Welcome to at issue.

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you as always for joining us for a conversation this time about the city of Peoria and to have that conversation about jobs, about crime and other things that are of importance to Peoria, but not just to the city, to the outlying communities, because Peoria, what happens here happens in central Illinois.

And to have that conversation, let me introduce the city manager of the city of Peoria, Patrick Urich.

Thank you for joining us.

Thanks, H. And also the mayor of Peoria, Dr. Rita.

Ali, I appreciate your being here.

Pleased to be here.

Thank you.

And we want to talk about efforts to combat crime.

We to talk about jobs.

But I want to get a couple of things out of the way.

First, some real quick things to the city manager.

There has been discussion, a lot of discussion over the past couple of years to convert Jefferson and Adams to two way streets, which they had been back in the 1950s.

Yes.

What's the status?

So we're working on trying to get on Dot's fall, letting for the the bidding process for the project.

If that happens, we may see construction start as early as the spring and it will run through 2026.

So because of the work that we're doing, touching a number of different intersections and having to change the geometric.

It's probably a two year project for us.

Our three year project is converting the Fulton Plaza part of this.

It is not so that that in a while that was part of our downtown streetscape plan that the Council approved back in 2018.

We don't have the funding for that yet.

So that's something that was in the long term plans, but it is not included in this project.

One more downtown issue.

There was a proposal for a $57 million high rise multi-use building where the old Sully's currently sits.

What's the status of that?

So as part of the redevelopment agreement that we have with the developer, we've given them a couple of years in order to assemble the project and to be able to start.

So there are some timelines in that agreement.

If they're not met, the agreement expires.

So it's really the onus is really on the developer to assemble the project and the financing he needs to get the project in place.

I will turn to you, Mayor, to talk about a couple of different issues, but let's get the railroad out of the way first.

Just a quick update on passenger rail from Peoria to Chicago and intermediate stops.

Sure.

Several milestones have been reached.

The approval of the feasibility study, the fact that IDOT has accepted this corridor from Peoria to Chicago and to the state rail plan, the partners along the corridor have applied jointly for a to enter the corridor Federal Railroad Administration's Corridor Identification Program.

And that program is really the gateway to funding and technical assistance to get the project off of going up and going in a timetable roughly, would be assuming that everything moves forward.

Sure.

I would say Bloomington to seven normal.

Uptown normal took seven years from start to finish.

I would say that Peoria is probably going to take somewhere from 7 to 10 years.

The real is is infrastructure, and infrastructure is one of six focus areas in what's called the strategic planning program.

There was a website on the city's website where people can have input into this, this strategic plan.

Yes, it is our 2023 strategic plan.

We're calling it creating our road Map to the Future, and it's creating our five year plan.

We're going to have some milestones to take a look at it every year, but also to maybe tweak it in another two years.

You know, city council members change possibly every two years.

So we want to make sure that we have the involvement of and include new members as well.

But we're excited.

We had over 400 people to participate in our kickoff in late June.

They focused really on six different areas reimagining downtown infrastructure improvement, neighborhood investment workforce and several other areas, our fiscal stability.

And they provided initial input, but it's not over.

So that was the beginning.

This is a 4 to 5 month process engaging Peoria stakeholders and having a voice in and helping to create our plan.

So a citizen who says, I'd like to provide some information, where would they go?

Who somebody they can talk to or is there a website they can go to?

There is a website.

I don't recall the exact name, but they can go to the city's website Peoria Gov.

Dot org and they can find information to click to get to the website, the web page that we have for strategic planning.

And there's a way to actually have a voice through the website online.

And we're going to have several additional meetings with the community.

So.

Peoria dot org.

Yes.

Patrick, the mayor mentioned fiscal responsibility.

An overview.

I know that there was a lot of federal money that that came in during the pandemic, ARPA, money, etc.. That money is going to start to dwindle.

What is the future financial situation like for the city?

Well, I think financially we're in very good shape.

You know, we have right now over $200 million of cash in the bank.

So that's very sound.

Our general fund has over 50% of funds in our rainy day fund, so we can cover six months of expenses if need be, if we didn't have any other revenue coming in, we are going to start to see some of our state shared revenues that are income tax based are going to start to decline.

And we know that that's going to happen over the next couple of years.

Right now, our sales tax numbers are very strong.

Our hotel, restaurant and amusement tax numbers are the best that they've been in ten years.

