Peoria approves two short-term rentals despite neighborhood opposition, greenlights cannabis dispensary
PEORIA, ARIZONA — September 27, 2022

Peoria approves two short-term rentals despite neighborhood opposition, greenlights cannabis dispensary

City council approved two contentious short-term rentals despite neighborhood opposition and a cannabis dispensary, while advancing racial equity assessment ordinance and infrastructure projects.

Peoria Council Approves Contested Short-Term Rentals and Cannabis Dispensary; Racial Equity Ordinance Advances to Second Reading

On the evening of September 27, 2022, the Peoria City Council moved forward on three land-use and policy matters that exposed sharp ideological divides: the council approved two short-term rental special-use permits despite neighborhood opposition, green-lit a cannabis dispensary aimed at social-equity applicants, and advanced a racial equity impact assessment ordinance—a tool designed to examine the impact of city policies on marginalized communities before those policies take effect.

The meeting lasted over four hours. Two of the three items commanded most of the attention, floor time, and emotional testimony. The racial equity ordinance, on first reading, provoked clarifying questions but no opposing votes.

The 2305 East Grandview Avenue Short-Term Rental: Safety vs. Zoning Standards

The most contentious item of the night was the short-term rental at 2305 East Grandview Avenue, in an older residential neighborhood on Peoria's northeast side. The property had been listed as a short-term rental and was under contract with Venture Partners LLC after being purchased for $91,575 in November 2021 and re-sold for $325,000 in July 2022—a 255% appreciation that sparked neighborhood concern about speculative investment and conversion of owner-occupied homes to transient accommodations.

Public Comment

Eight members of the public spoke against the application. The most detailed testimony came from Gary Newhouse, a resident at 3705 North Grandview Drive, who framed the core objection: the neighborhood's peculiar geography and heavy pedestrian/bicycle traffic.

"This uh home is located on a dead-end street in kind of a secluded neighborhood with no good access to any thoroughfare to get out to a thoroughfare you would have to go up Grandview Avenue to Harmon than to Bishop then to Harvard which turns into late by the time it gets to prospect now Grandview Avenue Harman and Bishop do not have sidewalks but they have a lot of foot traffic and bicycle traffic the Peoria Greenway Trail some of you may think of it as The Rock Island Trail crosses bishop and so in addition to all the people in the neighborhood and it's a very pleasant neighborhood I really have never enjoyed living in an area so much everybody walks all the time for exercise for pleasure walking dogs riding bicycles that kind of thing but so there's a lot of traffic there." — Gary Newhouse, resident

Scott Carnahan, a Bradley University graduate who lived directly across from the property, presented a density map of opposition and read from a petition signed by 78 neighborhood properties. He noted that 57 of 60 residents surveyed (95%) opposed the short-term rental. He detailed safety concerns unique to the area:

"there's several facets to the safety issue um as he mentioned the neighborhood does have navigation issues unique to the area including poor visibility poor lighting steep hills blind intersections blind driveways Road surface disrepair...to add a and Str with an additional up to 10 transient drivers in one Str and it's my understanding that this gets approved there could be three additional strs in the neighborhood that would be 40 additional people in the area um a traffic to add to this quiet little neighborhood that has narrow streets and no shoulders and no sidewalks." — Scott Carnahan, resident

Carnahan also raised a procedural concern: he alleged that the property was already being used as a short-term rental without a permit, citing eight cars observed at the property on a recent Thursday evening (five in the driveway, three on the street). He questioned whether the property met code requirements for egress windows in below-grade bedrooms and asked the council to defer the vote pending verification of the five-bedroom claim.

Shannon Pop, who lived diagonally across the street at 2224 East Grandview Avenue, reported a harrowing incident:

"a couple weeks ago I'm in the front yard Mowing and I see a little girl my heart's racing not because I'm nervous I'm reliving this moment she's wandering out in the middle of the road this crest of the Hill where our street runs east to west so the sun is right in alignment at certain two times a day you cannot see well in the morning you cannot see when you're coming up over that Hill and a little girl's wandering says this isn't right I take off running up the street at that crest of the Hill I'm not a tall person either I can't see if a car is coming over but we're used to the neighborhood because we live there I scooped this little girl up and I'm asking her where do you live where are you from." — Shannon Pop, resident

Kelly Lahood raised the broader principle:

"would you put a hotel in a residential area hotels rent out by the day of the week or more a single-family house rented out as a short-term rental in a neighborhood is basically like a hotel people come and go with few in the neighborhood ever knowing who they are." — Kelly Lahood, resident

Debbie McIntyre, who had lived in the neighborhood for 45 years, emphasized continuity and family stability:

"it's a neighborhood for family it's not a neighborhood for business there's history in that neighborhood...it's always been a family neighborhood people been lived there for long times I've seen them like I say pass away or they've lived there until they're retired or the new people bring in new families new children and it's just not a bit a place for a business to be there a rental or a business it's just for families." — Debbie McIntyre, resident

One speaker, a veterinarian named Manus who lived adjacent to Breckenridge Avenue, offered a broader lament about Peoria's decline, citing visible crime, homelessness, and tent cities. However, he did acknowledge the prior peaceful character of the neighborhood and expressed concern that short-term rentals would erode it further.

The Property Owner's Response

The petitioner, represented by an attorney, argued that the property had appreciated due to significant renovation—over $250,000 invested with more than 80% of the property renovated. He disputed the claim that the property was being actively rented; he explained that friends working on the roof of another property had been staying there at his invitation while the house was empty and not advertised.

On traffic and guest management, he offered to limit occupancy to six adults and agreed to cap parking at four vehicles (a condition later added by Timothy Riggenbach). He noted that access from Washington or the north could bypass Bishop entirely via Grandview Drive, and that there were already 15 short-term rentals in the immediate area with no reported issues.

He also addressed the allegation of unauthorized short-term rental operations:

"the house is not advertised it is not listed and it's sitting will sit empty until it is approved." — Property petitioner

Council Debate

Council Member Rickenbach, who had pulled the item for extended discussion, acknowledged the compelling neighborhood testimony but emphasized the city's established process:

"I know my colleagues all remember the year-long process that we went through as we discussed short-term rentals and the conditions and the Angst we went through to make sure that we got it right I think we came up with a pretty good approach we set some standards we set some expectations we set a process in place that allows for the Planning and Zoning commission to vet this for there to be a public hearing for there to be concerns raised and then it comes to the council for final approval." — Council Member Timothy Rickenbach argued that the petitioners were Peoria residents and investors, and that neighbors had previously called him to praise their quality work. He noted that while the street needed repair, he could not deny the application solely on that ground. On code compliance, he stated:

"after the council approves a short-term rental that's when our code enforcement department steps up and they will actually the address the fire codes they will address the egress um from any bedrooms that could be in the basement so it's not just the petitioner's word for it that we take but we actually have City staff that make sure that it does in fact meet those um meet those requirements that we expect and the standards that we have set." — Council Member Rickenbach

Council Member Euler emphasized consistency and the track record:

"we've been very consistent deliberate about how we've managed the Str process and rolled it out amongst the community we have not picked one neighborhood over the other we've treated every neighborhood the same based on an equal and same amount of criteria and characteristics...at the end of the day we've come back to the same place that we have not had issues with the ones that have been approved thus far." — Council Member David Euler

Council John Kelly concurred:

"I would wholeheartedly support pulling the special use in the future and not allowing the petitioner to continue to operate but I don't see that being a challenge and I don't see the challenges in this neighborhood being different than those in the other neighborhoods that we have approved them in." — John Kelly contrast, Council Member Denise Jackson directly sided with the neighbors:

"I also um think that we as a council we have to find balance in situations like this and uh even though the petitioners they have done their due diligence and uh council member rickenback you have done your homework we did agree that we would look at these situations on a case-by-case basis and I don't think uh just because uh somebody may meet all the criteria and get through zoning that is an automatic green light it is our job as a council to find a balance between it...I cannot support this because I have to agree with the residents who are living directly in those communities that's not to say there are not communities Where airbnbs will prosper but in this case the residents have spoken clearly." — Council Member Denise Jackson

Council Member Jensen, a former city attorney, took issue with the notion that process adherence overrides neighborhood input:

"I think the whole purpose of it and in this case in particular where you have 95 percent of the surrounding residents and neighbors 57 out of 60 houses this body should be listening to those citizens and those residents...I am that immediately opposed to this is not an appropriate place for this short-term rental based on the concerns of the residents that live there day in and day out." — Council Member Jennyfer Jensen

She continued:

"this body has become so toned deaf to neighbors and concerns of our residents and it's got to stop we have to become more pro-neighborhoods." — Council Member Jensen

Council Member Grant expressed skepticism about short-term rentals generally, calling them "boarding houses," but stated he would not oppose the application in a neighborhood outside his district. However, he noted:

"if I'm not voting to be negative toward you councilman rigenbach you know how difficult this has been." — Council Member Grant

Council Member Dr. Andre W. Allen offered a reconciliatory note, urging the neighborhood and owner to work together:

"I do have to clarify that councilmember Jensen we have approved Airbnb specifically in District Four uh I know all too well about one in particular...one of the things that I hope though that if this does pass tonight because of how close-knit your neighborhood is I believe that there's opportunity for you all to work together to make sure that this is a potential addition a positive addition to your neighborhood." — Council Member Dr. Andre W. Allen

Mayor Dr. Rita Ali requested that the Director of Public Works evaluate street safety issues regardless of the outcome:

"I did hear from numerous residents in the area about a safety issue and regardless of how the vote goes tonight I would ask Mr manager for Public Works to look into the potential safety issue of children crossing a street or people backing up if that's an area regardless of whether it has an Str or not if there's a safety issue perhaps there's some type of sinus some type of barrier something potentially that can be addressed to mitigate the safety concern that we heard tonight." — Mayor Dr. Rita Ali

Vote and Conditions

The motion to approve, made by Timothy Riggenbach with a second by Council Member Euler, passed 6-3. Voting yes were Rickenbach, Euler, John Kelly, Dr. Andre W. Allen, Dr. Kiran Velpula, and Oyler. Voting no were Denise Jackson, Jensen, and Grant.

Council Member Rickenbach added a condition limiting parking to four vehicles maximum—a response to the neighborhood's testimony about street congestion.

The 3119 North Knoxville Avenue Short-Term Rental: Unanimous Approval with Conditions

The second short-term rental, at 3119 North Knoxville Avenue, was less contentious. Council Member Grant requested a condition to block access to the property via Lynn Hill Court, a small residential court to the rear, to protect the "fragile neighborhood" behind the property. The Director of Community Development prepared a yellow sheet adding that condition.

Grant stated:

"there is something called Lynn Hill Court behind it's a very fragile neighborhood so what have I asked you to do director uh thank you councilman the yellow sheet you have adds the underlying sentence that's indicated I believe on the second page condition eight which limits uh asks the petitioner to cut off access of the property so Lynn Hill is no longer an exit to the property." — Council Member Grant

The motion to approve with the additional condition, made by Grant and seconded by Euler, passed 8-1, with Denise Jackson voting no. (Individual votes not stated in transcript.)

The Adult-Use Cannabis Dispensary at Willow Knolls Shopping Center

The cannabis dispensary application for the former Applebee's location at 3929 West War Memorial Drive (Willow Knolls Shopping Center) proceeded with extensive security testimony and minimal public opposition.

Applicant Presentation

Gregory Elliott, the applicant and owner of World of Weed (doing business as Ivy Hall), identified himself as a social-equity applicant and Peoria resident committed to community stewardship. Daniel Farrell, head of security and owner of SilverStar security (which operates over 100 cannabis facilities across Illinois, Missouri, and Michigan), provided a detailed security presentation covering multi-layer access controls.

Farrell outlined the facility design: three zones (public access, limited access, and restricted access). In the public vestibule, all customers must present state-approved ID (driver's license, passport, green card), which is scanned against a database to verify age 21 and validity. Access to the point-of-sale area requires a magnetic lock and entry authorization. A second ID check occurs at purchase. Behind the counter, the restricted access area requires state-issued IDFPR badges. All transactions are recorded in Illinois's track-and-trace system (Metrc) and filmed on multiple cameras. Products are barcode-scanned and placed in tamper-evident mylar bags with receipts stapled to them. Security staff conduct perimeter sweeps and monitor for loitering; any unauthorized use triggers Peoria Police notification.

Farrell stated:

"so every inch of the interior of the facility would be under camera except for the bathrooms and the exterior will have cameras on it including license plate readers and facial recognition so that we can if there's a crime that happens outside we can see it and share that information with the police." — Daniel Farrell, SilverStar Security

He emphasized secondary authentication:

"the second line of defense is when you go up to the counter and purchase product you have to show your driver's license again so there's a secondary authentication that person is 21 before they will um provide you any product." — Daniel Farrell

Council Discussion

Council Dr. Andre W. Allen, in whose district the location sits, expressed support and welcomed the due diligence:

"I'm very sensitive to what constituents are bringing forth as concerns and so I want to give these gentlemen the opportunity to address some of those." — Council Member Dr. Andre Dr. Andre W. Allen noted the site's isolation, separated from nearby residential neighborhoods by War Memorial and Willow Knolls roads, and expressed optimism:

"I'm excited for the transformation because right now the old Applebee's it's an eyesore right now and so I'm excited for something to go in there you all have a sound plan and it's going to be a great tax generator for the city of Peoria." — Council Member Allen

Council Member Grant signaled qualified support but raised a broader concern about proliferation:

"I brought up the idea of a moratorium on these and I think we should take the temperature of the console on this I indicated the last time we discussed this is since this was a social Equity one I would be favorably predisposed toward it but I think there are limits on what this community should have to absorb in terms of cannabis dispensaries and I think as years past we'll look back and wonder what we were thinking so I will vote to approve this Only If part of it is to implement a moratorium after this one's approved for the entire city of Peoria." — Council Member David Grant continued, expressing discomfort with value judgments embedded in the nascent racial equity framework:

"we're going to use a tool we're going to make a value judgment does this help disadvantage people well maybe since this is a social Equity one you could say that but if we continue to have these in this community will that be helpful you see there's a lot of devil going into detail." — Council Member Grant

Council Member Dr. Andre W. Allen noted that a cannabis industry policy session was scheduled for October 11 and that Grant's moratorium proposal was sentiment, not part of the motion.

Vote

The motion to approve, made by Dr. Andre W. Allen and seconded by John Kelly, passed 7-2. Council Members Seer and Denise Jackson voted no. (Individual votes not stated in transcript.)

Racial Equity Impact Assessment Ordinance: First Reading

The first reading of a racial equity impact assessment ordinance drew significant testimony and nuanced council discussion, though no opposing votes.

The ordinance, stemming from work by the Joint Commission on Racial Justice and Equity (a city-county collaborative established in July 2021 with 156 participants), would establish a framework requiring city officials to evaluate the impact of policies, programs, services, and budgets on racial and ethnic communities before taking action.

Background and Process

Mary Peterson and Tim Birchie, co-chairs of the Joint Commission, presented the initiative. Peterson outlined the commission's structure: a steering committee and eight targeted subcommittees focusing on housing, education, employment, health, criminal justice, and other equity areas. Birchie emphasized the tool's purpose:

"what an REI ordinance is a call for the city to evaluate its impact upon racial communities prior to taking any material actions and what it envisions is a process developed by the city manager in this case or to be developed by the city manager in this case which would determine the impact of proposed City actions on our different racial communities particularly upon marginalized communities." — Tim Birchie, co-chair

Birchie noted that similar ordinances exist in Seattle, Washington D.C., and Dubuque, Iowa, and that the county commission would present a parallel ordinance in October.

He invoked the Pledge of Allegiance:

"what do we pledge to well at the very end it's liberty and justice for all this ordinance speaks to just that assuring that there is Justice for All by assuring in the processes that you're about that there is a view to racial Justice and there is intentionality developed in the process to ensure that goal is achieved I ask you I implore you I and I encourage you when the vote comes up on this two weeks from now to vote in favor of this ordinance." — Tim Birchie

The Six-Question Framework

The ordinance would require staff to address six questions when recommending council action:

  1. How does this action advance racial and ethnic equity in the community?
  2. Have you analyzed the impact of this action on racial and ethnic communities?
  3. What is that impact, and what data supports it?
  4. Have you reached out to receive feedback from affected communities?
  5. Have you considered alternative approaches that would better promote equity?
  6. What additional resources would be needed to better promote equity?

