(bright music) - [Announcer] From the WTVP PBS studios in historic downtown Peoria, Illinois, it's the Peoria Mayoral Primary Debate.

This debate is produced in partnership with the League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria, the Peoria branch of the NAACP and WCBU Peoria Public Radio, part of the NPR Network.

- Good evening.

I'm Jenn Gordon, CEO, and president of WTVP PBS.

Our mission is to empower and connect our community through quality programs that educate, inform, and inspire.

We're committed to creating spaces for civic discourse that are independent, nonpartisan, and neutral from influence and agenda.

We're proud to produce tonight's mayoral primary debate along with our partners.

Our debate consists of three candidates, Incumbent Peoria Mayor Rita Ali, and Peoria City Council Members Chuck Grayeb and John Kelly.

The debate is being facilitated and timed by the League of Women voters of Greater Peoria, and the candidates have agreed to the following ground rules for this forum.

Candidates have drawn lots to determine the order in which they will give their opening statements.

The candidates will then alternate the order of speaking.

The candidate who makes the first opening statement will move to the end of the line for the first question, and this will continue throughout the questioning and closing statements.

Candidates will be allowed a one-and-a-half-minute opening statement, one minute to answer each question, and a one-and-a-half-minute closing statement.

Candidates statements and responses will be timed.

League members will be keeping time and displaying countdown cards visible to the candidates and the moderators.

The moderators are responsible for enforcing the time limits and may interrupt the forum to enforce the ground rules.

And now I'm pleased to present our moderators for tonight's debate, WCBU News Director Tim Shelley and Mark Welp, host of WTVP At Issue.

- Thank you, Jenn.

As she mentioned, the candidates drew lots earlier to determine the order of opening statements, - Chuck Grayeb will go first, followed by Rita Ali and finally, John Kelly.

Mr. Grayeb, you have 90 seconds for your opening statement.

- Thank you very much.

My friends, Peoria is at a crossroads.

My first priority as your mayor will be to restore safety for our city.

Our career criminal and delinquency problem in Peoria continues at a very high-level.

Folks in every neighborhood in our city are being preyed on, and our police are tired of the catch and release, revolving door problem.

From the river to our prairie land, the criminals and delinquent perpetrators are very busy.

From car burglaries, car thefts, armed robberies, carjackings to shoplifting incidents, we have a huge problem in our city.

Cracking down on juveniles here who are often aided and abetted by adults is overdue in every area.

Career adult criminals need to be locked up for a very long time.

We have to decide if we are more interested in coddling criminals and allowing errant juveniles and their criminally negligent parents slide, or if our priorities should be protecting our law-abiding citizens.

Buying technology for the police is wonderful, and we've done that, but there must be real consequences for adults and juveniles who continually prey on law-abiding citizens.

In 2014, we had a record number of homicides, some 34.

My fellow citizens, it's time for a change.

- [Tim] Thank you.

Ms. Ali, 90 seconds.

- My name is Rita Ali and it has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as the mayor of my hometown of Peoria for these past four years.

During my first term in office, we experienced progress.

Through our targeted patrols and technology, violent crime was reduced last year compared to the prior year.

Shooting incidents are down 28%.

Shooting victims are down 34%.

Shooting murders are down 5%, and all murders are down 20%.

Credit goes to great police work and strong community partnerships.

We have made significant investments in our infrastructure, our roads, sidewalks, curbs, bridges, and there's more to come.

Our finances are stable, and we have a new five-year strategic plan with six priorities for a thriving Peoria.

I am proud to have led that effort in collaboration with hundreds of community stakeholders.

These strategic priorities are my platform and my promise to improve the quality of life for all of our residents, transform our downtown, rebuild infrastructure, help our businesses to prosper, and keep our community safe.

This is not a time for interrupted progress, so I urge Peoria voters to stay the course and reelect me to a second term as mayor.

- [Tim] Thank you.

Mr. Kelly, 90 seconds.

- Thank you.

And thank you to WTVP and to the League of Women voters, who sponsored this.

Things like this are most important.

My name is John Kelly.

I'm on the city council.

I've been on the council for six years at this point.

There are three pillars of my campaign: change, prosperity and public safety.

First, change.

Our city has stagnated.

We have public policies that are holding our people back.

Our people are the same as people in growing cities.

The difference is public policy.

So, and the public policies that I am most interested in are those that will get Peoria Good headlines.

First of all, for change, we need to eliminate building permits, building permit fees.

We need to address our downtown and make it much more vibrant.

I have a number of ideas about that, which I hope we will see this evening.