So we're very pleased with what's happening there from an economic standpoint.

And that really affords us the opportunity, as we planned, for the revenues to moderate.

And as we know, that that's going to mean that we're going to have to tighten our belt.

But it also allows us to set aside some of these funds for pension payments because we know that our pension costs are going to continue for public safety, for police and fire, are going to continue to grow and between now and 2040.

So that's going to allow us over the next three or four years to meet those pension obligations without really affecting service delivery and that pensions that we bring this topic up.

Every time you're on the program, there's a just an overview.

The state requires that you reach 90% of obligations by 2040.

That's correct.

And you're increasing how much each year in order to make that happen.

So this past year we put in about three and a half million dollars more than we did the prior year.

And next year, just based upon what happened with the stock market in 2022, it's probably going to be in that 2 to $3 million range.

Again, I'm thinking maybe even for the increase the income, but that's not how much.

It's over $30 million right now for both funds.

And that's going to continue to grow through 2040.

So the options the city has are really three.

One, we can we can cut expenses and put those dollars towards towards the pension payments to we can raise taxes and put those dollars towards the pension payment or three if we see growth and natural growth because we're seeing our economy grow, that will take those dollars and put those towards pensions, but they're constitutionally guaranteed benefits.

The General Assembly is not going to adjust those benefits.

They can't.

So those benefits are there.

What we can only hope is that maybe the General Assembly might in the near future, but they haven't shown any appetite to do this yet.

Extend that that 90% time frame from 2042, 20, 45 or 2050.

You're hoping on that one.

We'll see of mayor the.

Let's stay on the topic of money.

Patrick mentioned the requirements for the pensions.

When you ran for office you said I'm going to bring new money into this city in the form of grants, etc.. How are we doing with grants?

I think we're doing great.

I promise to leverage the city's budget with OPM, other people's money.

And that's what we've been doing.

We've been working with our partners and collaborative applications to the federal government, to the state government.

We've been working with our legislators for earmark funding.

We've been looking for opportunities, especially through the the new Bipartisan Infrastructure Act program funding.

We've been tapping into those resources.

There's a number of grants that we've applied for.

61605 to expand broadband fiber in that community.

We applied for Connect Illinois $11 million grant with i3 broadband.

We've applied for infrastructure funding, about 11 million with our partners and public bodies to create that smart city and that that electric vehicle infrastructure for fast charging.

EV stations.

And we need that in our community to support the ongoing use of electric vehicles.

I we'll talk about other grants in just a moment, but let me turn back to the city manager, because we.

61605 needs help.

What's happening with Western Avenue?

So Western Avenue, that road project was a $15 million road project that was completed in the fall of last year, and that was from Adams Street up to Lincoln and Howitt.

And so the next phase of Western is a state project in the state will take it because it's state controlled from Lincoln and how that up to Farmington Road.

So ideally we'll see that over the next five year cycle that the state works in its capital budget, that that road will be improved there as well.

And then hopefully that will tie in to our Main Street project, which we're waiting on a $25 million state grant to help us to redo Main Street from Washington to Farmington Road.

Is that approved and use waiting for the money?

We are just waiting for the money it has been.

It has been approved in the budget and reauthorized I think three times.

So we're waiting to see those funds be released by the state.

And there's another fund that you're waiting for.

That's about 15 million, if I recall, for the riverfront.

That is correct.

We have we're waiting on a $15 million grant for the work that we're doing on the Peoria Riverfront.

We've done some design work and we've had numerous public meetings will be releasing this week The the plan for the final plan for the riverfront.

And we plan on having a presentation to the city council at their second meeting in July.

And then hopefully in the first meeting in August, they'll approve it.

And let me turn back to the mayor for more discussion about 61605 and housing in particular.

A couple of good things have happened with regard to housing.

Not one of them is not necessarily in six one, six or five.

That's the old four people have been around for a while.

The old Ramada.

But it's going to be affordable housing.

Sure, it's multifamily.

Affordable housing.

The city supported three applications for 9% tax credit projects.

One of them is called Church View.

I think Church View Apartments or a church, a church gardens church View Gardens is near St Ann's church and it is a 50 unit multifamily housing development.

We're very excited about that.

On the Peoria South Side is a project of Peoria Opportunities Foundation and pivotal development.

And, you know, hopefully everything will get tied together and we'll start to see the development to happen next year, this time next year.