A worksheet would be attached to council communications for items subject to assessment. Implementation would be phased to allow staff training in diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts.

Mayor Ali's Remarks

Mayor Dr. Rita Ali expressed pride in the city's intentionality:

"I was really thrilled to be at your annual report out meeting and see such a presence of the Committees the eight committees plus the steering committee that have been working for over a year with intentionality to focus on addressing issues of racial Injustice and racial Justice in Peoria." — Mayor Dr. Rita Ali

She emphasized this as a beginning, not an endpoint:

"this is not the end this is the beginning I think this is a step toward our objective to end racial discrimination within the city and the county and throughout our region but I think it's a first step and this is a first reading so it's it's open for discussion." — Dr. Rita Ali

Council Member Kelly's Concerns

Council John Kelly raised pragmatic questions about what the ordinance would actually accomplish and whether it risked rubber-stamping decisions with post-hoc equity language:

"I just want to know what this is going to accomplish other than sounding good this says under scrutiny will be any policies programs services or budgets that apparently violate racial Justice um perhaps we have some I don't know uh I'm not aware of any but perhaps we have some and I think we have the wherewithal to address those at this point when we talk about any I just wonder are there things on the agenda tonight that would require the manager to create an assessment report on those items." — John Kelly pressed for baseline data:

"if we're going to use data we need Baseline data to start with and with an ordinance like this I think we need to say look here's where we are so that these programs and whatnot so that their good effect can be measured if we just talk about these things in past ordinances and you know it's it looks good but it's it doesn't do much good." — John Kelly

Mayor Ali's and City Manager's Response

City Manager Patrick Moore addressed Kelly's concerns, noting that the commission had been data-driven and had identified disparities across eight areas (housing, education, employment, health, criminal justice, etc.). He referenced a research document compiled at Illinois Central College. He also acknowledged that Peoria has faced national criticism:

"Questions have been raised about our community and its commitment to racial Justice in National media there have been we're all familiar with this there have been uh particular articles and um studies which have suggested that our city is not as open to racial justice as it might be I would say this vote on this ordinance gives you singular opportunity to answer that in a resounding voice." — Tim Birchie, referring to criticisms cited

Moore explained that the phased implementation would ensure proper training and that staff would develop a dashboard combining city and county data on equity indicators. He emphasized that this was not unique to Peoria; other municipalities, including Dubuque, Iowa, and cities participating in the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, were pursuing similar initiatives.

Council Member Rickenbach's Support

Council Member Rickenbach, a vocal supporter of the ordinance, articulated why intentional policy review matters:

"I think the biggest thing that I'd like to see is give me some of the meat to this whole thing...you know give us some of the what other communities have done and what that meant to them so that we can go out and give that sales pitch ourselves because the change if has to start with us and we have to be a part of it." — Timothy Riggenbach asked for specific examples and outcomes from peer cities.

Council Member Grant's Nuanced Position

Council Member Grant, while not opposing the ordinance, raised a philosophical concern about how value judgments embed themselves into municipal analysis:

"I would rather that this um particular impact assessment tool be used to address problems that affect all the disadvantaged people within our community and practically putting this into effect...I see this as being a problem I admire our president especially when he says we need to work to give more of our citizens breathing room and help believe with intentionality City councilors have done just that through the years I'm not saying that we can't do more because we are not a perfect country you know why because we don't have perfect people but I just don't know how this translates just looking at the next two agenda items how it's going to work." — Council Member David Grant referenced the video gaming and cannabis agenda items as examples where the framework's application might prove awkward: determining whether video gaming or cannabis sales are objectively "good for Black people" requires value assumptions that may not be amenable to technical analysis.

Council Member Jensen's Legal Concerns

Council Member Jensen, a former city attorney, flagged a procedural issue in the ordinance language regarding inaction:

"I notice there's a paragraph in here that um the decision of the city to refrain from taking an action shall be deemed a City action for purposes of this ordinance so and that's paragraph seven so how will that work if the city council refuses you know votes against something or doesn't approve something then when do you do then do you do the assessment after the fact and then how do you bring that forward that are in action." — Council Member Jennyfer Jensen

She also requested that the city's legal department identify which existing ordinances or policies might conflict with the new ordinance before it comes back for final passage, rather than including sweeping repeal language:

"I would be more comfortable if we're going to include this in the ordinance to have a re and it may be asking a lot but to have our legal department do a review and let us know what ordinances and policies we would be repealing or that may be in conflict with us." — Council Member Jensen

City Manager Moore agreed to conduct a cursory review and identify major code sections that might be implicated.

Vote

The motion to leave and file (approve for second reading on October 11), made by Timothy Riggenbach and seconded by Dr. Andre W. Allen, passed unanimously.

Other Notable Items

Bob Michael Bridge Rehabilitation ($22.2 Million Project)

The council unanimously approved the city's participation in a $22.2 million Illinois Department of Transportation project to rehabilitate and widen the Bob Michael Bridge, with the city contributing $108,507 plus contingencies. The project includes consolidation of pedestrian and bicycle traffic to the north side of the bridge, coordination with the Adams-Jefferson one-way-to-two-way conversion, and new pedestrian/bicycle trail access to the future Riverfront Park.

Council Member Grant, representing an affected district, expressed enthusiasm and called for decorative lighting on the bridge (similar to the Murray Baker Bridge) once rehabilitation is complete. The project is slated to begin in 2023.

Video Gaming License Waiting Period Reduction (Approved 8-1)

The council approved an amendment to reduce the waiting period for new video gaming license applicants from 24 months to 6 months, down from an initially proposed 12-month reduction. John Kelly commended the reduction, noting he had favored eliminating the waiting period entirely. Council Member Seer cast the sole no vote. The amendment reflects state Illinois gaming code limits on the number of licenses per establishment (six, unless the establishment is a truck stop).

Bradley University 125th Anniversary Proclamation

The council unanimously recognized Bradley University's 125th anniversary, founded by Lydia Moss Bradley in 1897. University President Dr. Stephen Standerford and VP Dr. Warren Anderson (diversity, equity, inclusion) accepted the proclamation on behalf of the institution. The council's proclamation highlighted Bradley's national rankings, Fulbright program recognition, athletic achievements, and commitment to Peoria partnership.

Project Details

Short-Term Rental at 2305 East Grandview Avenue:

Short-Term Rental at 3119 North Knoxville Avenue:

Adult-Use Cannabis Dispensary:

Racial Equity Impact Assessment Ordinance:

Vote Breakdown

Short-Term Rental at 2305 East Grandview Avenue (22-323):

Short-Term Rental at 3119 North Knoxville Avenue (22-324):

Adult-Use Cannabis Dispensary at Willow Knolls (22-332):

Video Gaming License Waiting Period Amendment (22-307):

Racial Equity Impact Assessment Ordinance—First Reading (22-331):

Outcome & Next Steps

2305 East Grandview Avenue STR: Approved with four-vehicle maximum parking condition. Code enforcement will conduct post-approval inspection to verify bedroom count and fire/egress code compliance before licensing.

3119 North Knoxville Avenue STR: Approved with condition blocking access via Lynn Hill Court to protect adjacent neighborhood.

Cannabis Dispensary: Approved. Operator to coordinate with Peoria Police Department on security protocols. City Manager and Council to hold cannabis industry policy discussion October 11 to address Council Member Grant's request for potential moratorium on future dispensaries.

Racial Equity Ordinance: Advanced to second reading October 11. City legal department to conduct cursory review of existing ordinances and policies that may conflict with or be repealed by the REIA framework. City Manager to provide additional materials on peer-city outcomes and equity indicator dashboard development.

Controversies & Context

Short-Term Rental Opposition

The neighborhood opposition to the 2305 East Grandview Avenue STR reflects a broader tension in Peoria's housing and land-use policy. The property's rapid 255% appreciation—from $91,575 to $325,000 in eight months—alarmed residents who saw speculative investment eroding stable owner-occupied neighborhoods. Evidence that the property was being rented without a permit prior to council approval raised questions about enforcement and whether staff had adequately verified the applicant's claims about the property (e.g., five bedrooms, code compliance).

Council Member Jensen articulated a preservation philosophy: the special-use process was designed to give neighbors a voice, and when 95% of neighbors oppose a use, the council has a duty to listen. Council Members Rickenbach, Euler, and John Kelly countered that the applicant met all established zoning standards, had a strong track record, and that consistency in applying rules—regardless of neighborhood sentiment—was essential to rule of law. Dr. Andre W. Allen sought middle ground, urging the neighborhood and owner to collaborate post-approval.

The tension reflects a broader municipal challenge: can a city balance pro-development policies with neighborhood preservation? The council's approval suggests that legal compliance and prior success outweigh concentrated neighborhood opposition in Peoria's current calculus.

Cannabis Dispensary and Racial Equity Framing

The cannabis dispensary's approval was framed in part as supporting social equity—a state policy goal aimed at redressing communities disproportionately harmed by cannabis prohibition. Dr. Andre W. Allen, whose district includes the site, emphasized this angle and downplayed loitering and youth-access concerns via detailed security testimony.

However, Council Member Grant raised a philosophical question: does a racial equity assessment tool help the city make good decisions if

View source transcript ▼

Source: Peoria City Council Meeting September 27, 2022 — September 27, 2022. Auto-generated YouTube transcript; may contain transcription errors.

oh good evening everyone it is six o'clock P.M on Tuesday September 27 2022 I'd like to call the meeting of the Peoria city council to order I'd also like to welcome everyone in our city council audience as well as our listening audience at wcbu I'd like to welcome the audience watching on cable channel 22.

Council mics are open can you please call the roll oh there we go thank you mayor Ali council member Allen council member Sierra council member Graham here council member Jackson here council member Jensen council member Kelly council member Euler council member rickenback here council member rock regal and council member valpulla we have a quorum present matamayor thank you everyone please join me and stand for a moment of Silent prayer or silent reflection followed by the Pledge of Allegiance foreign let's go Madam Clerk we have two proclamations our first Proclamation recognizes the 125th anniversary excuse me anniversary of Bradley University and here with us I think we have Dr Steven standerford Bradley University's 12th president if you would come forth along with Dr Warren Anderson the vice president for diversity equity and inclusion welcome gentlemen we're happy to have you here our Proclamation reads whereas in 1897 Lydia Moss Bradley founded Bradley Polytechnic Institute in honor of her husband Tobias and their six children all of whom died before reaching adulthood her goal was to provide young people with an education that would provide them with the means of in living independent industrious and useful lives and whereas Bradley consistently ranks among the top schools in the midwest in many major Publications including U.S news and World Report the Princeton Review and the Wall Street Journal in addition to these honors Bradley's Fulbright program was ranked sixth in the nation and whereas Bradley University has offerings for students of all ages including classes through the Turner School of Entrepreneurship and innovation the Charlie Steiner School of sports communication and programs and tours through the Ali osher lifelong learning Institute and we're as students student athletes and faculty and staff have a legacy of nationally recognized achievements Bradley's speech team holds over 40 national championship titles the Bradley sales team has the honor of being the first back-to-back national champions of the National Collegiate sales competition student athletes have seen success with men's basketball and their nine appearances in the NCAA tournaments and the two-time appearance of Bradley's baseball and the College World Series on campus the Foster College of Business received the Innovation and Leadership of business education award and in 2009 the Bradley's International Trade Center was awarded the presidential e award for U.S exporters and whereas Bradley University is renowned for driving generations of change for the last 125 years and the next 125 years and we thank them for being long-standing Community partner now therefore I read Ali mayor of the city of Peoria Illinois and a proud Bradley graduate alumni do hereby acknowledge the 125th anniversary anniversary of Bradley University [Applause] [Music] I don't know how much more to add that was such a wonderful Proclamation so thank you I just want to say I'm honored to be here on behalf of my colleagues to to be part of this ceremony and accept this Proclamation it's a it's a real honor for us in a variety ways you know one of the things I've been very thoughtful about lately is we have the Good Fortune of carrying Lydia Moss Bradley's name on our University it's not lost on me the impact she has had throughout the city and uh one of the things that I'm so proud of is that we get to carry her Legacy one of the things you'll hear me talk a lot about this year is we are laying the foundation for the next 125 years I will also say that Peoria is and always will be our home this is our home we're proud to be here and one of my passions is to do everything we can do as a university to make this great City even better so that's something we're very committed to do and on that note I want to turn over to my colleague uh or Dr Warren Anderson who is now serving as our VP of diversity equity and inclusion and one of the initiatives that is really important to us is to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment so on that note I will turn things over to Dr Anderson good evening as the president said we really take our stewardship seriously and making sure that not only are we creating the most culturally competent campus in the United States but really partnering with the Peoria city and region to make sure that we are the most culturally responsive uh City and region in the country I'm a relative newcomer I've been here about eight months now so this really just solidifies the decision that we made to move to Peoria and we love it so far so we are looking forward to many more years of partnership with the city of Peoria thank you thank you Bradley is known all over the world we appreciate that you're right here in Peoria thank you very much Happy Anniversary thank you foreign next Proclamation recognizes 22va if Michael Reagan is here no he's not here he is the founder of 22 VA and I'll go ahead and read the proclamation is what's that okay thank you whereas the origin of 22va is twofold September is suicide awareness month and 22 veterans commit suicide every day the veteran administration has confirmed this and recognizes that this translates to One Life loss every 65 minutes and whereas 22 VA was founded six years ago to provide veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and other challenges with an outlet for their experiences 22 VA helps those in Need by raising awareness and connecting people with organizations that can help thereby reducing the number of suicides and whereas 22 VA also seeks to make an impact by connecting those in the community in need of support with art and Horticultural therapy both have shown to make positive outcomes in the lives of veterans and whereas I encourage all community members to take advantage of the resources available from 22 VA now therefore I read Ali mayor of the city of Peoria Illinois do hereby recognize 22 VA for their impact on our community and Proclaim September 2022 as 22 VA suicide awareness stay in Peoria Illinois [Applause] we are at the minutes thank you madam chairwoman I moved to approve the minutes of The Joint City Council and town board meeting held on September 13 2022 as printed is there a second seconded by council member Kelly um can I get a screen thank you please cast your ballots motion passes unanimously Madam Clerk we are at the consent agenda 22-314 is a communication from the mayor and interim Corporation Council with a request to approve the Declaration of local state of emergency 22-315 is a communication with request to approve a sole source purchase of shot spotter investigate and software set up yearly maintenance costs for three years from shot spotter Inc in the amount of eighty four thousand nine hundred dollars 22-316 is a communication with request to approve the purchase of 20 Panasonic Toughbook fz-55 laptop computers 20 extended warranties for Panasonic toughbooks and 20 Havas Toughbook 55 docking stations in mounts with combination antenna for use and police squad cars from CDs office Technologies in the amount of ninety one thousand four hundred and forty dollars 22-317 is a communication with request to approve the low bed of Illinois civil Contractors Inc in the amount of fifty nine thousand one hundred and fifty four dollars and twenty five cents for the McClure and North traffic signal removal project with an additional authorization of 5915.75 cents for contingencies for a total contract Award of sixty five thousand seventy dollars 22-318 is a communication from the city manager and director of public works with a request for the following a to accept the low bid from Stark Excavating Inc in the amount of 1265 139 and approve a contract for Culvert replacement carrying the east branch of dry run Creek under Murrow Lane with an additional authorization of a hundred and twenty six thousand eight hundred and sixty one dollars for contingencies for a total Award of one million three hundred ninety two thousand dollars and B adopt an ordinance amending the city of Peoria 2022 budget to allocate 881 thousand dollars from the stormwater Utility Fund balance for the Murrell Lane Culvert replacement project 22-319 is a communication with a request to approve a change order for a hundred and twenty thousand dollars extension of the storms who are cleaning televising and evaluation contract with JC Dillon Inc and to authorize a city manager to execute the change order for a total amount of 386 thousand dollars 22-320 is a communication with a request to approve and authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with the Illinois Department of Transportation in the amount of 108 507 plus up to 125 percent of the estimated cost for contingencies for the city's participation in the Bob Michael Bridge rehabilitation 22-321 is a communication from the city manager and director of public works with a request to approve an intergovernmental agreement between the city of Peoria and the Greater Peoria Sanitary District to clean and televise the city's combined sewer overflow outfall lines for an amount not to exceed 272 202.50 22-322 is a communication from the city manager assistant city manager and city clerk with a request for the following a to approve an agreement with diligent Corporation to provide a council agenda and meeting software and boards and commission software known as icompass in the amount of nineteen thousand nine hundred and thirty five dollars and B adopt an ordinance amending the city of Peoria 2022-2023 biennial budget relating to the use of general fund balance in the amount of nineteen thousand nine hundred and thirty five dollars 22-323 is a communication from the city manager and director of Community Development with a request to concur with the recommendation from the Planning and Zoning commission and staff to adopt an ordinance approving a special use in a class R2 single-family residential district for a short-term rental for the property located at 2305 East Grandview Avenue Peoria Illinois and on your desk there are two handouts and then 22-324 is a communication with a request to concur with recommendation from the Planning and Zoning commission and staff to adopt an ordinance approving a special use in a class R1 single-family residential district for a short-term rental for the property located at 3119 North Knoxville Avenue and including for Access only the property located at 3207 North Knoxville Avenue in a class R1 single-family residential district and a class R3 single-family residential district 22-325 is a communication with request to adopt an ordinance amending the city of Peoria 2022-2023 biennial budget related to the use of general fund balance in an amount not to exceed 101 thousand dollars in 2022 for reimbursement received from bioja for for fire services 22-326 is a communication with a request to approve the site application to add a subclass 1A 2 am closing hours to an existing Class K Rental Hall liquor license with on-site consumption in retail sale of alcohol for Red Hat Enterprises Inc doing business as gun ax throwing 1001 Southwest Washington Suite 5-201 with a recommendation from The Liquor Commission to approve 22-327 is an appointment by mayor Ali to the Peoria urban forestry Advisory board with a request to concur of Brian Probst 22-328 is a reappointment by mayor Ali that to the Peoria Housing Authority with a request to concur of Alma Brown 22-329 is an appointment by mayor Ali to to the Peoria Civic Center Authority with a request to concur of Norris Chase and 22-330 is an appointment by mayor Ali to the Fair Employment Commission with a request to concur of Brittany Strickland and that concludes our consent agenda thank you madam clerk are there items to remove from consent council member seer thank you madam mayor item number 22-319 and 320 please those numbers I'm sorry those numbers please 22-319 19-320.

