(bright music) (bright music continues) - Last August, my guest came on "At Issue" to talk about how you could have a say in how our region looks in the future.

The Big Table events allowed residents to share ideas with business leaders, public officials, and their neighbors.

Today the 2025 Big Table Report was released, and we're going to do a deep dive into what it shows us.

Chris Setti is with the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council, he's the CEO, and David Aduama is the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council Communications Manager.

Good to see you, gentlemen.

- Good to see you too.

- Thank you so much.

- So you had the Greater Peoria event.

That was last October.

You also went to Woodford County, Mason County, Tazewell, and Logan.

So tell us about this process, and let's remind everybody again what exactly the Big Table is.

- Okay, so the Big Table is, in a nutshell, a big table of communities sitting out.

Like, take it as a family meeting but for the region.

And so we did the first one back in 2019?

- Yep.

- And then 2022 we had another one, but then we did 2025.

We did it this year because we needed to develop the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.

And so the Big Table conversation fits into that.

What we did was to have people in the community come and tell us what's going on in our region.

So what do we need to fix?

Where are we going as a region, economically?

That's why we brought Victor Wong to talk about innovation as an economic growth strategy.

So we had, like you mentioned, we had one, the main one in October in Peoria, and then we had rural ones, because a lot of the (indistinct), we only did one in Peoria, but we also do cover like five counties.

And we know some people cannot travel to Peoria and spend a whole day in a conversation.

So we decided to take the conversation to them.

So we did sort of a roadshow.

We wrapped the last one up in Lincoln this year in February.

And so after all the conversation, we've gathered all the input from the people, what they said is working, what's not working.

And so we're using that information to guide us as we build a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.

- Well, Chris, before we take the deep dive into this, was there anything pro or con out of these results that surprised you?

- No, I think, you know, it really is framed as a community conversation.

It's a structured conversation, so it's not just a free for all where come and tell us your problems or come and tell us how much you love us, right?

It's a structured conversation around four different topics.

So one was around entrepreneurship and innovation.

One was around livability, like the quality of place that we live in.

One was about workforce and education and kind of building the talent pipeline.

And the last was about access to opportunity, making sure that all of us have the same opportunities, you know, to grow and succeed.

And so within those conversations, I don't think there was anything that was a shock to me.

I think maybe what was the most interesting to me was the commonality of themes between all five of the conversations.

So you think of the Peoria event; it was held in Downtown Peoria, you know, in a day in October.

And you can imagine what the folks there would have thought, you know, about those four topic areas, but then to see the same things repeated in the other communities in very kind of connected ways.

So not repeated verbatim but repeated thematically.

So one of the issues that we heard a lot about was transportation, or access, I should say, to services.

In Peoria, and particularly in the city of Peoria, that might feel like a problem of the South Side or the East Bluff, you know, not having adequate transportation to get, you know, to goods.

But the same is true in Roanoke or in Havana or in rural Logan County where there's also those same barriers to resources.

So it was very interesting that, like I said, they might take on different flavors, but they were very much the same conversations that we kept having kind of over and over again, which helps to reinforce, you know, the work going forward in developing strategies.

- Let's take a look at some of those themes.

You mentioned access to opportunity and transportation is one of the core barriers that was identified.

There was also childcare, housing, and I think people understand what those mean, but also information and navigation, you know?

- Yeah, you know, actually, I think information and navigation might have been a global theme across most of the areas altogether, is that, you know, I think, and David, you could, that a lot of people say, "I didn't know that that was something I could do."

It's interesting, here we are on a TV program, right?

There's never been more ways of communicating information to people and more, I don't call it ignorance, but more unawareness of particular resources, maybe because there's so many channels of media and getting information that it can be almost overwhelming to people.

So when you say that was one of the interesting things that we heard- - No, seriously.

So part of one of the recurring themes is the resources are available but we don't know how to access them.

And so part of this year, for the first time, with the Big Table Report, we put in frameworks and pillars of like KPIs, basically making the conversation more action-oriented so that we can use that to build a strategy.

So one of the pillars is to redesign our communications effort.

It's not building something new; it's just making sure we coordinate all the information and the resources that are available to people and make sure that people know where to go and find it.

It's supposed to be a one-stop shop for everything.

And then I did find some examples of regions that have done something similar like that.

So that's also like put into the report.

And then we currently are writing the actual comprehensive strategy.

So that's part of some of the frame, like, what do you call it, the strategies that we are advising.

And then back to... So, for me, the interesting thing between 2022 and 2025 was 2022 was more diagnostic.