The other project that got approved and that project again is $15 million project.

The other is a $24 million project of the Phenix Development Corporation and it's for homeless permanent housing for individuals of the housing of excuse me, who are homeless.

And it's the old Methodist Methodist Nursing School, also the old Ramada Inn of Sidewalks.

Patrick of sidewalks.

Is there a grant approved yet for sidewalks with outside?

We did.

We we received a $2 million congressional earmark from Congresswoman Bustos, one of the last projects that she was able to work on and secure.

So we haven't received the funding yet from the federal government, but we anticipate that the dollars will be coming in.

And then our public works team will be planning on replacing sidewalks in in 61605 to the tune of $2 million.

Other grants.

Let's talk about the auto Crimes Task force.

About 2.1 million.

Point 1 million.

Mm hmm.

And so that grant is a task force that's designed to cut down on auto thefts, chop shops, insurance fraud related to adult theft.

And we're excited about that because we do have high incidences of adult theft, mainly involving juveniles.

And I think this is a real opportunity to have funding to help to crack down on that.

And that's a multijurisdictional jurisdictional effort.

It is.

And so also the Federal Firearms Task Force, that's Multichoice's Dixon.

It is.

It's it's one of its kind and it's leveraging resources from several different agencies the FBI, Peoria Police Department, Peoria Sheriff's Office, the state police.

So several resources coming together to really crack down on apprehending criminals and incarcerating those that that need to be taken off the streets.

Let's stay on the issue of combating crime.

The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority authored a $3 million grant, I believe.

Is that correct?

3 million?

Yes.

For the corresponding program.

Yes.

And we're going to see an office set up soon on Wisconsin, near Arcadia, within that plaza where the old Krogers used to be.

And Carl Health is a part of that initiative.

I think we have our agreements all signed and in place now.

So there's going to be trained social workers, certified social workers who are assisting with domestic calls to address police matters that are not just police matters.

So it might be a mental health issue.

Exactly.

Or domestic problems like mental health or our domestic.

We have seen what are called pop up gatherings.

What how how is the city addressing that?

We had a press release, a press conference held in front of the federal courthouse.

Chief Echevarria led that.

I also spoke there.

And we have several members of the community that that were present, a large presence of the community that were present spoke out against the large gatherings where young people are on the street.

They're drinking, sometimes they're getting into fights, sometimes they're pulling out weapons.

But just behavior that is not acceptable and they're not the users of the the downtown bars.

They're just creating their own pop up parties.

And, you know, that wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't the drinking, the behavior, the rudeness that that accompanies that.

So the Chief Echevarria has assigned ten police officers to patrol that area at the downtown area on Friday nights and Saturday nights between a certain time period is working.

The things we're talking about have been to combat crime, to eliminate the possibility of crime is another approach.

And could you explain to us how this this role model program is going to work?

Sure.

We were funded by PNC Bank to create a role model program that features African-American role models in Peoria.

We're going to feature over this next year 100 African-American males and females that are in various, many different career fields who will talk to youth, especially youth that reside or attend school in distressed areas, economically distressed areas or, you know, low, high poverty areas and they're going to connect with those youth in meaningful ways.

Some of them will mentor youth.

Some of them will give their personal testimony.

Some of them will invite them to their job to kind of shed or have a new experience.

But it's designed to be to include a significant adult in a young person's life and have an impact on their future and their decision making.

This is a long term project.

It's funded for one year with the potential of continuation funding.

We'll also be looking for supplemental funding to help sustain the project.

If I could, just one other point on other people's money and what we the state was gave us a grant of $3 million.

We used those funds to, from a transparency standpoint to replace all of our body cameras and to replace our in-car video cameras, as well as the sheriff's department.

So we combined forces on that front, but we also used it for some criminal justice, crime prevention grants and violence prevention funding.

So we had $700,000 that we that we funded last year out of ARPA funds.

And then this year we're going to be taking to council another million and a half dollars of violence prevention funding that we want to see the council approve at our next council meeting.

Let's talk about an 18 year long project, combined sewer overflow.

Yes.

Last year, last summer, the first phase was put in place and that was an area in the North Valley, just south of the Woodruff Academy.

Woodruff Grade School.

Now, there's a second one This this summer is on the south side.

Correct.

Two questions.

One, how did the first phase, did you did you find what you anticipated to be true?