the second one again 22-320 320. okay thank you the member rickenbach thank you madam mayor item 22-323 yes thank you councilmember Grant 22-324 to be removed please thank you council member Jensen uh 22 325.

other items to remove from consent can I get a motion to approve the rest of the items moved by council member Allen seconded by council member record any discussion please cast your ballots motion passes unanimously Madam Clerk 22-319 is a communication from the city manager and director of public works with a request to approve a change order for a a 120 000 extension of the storm sewer cleaning televising and evaluation contract with JC Dillon Inc and to authorize the city manager to execute the change order for a total amount of 386 thousand dollars council member seer thank you madam mayor director powers can you uh a discussion with you this afternoon can you give us a brief a brief of our conversation this afternoon please sure can you hear me okay basically this is laying out the completing of the mapping of our stormwater system of what we estimate to be around 143 miles to date when it's completed we believe it will be around 190 miles total uh the televising is going in conjunction with the survey and actual mapping of the system whereas our actually who is here in fact our program manager for stormwater is determined that about 60 percent or 27 excuse me 27 of the entire system that we know exists has been completed televised with this contract sixty percent of what we've found is in good condition 20 percent isn't fair and 20 is in poor condition we use another contract for operational maintenance of storm sewers to maintain the poor and fair areas we don't have any major projects identified as a result of televising yet we anticipate we will um again that's pretty much it after it's done and it's completed and we condition rate the entire system we'll probably do about excuse me 13 miles of pipe per year as a preventive measure and that should put the entire system on about a 10 to 15 year cycle for inspection thank you very much for this report Madam mayor moved to approve this item seconded by council member Rick Regal any other discussion please cast your ballots motion passes unanimously Madam Clerk 22-320 is a communication from the city manager and director of public works with a request to approve and authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with the Illinois Department of Transportation in the amount of 108 507 plus up to 125 percent of the estimated costs for contingencies for the city's participation in the Bob Michael Bridge rehabilitation council member sear thank you madam mayor Mr manager just a quick question here so I didn't get a chance to call you today but I'm interested in knowing a little bit more about idot's commitment in this project and our commitment worth the money and what's going to happen basically maybe if I could ask director powers to take this one too and he can he can share some information with you on this project thank you sure uh Mr counselor um basically this is a 22.2 million dollar project it's a rehabilitation of the entire Bridge they're actually going to widen the bridge and consolidate pedestrian bicycle traffic to the north side of the bridge whereas today there are two sidewalks one on either side they've committed to keeping pedestrian traffic open throughout the project because there is a lot of pedestrian traffic on that bridge between us and East Peoria we are also in conjunction with that project working partially on our atoms Jefferson um one-way two-way conversion and that intersection will be trying to work and coordinate with doing that at the same time there will also be a trail or a path if you will coming off of The Pedestrian or shared pedestrian bicycle trail coming off of the rehab bridge going into what will future be or be the future Riverfront Park that we have taken on partial maintenance for we have accepted responsibility for snow removal on The Pedestrian portion of the bridge and East Peoria has accepted responsibility for trash removal on that part of the bridge um that's pretty much it in a nutshell they are on schedule with the project can you tell us where the money's at oh our contribution no the 21 million dollars from idot have we received that actually it's a state project it's an idot project so when when's the starting time and this Money's been committed bear with me I think they're starting 20 through 23.

23 2023.

thank you very much sir Madam mayor move to approve is there a second seconded by councilmember Allen councilmember Kelly thank you madam mayor Mr manager could you explain I'm not sure I understand what 125 of contingencies first two what I looked around what what are the contingencies you know okay so so our portion of the project is is a hundred and eight thousand dollars that's for the the walkway that comes off of the bridge maybe director powers can explain the 125 percent for you and what that means 125 percent of the contingency basically means that we are responsible for that amount or 100 percent of the contingency plus 25 percent 125 the contingency being put in place for inflation change orders those types of things that happen routinely throughout Construction in this day and age primarily inflation okay just so I understand let's say that this is going to cost us a hundred thousand dollars what is 125 of the contingency on a hundred thousand dollars one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars okay so we're saying we could possibly be on the hook for two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars is that correct that is correct thank you sir thank you Mr Mayor Madam mayor clarification council member Grant I believe that this is an extremely important development for our city improving our infrastructure in one of our major bridges in this case the Bob Michael Bridge and this bridge unites two great communities one on the east side of the Illinois River and the other on the west side and it just so happens to be the meeting point of two great districts district one and two Warehouse District central business district Gary sandberg's not here tonight because one of the things that he advocated for eternally was repairing our infrastructure and that included something as simple as sidewalks and curbs and liberalizing allowances so the significance of tonight is not lost on me um Bob Michael Bridge is an important link for all of us and not to take away from the importance of the moment but um have you heard some of the discussion about the possibility of lighting this bridge up as we have already done for the Murray Baker Interstate 74 Bridge just a little bit to the north not quite to that extent it's going to be ornamental Lighting on the bridge but not like no not like Murray Baker meeting where we can change light colors and so on no we had no discussion in that regard but there will be ornamental lighting good good um because I will tell you I think that um almost every purion I talk to and people who come to our city coming uh to our city from the West especially over that bridge it's amazing how how beautiful puree is and how appealing a bridge becomes when we have Lighting on it and so I think that due consideration will come eventually to lighting of the Bob Michael Bridge once this Rehabilitation project is done thank you mayor okay we have a motion and a second on the floor please cast your ballots motion passes unanimously Madam Clerk 22-323 is a communication from the city manager and director of Community Development with a request to concur with the recommendation from the Planning and Zoning commission and staff to adopt an ordinance approving a special use in a class R2 single-family residential district for a short-term rental for the property located at 2305 East Grandview Avenue and on your desk there are two handouts one entitled guests prior to Str and one entitled roadway conditions sure council member reagenbach thank you madam mayor I pulled this because I had a request from a couple of the residents to speak to this item before we vote so if we would offer privilege of the Florida Lori Judd and Gary Newhouse me okay thank you Lori howdy I'm Gary Newhouse Lori and I live at 3705 North Grandview Drive I did send a letter to council members I don't know whether some of you had a chance to read or not but I'll just reiterate uh one of the things that I think uh makes us a bad uh choice for a place for uh Airbnb is the public safety issue this uh home is located on a dead-end street in kind of a secluded neighborhood with no good access to any thoroughfare to get out to a thoroughfare you would have to go up Grandview Avenue to Harmon than to Bishop then to Harvard which turns into late by the time it gets to prospect now Grandview Avenue Harman and Bishop do not have sidewalks but they have a lot of foot traffic and bicycle traffic the Peoria Greenway Trail some of you may think of it as The Rock Island Trail crosses bishop and so in addition to all the people in the neighborhood and it's a very pleasant neighborhood I really have never enjoyed living in an area so so much everybody walks all the time for exercise for pleasure walking dogs riding bicycles that kind of thing but so there's a lot of traffic there and The Rock Island Trail or Greenway Trail would have sure want to call it does draw a lot of people and you know everybody that's going to be coming to or going from this property is going to cross the trail now there are signs diamond-shaped signs of the bicycle silhouette alerting drivers to the fact Trail is there but like this morning I was walking with Gus that's our dog uh I noticed that one of the signs the one for the traffic going westbound is pretty much totally obscured by the trees that hang out in front of them so somebody that wasn't familiar with it might not even notice that you know for the people who live there you know we know about it we just automatically slow down when there were railroad tracks across there we slowed down automatically to look even though we knew the train wasn't really probably coming but anyway somebody who is uh from out of town looking at a navigation app trying to find street signs worried about whether going to be late for the uh I don't know the rehearsal dinner or something I'm gonna just go right through that never even realize that there was a trail coming across there and if you know Mom and Pop and Little Jenny learn to ride a bicycle we're coming down the trail and she's all excited and didn't even know about a stop sign and went right out there and there's somebody you know in a hurry to get somewhere I know that could happen anytime with anybody but it's just much more likely to happen when people are coming through there and are not familiar with that also just because it is dark during some of the months of the year people still go out walking and jogging after they get home sometimes they're wearing headlamps or reflective clothing but even that can be pretty disorienting disconcerting if you're not used to it and you're thinking about something else part of Harman has steel guard rails on either side of it so if you needed to get to the shoulder quickly you can't do it unless you're a lot more athletic than I am and then when you do you'll just be off in a ravine so that's also a consideration uh I could go on about the safety stuff but I think that you get my point it is it is kind of uh a genuine consideration not just an excuse of why we don't want something it is that also though there is just the thought that we would lose the quiet enjoyment of our property if we have a lot of in and out and stuff on this narrow stream there's also there's no parking on these streets uh but there are almost always contractors uh yard maintenance people and stuff parked on the street which then it becomes a one lane Street which makes it even more complicated and dangerous uh but losing the quiet enjoyment is one thing and the possible uh everybody worries about the possible uh decline in the value of their property uh now at this particular property sold I think it was November of last year uh to get the name of it was here uh Venture Partners LLC for 91 575 dollars does this thing mean I'm going on too long okay I'll get that I just now noticed that uh anyway it sold for ninety one thousand dollars then in July of this year it sold suddenly for 325 000 to the current owners I'm sure the only reason for that jump in value or jump in sales price is the fact that they anticipated it would go from residential to commercial uh I don't think any of the rest of us are going to see our property jump 255 percent in its value by having a uh Airbnb nearby and I won't berate anything else I don't say that this is a very Pleasant neighborhood the homes are not Mansions by any means they're just mainly modest homes of various vintages but they all are pretty much owner occupied and show a lot of pride of ownership and I think this anything that can be done to preserve this type of neighborhood in Peoria when it's you know Peoria keeps moving farther north and west because we've got a lot of cornfields homes but it would be so nice if we could just keep some of the neighborhoods that I sort of fell in love with when I came here in 1960.

