City Annexation

What sense does it make for the city of Peoria to continue to annex land out towards Dunlap in Peoria county? I'll take a guess that city officials would say that the city is growing so much they need the additional area. My theory is that the city is losing population and property tax revenue so fast that they need to "recapture" what they are losing.

I can't blame people for moving to North Peoria or into the uncorporated county. It's only natural that people want to live comfortably, to have safe neighborhoods to live in and to have quality schools for their kids to learn and grow. More and more, the city of Peoria is unable to offer this. Violent crime increases, increasing taxes and fees, District 150 continues to fail, the city's budget is in such disarray that basic city services are comprimised. Who wants to reside in an environment like that?

A few years back, Peoria annexed area west of Knoxville Ave in Dunlap School District 323. Now they are annexing area off of Allen Rd north of Route 6, also in Dunlap School Disrict (notice a pattern?). I'm sure the developer will attempt to cram a few thousand homes in there.

When does it stop? In 10 years time, are we to take a drive towards Princeville and find that we are still in Peoria? You'll know this answer: there will be stop lights every 100 yards, the roads will be in terrible disrepair, traffic will be heavy, there will be nothing but residential homes and area residents will still have to drive an hour to Cub Foods to do their grocery shopping because there's no nearby neighborhood stores. Not only is there continued annexation, but most often, the planning behind it is very poor. But this is another topic for another post.

In 1962, the city of East Berlin found a solution to keeping their population in tact; they erected an big wall. They kept their tax rate at 100% to ensure continued tax revenues and held a very high retention rate. Though unpopular, it worked for about 25 - 30 years until it woefully failed.

Common Sense of it all: Peoria will need *more* basic services to facilitate these annexations. The city cannot handle what it already has, so why annex more? This is like the Captain of the Titantic taking on more passengers while the ship is going down. City leaders need to focus on the core problems first. Once these issues are mainly resolved, then consider annexation if warranted.