last week, and I am happy to report that the 2009 Comprehensive Annual Report is now online. With this step, we have now moved our budget process into the 21st Century. Citizens can now go online and see how we’ve spent their money in the past, how we are spending their money now, and during the budget discussion, see how we are proposing to spend their money. This could not have happened without the hard work and dedication from the people I mentioned above, and I truly thank them for their efforts.

This week you should receive your 2010 Census Form in the mail. The form consists of 10 easy questions to answer that should take less than 10 minutes to fill out. Getting an accurate count of our population is not just important for who represents you in State and Federal legislatures, but it also is crucial in the amount your area receives in federal funding. The information provided to the census determines how more than $400 billion dollars of federal infrastructure and service funds are spent.

I hope you will take the time to fill out the form, and should you have any questions or do not get your form, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with me.

Best Regards,
Kyle

kyleamoore2009@gmail.com

Last week a local group contacted me about an opportunity for Quincy to have a next generation fiber optic network right here in Quincy. On February 10th, Google announced their plans for Google Fiber. They are currently requesting an RFI from communities who are interested in having Google build and test a ultra-high speed broadband network in their community. The network would offer households the ability to have access to a network that delivers 1 gigabit per second. (currently 100 times faster than what most Americans currently have access to.) Municipalities and citizens have until March 26, 2010 to show their interest in the project. At an estimated cost of $3,000-$8,000 per household, this could mean a minimum of a $60 million investment by Google in our community.

If you are interested in showing your support for Quincy to get Google Fiber you can nominate Quincy by clicking here.

You can also join the facebook group who are working to bring this to reality.

At last night’s council meeting I urged the Mayor to fill out the RFI and I was pleased to learn Mayor John Spring was for the project and had begun looking at it already. I encourage all citizens to nominate Quincy and help bring next generation infrastructure to the Gem City!

Tomorrow will be Primary Election Day here in Illinois. No matter what your political affiliation might be, it is an important day to make sure your voice is heard in our State. There are important races that will be decided from US Senate Candidates to County Board.

If you live in Adams County and do not know where to go to vote, you can find out by clicking here.

I hope everyone will go out and vote and best of luck to all the candidates involved.