thank you councilman regenbach you had someone else you have someone else councilwoman Jensen he would like to address the council and I was going to ask for privilege of the floor for them and councilman rickenback said he was already planning to do that which is why I had not so certain those were the names I had to recognized um one of them is Scott Carnahan and I believe there's a number of others as well thank you good evening it just so happens I'm a graduate of Bradley University go be you go fighting squirrels um I'm a transplant from upstate New York I came here and uh to go to Bradley in the late 80s and decided to stay um raised a family here four children a couple of grandkids now myself and a lot of our neighbors are asking the council to deny the application for this Str I live directly across the street from this proposed location there is overwhelming neighborhood support in opposition to this Str I sent a email to the council and to the mayor yesterday sharing a density map of the opposition and I have a petition with 78 signatures on it um 57 of 60 neighborhood properties residents surveyed oppose oppose this Str that's 95 of the people living in this area Gary had uh brought up the safety issue there's several facets to the safety issue um as he mentioned the neighborhood does have navigation issues unique to the area including poor visibility poor lighting steep hills blind intersections blind driveways Road surface disrepair one of the handouts that you have regarding this issue shows some of that road surface disrepair that particular location is right outside of my front house my outside of my my house um forgive me I'm a little nervous I've never addressed the council before mm-hmm as Gary also mentioned there's a particularly high volume of pedestrian traffic all kinds of bicyclists joggers Etc I'm not going to go into that but to add a and Str with an additional up to 10 transient drivers in one Str and it's my understanding that this gets approved there could be three additional strs in the neighborhood that would be 40 additional people in the area um a traffic to add to this quiet little neighborhood that has narrow streets and no shoulders and no sidewalks we're concerned also about the safety of our children from the perspective of the inability to vet transient populations that are common with sdrs I have two grandchildren as I mentioned that live in Peoria and who love to visit our home there are a lot of children on our home on our street visiting grandchildren visiting and and Children of the families addressing the safety issue I was at the zoning and planning commission hearing on September 1st when the owner assured the commission and many neighbors who were present that he will take measures to guarantee the safety of our neighborhood um to that I can only say that uh with all due respect to the hard-working men and women of our law enforcement Community whom I respect and admire um even with all the experience and tools at their disposal and all the laws on the books crime persists there are no words that the owner can say or actions he can take to assure our safety make no mistake that an owner unoccupied Str is a business not a residence and our aim is not to interfere with business owners operations but it is to maintain the fabric and safety of our neighborhood introducing businesses and transient populations into neighborhoods erode the fabric of our community which ultimately have detrimental impact on property values and safety I would also like to add that uh if it comes to pass that if our Collective voices and there are many here who would like to speak tonight I hope that the floor would be open to hear all the voices from our neighborhood who have come here um if our voices are not enough to sway the council to deny the application I would ask if you would just please to defer it until some ambiguous ambiguities regarding the property specifically are clarified including but not limited to I have a copy of the zoning commission minutes from that meeting nowhere did I see any indication of an inspection having been conducted to verify the claims made regarding the property for example the fact that it's a five-bedroom property on which presumably the maximum number of 10 occupants was based it's my understanding that two of the bedrooms are below grade and according to all sources realtor.com Etc to be considered a bedroom a room needs to be 70 square feet with at least one dimension being seven feet and there are two points of egress um minimum 5.7 square feet for an egress window if you could wrap up sir thank you thank you I will just point out that the other handout that I provided shows at least by outward appearances it would indicate that the property is being rented without the permit our neighbors and I have witnessed for the past couple of weeks cars and trucks coming going parked in the street and in the driveway overnight on Thursday night this past week I counted eight cars associated with the property five in the driveway and three in the street I'll wrap it up there thank you for your attention thank you [Applause] rickenback did you have one or two more and I did not have any more names to call but if there's others here that would like to address it I'd be fine with that well I would I would want to limit the number I mean I don't want to go for an hour uh and you know maybe we could have a few more how many people are out there that actually want to speak to this issue can I see a number of hands one two three four five six that's six so typically we allow about five minutes and I would ask that you keep your comments down to about two and a half minutes no more than three minutes and then we can move on and take them and then we'll have the petitioner talk after okay if that's okay all right thank you yes sir come forward I live at 2321 East Bishop Avenue living on Bishop I get a real view of what happens on Bishop especially since the trail has come in I ride the trail most mornings but Saturdays and Sundays especially the number of people that take the trail but their exit is Bishop because there's not a whole lot going on after Bishop so they start somewhere up the prospect or someplace like that walk down the trail exit on Bishop so there's bicycles tricycles baby carriages all sorts of Runners a lot of Runners practice up and down the hill and there's not a good view from the hill it's so steep that you really can't see it sometimes that there are other people coming into into view I would urge that you do not approve this thank you okay [Applause] I'll keep this short as well my name is Julie Knoll and I mostly just want to Echo what Gary said I guess unlike Gary I'm brand new to Peoria I also live on Bishop and just want to Echo the safety concerns from a traffic perspective um I really appreciate the city's effort to Foster more airbnbs and short-term rentals I think they're great I think it has you know a positive impact on the community for sure coming from a bigger city I know that's one thing that Peoria has previously been lacking so I really appreciate that effort but this is just not the community for the specific neighborhood for it like Jim also said there are a lot of Hills I've had so many Close Encounters myself there's just blind spots there's like three separate Hills it's a very popular route from The Rock Island Trail to Grandview there's bikers there's Walkers all the time it's just a very unique Street in that sense and I would just Echo all the safety concerns that other people have brought up thank you thank you [Applause] hi I'm Kelly lahood I'm at 2210 East Grandview Avenue so I don't live across from it but I drive by this house every day um my question is would you put a hotel in a residential area hotels rent out by the day of the week or more a single-family house rented out as a short-term rental in a neighborhood is basically like a hotel people come and go with few in the neighborhood ever knowing who they are a short-term rental at 2305 Grandview this house is on a 60-foot lot it's a deep lot but it's a 60-foot lot a house on either side of it so it's very narrow so all their parking is going to be like five or six trucks which we saw this weekend just in a line and then nobody really wants to park you know in a line because you can't get out when you want to get out so then it ends up with two or three cars on the road also but I think we saw 1.8 at that house this weekend Grandview Avenue like everybody else says is effectively is also a sidewalk for all the residents here that bike walk or run the street has a steep uphill a steep downhill we've always had to be really careful if you're going home in the evening you're going west you're going up a hill you can't see anything we all know that so we go really really slow you could easily hit a child a biker anybody um you'd almost have to experience it to really really know what I'm saying though um part of the value of this short-term rental for the tenant or the owner is the common orderly environment that surrounds it this environment though has been built by the homeowners and the neighborhoods although the dwelling benefits from that environment it contributes nothing itself in fact detracts from it completely this has been a great neighborhood to live and raise a family to have a house with a high turnover of inhabitants here will be extremely detrimental the stability and Security will be damaged the long-term presidents here have always felt safe because they know who their neighbors are they can call them you know whose cars are coming and going our homes and neighborhoods all of Peoria we need to keep them as our safe place we shouldn't have to worry about who's there this week who's there next week and another point I just think we need to think about with the current situation of all police departments anymore being understaffed I don't think we should take a chance and increase the risk of crime in our own neighborhood there's still a lot of people that have kids and grandkids that are there on Grandview Avenue all the time and I would just say please help keep our neighborhood Safe Keep Peoria residents in Peoria by denying this application for a short-term rental thanks thank you [Applause] hi my name is Debbie McIntyre I live at 2301 East 2401 East Grandview Avenue I have lived in that neighborhood for 45 years my little house before that my dad my grandfather my great grandfather the neighborhood's always been a family neighborhood it's had families it's had older residents live there until they pass away um me I'm hoping to live there until I retire either the house will go first or I'll go first but what it is it's a neighborhood for family it's not a neighborhood for business there's history in that neighborhood I could tell you stories that my grandfather told me my dad told me but it's always just been for families and I'm also concerned about the safety of the neighborhood with people coming in and out you don't know we've always kept an eye on each other we've always watched each other's houses when they're gone and I'm concerned too like they talk about the street everybody in my street knows you when you go over the hill by my house you better slow down because you just don't know what's there but what I really want to stress is it's always been a family neighborhood people been lived there for long times I've seen them like I say pass away or they've lived there until they're retired or the new people bring in new families new children and it's just not a bit a place for a business to be there a rental or a business it's just for families it's for people who've lived there forever and I'd hate to see this new BNB brought in there that's all thank you my Riley thank you for this uh opportunity so I do want to I'm Shannon Pop I live uh diagonal across the street 22-24 East Grandview Avenue I want to talk about safety that really should be high on the radar of everything else we look at and there's two at two Avenues to the safety one is for people that are actually using it as a short-term rental they already are using as a short-term rental a couple weeks ago I'm in the front yard Mowing and I see a little girl my heart's racing not because I'm nervous I'm reliving this moment she's wandering out in the middle of the road this crest of the Hill where our street runs east to west so the sun is right in alignment at certain two times a day you cannot see well in the morning you cannot see when you're coming up over that Hill and a little girl's wandering says this isn't right I take off running up the street at that crest of the Hill I'm not a tall person either I can't see if a car is coming over but we're used to the neighborhood because we live there I scooped this little girl up and I'm asking her where do you live where are you from and I'm running with her she's scared I'm scared and I'm walking down and sure enough someone comes out of this 2305 house I return the daughter to the lady people put their trust in a short-term rental like this business thinking that it's a safe location the street is not a safe location for a business or people thinking that it's a safe location for their children either that's one fold they're going into this blindly the other fold is people that back out of this driveway it's a very narrow driveway they're in a hurry because they're in a short-term rental they're off to get somewhere early in the morning they fly out of this driveway not familiar with the street that puts our own children at risk our vehicles at risk and our loved ones at risk it's not a good spot thank you for your time thank you [Applause] councilman rickenback do we have a commissioner that's speaking Mr petitioner if you would like to make some comments as well please uh let's have this gentleman speak first and then the commissioner Manus I live at 3710 North Breckenridge which is right next to Grandview Avenue a lot of this is maybe we're all a little hypersensitive because on the bigger picture I don't want to offend anybody but Peoria is going to hell we see crime going on the streets we see Beggars on every corner we see tent cities now going up like Los Angeles uh and the one rental on our street there's been a lot of crime in that neighborhood just the other day we heard I heard uh just kept cussing yelling on a Sunday just like somebody was very upset it's kind of scary I thought something bad's gonna happen but anyway it was just and that rental also not too long ago had a major drug bust in it the house we're talking about I've lived there my whole life in that neighborhood my whole life and my house is there now my mom's house is next door so uh that house was owned by the chief of police Charles Mason some of you may not know that but my friend his son Chuck Mason lived there and I used to do the paper out go up there at 3 30 in the morning so have a long history I know that house how they got five bedrooms in there I'll never know it's a small house but apparently they did so uh I just I do Echo what everyone said um yeah it has always been just a peaceful residential neighborhood and it just seems like everything else now they want to screw that up and whatever happens I guess is I guess up to you all um it'd be sad uh the one thing that I hear there's a gentleman that walks the uh his dog I won't mention his name fine I think he's kind of a wise old man and or not he's not old I'm sorry but a wise man and I've gotten to know him fairly well and he I heard the other day that um he's planning on leaving in a year and he's kind of maybe had enough and it's sad I hear that all the time in Peoria and I hope you guys are listening because people are leaving it's kind of like they come and it's like we're out of here we're out of here we're going and I don't know how many care how many lights you put on the bridge whatever drive around our city does anyone not see the Decay downtown I go downtown members the kid going downtown it was hustle bustle there was you know it was a vibrant City it was a beautiful city and now it's just K and cro and our streets are terrible we pay so much taxes where does it go I guess on in here I didn't understand most of that that was on there I you know so sad and I I think we've all done our part I know that we've done it I my Hospital veterinary clinics at 30 35 North Wisconsin Avenue right across from Ron Steuben School hope you've all seen the flowers I work very hard to make that inner city beautiful beach service the inner city and I have since 1992 April 1st Fool's Day 1992.