We need to cut spending.

Our budget is up 40% since I've been on the council.

I don't think anybody's salaries or business profits are up 40% in the last six years.

We need to have a new (alarm rings) discipline in our public works area.

Thank you.

- Thank you very much, sir.

Let's get to our first question, and it's going to go first to Ms. Ali.

The city's ban on public camping is now in effect, and last week the council approved an $80,000 payment to a nonprofit group that's putting up people in motels temporarily.

Explain how you believe the city should tackle the challenge of homelessness from here.

You have one minute.

- One of our strategic priorities is to improve the quality of life in Peoria, and helping our citizens who are most vulnerable is part of that.

We have to do it in a way that is compassionate, but a way that does remove people off the streets, not criminalizing them and not giving them $750 fines that they cannot pay.

So we need to somehow work with our community partners to add more housing.

We have a crisis in terms of housing in Peoria, Illinois, and across the nation.

We need more affordable housing for the people that reside here.

We need to work again with our partners to successfully move people into shelters.

The shelters are over capacity.

Last week when we provided up to $80,000 for the LULA organization, it went from 10,000 to $80,000 because I requested that be increased to a higher level to support the people who were on the streets temporarily in a hotel, but it's not over.

This problem is something that we have to invest in.

We have to do it right, we have to do it with compassion, and we have to look at best practices that have been used in other areas across the country and be strategic, and again, compassionate at the same time.

- Thank you very much.

Mr. Kelly?

- Last, first of all, I did vote to end the encampments, against all kinds of pressure that these people were going to be thrown out in the dark.

They've not been thrown out in the dark and the encampments are gone.

Last week, we had a proposal to spend $10,000 to help LULA put people in a nearby motel.

At the council meeting, that changed right away to $80,000.

It took me back.

It rocked me, and I thought, you know, we've done this money placement before.

This reminded me of Cure Violence, where all of a sudden there was fraud involved with all the money pouring out.

I'd like a little more warning on things like that.

I do wish to have the city sponsor detox centers, recovery housing, not just housing, and I think we can get closer to the bottom of these problems.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

Mr. Grayeb, one minute.

- It would be a stretch to suggest that the people of Peoria have not given millions of dollars to help solve the unhoused crisis.

Been very generous, but it hasn't been working.

And one thing's for sure: No human being should be living out in these elements.

For 270 days, the mayor put a moratorium on the removal of these encampments and criticized me in a Journal Star report, called it the Chuck Grayeb Approach for dissolving the encampments.

Well, nobody was arrested.

Nobody got a citation.

And so instead, the problem was allowed to mushroom and grow.

It's unconscionable what was allowed to happen.

So I'm convinced that the people of Peoria will continue to support good initiatives and maybe we ought to take a look at what Rockford's been doing.

They've been successful, and I appreciate the report that was filed by WCBU on the Rockford experience as it relates to their way they deal with the unhoused crisis.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- A recent report filed by financial technology company Smart Asset identified Peoria as having the highest property taxes in the country relative to home values.

As mayor, how would you work with the city and other local taxing bodies to address the overall property tax burden?

Mr. Kelly, you have one minute.

- When this came up at the city council, because our assessed values had gone up, so our revenues were gonna go up, I said, "Let's give our people a break.

Our taxes are already too high.

Let's keep our levy the same as it was last year and cut our rate."

That was voted down by the rest of the council.

By a majority of the council.

That's all.

- [Tim] All right, thank you.

Mr. Grayeb.

- The people need a break on taxes, and we don't get a break on taxes by having the governor shoot a approximately $4 million hole in our city budget, which we're gonna have to patch come next year.

$4 million could be four fire houses, 30-some police, could wipe out the entire Community Development Department.

So we need help from the general assembly in Springfield in dealing with the responsibilities we face.

And one of the things we asked for in our State Legislative Breakfast was help with the pension crisis in extending our obligations until 2050.

I also voted with the minority, in this case, on giving our people a break on taxes.

Especially with everything we've been through, the pandemic, the crime that's rampant.

We need to give our citizens a little bit of breathing room and so, you know, we need to continue to work on reducing our tax load and grow our city, make it more prosperous, but nobody's gonna wanna invest in our downtown or anywhere in our city with crime out of control.

And it's just that simple.

Thank You.

Ms. Ali.

- Yes.

I'm gonna push back a little bit on that study.

Not that property taxes aren't high.

We need to hold the line on property taxes.

I've promised that from the very beginning when I got elected at large, and we have held the line on the property tax rate and not increasing that.