We were like, "These are the problems."

But this time around, like, the concessions was more directional.

Like we know where, we know the issues.

Like, now let's address them.

And then let's bring them, like, let's make it tangible and let's make it like smart, you know, like, it should be able to deliver the results.

And so that's the direction.

- I think, an example of the communication issues, right?

So we have an amazing 211 program that is a great resource.

And a lot of folks still don't know about 211, that you can just dial 211.

It's managed by the United Way.

And if you are in need of something in particular, you know, housing, clothing, particular services, 211's a great place.

But if you're an entrepreneur looking for help, you know, with a small business development, you're not gonna think to dial 211, you know, to do that.

If you are looking for job training, you also may not think of that.

Or if you're an employer looking, you know, to connect with employees.

But we know that all of these systems exist: ICC's got great programs, Distillery Labs has great programs.

And it's not building like maybe one system that does everything, because that then itself becomes a problem.

But at least making sure that there's ways for people to access information when they need it.

- Another thing, workforce and talent pipeline.

Now, some of those barriers are interesting because we're talking about demographic pressures: you know, our folks getting older and maybe the youth not hanging around here, limited career exposure, structural participation barriers.

So you've got your employers that can't find employees, and you've got your employees that can't find employers.

- And I think that was universal across, again, between our rural and our urban communities, you know, where I think we consistently heard about job preparedness or essential skills, life skills, whatever, soft skills, however, whatever word you want to put in front of skills that, you know, is there awareness by our young people of the careers that are there and what it takes to get those jobs?

And are they prepared, you know, to take those jobs, beyond the hard skill training of being a welder or a truck driver or a CNA: you know, timeliness, conflict resolution, how to talk to a supervisor, how to take direction, how to take constructive criticism as not just criticism.

But then you could see too how like the access to opportunity impacts that talent, you know, workforce and education.

If you don't have a car and you don't live in the city of Peoria or maybe the city of Pekin or East Peoria, there are no public transportation options.

If you are an employee who lives, or a worker who lives in Peoria but the job is in Morton, there's no bus that goes to Morton.

And the further away from the urban core that you get, the harder that is.

So we could see how the interplay between, you know, access to opportunity and workforce and education kind of works out.

- Yeah.

And to that point, although we have like those four buckets of topics that we were discussing, most of like the issues that were raised are all intertwined.

Like, for instance, childcare came strongly under access to opportunity.

And it's also like a big deal for the workforce team.

So we have different committees, subcommittees, writing each section, so we are trying to align all of that.

Because if a parent cannot afford childcare or can't find childcare help, do they participate in the workforce, right?

Like, that's also part, like a barrier to access.

And then employers, people want to work, but I have no one to take care of my kids.

So childcare came out as one of the things that we need to focus on.

It's one of the structural barriers where I think it's probably easier for us to like address quickly than most.

- I think affordability and stability of childcare, some people will have, they may even have a grandparent or a friend who takes care of their child.

But if that person gets sick, then the worker has no one to take care of their child.

Or if it's a snow day and all of a sudden, you know, and maybe school is the option, and then it's a snow day and there's a learn-from-home day, well, especially if you're a shift worker or an hourly worker, there's only so many days you're able to take off.

And then you get dinged for being tardy or just missing work.

And that tends to eek away at, you know, at your employability.

So you can see how the two work against each other.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And we should say a lot of these problems are not just unique to our area.

You could drive in any direction from Peoria and you're gonna find cities and towns with transportation issues and daycare issues and everything else.

- I don't think there is one thing that was identified here, if we hosted the same thing in almost every other community our size, that you wouldn't find.

- Let's talk a little bit... Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

- Oh, no.

And that's one of the things that's interesting about the Big Table that we did.

I did... Nevermind.

Go to you.

(all laughing) - I'm sure I'm gonna say what you were gonna say.

Let's talk about innovation and entrepreneurship.

I know this week is a big week for y'all.

It's economic development week.

I looked for a card.

I cannot find one.

Sorry, guys.

But you're doing a lot of things to get entrepreneurs to not only come to the area but thrive in the area.

There's a distillery where you had a lot of events going on this week.

Tell us a little bit more about what's going on in the Peoria area with that.

- You know, I think, there's maybe no more important economic development strategy than one that is based around innovation and entrepreneurship.

You know, all the facets of economic development are important.

We certainly need to be open to investment from outside of our community in attracting companies to come to our community.

We certainly need to help our existing companies, especially our legacy companies, thrive and grow.

But we also have to have an eye towards, you know, new companies.