so it's emotional for me because uh I hate to see where we're going to go you know and I don't know how it gets turned around I think a lot of people and I'm kind of there you know it where you just feel like it's it's hopeless and that's bad that's sad thank you thank you sir commissioner good evening mayor uh good evening council members um I will try to be very quick and answer most of the concerns that were brought up um I will initially start right backwards to the gentleman uh that was just here and I will tell him that uh and I can speak probably for my wife we back to different Peoria is an amazing City we moved here from Florida a little over five years ago and we've lived in the Northeast I've lived in New York we live together in Connecticut my wife has lived in Philadelphia we chose to set Our Roots here in Peoria Peoria is amazing and there is a lot of things that are going very well for Peoria I just wanted to say this as someone that moved here a little over five years ago with that being said I will jump right into the concerns that the neighbors expressed and I appreciate each and every one of you the first concern is traffic and traffic on Bishop um actually access to Grandview Avenue can be had three ways depending which way a someone is headed into the area if coming from Washington and from that bridge access would be from Grandview Drive if coming from the north part of town uh from you know let's say Dunlap or North Peoria for example access again will be Grandview Drive access to a bishop will be only if someone is coming from downtown Peoria or East Peoria next issue that was raised was a property valued jump I absolutely agree with that that is true this property was worth right around ninety thousand dollars a year ago the reason for the value of this property currently is that there has been over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars invested in this property over 80 percent of the property has been got it out renovate it and I have sent pictures of the property to City staff if someone is interested they can take a look at it and see why the value is there I'm sorry I was taking notes next issue is on the number of short-term rentals based on current regulations by the city of Peoria in that particular neighborhood there can be up to three short-term rentals there currently are none that would be the first one and as all of you know each short-term rental is considered by itself on its own merits having a short-term rental approved does not automatically mean that there can be a second or a third one um next one was the number of guests a neighbor mentioned 10 and 10 cars there can be only six adults staying at the property that's how we will advertise it and uh as you know we're gonna be strict on that we will also going to be limiting the number of cars based on the feedback that we received today to no more than four and we're also open to limiting uh parking on the street and pretty much you know asking our guests to not park on the street and use the driveway and the two-car garage on crime people are concerned about crime I live in Peoria as well I'm concerned I can tell you that there are over 15 short-term rentals in the immediate area pretty much couple blocks down the road and there are there there has been no issues that I am aware of uh from those short-term rentals I do not believe that uh short-term rentals bring any kind of crime to an area um inspection was raised as you well know every short-term rental after it is approved by a city council City staff and they're pretty diligent come out to the property they inspect it they make recommendations after after everything has been addressed they come out and re-inspect and that's when they certify and they allow for a license to be issued um there was um a mention of cars parked over the last weekend at the property we have some friends in town that are working on the roof on one of uh our other properties I gladly invited them if they can stay at my empty property it was not rented the house is not advertised it is not listed and it's sitting will sit empty until it is approved um I mentioned about parking and at the end I would like to go back real quick to um Bishop Avenue I'm kind of hearing two different uh things one is that Bishop Avenue draws a lot of people a lot of people come to the area and they come because of the bike trail and also I'm hearing that it is dangerous um if the street is dangerous and science are not adequate um you know I would say that the city should consider revisiting the signs um and I would also add that all those people that are coming from uh different areas and are going through a bishop to access the trail they haven't had any issues up until now um thank you very much I appreciate it thank you and I apologize for referring to you as commissioner you're the property owner correct yeah thank you yes ma'am welcome okay can I have a word please it will take less than a minute and I just want to issue on some of the comments that were made and from someone who is in let's say recently relocated here to the area of Peoria list and you know six years ago I think that Peoria is unattractive area to move in it's attractive for what it has to offer which is you know um an appealing place where to raise children which all of you are all of you you agree myself included I have two young children and people coming to our short-term rentals are not criminals there are people that are law abiding citizens people that respect traffic lights like I do when I start an Airbnb elsewhere especially when they are located in a neighborhood that we expect families to live in so I I feel offended by the generalization that people that will come to a neighborhood where we are raising children and families that people are not going to respect the area I think that's very mistaken and will be a very sad reason not to provide this resource to the community thank you madam mayor I know my colleagues all remember the year-long process that we went through as we discussed short-term rentals and the conditions and the The Angst we went through to make sure that we got it right I think we came up with a pretty good approach we set some standards we set some expectations we set a process in place that allows for the Planning and Zoning commission to vet this for there to be a public hearing for there to be concerns raised and then it comes to the council for final approval to make conditions to that or or reject it outright having discussed this with a lot of my colleagues with a lot of Staff with Corporation Council with the conditions and expectations being met we would need to have a tangible logical reason to deny this request I can tell you that um a lot of the comments were were very compelling and had a lot of personal impact but I'm not sure how much they're based on the fact that we need to be looking at as we contemplate whether to approve this or not I would like to point out that the petitioners are Peoria residents they there they live and raise their family here they maybe haven't been here 25 years but I think it's critical to note that they chose to live here and that of all the places that they've been they're putting down Roots here this isn't their first Str they are financially invested in Peoria and ironically before this even came to planning and zoning when the yellow signs went up I got phone calls from two separate neighbors of the um of the folks encouraging me to to listen to them that they do quality work that they only follow the rules so the standards clearly have been met here as far as the legal check marks that we need to to check so let's look at some of the emotional aspects of it because those play a critical part in in our perception of it regardless of what the the check marks may say when when I went up there and I've been up there more in the last two weeks than I have been in the last two years admittedly I always came in off Grandview Drive I know I never came in off bishop and Harmon and or Breckenridge so I would think that if you're coming in from out of town and you put that address in that it would take you the shortest way which would be one turn off Grandview rather than multiple turns admittedly the street needs repair but I get calls about that frankly just about every week so that I can't deny it because the street needs repair the question about the number of bedrooms and does this actually meet code after the council approves a short-term rental that's when our code enforcement department steps up and they will actually the address the fire codes they will address the egress um from any bedrooms that could be in the basement so it's not just the petitioner's word for it that we take but we actually have City staff that make sure that it does in fact meet those um meet those requirements that that we expect and the standards that we have set we've been doing this now for about a year I think we the process to get it all up and running took about that long and now we've been approving them and we heard a lot of concerns about about the the type of people these strs could attract and I think it's important to note that it's surprising how many of these are the high-end business Travelers and in my own experience are Merrill Lynch Market executive is moving here from from Michigan and she lived in an Str for the first few months because she couldn't didn't want to live in an apartment because she was here but didn't have a house so that's a lot of I think there's a unfair assumption about who is actually going to be living in their we have not had any follow-up complaints to our code enforcement or the police department since we've started this about trouble in an Str oke Peoria Heights has a much more LAX approach to this they just have the short-term rentals go through their normal landlord registration process and I talked with the mayor and their police chief and they said they have not had any complaints in the time that they've been allowing strs in the Heights so with with that said I think that um the consistency the expectations respecting the process um put us on the spot to approve this and I would move to do so is there a second seconded by council member Euler additional discussion council member Euler thank you madam chairwoman we've been very consistent deliberate about how we've managed the Str process and rolled it out amongst the community we have not picked one neighborhood over the other we've treated every neighborhood the same based on an equal and same amount of criteria and characteristics we've evaluated them along the same rule regardless of whether it's in the South End of Peoria or off uh Grandview Drive or in the Fifth District we've treated them all the same we've had these similar conversations each time but at the end of the day we've come back to the same place that we have not had issues with the ones that have been approved thus far we've not had issues with the ones that the petitioners have brought before us prior to now and we don't have any legal basis in my opinion to justify saying that it can't go here based on location if post approving it there were issues I would wholeheartedly support pulling the special use in the future and not allowing the petitioner to continue to operate but I don't see that being a challenge and I don't see the challenges in this neighborhood being different than those in the other neighborhoods that we have approved them in and and my opinion we have to continue to exercise consistency and how we handle the process thank you you're welcome thank you madam mayor I'd like to amplify uh points made narrowly how's that um we did after years were a little more than a Year's worth of discussion we did end up with a lot of trial and error setting the rules for these for short-term rentals um uh the and then we added that these things should come to the council afterwards to see if if we like it or not which I opposed because I think if someone follows the rules then they ought to be approved if and in this case in all these cases people have followed the rules and then they come here and we can just say thumbs up or thumbs down that to me is called arbitrary law that's bad law these folks have followed the rules that we set up and therefore and they also whether it's relevant or not they have a track record and so I'll I'll be in favor of this uh because I I think these things should end at the zoning board thank you madam mayor you're welcome yes one one thing I wanted to add as a condition to my motion was that based on the comments that we limited this to four cars that there would be a four car maximum so that would be an additional condition to this use and you seconded that Council I'm talking to council member Euler did you you agreed a second that okay you seconded the original motion though right okay all right thank you councilmember Jensen uh thank you madam mayor um well first of all we decided after deliberations like councilman rigenbach and others have mentioned when we DEC talked about how to govern short-term rentals that we would have a special use process we would require a special use permit and as the advocate for establishing a special use and as from being an attorney here at the city for seven years and taking many cases forward trying to get special uses we put the special use process in place so that neighbors and residents that are going to be next to these short-term rentals can have their say and can voice their concerns to the city council that is the whole purpose of it and in this case in particular where you have 95 percent of the surrounding residents and neighbors 57 out of 60 houses this body should be listening to those citizens and those residents this is it is not an appropriate neighborhood this is full of families there's also these additional safety and traffic concerns it is not appropriate the narrowness of the street although the four car limit is is a move in the right direction so I think councilman rigenbach for doing that um but and I and I I dispute with what councilor Euler is saying we have not treated these the same all the ones that have come forward to us as a city council are in the older neighborhoods of the city they are not in the Fifth District they affect those of us that live in the older neighborhoods and we want to keep the older neighborhoods a place where people want to stay and raise their families so I am that immediately opposed to this this is not an appropriate place for this short-term rental based on the concerns of the residents that live there day in and day out and that are going to have to live with the decision that we make so I implore the rest of the council to consider those neighbors that you've heard here tonight the emails that you've had and what your duty is this body has become so toned deaf to neighbors and concerns of our residents and it's got to stop we have to become more pro-neighborhoods you know as a long time I'm not an original pure and I moved here 27 years ago in an older neighborhood and have lived there ever since I've been a long time neighborhood Advocate and we need to keep our older neighborhoods strong and we do not do that by ignoring the residents that live there and by putting in a short-term rental that they oppose thank you [Applause] councilmember Allah uh thank you madam mayor thank you to everyone who provided comments and emails on this matter tonight uh thank you to the petitioner provided some comments as well too and also thank you councilman randenbach I can tell you have done a lot of due diligence uh in this um I understand uh the anxiety that is around the short-term rental um I do have to clarify that councilmember Jensen we have approved Airbnb specifically in District Four uh I know all too well about one in particular so I will have to uh state that just for the record but one of the things that I hope though that if this does pass tonight because of how close-knit your neighborhood is I believe that there's opportunity for you all to work together to make sure that this is a potential addition a positive addition to your neighborhood you have potential approval of petitioners who live in the city of Peoria that you can call and I hope that that dialogue is open and available and that is something that uh the one that I worked on in my district uh was to make sure that that bridge was open and so when matters did come up they can address those and get those matters worked out so I do hope though that whatever happens tonight that you all can work together as a neighborhood preserve the fabric of your neighborhood because that is a great neighborhood as you all have dressed tonight thank you welcome councilmember Jackson thank you madam mayor um well I I do appreciate all the comments tonight on both sides of uh this situation uh I also um think that we as a council we have to find balance in situations like this and uh even though the petitioners they have done their due diligence and uh council member rickenback you have done your homework we did agree that we would look at these situations on a case-by-case basis and I don't think uh just because uh somebody may meet all the criteria and get through zoning that that is an automatic green light it is our job as a council to find a balance between it having said that I do believe there are neighborhoods that would welcome uh airbnbs I'm not opposed to them we said we would review these on a case-by-case basis we've decided that as a City we didn't want to be a City full of Loan Sharks we'd put a limit on those we put a limit on the airbnbs but still we have to make sure that we weigh the comments in each situation critically that means you have to listen to the residents of the community they are the ones that have to live in this community and have to deal with whatever circumstances and that's not to say that they're going to be negative or bad so I I I cannot support this because I have to agree with the residents who are living directly in those communities that's not to say there are not communities Where airbnbs will prosper but in this case the residents have spoken clearly and so for those reasons I would have to vote to deny this permit [Applause] council member Graham well I think everybody knows how I feel about boarding houses in our community because that's what they are and how we got from where we were in the beginning to where we are now at no point in time did we have a standard approach that we would use for each and every property that would come to our attention that's why we have a special use process if councilman Kelly would have prevailed we wouldn't even be coming to us it wouldn't even be a matter for the Peoria city council I think Denise Jackson is correct and certainly I have tried to look at every short-term rental that's come up in District 2 on a case-by-case basis you know we ran into a big bump in the road as it relates to the whole shared Drive concept and we're working through these bugs but I do think we have to listen to The Neighbors and so I know that councilman rigenbach has given this a lot of thought he's a very conscientious councilman I just if this were in my district I would move for denial but I don't think that surprises any of you around the horseshoe given where I've been and I have approved short-term rentals by this very petitioner in other parts of the city and in my district where I thought there would not be any detrimental harm done so thank you counselor Jackson you you said most everything I wanted to say but I'm not voting to be negative toward you councilman rigenbach you you know how difficult this has been and um so I'll be voting though for the reason I just outlined [Applause] councilmember rickenbach thank you madam mayor I would just say that councilman Allen thank you for pointing out that these have been approved in other parts of the city and in fact I I hesitated bringing this up earlier but there's an Airbnb right next door to my house I have two teenage sons and we're on a dead end also and there's kids playing in the street and we've made friends with people from Maine Ohio Mendota Illinois um and this last weekend there was a group of guys in town for a golf outing meeting halfway between Chicago and St Louis I would just say that this is what you make it because every time I see somebody out in the neighbor's yard playing bags I go and introduce myself not as the councilman but as the neighbor and what what why are you in Peoria what brought you here to an Airbnb on Briarcrest and it's amazing that there's like I said the golf outing there's did you know there's a big Frisbee golf event that takes place that that's where those guys from Maine came from so I I would just say don't make assumptions about who's going to be coming there but embrace it as a chance to to show them what a cool City Peoria is and what we have to offer and what Peoria people are all about thank you madam mayor you're welcome um and I just want to comment um and thank all of those who have expressed your views and opinions for or against this Str you know I I think a lot of work has been done on the part of council member uh regenbach and and really trying to weigh this issue and it's not easy it's it's not easy to make these decisions um I did hear from numerous residents in the area about a safety issue and regardless of how the vote goes tonight I would ask Mr manager for Public Works to look into the potential safety issue of children crossing a street or people backing up if that's an area regardless of whether it has an Str or not if there's a safety issue perhaps there's some type of sinus some type of barrier something potentially that can be addressed to mitigate the safety concern that that we heard tonight so with that we have a motion on the floor to approve we have a second it looks like there's no more discussion so I would ask everyone to cast your ballots motion passes with three Nays greb Jackson and Jensen okay thank you everyone Madam Clerk 22-324 is a communication from the city manager and director of Community Development with a request to concur with a recommendation from the Planning and Zoning commission and staff to adopt an ordinance approving a special use in a class R1 single-family residential district for a short-term rental for the property located at 3119 North Knoxville Avenue and including for Access only the property located at 3207 North Knoxville Avenue in a class R1 single-family residential district and a class R3 single-family residential district and on your desk there is a handout with an updated Council communication and ordinance council member Grant director Doolin uh where are you there you are um I ask you to prepare a yellow sheet because I wanted to add a condition before I would approve this um and I've discussed this with the petitioner and I don't think it'll be startling for him it's kind of a different animal of a property entirely huge yard of Knoxville but there is something called Lynn Hill Court behind it it's a very fragile neighborhood so what have I asked you to do director uh thank you councilman the yellow sheet you have adds the underlying sentence that's indicated I believe on the second page condition eight which limits uh asks the petitioner to cut off access of the property so Lynn Hill is no longer an exit to the property it's a very unique property off of Knoxville where you can cut through the neighboring property and there's a little Access Road off Lynn Hill this would prevent the guests at the Str from using that as an exit they'd have to block that off which would still allow them access to Knoxville um in in looking at the address most of the directions that that are given to how to get there I'll say come and go from Knoxville so I don't believe that should be an issue as well yes and the petitioner indicates to me that um he and she will both encourage people to um and we're going to discourage it but we're going to encourage people to enter the property and exit in kind of a strong way with the condition we've added and do it off Knoxville so with that I moved for approval with that additional condition thank you you're welcome is there a second to that motion seconded by council member Euler any additional discussion please cast your ballots that motion passes with one nay Jackson Madam Clerk 22-325 is a communication from the city manager and fire chief with a request to adopt an ordinance and Enigma city of Peoria 2022 2023 biennial budget related to the use of general fund balance in amount not to exceed 101 thousand dollars in 2022 for reimbursement received from byersia for fire services councilmember Jensen uh thank you madam mayor I pulled this item just because I I just wanted to commend the chief um on this and the city manager for this good smart thinking I don't know if we've ever done this in the past um but to get reimbursed for a hundred and one thousand dollars for all the time and work that uh our firefighters did during um the fight of that fire which I think lasted a number of days so good work and I hope we continue to do that and with that I move to approve second seconded by councilmember Allen discussion council member Kelly thank you madam mayor just a point of clarification Mr manager the extensive expense to which the city went in this fire came out of I suppose the budget of the fire department okay and the reimbursement I believe is going into the general fund not back into the fire department's budget is that correct no it is it is going back into the fire department's budget which is in the general fund so it is it's being reimbursed the revenue is being received it will be accounted for in the fire department's budget in the the general fund thank you Mr manager thank you madam mayor welcome okay we've got a motion on the floor and a second please cast your ballots motion passes unanimously Madam Clerk we are at first readings 22-331 is a communication from the city manager and chief diversity and inclusion officer with a request to concur with the Joint Commission on racial Justice and Equity to receive and file a first reading of an ordinance regarding the racial Equity impact assessment Mr manager thank you madam mayor we do have with us this evening the two co-chairs of The Joint Commission on racial Justice and equity and I'd like to ask Mary Peterson and Tim birchie to come forward to just give some history on how we got to this point and what's in the ordinance and then I'll be happy to take it from there and answer any questions good evening my name is Mary Peterson and I am one of the co-chairs of the joint commission for the city of Peoria in the county on the racial Justice equity the commission was launched in July of 2021 is community-led collaborative effort that is comprised of 156 individuals here in Peoria the city of Peoria and the county of Peoria it's composed of a steering committee and eight targeted subcommittees on specific areas the commission is working to create a multi-faceted coordinated strategic plan to reduce the racial inequities across the community using data input and feedback from the residents best practices from other communities the commission is leading a charge to promote inclusive community discussions develop information educational activities to increase the community's understanding of racial Justice and Equity as well as the local efforts underway the steering committee has put together a four-phase plan identification of key data indicators for data-driven process the development of a strategic plan based on the subcommittee areas the development of an implementation process and the monitoring of these parties responsible for the implementation and the movements of the indicators we have several of our commissioners who are here with us tonight and have been here please raise your hand and I'm sure that we have others who are on online that is just a brief overview of where we've been and the question would be where are we going next thank you very much Mary and I just as perhaps if I could do this as a point of just Personal Privilege I was setting the audience thinking tonight I believe this is the fourth decade in which I've made a presentation of the city council and I can tell you I can tell you I've always been treated with respect and attention and I appreciate that and I just hope that I've always in my dealings with you all have always responded in kind so thank you very much I'm here tonight to with Mary to talk about our process but in particular I'm excited to talk about a particular uh proposal which we're presenting to the council and that is an reia ordinance simply put what an REI ordinance is is a call for the city to evaluate its impact upon racial communities prior to taking any material actions and what it envisions is a process developed by the city manager in this case or to be developed by the city manager in this case which would determine the impact of proposed City actions on our different racial communities particularly upon marginalized communities um I can tell you that um the process that we've talked about has been something that we've been in discussion with the city manager about and that uh I don't mean to speak for Patrick but I think and he'll talk about it but it's something that we've actually done as a city to some extent before in a budget process that was utilized by the city I think two years ago prior to covet the same types of principles that we're talking about here were employed you might say then we'll have other cities done this and the answer would be yes most notable among them would be Seattle and Washington D.C well is it only big cities no not really Dubuque Iowa as such an ordinance itself and so that while these may not be common City to City to City more and more cities are are adopting these and they're gaining General acceptance uh in communities of all of all sizes uh you might ask well are we reaching out to other governmental bodies in this area and the answer is absolutely this will come before the county in October and then we hope to reach out after the city and county have approved this to our school districts to other Villages and towns within the county and as some of you might anticipate in my situation to local park districts to see if they would adopt the same procedure two final comments um you know questions have been raised about our community and its commitment to racial Justice in National media there have been we're all familiar with this there have been uh particular articles and um studies which have suggested that our city is not as open to racial justice as it might be I would say this this vote on this ordinance gives you singular opportunity to answer that in a resounding voice that the answer to those critics is no we are not like that we will do better we can do better and the final thing I would say is this and it was occurred to me at the very beginning of this meeting when mayor Ali led us all in the pledge of allegiance that is a pledge it's not just words it's a pledge we all make we stand up we put our hands in our hearts and we pledge and what do we pledge to well at the very end it's liberty and justice for all this ordinance speaks to just that assuring that there is Justice for All by assuring in the processes that you're about that there is a view to racial Justice and there is intentionality developed in the process to ensure that that goal is achieved I ask you I implore you I and and I encourage you when the vote comes up on this two weeks from now to vote in favor of this ordinance thank you very much thank you Mr burchie Miss Peterson this is um a great opportunity I think for Peoria to as you use the word intentional we were intentional over a year ago when we voted to unanimously to support the establishment of the Joint Commission on racial Justice and Equity with the with the county the city and the county together I was really thrilled to be at your annual report out meeting and see such a presence of the the Committees the eight committees plus the steering committee that have been working for over a year with intentionality to focus on addressing issues of racial Injustice and racial Justice in in Peoria so I'm really proud of the work I just want to thank the two of you because I know that you've put in countless hours uh in you know showing your leadership and being passionate about addressing this issue and I want to thank all of those that are listening um online or on television all of those that are in our audience that have participated in this process because you've been committed to this process for a very long time so I you know this is not the end this is the beginning I think this is a step toward our objective to end racial discrimination within the city and the county and throughout throughout our region but I think it's a first step and this is a first reading so it's it's open for discussion but I just want to say thank you to everyone who has participated in this process I applaud your work thank you mayor foreign thank you madam mayor I would like to Echo your uh same sentiments um this is a step in the right direction um we understand that achieving racial equity and social justice um it's a road map it isn't a destination and this is I'm excited that the city and the county is is taking this journey to ensure that our region when you think of the city and the county um is welcoming for everyone and everyone has a true sense of belonging and that is the ultimate objective so I'm excited to see this I challenge my colleagues around the Horseshoe over the next couple weeks dive into this ask the questions reach out to the co-chairs reach out to the chief diversity Equity inclusion officer of the city Miss green and really dive into this so that way when we come back here in a couple of weeks we can really have have a great conversation we can address any potential uncertainties because this is great for our city this is great for our County and so we want to make sure that we are all on the same page with this thank you madam mayor and the other discussion council member Kelly thank you madam mayor um first of all I I really do believe that this body and this organization is and has been very intentional toward racial Justice um in our city too um I think by and large is we elected a a an African-American mayor most of the voters who who voted for you were white people um I'm all for racial Justice Etc okay I just want to know what this is going to accomplish other than sounding good this says under scrutiny will be any policies programs services or budgets that apparently violate racial Justice um perhaps we have some I don't know uh I'm not aware of any but perhaps we have some and I think we have the wherewithal to address those at this point when we talk about any I just wonder are there things on the agenda tonight that would require the manager to create an assessment report on those items it says any policies I mean I I don't know exactly what that means I don't imagine it means that people who are going to clean out the sewer lines are what but but I don't I don't know I don't know where this might go data was spoken of I like data if I really get too bound up in data I ask councilman Seer who who left on purpose because he knew I was going to say this but I asked him to explain it to me but if we're going to use data we need Baseline data to start with and with an ordinance like this I think we need to say look here's where we are so that these programs and whatnot so that their good effect can be measured if we just talk about these things in past ordinances and and you know it's it looks good but it's it doesn't do much good I um am very much in favor of certainly there is some discrimination in our city certainly certainly I don't know that we'll ever get rid of it all you know but institutionally I don't know of any institutions of any size in our City that don't have minorities working for them I don't know of any neighborhoods that don't have minorities living in them you know those days we're living sometimes we're living a little bit in the past I think um if we have work to do I'm I'm for it but I don't want to just get into something because it sounds good I I'm very willing to get into something because it has good promise perhaps a good way to start is to say in the next two weeks here are some programs that really that we have that City Hall has here are some policies the city hall has that could be better in terms of racial Justice also if we're going to adopt an ordinance like this it seems to me that we need Baseline data not just saying well we did this and we and we were all very well intentioned but it you know all these things cost money and time and uh so I would ask us all to think about those things in the next two weeks thank you madam mayor you're welcome and and I want to respond by saying that you're making some valid points and that the rje commission is very data driven in fact over the past year that's really what they've been doing is collecting identifying the problems and collecting data and all these eight different areas from housing to education to jobs to all those areas where inequities exist based upon race and I know many of you received that document the research document that was put together by a charity done at Illinois Central College and we all got a copy of it but it shows the areas where there's been marginalized people there's great disparities based upon race in in these eight areas so Baseline data we have that in many different areas and you know what cities or counties municipalities have done and and we started that process at Illinois Central College when I was there because I was part of leading that effort scrubbing your policies your practices your systems to remove those barriers that are based upon race and some of them you know in our law some of them still exist in American law unfortunately and you know we have a process of trying to get those off the books because they're still being um imposed in some regard we've had redlining that has occurred in cities Across America including this city Peoria so that's you know I your questions are good questions you're you're wanting results I think we all want results but the commission has a focus on race we have struggled with racial issues in America and right here in Peoria for a long time we've been called a lot of bad names uh in Peoria like the worst the worst place for African Americans to live we've been accused of having the most segregated schools and some of the most segregated neighborhoods based upon race it's been an issue that we have struggled with but but I would say an issue that we want to improve upon that we have to be focused we have to be intentional and we have to zero in on it's it's not easy right and it's not going to happen overnight but but this in my opinion is a start a step in the right direction so I know there's plenty others councilman rigenbot thank you madam mayor I really appreciate the one word that you just said stuck out to me and that was intentional because we all have good intentions but are we intentionally making our policy reflect those and I think that's something that this will be very useful for and um if I can ask the manager a couple questions about how this will operate going forward as I look at Agenda item it has Financial impact neighborhood concerns eeo certification which of the goals identified and the Planned is this Advanced would this be listed as a similar item then going forward or how do you envision this being communicated with us well I think the the ordinance calls for a worksheet to be developed that would ask the the six questions that are part of the ordinance and that that we would work through and have the departments respond to those six questions as part of that so I mean if we think about that and and councilman Kelly asked a good question about are there ordinances on the agenda tonight that maybe could be looked at through this I think that the next item on the agenda is about video gaming and I think that's one that you could look at that and say how has video gaming affected marginalized communities and and racial communities in our in our city and and that's something we could we could analyze as part of this ordinance is then looking at that saying okay what has been the impact then you start to drill into those six questions and and the those questions are how does this action Advance racial and ethnic equity in the community have you analyzed the impact of this action we'll have on racial and ethnic communities what does that impact what is your data and how is it developed have you reached out to receive feedback from each of the affected communities what was their input that's a key Point have we reached out and talked to the community to see what that that is next have you considered alternative approaches which would better and promote equity and then finally what if any additional resources would be needed to better promote Equity through this action so so those would be the questions that we would be asking our team at the city to go through and and analyze and report that back to you so this is this is really another lens that we look at our actions through in order to be able to come forward with that one of the other key points that's in this ordinance is that is really trying to start slow and we put language in the ordinance that that does state that the scope of this implementation shall be phased to ensure that staff have been trained in the tool and the concepts and principles of diversity equity and inclusion just so that we make sure that everyone is using the same language everyone understands the same Baseline and I think that that goes then to councilman Kelly's Point as well about the getting that data the commission has identified I think 38 indicate haters that they're starting to pull together we hope to get that compiled so that we can get a dashboard prepared for the city and the county looking at both city data and County data with that in order to present that out so that we can talk about those those indicators and what those that Baseline data might look like will Peoria County adopt a similar dashboard or will they alter that to their specific it'll be a joint dashboard from the from the commission that'll have the city and county data on it and then we'll encourage the school board and the other governing entities to join as well correct um is Peoria a leader in this or are there other communities in Illinois or throughout the country that are developing this are we going to be the one that others come and say how did you do that I I wouldn't say that we're necessarily a leader here I think that there are a lot of communities that are doing some some interesting work across the entire diversity equity and inclusion space I think that that Mr birchie recommend or mentioned Dubuque Iowa which is a community similar to our size maybe a little bit smaller that's been doing a lot of work in that in that space I think that there are others Melody green and I are participating in a program right now through the Metropolitan mayor's caucus that's talking about how you operationalize racial equity and we're focusing on Insta and the training with that is focused on some of the the institutional challenges that you have with when you you think of a city government and you think of our code book which is here next to to to uh Ms Peter sorry that that really you know it is a compendium of different policies and procedures that we've put in place over the years some that go back probably 70 years you know and and some that have been codified in state law so so as you start to look at that as you start to to break that down there may be some time that we need as staff to be able to work through this ask those questions and be able to build something forward that we can bring back to you and so that's why we wanted to go with that kind of phased in approach sounds like a work in progress but I love the intentionality of it so thank you councilman and I would say Peoria is a leader in Illinois in even establishing this 150 people joint County City commission there's none like this in Illinois the size and I think with with the scope that we have I think there's there are some other cities in the nation but in Illinois I would say that we do stand out and and our city manager did present at IML at a large attended workshop on diversity equity and inclusion and and Peoria gained a lot of respect from that presentation [Applause] councilmember Jensen thank you madam mayor um first I want to thank you for your leadership on this important issue as well as thank Mr Bertie um and the other co-chair for your work and all the members that are here and in the audience of the commission it's important work and I'm glad to see things this coming forward and and I look forward to more things coming forward I do have a few questions um I guess with regard I'm kind of curious exactly how it'll work like what happens after you conduct the examination or the assessment and so I think after we we would conduct the assessment after we go through the questions we'll put that into that worksheet and that will be attached as part of the council communication we'll just include that information you know as an attachment to those agenda items that come forward and I think that that way the examination is there for the council to look at that and and to be able to take that into consideration as you see those items coming forward okay so if you but say you're you do the assessment and there's some red flags and there's some concerns do you then go back and modify the proposal that's coming to us or your recommendation before it comes to us if if there's red flags I think we would go back and have to take a look at that and see what we would do to address it through that same lens and say is there are there differences changes in the recommendation that we would make are there changes in the budget that we would make because of that and I think those are those are going to be part of this question as we we move through this this process I think that's going to come forward and we're going to see hopefully it's evident that something may come forward and then we can talk about what is what does that impact and how we could change that to promote racial equity okay and then and then how will it work I notice there's a paragraph in here that um the decision of the city to refrain from taking an action shall be deemed a City action for purposes of this ordinance so and that's paragraph seven so how will that work if the city council refuses you know votes against something or doesn't approve something then when do you do then do you do the assessment after the fact and then how do you bring that forward that are in action and according to the assessment violates you know these six questions or I think that's a good question I I don't I think we were looking at act what you know where we would come and bring something forward for Action by the council here so that's something we can certainly look into before we bring the final ordinance back okay because I mean I see that that this potentially when we didn't take action on an issue earlier this year that could have been assessed as by you know I'm just curious how that's going to work and I would like to understand that before we move this forward or we might have to tweak the ordinance that's a it's a really good point okay and then I have one more um point it's actually I I do have a concern with section three and I know it's standard language to repeal any conflicting ordinances on the book or policies and it just seems really very sweeping and Broad so I would be more comfortable if we're going to include this in the ordinance to have a re and it may be asking a lot but to have our legal department do a review and let us know what ordinances and policies we would be repealing or that may be in conflict with us and if that's you know I I know that's a lot to ask if that's not possible maybe we just don't include that in the ordinance thank you I don't know if you have a comment or I thank you councilwoman Jensen I think that's certainly possible I have some as you were talking that popped to mind for example the ordinance on you know that helped establish the committee um our ordinances that deal with our Fair Employment or our fair housing commissions so I think we could certainly do a cursory review um my concern is as we get into reviewing the code there may be multiple code sections that we need to identify but we can probably at least give you the major sort of outliers that we think could be impacted okay because my concern is the way that this language is so broad there could be something and the books I just I want to know if there's something in violation I guess before we get rid of it you know why so I just would like a little more analysis on that sure I mean that's a that's a fair point so councilman Euler thank you madam chairwoman I appreciate all the comments and all the work that's gone into this I think the biggest thing that I'd like to see is give me some of the the meat to this whole thing the the agenda item I I'm a little bit disappointed with what appears to be lack of work in the specific agenda item presentation to us because I know significant amounts of work have gone into actually doing the work behind the scenes but you know give us some of the what other communities have done and what that meant to them so that we can go out and give that sales pitch ourselves because the change if has to start with us and we have to be a part of it and there isn't enough here for me to go out and say this is why we want to do what we want to do here and this is what the vision is and that's what I'd really like to see in this agenda item is how can I go out and talk to constituents about why we're doing what we're doing because this community did it and this is what it meant to them and this is what have changed in their city so that we can actually be a functional part of that and then there were also references made about assessments and that they were analyzed and I think it'd be good if we could see some of that as well I'm glad you asked for that it does exist this group has has studied a lot of that information some of it got reported out at the annual report back in May or or back in June but there is a report that's coming out from what I understand from this commission is being written is that correct uh Tim and Mary is being written when do you anticipate having that finished should I look at Jonathan Wright or okay so by the end of the year but there is that that information does exist um there are some presentations I think any specific information that you want in advance of next meeting which is October the 11th councilman Euler I'm sure we can figure out how to get that to you thank you that's great councilman Grant well I'd rather that this um particular impact assessment tool be used to address problems that affect all the disadvantaged people within our community and practically putting this into effect gosh I served with 11 City councils six city managers and I kind of thought that we were trying as much as possible to give people a hand up and when we have awarded contracts here in this city we have done everything we can to assure that we take a look at our minority businesses I don't believe you've been a failure the last 10 years and I don't think the last 11 City councils had been failures as it regards racial Justice now let's just get down to specifics because we can all say we want god mother apple pie and racial Justice let's just get down to specifics Mr manager we have here item 22-307 on video gaming licenses okay we're going to have have to make a comment than if this passes on whether we should take this action or not based on the impact it would have as it relates to not the disadvantage although I'd rather see it say that but uh as it relates to I guess black people yes and minority communities yes and and then same thing take a look at the next item adult use cannabis dispensary is this good for black people I mean what's what are what's the recommendation going to be that this is something positive and good for disadvantaged people regardless of race to go to the video gaming machines or to go out and buy cannabis I don't know how you're going to craft that because there's a lot of value assumptions that are going to have to go into this so I I see this as being a problem I admire our president especially when he says we need to work to give more of our citizens breathing room and help believe with intentionality City councilors have done just that through the years I'm not saying that we can't do more because we are not a perfect country you know why because we don't have perfect people but I just don't know how this translates just looking at the next two agenda items how it's going to work so what I need to do then In fairness is think about this let let everybody take the input that's coming with the first reading to heart and come back with more specifics and I know Tim birchie he was kind enough to reach out because I asked you Mr manager when I was on vacation how this would differ from what we've been doing as consoles I guess we're going to put it on steroids and you were nice enough to say Hey you know contact and he was nice enough to say chairman burchie in reference to this so I'm going to be working with with him both the co-chairs on this and what it means and well yeah I think from the administration standpoint there are some pretty sticky wickets here but especially you know what's the best recommendation for this racial group or disadvantaged people let's just be honest about it so but but I'm open to it but those are some of my comments tonight mayor okay a lot of training has to go into you know this kind of endeavor it that's what they did in in King County Washington they trained all of the city all the county staff extensively so that they would get a better understanding of how to implement something like that and mayor I have oftentimes felt that we should not have a chief diversity officer in this city because if we're really doing our job as a city and we have the appropriate Municipal culture this should be pervasive through that throughout the entire city organization that we don't have one Department focusing on this and I've seen this through the years happen I don't think we have the culture apparently not maybe we do but to require a special position I think that should already be done through all of our department heads and all of our staff to the city manager daily councilman but if everybody's responsible nobody's responsible you have to have a champion you have to have a champion that helps all these departments to to move you know their the agenda along so it's it's about you know having that leader in position that that can help and and lead the charge appreciate your input on that thank you is there a motion to move uh leave and file moved by council member rock regal seconded by council member Allen all in favor please cast your ballots I mean that all in favor cash your ballots motion passes unanimously thank you very much appreciate your work [Applause] Madam Clerk we are at regular business 22-307 is a communication from the city manager in interim Corporation Council with a request to adopt an ordinance amending chapter 18 article 4 section 18-99 of the city's municipal code to revise the issuance of video gaming licenses Council Madam mayor at the last council meeting we proposed an ordinance that would reduce the video gaming um waiting period from 24 months to 12 months for new businesses after listening to councils conversations at that meeting we the ordinance you have in front of you reduces that further to a six-month period and then we provided some additional information in response to a question from councilwoman Jensen to clarify that the city's Municipal Code itself does not have a limit on the number of licenses per establishment however the state of Illinois gaming code does and that limit is six unless you're a truck stop with that I'm happy to answer any questions thank you madam mayor any questions for Council on this council member Kelly thank you madam mayor I would just like to commend you for uh bringing it down to six months as as you might recall I was in favor of no waiting period at all but uh six months is a lot better than a couple years so thank you is there a motion council member Euler thank you madam chair one move to approve at the six-month change thank you is there a second by council member grab other discussion it's your ballots motion passes with one nay seer Adam Clark 22-332 is a communication from the city manager and director of Community Development with a request to concur with recommendation from the Planning and Zoning commission and staff to adopt an ordinance amending an existing special use in a class C to large-scale commercial District to allow for an adult use cannabis dispensary for the property located at 3929 West War Memorial Drive commonly known as the will know shop Knolls Shopping Center manager maybe if I could ask director Doolin to come forward to just kind of summarize this item along with assistant director Leah Allison it will be assistant director Leah Allisonville come forward okay good evening thank you Mr manager so before you is a request to actually amend the special use that currently exists for the willow Knoll shopping center the shopping center is is encompassing the Sam's Club the Kohl's building the the other multi-tenant buildings as well as the the properties that sort of align the front of the shopping center which includes this property as the formal former Applebee's restaurant and the other properties that kind of align along Willow Knolls Road and and more Memorial Drive so cannabis dispensary is a special use and because this already has a special use for a shopping center the request is to mend that special use to determine whether you want to allow the cannabis dispensary operation in that specific property 3929 formerly Applebee's restaurant that has been vacant for some time can I answer any questions about the proposal specifically thank you assistant director council member Allen thank you madam mayor this site that's up before us today is in District Four and so I have been involved since the Genesis of this I just want to ask a few clarifying questions just to address some of the anxiety that is around this particular site and then also just the conversation when it comes to recreational marijuana when the state decided to legalize recreational marijuana several years ago we know that there still is a stigma that is associated with it and so I think it's important to address the objective the objective reasoning and maybe some of the angst and then some of the subjective things based off of your upbringing or belief or you know your values um you may not never get a get on board with it and that's fine everybody has their right uh to to do so um assistant director Allison can you talk a little bit about the process once a uh recreational marijuana site is um highlighted when they go to Planning and Zoning can you talk a little bit about how do you vet that to ensure that that site is appropriate to move forward to the Planning and Zoning commission and then also talk about how the plane in the zoning commission vets that site sure so we have an application process that includes not only looking at the specific property but also the shopping center as a whole to make sure that the development standards are being met and that can it's a physical characteristics of the site can include parking lot appropriately striped handicapped parking Landscaping um enclosure of the garbage dumpsters so we look at the hole and we we inspect and make sure that if there's anything that has become deficient we can address that through this review process and so that is the report that we prepare as staff to the Planning and Zoning commission and also utilizing the set standards that we review all special uses against which are right through our um our our code that includes looking at public health safety and Welfare appropriate Ingress egress traffic any impact with that specifically with this proposed new use we also look at the neighborhood and make sure that there again isn't any negative impact uh with the proposed use as we would with any special use so that's the package of the preparation that we prepare to the Planning and Zoning commission they utilize those same standards and making their determination along with any public comment that comes at that special at the Planning and Zoning commission meeting and with that then we prepare the report to you for consideration uh thank you madam mayor I would like to give privilege of the floor uh to a few special guests if that's okay that one the owner of this uh potential site Gregory Elliott and then his legal representation Andrew Scott and Daniel Farrell who is head of his security if you all could come to the microphone if that's okay and the reason why I'm doing this is one I want to demonstrate the due diligence that's been put into this particular site I'm very sensitive to what constituents are bringing forth as concerns and so I want to give these gentlemen the opportunity to address some of those so Mr Elliott if you could just introduce yourself as the owner just maybe just a little bit of background and then from there I'll ask them the questions that constituents have brought forth for this particular site my name is Gregory Elliott I'm the owner of world of weed we'll be doing business as Ivy Hall I'm a social Equity owner and born and raised in Chicago and one of our primary goals when we come into a location is be good stewards of the community and we encourage our neighbors to reach out to us and let us know how we can contribute to making the community better thank you sir a couple of the questions that that came up was regarding security um how are we going to ensure that um there's no loitering um making sure that uh the young person that's at the Willow Knolls movie theater doesn't somehow get in the dispensary and get their hands illegally on uh whether it's leaf or edibles or whatever so um Mr Pharrell if you could talk a little bit about the security measures that are in place to ensure that loitering isn't taking place and that young people aren't illegally getting their hands on the products that'll be at this site thank you um just for a little background I'm the owner of a company called SilverStar we do security at over a hundred different locations that are cannabis related in three states Illinois Missouri and Michigan we've been doing this since 2014 and we bring a tremendous amount of experience knowledge and protocols to ensure that these facilities are safe as Greg mentioned the first thing we do is we go out to the community we want to good stewards to the community so we go and introduce ourselves to the businesses that surround it so that if there are any problems they can call us directly we also work with the chief of police in Peoria sit down and show them our security plan and talk about ways we can work with them should they be needed but the security starts with a very foundational security plan and it's built on concentric circles of protection where we will look at having the facility under cameras so every inch of the interior of the facility would be under camera except for the bathrooms and the exterior will have cameras on it including license plate readers and facial recognition so that we can if there's a crime that happens outside we can see it and share that information with the police we've solved the many crimes outside of the Cannabis Community using those cameras um and the way the dispensary is set up is there's three different parts to a dispensary there's the public access area there's limited access area and there's a restricted access area so the public access areas where anybody can come into and it's usually just the vestibule where there's a receptionist and someone there and one of the things that you mentioned is how do you know someone that's not 21 can get in so what happens is when someone comes into a dispensary they have to come to the reception desk and they have to provide an ID most of the time it's a driver's license we accept passports green cards other ones that are regulated by the state that are given approval and they're not just looked at by the person at the front desk what happens is there's a scanner at the front desk and every driver's license has a barcode on the back of it what you do is you put it into the scanner it goes to a database and what it gives you back is the Val the driver's license is valid and that person's over 21.