But we need to understand, for one thing, that study looked at the average taxes paid as a percentage of the median market value of a property.

It would be more accurate if they looked at the tax rate.

Our tax rate in Peoria, depending on the taxing body, is between $9.40 to $9.60 per $100 in assessed value.

There are numerous communities across Illinois and the state of Illinois that have rates that exceed $10 per $100 in assessed value.

They're much higher than us in terms of the tax rate.

Another thing that we need to look at is that our largest employer is healthcare.

Our largest industry here now is healthcare.

The healthcare industry, and we love 'em, they provide jobs and fantastic healthcare, but they're not a tax-paying, property tax-paying body.

(alarm rings) - [Tim] Thank you.

- Our next question.

The city of Peoria regularly offers various incentives to businesses looking to establish or expand.

What do you believe is the right balance to facilitating economic growth while still making wise investments.

Mr. Grayeb?

- Well, we have an economic development team that's second to none.

When people come to Peoria and they wanna do a development, I arrange, and I'm sure the other council members do, and the mayor, a meeting with our Economic Development Team to assess what incentives we have in the city of Peoria, like TIFs, for example, or enterprise zones, to help their project go.

That project must make sense for our taxpayers.

It shouldn't be like the Pere Marquette subsidy back in 2008, which we've never quite recovered from, because it was a bad deal for the taxpayers.

But if we can keep business here and continue to diversify our economy away from heavy manufacturing, not that we don't love heavy manufacturing, but we need to have, we can't have all of our eggs in one basket.

If we do that, we'll be able to soar and our future will be very bright.

- Ms. Ali, you have one minute.

- Okay.

Yes.

We have to support our current businesses and we need to attract more businesses here.

By attracting more businesses, we will expand our tax base and potentially be able to reduce property taxes at some point.

We've made investments in businesses.

Between 2022 and 2024, the city distributed over $3.7 million of ARPA funds to 262 local businesses through small business grants.

Of course, our great OSF Cancer Center is a huge investment, $237 million.

Not the city's money, but the city is certainly a good partner there.

But their facility is estimated to bring in over $1 billion in economic impact over the next decade.

We anticipate that there are going to be new suppliers that support this cancer center.

We've provided TIFs and new TIFs over the past several years, tax increment financing opportunities, to businesses to help to grow the businesses in our economy.

- Thank you.

Mr. Kelly?

- We have a little over 8,000 businesses in Peoria, Illinois.

These are local businesses.

These people pay taxes here, et cetera.

We tend to concentrate our economic development dollars toward that mystical outfit from out of town.

If they want to come in, we want to give them all sorts of help, okay?

If we instead work on our own economic climate, making Peoria a better place to do business, the economic effect of that on those 8,000 businesses is far greater than any new outfit coming to town.

I'm not against new outfits coming to town, but this rifle shot stuff that taxes our Community Development Department, they can handle 27 or 38, or whatever different people, (alarm rings) that needs to stop.

- Thank you.

Next question.

Crime remains a major concern in the city of Peoria.

As mayor, how will work to improve public safety and make people feel safer?

Ms. Ali?

- Yes, we're actually improving.

We're trending in a positive direction.

We have a great police leadership, and they're actually closing out cases rapidly.

Just the last domestic situation that happened to occur this year, the first murder, it was solved within 24 hours.

So they're closing, they're capturing criminals and perpetrators, and they're solving these problems much quicker.

We have targeted patrols, we have license plate readers, new technology.

We have these new Flock Confucius cameras that we're using to connect the community and helping to be problem solvers with crime.

So we have the Co-Responder Division now with the police department, with social workers.

It takes a community working with the police to reduce crime in our community.

Our schools, our not-for-profit partners, and everybody really coming together to make a difference, and we're trending in the right direction.

- Thank you.

Mr. Kelly?

- I'll not take second place to anyone as far as praising our police department, but cities that are declining or stagnating always have a much higher crime rate than cities that are growing.

We haven't grown in our city for 60 years.

Bringing in growth policies, that will bring crime down as well.

Our police department does a great job, but police departments tend to sweep up after something bad has happened.

They do some preventive work, yes, but the main thing is that there is stagnation in our city.

If we stop that, we will bring down our crime rate.

- Thank you.

Mr. Grayeb?

- First of all, our Peoria police are not on trial here tonight.

They're doing a splendid job, as I mentioned in my opening statement.

So is the county Sheriff's Department.

Yet, the leaders of these law enforcement agencies were at the legislative breakfast that we had just a few days ago, and they said that it was time to have some mandatory detention for certain serious crimes that are committed, that in many cases, some very blatant cases, the people are released and then they go out and threaten police before they stand trial.