'Cause that's really where, especially those scalable startups, that's a really awesome opportunity to grow our community.

When we think about the work at the EDC and the work of our Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, it's really about, it's about diversity; and not the diversity that sometimes gets a bad rap in political circles, but that resiliency of an economy is the ability to handle shocks, economic shocks.

And when you are overly reliant on a few large employers, then you become subject to the ups and downs of that employer, whether you had anything to do with their ups and downs or not, right?

So, you know, our community has, you know, been traditionally very reliant on one or two large.

And in the terms of Caterpillar, they have ups and downs.

And they happen to be on a great up right now, which is awesome, right?

But as the global winds of the economy change, we will be impacted here as well.

It's not to downplay the role of Caterpillar or OSF or any of our large employers, but we need to broaden that economic base.

They want that too, right?

Those big companies want that as well.

And so innovation and entrepreneurship is just so important.

And what we heard there too was that, I think maybe the biggest takeaway, not a surprise, was the lack of capital.

You know, we have really great banks in our community who do some really great lending, but not every startup is ready for bank financing.

And the access to what we would call early-stage capital, that startup capital is really difficult in this community, especially for scalable entrepreneurship companies that aren't just going to, who aren't getting into business where they're gonna make, they're gonna open a pizza, you know, a pizza shop and make and sell things immediately, but companies that are looking to develop a new product or service.

And they need funds to work into the development of that before they're significantly pre-revenue.

That's not where banks are even allowed to be.

And so I think that came out pretty clearly in the report, was that lack of early-stage capital, not just, quite frankly, for those scalable entrepreneurs, but even people who wanted to open mom-and-pop restaurants and main street restaurants, access to what I would call predevelopment capital, right?

You know, if you wanted to take advantage of a storefront, having the money to pay an architect to help you understand building codes, just to know if that's a viable option.

So those are some of the things I think that we heard in that area.

And again, access to information.

There's a lot of great groups that do work with our entrepreneurs: the Small Business Development Center, the Minority Business Development Center, Distillery Labs, Peoria NEXT, all of whom work really well together.

But from the outside, if you're just an entrepreneur and trying to figure it out, it could feel overwhelming.

And so one of the things is how do we build a system that's easy entry into the ecosystem of a startup world.

So no matter what kind of business that you're looking to do, you know one place to go and at least start and then get to the right people.

- Yeah, I remember when we were in El Paso, we had one person that was an entrepreneur.

I think Doug was talking, and he's like, "I didn't know this (indistinct) exist."

Because he's there and it's quite a distance.

So that's some of the challenges we are trying to resolve.

Like, how do we take the resources and meet people where they are at.

- Here I'll give you a great example of a barrier that I don't think a lot of people think about.

And this is particularly true in our rural communities, is access to space.

You know, so we drive around town and we drive around our rural communities, and we see boarded-up or vacant storefronts.

You think, "That would make a great place for X," whatever X might be.

But you don't have necessarily a landlord or a property owner who's willing to invest in that space and come alongside you, you know, as an entrepreneur to make that space viable.

Again, as an entrepreneur, you may not have the financial well-being, you know, to be able to renovate, not only start your business, but completely renovate a space, especially if a space needs ADA accommodations or fire suppression systems or an elevator or any of these things that are just super expensive.

And our regional, I'm sorry, our rural entrepreneurs told us that there's just no places for them to start their business, which forces them to come to the quote-unquote bigger cities to do things because they can't access them in their own community.

- Let's skip ahead a little bit because we're running out of time.

Let's talk about what people think that we're already doing well.

What are some of the highlights of that?

- I think, in the livability section, I think we may have heard the most about that, that we understand that this community is a great place to live, right?

I think affordability came up a lot.

Affordability always is relative maybe to somebody else.

So when we say that we are in an affordable community, it is affordable to many but not all.

So there's still an issue, I think, around the development of housing, the quantity, the quality of affordable housing, what's affordable to you, not necessarily just low-income housing.

But I do think that we saw a lot of people talking about how the riverfront is better and could be improved, a lot of discussion about how great the warehouse district has become, the Levee District in East Peoria, some of the investments that our smaller communities are making in their communities.

Like, if you think about the work that's been done along Court Street in Pekin, you know, to improve that.

So I think walkability was something that was... I think people recognized the efforts that have been made but also recognize that more needs to be done.

- So one of the things that it says in here remains a central weakness, and we talked about it, communication gaps.

Seems like communication, and whatever you're talking about, economic development, relationships, whatever, can solve a lot of problems.