and so when you're talking about the public access area to get into the limited access area which is where you call the point of sale where you could purchase the product there's an access control meaning there's a door with a lock that has like a magnetic lock on it where you have to hit a pad put a coat in and let that person in so the first step to not letting someone 21 in is verify them in the front once they're verified then we let them through a door into the point of sale area I should mention there is no product in the point of sale area so contrary to a liquor store or anywhere else there is no product in the point of sale area you usually met with someone who is a cannabis concierge or what they call a bud tender that will actually help you with your order and try to get you through as fast as they can or give you answer any questions but the second line of defense is when you go up to the counter and purchase product you have to show your driver's license again so there's a secondary authentication that that person is 21 before they will um provide you any product in a sale behind the point of sale area is what we call the restricted access area and what that means is no employee or any person can behind that restricted access area that does not have an idpfr badge meaning you have to apply to the state get a badge through a background check a very formal screening process and then if you're badged you can be behind there so that when a transaction happens they were put into the system and I'm not sure if you guys are familiar but there's a seed the sale system in the state of Illinois it's bile track and what that means is anytime a plant's put in the ground it's given an RFID tag and that RFID tag follows excuse itself through the process when the plants brought down harvested packaged and brought to the dispensary that's Linked UP And once they they the person purchased the product it is barcoded and it is recorded in the seed the sale system so it really deters any type of theft or diversion because the product is being tracked from the place it started until it goes out the door so once that transaction happens it all happens under camera meaning there's usually one behind one on top maybe one on the side what we want to do is record that transaction on multiple different levels when the product comes out someone looks at that product and says hey these are your gummies or these are your eighth of flour that you're trying to get and it's recorded on film and they verify is this what you ordered is this what you want and then one it's completed it's actually put in a mylar bag and so it's zipped up and usually the receipt is stapled on it and no there's a lot of questions about odor so it's the the packaging that it comes in from the cultivations is usually plastic meaning there's no smell to it and then it's put in another bag when you walk out the door and each customer is told you're not allowed to use this product until you go home so you can't use it your car on your way home you can't use it out in front and loiter and then when that happens is staple the receipt to the bag and the person's let out the building one of the things that we're really big on as a security company is monitoring the cameras if someone's in their car too long all of our guards are trained to go out there talk to them most of the time it's an educational process where we're saying hey you're not allowed to be in your car please move on and take your product home um and you know the the whole system is built on making sure that people have safe access to camera the Cannabis either coming in the facility or leaving the facility and we will do perimeter sweeps and we'll make sure that nobody lawyers or you know stands in the community and if we do have an incident where someone's using product in the parking lot we will call the Peoria Police and let them handle it now thank you for that that detailed response I think that addresses a lot of the um anxiety that has been brought forth particular for this uh site the irony of this site is I used to work at this Applebees for four and a half years in college uh we sold a lot of two for twenties and dollar margaritas so I would have never thought good old Applebee's would be a potential dispensary but life has a way of smiling but you all have demonstrated that you've done a lot of research into this uh Mr Elliott I know you own um you're involved in multiple Ventures and so I know that this is not your first rodeo and so if this does pass tonight I look forward to work welcoming you all to the fourth district and then also making sure that that dialogue is open with the neighborhoods that are around there I do think this particular location is ideal because you have to cross war memorial to get to some of the the nearest neighborhoods of Creighton woods and Lyndhurst and Briardale you've got to cross Willow Knolls to get to some of the neighborhoods behind Sam's Club it's really isolated um and I'm excited for the transformation because right now the old Applebee's it's an eyesore right now and so I'm excited for something to go in there you all have a sound plan and it's going to be a great tax generator for the city of Peoria so without without further Ado I would like to make a motion for approval thank you is there a second to buy council member Kelly additional discussion council member Grant yes I brought up the idea of a moratorium on these and I think we should take the temperature of the console on this I indicated the last time we discussed this is since this was a social Equity one I would be favorably predisposed toward it but I think there are limits on what this community should have to absorb in terms of cannabis dispensaries and I think as years past we'll look back and wonder what we were thinking so I will vote to approve this Only If part of it is to implement a moratorium after this one's approved for the entire city of Peoria and I think councilor Allen you are open to that but we'll see thank you we do have a policy session on cannabis industry scheduled for October 11th so we have a motion okay we have another comment councilwoman Jensen let me just I guess I have a question with regards to councilman grabs comment are you is it an open-ended moratorium or until we have a policy discussion and decide whether or not we're going to set limits here I mean if you want to have that discussion we can but I'm already signaling to you that I think the here we go again now we're using a tool we're going to make a value judgment does this help disadvantage people well maybe since this is a social Equity one you could say that but if we continue to have these in this community will that be helpful you see there there's a lot of devil going into detail so mayor I I respect your thoughts that we can we should have a policy discussion before we try to force this issue right now so and that's not part of the motion you know that's his sentiment right okay thank you okay you're welcome councilmember Allen uh no I was getting some clarity so since that is off the table now I digress I think okay please cast your ballots motion passes with two Nays Seer and Jackson thank you Madam Clerk 22-333 is a communication from the city manager and assistant city manager to approve the Peoria Civic Center budget and annual report and on your desk there is a presentation so I'm going to ask count council member Rick Regal to First make some comments and then turn it to the city manager who's probably going to turn it to Mr Edgar great hey thank you mayor um just a couple of thoughts is you know I think that all of us are going to wonder in years from now um how we came to to sort of identify Our Lives over this decade and it's going to be pre-covered covid and post covered and that goes matter if we're talking about family life work life around this horseshoe or operating entity of the businesses that sort of make this city the city and I think tonight what you're going to see is a presentation of just like in all of those pieces if it was our work our life working around here on the council we know that when covid came down and we had to stop everything it was a lot harder to be able to get them started again and there's a life to be able to get things started and I think we're going to be talking about that tonight as well um but something that's probably not mentioned enough in this presentation is I'd like to make sure that we recognize the great work of the authority members that throughout this process are there day in day out they're great they're active they are um extremely involved in the operation of the Peoria Civic Center the committee members that help there and of course the staff and you know the Civic Center really is a host for our entertainment for people who come into the city it's never lost on me that while some cities hide their civic centers away they're separate from city government that people who come to our city our Civic Center to be able to enjoy some time there if they're there for a conference they get to see that it wraps itself around city hall and I think that's intentional because I think it we're putting an iconic piece of business an iconic piece of livability right here next to City Hall and and Mr Edgar tonight is going to be talking about a lot of the things that have led us to this point and kind of what next year looks like as well but I want to go back to just reminding the council that the Civic Center has several purposes it has a a responsibility of of operating fiscally it has a livability for our our city for the residents and also to bring people in it's an economic driver it pays taxes but it also brings to our area around it economic impact as well and so the the Civic Center is critical to our overall operation as a city it affects our budgets but it also really is the host to many people where we get to say welcome to Peoria so with that look forward to the presentation I've gotten some sneak peeks you and I have have talked about I think tonight's presentation really comes from a conversation that you had is you know um how about we hear as that transition is being made and I appreciate your you're asking for that and so um I would turn it over to the city manager and Mr uh Edgar manager uh thank you yes we do have with us Rick Edgar from the Civic Center who's going to walk through a presentation for us and talk a little bit about the budget for next year as well so I'll turn it over to Mr Edgar thank you I appreciate everybody so I know it's been a long night so I will be judicious in my language as much as possible but we have a lot of important things to talk about as you may know this is our 40th year of existence that we're celebrating when we went into 22 coming out of covid we had some substantial challenges that we knew were in front of us the biggest one was coveted mitigation most of the tours that were going out wanted us to have masks mandates in place on a top of what was already being done by the state government the challenge that we had was about half of our audience didn't think we were doing enough the other half of our audience thought we were doing too much so it impacted those first six months we were open we reopened our doors on July 24th last fiscal year those first six months we saw about a 15 to 25 percent drag on most of our shows until once the mandates were lifted things started getting back to normal but to give you an idea that went through the entire Bradley basketball season where Mass mandate was in place at least at some degree because of some of the things related with covid one thing that we were surprised on we had a lot of confirmed shows that canceled you can look at the number there there was 24 convention center events that were canceled or postponed we had nine that were to reduce levels to give you an example our farm show usually takes up our entire convention space this year it took about 40 percent one of the challenges they had were getting vendors it was because they couldn't even staff their own businesses much like much less going to a regional vendor to sell your wares in cars they didn't have new cars to sell um Arena events and Theater events and to give you an idea when we say canceled some of them were brutal for us our Willie Nelson date had sold out on the on sale was sold out for three or four months and then they decided they didn't want to play theaters and the date got pulled so we actually not only did we lose the day lost that Revenue but we already spent all the advertising dollars so it was more painful than just having shows not happen the other thing is in the hospitality industry I think everyone can agree Staffing was a significant challenge we were no different but we did some things kind of cleverly to address that we're going to get to that um so how did it turn out all these things working against us we were the number 91 arena in the United States and number 64 in theater even with all these challenges our folks started coming out and we had events uh the theater when we were really uh happy about there's only we were number three in Illinois only the Rosemont in the Chicago Theater in Chicago had more guests come to their events uh here's a little bit of an array of some of the things we did we really found this year that family shows for the first time had made a dent in our ratings people were coming out actually the family shows were improved by the mass mandate strangely enough folks felt more safe they brought their kids out comedy and rock were really big for us but even though we were coming out of covet and did not have our first Arena event outside of tenants until January Reba McIntyre was our highest grossing all-time country show Gabriel Iglesias broke the comedy record blippi in our family show uh we it broke the family record in our theater and Hot Wheel monster trucks and we're going to talk a little bit about that one later also set the all-time monster truck record for our venue so these are our top 10 shows I like to give a little history um I like to say our current management team my senior directors and uh a lot of our key contributors everything that you see in bold has happened during our watch six of the top 10 Arena shows of all time including Reba McIntyre number three in the theater we actually do a little better seven of the top 10 shows of all time have happened with this management team for those that are new on the council I arrived in June of 18.