This is wrong.

Therefore, we asked for the amendment to the Safety Act require mandatory detention for Class 2, Class 1 and Class X felonies, make felon in possession of a firearm a Class 1 felony, make fleeing and eluding police a Class 2 felony, and make motor vehicle theft and possession of a stolen motor vehicle Class 1 felonies, and make vehicular hijacking a Class X felony.

The police are tired of doing their jobs and then these folks are released and they're back re-offending on the street.

Our people deserve better.

- [Tim] Thank you.

- Next question, Peoria is making several moves to secure a land-based Par-A-Dice Casino in the city.

How do you believe the city should proceed in talks with Boyd Gaming?

Mr. Kelly?

- The agreement between the City of East Peoria and the City of Peoria, drafted when the Par-A-Dice went into business in East Peoria, has not changed and it is very clear.

If the operator, who is currently Boyd Gaming, wishes to have a land-based casino, that land-based casino must be in Peoria.

It's as clear as a bell.

We will still share 50/50 the gambling taxes, but the casino will end up in Peoria according to something that East Peoria itself has signed.

- [Mark] Thank you.

Mr. Grayeb?

- Yes, that 1991, intergovernmental agreement is the law of the land, and we love our neighbors in East Peoria.

We're united by that great river that adds so much to the quality of life in both of our cities, but the mayor and the council of East Peoria has to understand that for many, many years they had a little more of the revenue because of the way the deal was struck.

So if land-based gaming is the way Boyd's gonna go, and we're trying to entice them by showing them some locations on our side of the river, then, you know, it's very clear that it will have to be here.

And I think our neighbors in East Prairie understand that.

They're not happy with it, but they had half the gaming revenue and many other perks as well, HRA money, more so than we did.

So we have to abide by the agreement.

Ms. Ali?

- Yes.

Since I started this job four years ago, Mayor John Kahl and I have had a great working relationship.

We both support the region.

We are both part of the Heart of Illinois Mayor's Association.

We have talked privately.

We both want our communities to grow and to thrive, and we want the region, the Peoria region, from Galesburg to Bloomington and everything in between to grow and to prosper.

One thing that we do gr disagree on is about if Boyd wants land-based gambling in Peoria, or in this area, that it should be in East Peoria or Peoria.

I say the agreement that was made in the 1980s should be honored.

It's an agreement that was signed by both cities and it should be honored, and I would want to ask the gaming board to support that.

- Thank you.

- Next question.

Schools are a major contributing factor to where people decide to live.

Peoria is served primarily by two public school systems, Peoria District 150, and Dunlap District 323.

How would you seek to work with both districts as mayor to advance mutual interests?

Mr. Grayeb?

- First of all, we can't have truancy rates in the 50 to 60% rate for our students.

I was a school teacher for nine years, administrator for the other 24 years.

You can't teach an empty seat.

Test scores will not be acceptably high when students aren't there.

Back when Mayor Ransberg was the mayor and we had Chief Art Kelly, we implemented a daytime curfew, which would allow our police so they weren't too busy to pick up kids and take them, for example, to Peoria High, and we'd call the parents.

Parental accountability, as I mentioned earlier, to come get their children.

So we have to have kids in school, we have to have 'em motivated, and we have to support our teachers with discipline.

And if we don't have discipline in the schools, that translates into misconduct at our malls and on our city streets.

That has to change that work closely with the teachers to ensure that we as a city are doing what we can to reinforce what they're doing every single day.

Our teachers are an important part of our Peoria Society.

- [Tim] Thank you.

Ms. Ali?

- We have strong schools in Peoria.

Peoria public schools, Dunlap schools, even the outer schools.

They are making strides and progress.

They're being recognized throughout the state and throughout the nation.

We have great leadership under Dr. Sharon Kherat, who was named the State Superintendent of the Year, and now she's one of four being considered of National Superintendent of the Year.

We have great leadership in Beth Crider, who is the Regional Office of Superintendent leader.

They're doing tremendous things to bring down truancy, to improve academic excellence, and they're making strides, many times in schools with high poverty.

And that's why equity is important that we start and we focus with the kids where they are and bring them up, move them up academically, provide social-emotional support to them, provide support to their families.

I've been a working partner in this role, and prior to this, working with the schools and their leaders in serving our communities and our families.

- [Tim] Thank you.

Mr. Kelly?

- If we look around the nation, we find that stagnant or declining cities tend to have school districts inside themselves that underperform other places in the country.