And how are we progressing on the south side?

So what we've been doing is, is we're structuring this over 18 years into kind of 18 different projects that will be working on and focusing on different sewer sheds, which is the areas we have along the riverfront.

We have different combined sewer outfalls.

There's 11 of them that run along the riverfront.

And so we've been trying to take specific areas that we could focus on in order to be able to to address that.

So we put in green stormwater infrastructure to capture the rainwater and infiltrate it into the ground before it reaches the combined sewer systems.

We did that around Lincoln School in the area of the North Valley.

We thought the projects, you know, construction wise went very well.

It's got permeable pavers and some green bump outs that that will capture the rainwater and infiltrate that in.

And we're doing something very similar in the the Cedar Street sewer shed which is basically for McArthur to western and from John Gwin south.

So it's it's roughly in that area there where we're going to be doing permeable pavement.

We're going to be doing some some pavers and we're going to be doing some bump outs as well.

So we try what we try and do is plan ahead and have meetings with the community where we asked them what they what type of of implement our infrastructure they'd like to see.

And then we work that through the important part of this is that you need to prove to the EPA that this is working, this green infrastructure is working.

So you actually have flow monitors.

We do.

We measure and try and capture the amount of water that we're infiltrating during storm events so that we can measure that and then report that back to the federal government.

We have three milestones in this 18 year period that we have to meet, and depending on how that progresses, there could be some great infrastructure at the end of this.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's one thing that we well, you know, great meaning that it's going to be harder infrastructure that we would be building.

Yes.

Mayor, we've talked about crime and housing, etc.. What about jobs?

What's the because when you talk about role models for young people, etc., if they don't see a halfway decent job in their future, then we've missed the boat.

Absolutely.

And that's why we implemented a beginning last year, a youth internship program that started with 14 and 15 year olds, introducing them to the job market earlier, allowing them to gain some job related skills, being on time to work, good attendance, having a supervisor that can guide you in your employment experience.

So we have this year 100 youth in our Youth Employment and Internship program.

It's great to see these young people there at not for profit organizations, government organizations.

They're also at public works.

They're in the police department.

They they're in the fire department.

They're in our is department.

So it's great to give them that early experience, making money, keeping them off the streets, giving them an opportunity to to learn about different career fields.

And for eight weeks, having that experience this summer, we also work with our partners in the community.

We work with Illinois Central College, we work with Bradley and other the the trades in terms of trying to create a workforce that will have the skills that our employers need and want.

We have a lot of jobs available here in Peoria.

We have to have the people that have those skills.

Patrick, let's continue on the job front because there are technical jobs and entrepreneurs that are trying to find footing in Peoria.

Yes.

How is Distillery Labs and Shoes greater?

Peoria in Peoria next, helping in that regard?

It's vital.

And you know, what we've seen is that there's there's a recognition from the business community that we have to create an environment for startup business businesses that are usually started in your community, stay in your community and and grow more jobs.

So that's an important element that we need to have The Choose Greater Peoria Initiative as a talent attraction initiative to really try and, you know, show all of that that this wonderful community has to offer and that the region has to offer to attract the talent that we need to fill those vacancies that the mayor was talking about.

And then lastly, you know, we are going to be looking at some other federal grant programs that are out right now to to at least pursue to focus on the employment gap where we have and in like the 61605 zip code where there are a lot of people that have left the workforce that are in the prime working age, 25 to 54.

We've got to figure out how we can get them back working again.

And I would add that we have these RISE grants and we gave out 118 grants to well, yeah, to 118 different businesses, 80% worth of women, minority and veteran owned businesses.

That was $1.4 million that we invested in.

New are small businesses in our community arise Grant did what the rise grant to support their marketing to support their business or capital cost to to really help them to be secure enough to be successful.

And with that, we could continue the conversation here.

We probably will continue the conversation here.

We hope you continue the conversation at home.

Patrick Urich, city manager for the city of Peoria, thank you for being on that issue.

Thank you.

And Mayor Dr. Rita Ali, thank you for joining us on the program.

Thank you.

And speaking of jobs, next week on that issue, we'll have people from Peoria.

Next Innovation Center, from the OSF Innovation Center, the Jump Training Center and the Economic Development Council to talk about entrepreneurs, how to help them develop their product, and then once into production, how to keep those companies in the area because it's a regional effort.

We'll have that on the next at issue.

We'll see you then,