these are all shows that have happened after that um one thing that I'm really proud of and I do want to point out one show is Judas Priest Judas Priest is traditionally an arena act we felt that it worked better here in a theater and that was one where our instincts were right they actually were in town for four days checking and they kicked off their tour and it went up to number three it was a fantastic show for us it was profitable for the promoter us as well as the artist so we look at the overall outcomes we made budget coming out of 22 where things were just crazy um you may not believe this but that's four for four for Budget Even in our coveted year we were so far ahead of what our budgetary expectations were six and a half months in we were able to mitigate expenses and make the budget that was originally put in front of us by the end of the covid year we're increasing revenues per event so we pulled out one in particular Arena concerts we are now the fiscal year 19 was the best year we had ever had record Year we're actually making more per show now we're getting smarter about our business and we're also learning how to make those shows more profitable for the venue and when you look back over at the previous management from 12 to 18 we're now making 293 percent more for every single event we do that's an arena concert again these are the things that fund our venue we're also looking for new stuff you know we can't do 50 concerts a year we have to diversify our product so this year we looked out and we found this new monster truck show that Mattel was getting behind we also brought the ultimate demolition derby and we're going to talk about that a little bit later too one other one that was really cool is this quad Comic-Con my kids love comic books they love to do all that kind of stuff we debuted it right as we were coming out of covid we got a decent attendance but we actually more than doubled the attendance this year and we're now talking expanding it not just from a Saturday but for a full weekend and what we're finding out is we might have this cool little region Regional event we're now getting people coming for several hours to come because they get to see 80 to 110 vendors all in one spot staff retention so we talked about how hard it was to get people coming out we got really clever and one of the things we did is we knew that we needed to find a way to keep staff we identified 16 full-time employees when we were coming out of covid and what we did is we made sure they felt they were part of the team we did some things to make them feel like they belonged and listened to their voice While most folks are having staff's reductions and losing folks one year later 16 of those employees they're all still with us because they're part of what our vision is for part-time staff one of our challenges was they didn't feel like they were getting paid enough incremental work so what we did is we actually made them a a pool of employees where now that we've gone cashless the fans get the opportunity to leave a tip or gratuity or a thank you but whether you're the fry cook whether you're at the front whether you're pouring beer you're in a pool so what happened everybody was elevated up you know we have a 90 retention rate in our concession staff when everybody else is losing staff hand over fist we kept 90 percent of our concession workers uh the other one that we're really good is we treat this money like it's our own we're being smart with it we're trying to make sure it lasts our HRA distribution um not to go down a long path but previously if a group came in and asked for money it was like well it sounds like a good idea they could promise you anything and we were good we stopped listening to promises and we started looking for results so if you come to us and say you're going to book a thousand rooms and we have a formula that I'm happy to share with anyone on this Council where we go this is what your hotel rooms rates are we're estimating what you will spend on food here is the tax revenue generated by you coming to our community we use that as a basis for incentive dollars and what we've done is now we get a three to one ratio direct for our venue so if you give me a dollar of tax money we're going to turn it into three and bring the event here the indirect event is between six and twelve dollars per guest so we're really getting a 10 to 1 ratio and in this current economy anybody getting ten to one should be happy so let's look at specific events and what they mean for us so I'm going to look at the arena here and just kind of go overview we've bought we broke it out between our two tenant events our entertainment shows those are things like Hot Wheels WWE um and then the concerts kind of speak for themselves what we really want to point out is 24 of our events are concerts and entertainment use the youth day but they generate 71 percent of the revenue that's why we're focused on these type of events because they fund not only the arena but also a lot of the convention center events which are not uh they're not created to create money they're created to generate money for other people other than the venue in the theater you'll see that performances take a good bit of the event gaze just so you know part of those performances are like the symphony orchestra which are not Revenue generators but they're community events as well as we have several dance troops there um we saw that that performance line usually generates a little more Revenue but one of the challenges out of covid is our uh audience that's a little bit older who typically supports our Broadway series they were a little more hesitant this year so going into 22 we noticed that there was a drop off again in that 15 20 rage I will say we're happy to announce our Broadway series subscribers are up 33 going into this upcoming season and in the convention center you can see there's a lot of different things that make up what we do one area that kind of stood out to us which may not stand out to you as sporting what we found out is we became a really good hotbed for cheerleading events so the sporting line is usually well below 10 percent we've now grown that and the one that has been the biggest challenge for us is the consumer shows because again as we had talked about the vendors aren't coming and when the vendors can't come then you have your products to sell you have fewer products to sell it's less attractive to the audience we're working on getting those events back but we're probably still about two years away for them returning to normal we also took a little time to fix the building for some that may not be where we were awarded a dceo grant in early 2020 for uh 25 million dollars uh I will say as of today we still have not seen a dollar of it we have filled out the applications but is a long process four of the major projects that we worked on is our cooling towers today you're cooling air in here by the way we send that to you for those who don't know it comes from the arena and comes from the venue actually cools this building we are looking to have that project completed by summer of 23.