Peoria is no exception.

One of the things that the city council can do to improve District 150 is to have a growth city.

This will move 150 in that direction.

We do not have the ability to run the school district here.

But we are rather typical, and let's get typical with growth cities.

That, I believe, is what we can do on the City Council for 150.

- Last September, the city council voted to purchase the PNC Bank Building and two other downtown properties for $1.75 million.

The city is currently subsidizing the losses on those properties with TIF funds.

What do you think the city should do with these properties?

Ms. Ali, we'll start with you.

- Sure.

We need to invest in downtown, and we want to see downtown grow and thrive.

We have a lot of partially emptied big buildings downtown that we need to turn into partial residential and commercial entities.

That's the trend that's happening in progressive cities across the country.

That's what we want to do with PNC Bank.

We purchased that building because we wanted to control the narrative and control what happened to that building moving forward.

We are going to be issuing a request for quotes for developers that are interested, and we've already heard some interest from several potential developers that want to help us in converting this building from a partially empty, partially vacant building to a thriving combination residential and commercial facility.

- [Mark] Mr. Kelly?

- I voted against the purchase of the PNC building for a couple of reasons.

One reason was we were going to give the person who bought it in May a half-million-dollar profit on something she didn't even do anything with.

I don't believe in that sort of thing.

I also don't believe that the city itself is a good risk manager of buildings.

We don't have a risk management department.

Banks have those kinds of things.

That building, I think, can be a great building if, in the present state, if we take, we the city government, take the parking deck away from it and own that.

That will make that building much more attractive to a new investor.

- [Mark] Thank you.

Mr. Grayeb?

- When we bought it, it was below its market value.

The prior owner was gonna just auction it off.

Nothing good comes of an auction quite often, and so the parking deck alone is critical for the successful operation of our civic center and provide parking when we have major events downtown.

So I'm quite convinced, and I agree with the mayor, that this request for proposal will yield something very positive.

It's not the first time the city's been a midwife in terms of a building that's very important to this community.

For example, the old Washington School up on Moss Avenue, which was my elementary school 1,000 years ago, we did not want that to be sold and just auctioned off.

So we, as a city, helped transition it to a productive use.

It's now the only Buddhist temple between Chicago and St. Louis, the largest one.

And I think that worked out well, and I think the PNC Bank Building will work out well as well.

(alarm rings) - Thank you.

Next question.

Explain how you believe the city should proceed with the ongoing plans to establish a passenger rail route between Peoria and Chicago.

Mr. Kelly?

- I also voted against the passenger rail for one big reason.

We're going to have to build a depot.

That depot's gonna cost tens of millions of dollars, and I believe that because of poor ridership, Amtrak will yank that train after about five years and we will be stuck with paying off the bonds to build that building.

I do not...

I love the train.

I ride trains, et cetera.

That $2 billion that the federal government is gonna be spending on this, I think could be done, much better things could be done for Peoria with that, including building that Chicago to Kansas City Highway through our city.

We would be the biggest city there.

It would be full of truck traffic and it would really enhance our city.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

Mr. Grayeb?

- Transportation links are critical for this community and its continued prosperity.

Look what happened a number of years ago with the Kerner Curve, when Bloomington Normal took off because 55 was run through there, in addition to 74.

They really moved ahead of Peoria in many respects.

we must not neglect our transportation links and that Amtrak link to Chicago is not only for people to go up there, but for them to come down here.

It's critical for many of our Bradley students and their parents, and I believe it will further enhance our desire to look critically at what we're doing with our transportation.

For example, we have more money for a new airport terminal control tower, which is great.

And that airport is critically important as well in terms of moving people in and out, and I believe this rail line, if we are able to see this to fruition, will do great things for Peoria and add to our prosperity.

- [Tim] Thank you.

Ms. Ali.

- This project is really critical to be an economic driver and an access driver for Peoria.

It's a project that has bipartisan support, early on, the support of Representative Darin LaHood, early on, initially Cheri Bustos and now Eric Sorenson, federal, state and local leadership from the governor to the secretary of transportation and everything in between: labor, education, healthcare, business.

We know that this is a great project.

It became part of the state plan, then it became part of the Federal Railroad Administration Corridor Identification Program.

We are approved by the federal government for three steps: the scoping, the service delivery plan, we're moving into that area, and then the pre-engineering and environmental analysis.

Then we're in the pipeline for construction and implementation.

This project has to continue with support.

We are making progress, and I'm determined to make it happen.

- Public safety pensions are eating up a growing portion of the city's revenues.

