Okay, it isn't "just" in. It came in awhile back, last Monday, April 17th to be exact. I work for a living -well, kinda- and I don't check my blog e-mail as often as I should. My apologies to the Councilman. Anyhoo, a few posts back I accused Bob of not playing nice by giving snarky e-mails exchanged between himself and School Board members regarding the proposed new Glen Oak Park School to Jen Davis at the Journal Star. I thought it was tacky and went against Mayor Ardis' kinder, gentler, at-least-pretend-to-be-an-adult version of government. Polly stands humbly corrected:
Polly --
As was noted in the Word on the Street column, Jennifer Davis FOIA'd my emails with the School Board members. I did not volunteer them to her. When this whole story originally broke, she asked me if I had spoken with any School Board members about it. I said that I had emailed a couple of them with my concerns, but I did not name the board members. That was the end of it. Big questions remain. Why are School Board members, Peoria Park District trustees, and PHA officials planning in secret? Why do their timelines keep changing? Why have they failed, to this day, to share their comprehensive plans with the public and the City Council? Those who have already built model community schools elsewhere have stated that public dialogue, neighborhood input/support, and community participation were critical to the schools' success. None of this is being done in Peoria. These decisions will affect generations to come and will affect much more than just the East Bluff. I believe that we should get it right the first time around.
Bob Manning
Polly has never been so elegantly put in her place. Got to admit. I rather enjoyed it. What Bob is ever so politely trying to convey is that Polly should remove her head from her arse and read the entire article (not just every fifth word) before posting snide inaccuracies. Point taken. Bad blogger. Bad, bad blogger.
I still favor the idea of a new school. It seems to me that Glen Oak Park would be the perfect place for a community "B thru 8" school. Moreover, I think Glen Oak Park is a yet another beautiful but decaying Peoria landmark. A new school at the proposed location could do a lot for the park as well as the surrounding neighborhood and the East Bluff.
However, I readily admit that the School Board could not have come up with a more idiotic, controversial, dorkwad way of going about selling this idea to the Public.
BTW, isn't Manning cute?