So what can we do to, you know, keep the lines of communication open and, you know, figure out how to get people to where they need to be to get that help that they need.

- You know, it is so hard.

And, you know, your advertisers and sponsors here understand how difficult it is too to get the message across.

And I think it's gonna continue to be a challenge.

Like I said, there's never been more ways of talking to people and sharing a message.

But it all gets so very confusing.

So I think it's gonna take a concerted effort.

I think shows like this and stations like this at WTVP are super important as a mechanism to get information out.

We have very fragmented audiences across: some people who only listen to what I would think of as mainstream media and some people who listen to no mainstream media.

And I don't think we as professionals and the colleagues that we work with, in economic development or otherwise, can rely on just one type of message.

And I think we need to leverage the powers of the internet and maybe even AI, you know, and all of those other things to make sure that people know where to turn when they have, you know, when they have a problem to be solved or something that they want to celebrate.

I don't know that we are gonna... There's not a magic bullet out there, right?

If there was, somebody else would've found it by now.

But we're gonna work really hard.

And how do we develop... if not, like I said, I don't think it'll end up being one giant system, because that would be overwhelming and it would be doomed to failure.

But within these areas, how do we expand and leverage what we're already doing in 211, what the United Way is doing.

On the entrepreneurship side, how do we build a gateway, you know, into the system that then helps shepherd people to the right place.

- One of the things that came out of the report in the executive summary, it says, "One message was consistent: Greater Peoria lacks neither effort, resources, nor vision; what it needs is alignment."

And so let's talk about, now that we have all this information, what we do with it and who we look to to help us to design this system that we all want, where everybody, you know, is positive and can do what they want to do.

- That's the interesting part.

- I think it's important to understand, there is no one organization who's in charge of this.

Our responsibility here at the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council is to help develop a plan that involves a lot of partners working together.

And so I think the alignment word is the operative word there, is that everybody has to be aware of what everybody else is doing and make sure that we're not overly duplicating services.

Those of us who are in the service industry, whether that's economic development or human services, have to recognize we're not competitors with each other.

Frankly, even individual cities within our communities, they're not competitors.

We are all in the same boat, right?

We're all in the same race together, and we need to help each other.

That's an internal message that we have to be able to deliver to stakeholders, is that, you know, you don't want to see mom and dad fighting, right?

And that, you know, we have to work together.

So the Big Table, and then what this leads into is the development, this Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.

The operative word in all that is comprehensive, that, you know, the work that the EDC does is much narrower on a programmatic level than the CEDS, the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy that includes a visitor economy.

And it includes housing and transportation and things we don't get directly involved in.

So I don't want anybody to think that, okay, we'll just turn to the EDC and they'll fix it.

We got a team of eight.

(panelists laugh) It's a relatively small organization.

But I do think that through proper planning and then execution on the strategy.

About eight, nine years ago, we, through our Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, identified the need for what is now Distillery Labs.

And it was a concerted effort by more than just the EDC, by a lot of partners, to make that happen.

And it's going to take a lot of partners to make any of these things happen.

On the workforce side, we have this great institution, it's called the Regional Workforce Alliance, that is bringing those partners together who are in the social service industry, or social service sector, who are in the education sector, community colleges, to then join forces with employers to say, "This is what the system needs to do and this is what the system needs to produce in order to get people the jobs and employers the employees.

- So it sounds like in order for this to be successful, we gotta get everybody on board.

- Yep.

The hope, well, my personal goal, is for when we finish writing the strategy, organizations would like take ownership of some of the things that it's in their purview.

Like, for instance, we do business outreach and business retention.

So if that's a recommendation from the strategy, we would take ownership.

And that's the hope, that like alignment.

We all align and then we get to the goal.

But it won't be successful if like it's a regional thing.

Like Chris said, we are not competing with each other.

It's Greater Peoria.

So whatever, if Peoria is progressing, Peoria is also benefiting from it, more than all of those places.

So the hope is that these administrators, the city officials and the elected officials that can actually, and businesses that can support some of these initiatives, would come to the table on one alignment, and then we implement the strategy.

- Is there a place online where people can check out this report we've been talking about?

- Yes, if you go to GreaterPeoriaEDC.org, O-R-G, it's on the homepage.

You would see a link to go check out the report.

- All right, Chris and David with the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council.

Great work, and we'll have you on again in another eight months to see where we're at with this.

- That'd be great.

- Yeah.

- All right, thanks, gentlemen.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- And we appreciate you joining us.

If you want to check this out again or share the segment with a friend, just go to wtvp.org.

Have a good night.

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