By 2030, it's projected the city will need to make spending adjustments to continue meeting the city's fund balance target for the general fund.

Absent any reforms at the state level, how do you believe the city should address this challenge locally?

Mr. Grayeb?

- We have to do a better job as the mayor and as the city council lobbying our general assembly in Springfield that helped to create this problem over many years to achieve reforms in the amount of money we have to have dedicated to that as time goes forward.

When we met with the state lawmakers a few days ago at the Gateway Building, we suggested that our obligation be extended until 2050.

If they don't give us a break on that, it'll basically decimate some of the departments in our city that provide core, basic services, public safety services, like police, fire, public works, our roads.

They help create the problems by stealing money out of the lockbox that pension money should have been put into.

And it was bipartisan theft of people's money.

And now, of course, we're left holding the bag.

It's unfair to municipalities all across our state.

- [Mark] Ms. Ali?

- This is a very important issue for our city, and we have, I served as a director on the Illinois Municipal League, and we have cities across the state of Illinois with this same problem.

And they're all working together to try to convince our legislators to extend the date, give us a little breathing room, because it's massive in terms of the requirement.

For Peoria, our combined unfunded actual, excuse me, accrued liability is 366 million.

We've used ARPA fund and some funding from our general fund to pay down early some of this debt that we have, some of this liability that we have.

So that has helped, and I do believe that, ultimately, maybe in 2033 or so, 2032, that we may be able to issue bonds to pay down the remaining debt.

Some cities like Moline have done that.

- [Mark] Mr. Kelly?

- This is a terrible problem.

I am not confident that our legislature will do much of anything about it.

I have met with our fire union, and they and the statewide organization of fire unions are writing a bill to try to extend our obligation from 2040 to 2050.

I hope that works, but I am not confident that it will.

So what do we do in the meantime?

We grow our city.

We put in, we make this less and less and less of a piece of our revenue.

If we grow our city, we won't grow out of this problem, but it will become more manageable each year as each year's obligation comes forward.

Thank you.

- Next question.

Peoria has invested resources (alarm ringing) into diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, including the creation of new city staff positions and collaboration with the county on a joint commission on racial justice and equity.

Do you believe these efforts are producing results?

And where would you like to see them go from here?

Ms. Ali?

- Yes, I'm definitely committed to equity and closing racial equity gaps or disparity gaps in our city.

I actually helped lead the process of establishing the RJE, Racial Justice and Equity Commission.

It's a city-county joint commission, and we have strong leadership.

It's been going on for over three years.

They produce annual reports.

Their first report identified the gaps in eight areas based upon race in our city and our county, and they are significant.

So we have to have strategies now, and they do have strategies.

There are four projects, an environmental project, a transportation project, and two other areas where they're working to close these gaps incrementally with projects that people of different races, different genders, are working, coming together to work to reduce these problems within our area.

(alarm ringing) - Thank you.

Mr. Kelly?

I'm against discrimination in any form, any time, and especially in the city government.

However, the Mayor's commission said that our city government is racist.

So I asked the mayor, I said, "Please bring us the evidence that our city government is racist and we will deal with it."

That happened two times.

It never came to us.

We have a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Department.

They made a report after a couple of years, an 80-page report where they didn't understand some of the abbreviations in their own report.

I asked the question, "Have we had any, since you've been in office, have we had any instances in the city of reporting discrimination or adjudication of discrimination?"

The answer was no.

(alarm rings) - [Tim] Thank you.

Mr. Grayeb?

- We have to hire the best qualified people to serve the people of Peoria.

I believe not only cities, but also businesses should realize that a diverse workforce is almost always a very good thing.

You bring in various points of view and concerns, and I think out of that diversity comes strength.

But I do not believe, all things being equal, we would hire someone with less capability, less qualifications than someone with better qualifications because of DEI.

And I think more and more corporations are looking very critically at DEI, and we don't wanna back our city into reverse discrimination lawsuits.

- Thank you.

What will you do to make Peoria more pedestrian-friendly, particularly for those who ride bikes and for kids going to school?

Mr. Kelly?

- This is a real problem.

Our streets are made for automobiles and many of our streets have no sidewalks.

I've been an advocate along with our, very much, with our first district council person to have more and more sidewalks, especially in the south side of Peoria, where they're quite lacking.

I think that bringing bicycles on the street is an interesting idea.

I think it's rather dangerous.

I don't know what else we can really do, but the problem with that, as I see it, is if I make a little mistake when I'm driving, I get a scratch on my car, and that bicyclist is dead.

I think we need to figure out a way to get bicycles off the street, if we can.

In some parts of Peoria, we have a roadway, a sidewalk, and a bicycle lane.

- [Mark] Thank you, sir.

Mr. Grayeb?

- In 2011, we established, as a city council, the Complete Streets Philosophy, which meant we were going to rebalance the equation between the almighty automobile on the one hand and the pedestrian and the bicyclist on the other.

Every time we do a road project in Peoria, we look at doing just exactly that.

We know young people, creative class people, like to live in a city where they can bicycle.

And so what we're doing, even just stone's throw from where we are right now with our $20 million two-way to one-way conversion of Adams and Jefferson, is making certain it's safer for pedestrians across the street and safer for bicyclists.

And just think about our beautiful Illinois River, how we can connect bicyclists all the way up to Chillicothe, if we work earnestly on that.

And throughout the rest of the city, we need to complete that Master Bike Plan.

It's critical to keeping people interested, young people who are interested in physical fitness, here.

- [Mark] Thank you.

Ms. Ali?

- Our city is more walkable and friendly to bicycles with trails and new revisions to streets than it ever has been.

Anytime we build a new street, we try to lean toward the Complete Streets Policy.

We make sure that we're making it bicycle-friendly and walkable.

We also pay attention to lighting.

Lighting makes a city more walkable, so we've installed more lights over the past two years than we probably have in decades.

We've changed all the lighting in the lights owned by the city to LED.

Those lights that are not owned by the city in those wood poles, we've worked with Ameren to get those lights changed to LED lights so that they're brighter.

So about 90% of those old poles now, or 99% I think, was the number percentage have LED lighting in.

So I am a big supporter for making our streets more friendly.

Even our bridges are accommodating walkers and bicycles.

- Thank you.

Do you believe that current support provided by the city for public art is sufficient?

And what is your vision for the city supporting the art community?

Mr. Grayeb?

- You know, I keep mentioning Mayor Ransberg because in many respects he was a visionary, and he was very enthusiastic about the works of Richard Florida as it relates to the creative class.

And we know that attracting the arts and allowing the arts community to flourish translates into dollars to help pay for our city, pay for those core basic services.

People who come here are looking for those amenities.

In many respects, I believe Peoria has more art opportunities than even New York City on a per-capita basis, and I want to continue to see all the activity that's occurring, like the mural that was recently unveiled on the Niagara Deck by one of our very creative class people.

I want to continue to see the infusion of art, and I was one of the creators of the Arts Partners back when we thought that was an important thing to promote.

And so I think we need to continue to do just that.

It's good for our city and it's good for our economy.

- [Tim] Thank you.

Ms. Ali?

- Art is so important to our community in terms of how it makes people feel, how it makes people interact socially with one another, how it makes people think and really talk and interact.

We have a city that is attracting artists from all over the country.

We have a city with one of the best riverfront museums in the country.

Art is displayed from just many different people of different walks of life, and appreciated.

We're coming together to appreciate art and public art like we never have before.

Within my own office, I have a public art project working with the community where local artists actually put up, display their art within the mayor's suite.

- [Tim] Thank you.

Mr. Kelly?

- I would like to agree with Councilman Grayeb.

On a per-capita basis, the people of Peoria are advocates of art much greater than in larger cities and whatnot.

I think it's because the art is more accessible here.

We have a thriving arts community.

We have art festivals, we have the museum, we have the sculpture walk, we have the big murals on buildings, which are beautiful murals instead of what you sometimes see.

I think our art community and our art experience in our city is almost second to none on a per-capita basis.

- Thank you.

I believe we have time for one more question.

Advanced Medical Transport's 20-year agreement with the city of Peoria is scheduled to expire in 2026.

What is your stance on continuing the relationship with AMT?

Ms. Ali?

- You know, think it's a matter of working out the details.

We have our chief, our fire chief and our chief of our emergency communication center working very closely on the details of that agreement.

That draft has not come before me yet.

It has not come before the city council yet.

It has not come before the city manager yet.

So the details are being worked out.

Again, it does not expire until December 1st, 2026, so we have time to work out the agreement.

I think that we are going to work out and agreement with AMT.

It probably won't be another 20-year agreement.

The other agreement was for 20 years.

It's not likely to be a 20-year agreement, but we do, we are having success in working, our fire department and our AMT, the paramedics working together, but there's probably some issues that need to be resolved (alarm ringing) and they will get resolved.

- [Mark] Thank you.

Mr. Kelly?

- I am not familiar with the details of the proposals that have come forward.

I am somewhat familiar, even personally familiar, with the work that AMT does in our city.

And I think it's really, really excellent.

And their coordination with the fire department is always a matter for negotiation, but essentially, we've got a very, very good system here in our city, and I'm sure that any new agreement will either maintain that or make it even better.

- [Mark] Mr. Grayeb?

- I don't believe we should delay decisions of this nature because an election is around the corner, I don't believe we should delay an accounting of the Anti-Violence Initiative Funds, which disappear.

I think some things are so important to our city that it needs to be answered now and not kept in the dark corners.

I will tell you, as it relates to the transport aspect, I believe the current leadership of Local 50 is not interested in doing transport anymore, at least the current leadership.

That may change in time.

AMT does a good job in at least two states, and so I think we need to get on with it and stop waiting until after the election to see what's going on with all kinds of things, including this contract and where the anti-violence money went.

- Thank you.

We'll now go into closing statements.

Each candidate will have 90 seconds.

Mr. Kelly, we'll start with you.

- Thank you, and thank you again for sponsoring this forum.

Once again, my three pillars are change, prosperity, and public safety.

The change part is the biggest part.

We need to really get off the dime and start growing.

We've not grown for 60 years here.

The rest of the country seems to have done pretty well.

So I want to go after change.

That brings, that brings prosperity to people.

That prosperity then brings, lowers problems, increases opportunities, and finally, in public safety, we need, and that's an public safety will also be help immensely by a growing city.

Growing cities have lower crime rates.

We have a great police department, but they struggle to keep up.

A growing city makes it easier for them and everyone benefits.

Thank you very much.

- [Tim] Thank you.

Mr. Grayeb?

- I've been a councilman in the City of Peoria for some 24 years, 12 years as an at-large, moving in on 12 years as District 2 councilmen.

And when we did the redistricting, I picked up the downtown and part of the Warehouse District.

I can tell you everywhere I go, people are saying the same thing.

We have to have safety in our community.

We're tired of hearing gunshots at night.

We're tired of having our cars broken into two, three times.

Police tell me they're tired of picking up the same people for the same offense, kids laughing in their face.

No parental accountability.

Judges releasing dangerous criminals, who should not be released, as they go back out to cause problems in our community and to threaten police.

I met with developers who wanted to do marvelous things downtown.

I believe they're gonna do it, but they're watching Peoria right now.

Are we going to continue to go after the criminal element and do something, or not?

Because they're not gonna invest millions of dollars in our downtown if we don't address the real quality of life issues.

I believe we will.

And I have seen more and more energy that was heretofore going way out into the growth cell areas, which I supported through the years coming back to the heart of our city, people wanting to live in the heart of our city, and that's encouraging to me.

So we have to keep our eyes on the basics, the basics, and everything else will pretty much take care of itself with our great private sector system and free enterprise system.

(alarm ringing) - [Tim] Thank you.

Ms. Ali?

- I'm Rita Ali, and I'm asking for four more years in office to finish the job that I started four years ago as your mayor.

There are many differences between my opponents, and I when it comes to this role.

My style of getting things done is through hands-on collaboration versus delegation.

My approach is data-driven versus baseless speculation.

I have new ideas.

I know we get more done by showing appreciation for city staff who are our boots on the ground for all of our operations.

They are our partners in this work.

Engaging our residents and community partners is how we leverage our resources and get the big things done.

This is how I work, and this is how we make progress.

We have a lot of work ahead in Peoria.

We have a housing crisis that must get fixed for all income levels, but especially for those in the middle and lower income brackets.

We must better incentivize business growth and address workforce shortages.

I urge you to visit my website at ritaali.com to review my background.

I am now an experienced mayor with strong bipartisan relationships on the local, state and national level.

That matters when it comes to securing and leveraging resources and moving our agenda forward.

Let's stay the course Peoria, because the best is yet to come.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you, Ms. Ali.

We are out of time, unfortunately.

This has been very informative.

We appreciate you all coming out.

And we wanna remind you the primary election is Tuesday, February 25th.

- And we will see the candidates for a general election back here on March 19th.

Jenn?

(bright music) - Thank you again for joining us for the 2025 Peoria mayoral primary debate.

Thank you to our moderators, Tim Shelley and Mark Welp, and thank you to our candidates, Rita Ali, Chuck Grayeb and John Kelly.

Thank you to our broadcast partners, the League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria, WCBU Peoria Public Radio, and the Peoria branch of the NAACP.

And a special thank you to you, the viewers and listeners.

For WTVP PBS and our team here, I'm Jenn Gordon.

Good night.

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