unfortunately you're going to see a trend these numbers were budgeted based on 2019 when we did our study we were 800 000 over budget because the cost of goods the cost of employment has all raised our prices for these capital projects parking lot resurfacing we have a new parking system and the parking lot the resurfacing was actually completed today at 4 pm and the new parking lot system will be operational beginning October 1st uh like several things were going cashless in our parking so that will be in place and then we're going to uh have better Services it also allows us to do Dynamic parking so one of those things that we'll hear is yes we will raise parking rates for our uh Prime events because there's Advantage the other thing that we will now have the ability to do is for those convention center events where somebody's coming to a comic book show where the ticket price is five dollars well we know they don't want to pay ten dollars to park if we keep a stagnant parking we'll be able to do hourly rates or we could also offer buyouts for some of the groups to say hey we want to buy out the parking lot today when you don't have multiple events we just have to be very careful because if we offer a buyout for a smaller event and then we book a major concert it will be a revenue drain on us because we have to facilitate so many things with the three different entities in our venue the roof replacement major issue the original budget was 8 million it will say or excuse me the original budget was 8 million and it says we're under budget that sounds great we're only doing 70 to 75 percent of the original project we could not afford to do the full thing there is some areas of our roof that still have some Lifetime on it and it was decided at our committee level that we probably don't want to replace every roof every 25 years at the same time so we're going to have about a three to five year lag on the rest of the property a really good one for us is the distributed antenna system for those it's called a Das we partnered with atnt no taxpayer dollars went into this project I just want to repeat that not a single dime of tax prepayer dollars went into this project it's a it's an over a million dollar project the other thing is is now if you go into our venue you're going to get five bars on your cell phone if you're with a t we expect other carriers to sign up upon completion we're about a week to 10 days out for this project being complete the other thing about this that is really awesome ATT put in a first responder dedicated line so if there were ever to be a major event downtown the First Responders would had a dedicated line and would have perfect ability to communicate with each other again this was done at no cost to the taxpayers so not only does the benefit the building benefit we also have the fans are going to benefit but the First Responders and Public Safety benefits is a fantastic project um it would be remiss if I didn't point out something we started this project it was 47 million dollars at the beginning of 2020.

cost and goods have gone up and even though we've got 25 million once we go through that we still have 35 million in unfunded needs projects these are not want projects these are needs projects that we are not going to be able to do we had listed 20 items that we identified as needs with the money that we have we're probably going to be stopped at number six so we still have 14 projects that are unfunded we pay taxes I think uh councilman Rodrigo pointed that out um even in this year we got the taxes up the little bit of disparity if you'll notice we actually beat our 2020 year where things were a little bit similar but 2019 we were down in the question uh mayor Ali asked why are we so far down in this year if we were doing all these great things all those canceled events were tax generators that we lost it was the volume of events is where we're having the discrepancy in the city because the city gets money from food and beverage and from ticket event sales those lost events and that lost food and beverage primarily is why we're down this year we think that number should come back up next year because the calendar is filling in nicely but the state of Illinois we're right there our best year we ever had we were right in competition the Big Driver of this is merchandise sales so those shows that we had that were generating more money they were selling a lot more t-shirts they were selling those things to the fans because of the higher quality of show and so we were able to get that tax revenue up for the state so between the two again we're about three quarters of a million dollars in tax generation so we're going to talk so that's 22.

so 22 we kind of came out okay and then lo and behold Here Comes 23 and we got a whole list of surprises and challenges ahead of us utilities I think that I don't have to tell anyone in this room but utility costs are going up we had done previously a really smart thing we had locked in our utility rates in for three years at a very low price that price ends now we have been working closely with our partners but uh it's looking like two and a half to three times what we were paying just a month ago is going to be our unit our new utility rate so that's a massive challenge in the building of our size that is a million dollar problem Insurance because of the Deferred maintenance on the building and the quality of the roof isn't currently we have now for the second year in row bid this project out to get better insurance rates we have sent it out to no fewer than 16 carriers two years in a row two years in a row only one carrier will even touch our building and that's because they've been a long-term uh our long-term Insurance our rates went up by more than a hundred thousand dollars this year and it's going to keep going up and it's about 200 000 up 400 West two years ago um once we get the roof project done that should help with the insurance but that's a problem that we can't solve right away employee salaries to keep those good employees we had to make Market adjustments again we kept our employees we've made Market adjustments but there are some raising rates there to keep the goods the staff that we have in place um because we have to be competitive with everyone else we can't just be going off our budget we have to compete with others for our staff um subsidy reduction in working with the City Finance they've told us that they expect the HRA taxes to be down and to expect about 60 percent of what we traditionally get in subsidy to support the venue commodity price index these are your table talk items with your family I think everyone knows gas is up from where it was eggs butter we do a lot of you know food so every qual everything we have has gone up chicken fingers across the board the only thing that stayed relatively flat was beer so that's good for us but beer went up only about one percent this year and then consumer shows I want to make sure everyone understands this is the one item that traditionally makes money in the convention center and we know that those shows are not coming back at the levels that they were they're trying to come back we have great Partners they want to do these events but we know that we're probably looking at 50 to 60 percent of what the uh vendor participation was going to be which that directly impacts our bottom line so I've given you the bad news so what's going right um I think keeping that leadership in place keeping that knowledge base from our staff was critically important important for us to get through covet and this is the same team that's going to get us through this um I cannot commend the staff enough coming out of covid with all the uncertainties to ramp up for all the activity we had in the arena and making it work HRA dollars we don't get much but the dollars we get we maximize and I think we've shown that through our numbers and we're going to continue to follow those strategies to make every dollar count Revenue projections our biggest challenge for this budget is expenses that we can't control utilities reduction of subsidy insurance we actually are putting forth our most aggressive Revenue generation year that we've ever put on a budget in the last five years um parking with the new parking lot we're now going to shift from having staff out there to collect because we felt that it would be better to promote safety lights are going to be up we're going to have roving uh parking attendants throughout the events when people come to our events they feel safe that safety has a value and so we're shifting to that model coming up this year we're looking for new stuff because we are not going to sit on our Laurels and just keep doing the same things because that's not a way to keep people excited this upcoming weekend I don't know if you know this but we have a Pokemon Regional Championship there's only eight in the United States it's free for you to attend they pay to compete for the world championship in Japan this was a big deal this was a Chicago event that we had some relationships they contacted us and found out that they really liked what we had to offer and they chose Peoria if you look at their website it's cities like Baltimore La New York and Peoria you know so we got into that list with some Heavy Hitters because of our reputation synchronized skating typically this is an event that we would never touch because it's in the middle of our Prime season last week of January but when we spoke to them this is an event that's trying to get to an Olympic level and they did not ask us for a single incentive dollar they wanted our venue because of what we had to offer and when we met with them it became apparent that we were the right match they're going to pay our full rates they actually contributed money towards the ice plant because we've had challenges with our ice plant they put money into their bid to cover their costs for the five days that they're here and everyone is from somewhere else so all of their competitors are coming into town staying at our hotels eating at our restaurants and staying at our venue this is a week long that they're here for the three days competition their whole week so with all of those factors in place we took the deal it's going to be very profitable for the venue but it's also going to be more impactful for the community we're also trying to learn and watch what other folks are doing so one of the things that we figured out that would might surprise you is we're going to follow box office trends that are going nationally and one of the things that really shocked us when we actually ran the numbers and this is two years in a row by the way ticket sales by location we pulled out tazwell in Peoria County over I think it's 67 I can't see it from here but it's like almost 68 of our tickets are bought outside of the two counties that are connected to the building 68 percent we then said well that makes sense so they're buying online so it must be you're out of town you're buying online but look at our local purchases only 15 percent of the people come to the box office they're buying online so during covid we've paid attention to the trends folks got used to buying from Amazon Target have it shipped to your house with Tickets mobile ticketing is over half of the purchase somebody looks at their phone buys a ticket they're going to come see the show and now that we're going to more and more touchless you have your tickets right there you don't get a printed ticket you walk in with your cell phone and that's how you pay for your tickets so when we saw this we adjusted our box office hours because we had to be more uh respectful of what the market was telling us but also it allowed us to control some costs with Staffing and this is the fun part this is when we get to tell you about our friends that bring us shows premiere Productions is the preeminent Christian contemporary promoter but they've brought they've broadened their Outreach in the last couple years to family shows and now they're into country music those are just a few of the shows and what Jonathan and their team had said they went when I moved here to Premier was doing a show every two or three years but our team built a relationship he now calls me and says hey we're looking at buying this what do you think and we get the first phone call and guess what we get on the tour so this is a fantastic relationship with a fantastic team and we're now probably about a half dozen shows a year with them um that's my friend Paul malosh with Gabriel Iglesias when they were here with icon Paul's company does a lot of Comedians and um what he would tell me is I'm the PT Barnum he goes you're always in a good mood when the show day the staff's so happy to see us but I think what comes through and this is something that um I've heard more and more and I want to share with the folks here when they come to Peoria they say when we're in a Major Market they expect to be entertained the the crowd the it's just another show we come to Peoria it's a big deal um Mr Iglesias was fantastic we actually took him out to dinner to a local restaurant he was great fans were interacting with him and he broke our venue record but it was that relationship this year Joe Coy is on an arena tour except for one day in Peoria he's playing our theater and it's not because we were selling tons of tickets to Jo Koy he has that much fun coming to Peoria that he put us on his tour those are the kind of relationships we've been building over these last four years Sam Williams the ultimate Derby I kind of alluded to this earlier in the presentation this is a very unique event it is a high-speed demolition derby indoors and they need special dirt and there's all kinds of cool stuff if you want me I can bore you with all the details but here was it they needed a Convention Center because that is where their pits are because they're in February and half of the experiences watching them beat up on these cars because these are not pretty cars but they're very effective and very expensive and when he called us it sounded nutty he flew into town we met with him in 2019 and over the time we built this relationship well he came here this year and guess what this is another event all of the drivers are from all over the Midwest they come into town for three four days to participate stay in our hotels eat at our restaurants we've never sold so much Busch Light in an event since I've been here and um it was a fantastic event but what Sam would tell me and he kind of said he mentions in this quote that he said um you were his large signature event what he was really saying and what he's told me personally goes you're our Super Bowl you were the first ones to take a shot on us this is a great event we're gonna build it and you're gonna be our Super Bowl so we have those six to eight other cities it's always going to end with the best of the best in Peoria what a great place to be for us coming out of covet to build that relationship that was fresh and new and I want to point out this came from my company some folks asked what is ASM Global it was two GM's at ASM Global who said you need to talk to that guy in Peoria and Sam flew out here and we met and we've now become I would think uh maybe even business friends I've always done one more generally we're like best buddies but we've done this really cool event and um he's going to be back this year smashing cars and I hope you can check it out um talking about smashing cars monster trucks Nick Shane so these guys originally started the monster trucks that you see with the other guys had a five-year non-complete and came back they cut a deal with Mattel to bring out Hot Wheels so the kids start recognizing the cars because you can buy them on the shelves at your Target and your you know Walmarts and we jumped in on this thing and he kept he called me and all of a sudden on day two and I think some of the folks in this room were there all of a sudden the guys who owned the product came in like why are these guys coming to Peoria and they go you guys are a primary Market you guys have slayed it we've got great treatment you are a prime Market your ticket sales are phenomenal we're going to come back for years to come so Nick and the group there are coming back this year it's going to be a glow party so there's going to be trucks with laser beams I mean who doesn't love trucks with laser beams in the dark so a great kid event fantastic um wonderful partners and these are the type of groups that we want to do business with moving forward and lastly and most importantly of all the slides and everything I've shown you I want you if there's one thing I want you to know for those who don't know Tim comfort in the comfort family of own gym Steakhouse for years we met for the first time July 24 of 2021 we'd been in town and he told me what you do for my business when you guys were went away we were afraid we were going to lose our business but you've brought us back he has gone out of his way to show what a true ambassador of Peoria is and what he did and I can now say this because Greta Van fleet was the hottest rock band going on on tour this summer the opening for the Rolling Stones opening for Metallica their headlines were sold out in 15 minutes we had a date they come into town a day early I called Mr Comfort and I said look these guys haven't had a decent meal and they can't go out because they have fans in every one of their lobbies they can't even leave We snuck them out through the kitchen out the back door of the hotel they were he opened his restaurant on a Sunday night when they were closed not only he opened it he went all in he brought the piano bar he brought the staff in they greeted them the band stayed for four hours we thought it was going to be a really uncomfortable dinner and it was fantastic it was one of those experiences it's a life experience those guys remember Peoria and when they have that experience they talk to other bands and go you know what those guys in Peoria they're nuts man it's a great time to go we hooked them up and I just want to say those are the type folks that are the champions of Peoria and they make my job infinitely easier so if you see Mr Comfort or Kristen or Nick or that family please thank them on behalf of the city because they're phenomenal so that is my presentation of 22 and the challenges we have for 23.

it's great Peoria Hospitality congratulations on the big post covet comeback Mr Edgar beautiful questions uh starting with councilman recrigo thank you um and one shout out I think both our chair of the Peoria Civic Center Authority and Mr Edgar going to be talking each individually at a National Conference so they're both going to be putting some highlight and Yvonne Greer is doing fantastic and I think it's going to be a national Spotlight to have both of them being able to speak at this conference but a couple of questions and thank you for the presentation and I know our council members will wonder and so will our people who see our budget in front so let's just kind of tackle the big piece right here and I think we all understand the depreciation is the paper loss it's not a real loss and so if we go to the net income last year there was an income of Sixteen thousand dollars so even with everything going on there we were on you were on the the side of zero that we like to see that positive side but we're seeing a negative 1.7 million dollar loss this year and I know you talked about some of the things that are affecting that you've got you've got record sales coming in here can you talk about that number a little bit yeah it's the international entertainment buyers Association in Nashville in a couple weeks there's 50 panelists from all over the United States speaking at this and two of them are from Peoria we were listed in the Hometown Heroes where this we're the representatives of how secondary markets are doing things right and we're there to speak to others to give them advice on how they can help their markets so just for Clarity on that on the budget itself on the list of challenges we had we can overcome a lot the two most challenging things that we have no control over that we really don't feel as this time going into a potential recessionary income economy where I can't control utilities I can't control utilities the utility cost is going to go from about 750 a year to 1.7 to 2 million dollars in one year we can go into the details of why but we have pretty heavy strains on the utilities the other thing is as next year the building is going to be used more so all that's great the utility costs are going to go up even more we're going to use more kilowatt hours than we have in the past um the subsidy it's nobody's fault but if the HRA dollars are down our typical subsidies about 1.6 million which helps us operate and that really supports the convention center side of the business and if that number is going to go down to 800 to 700 to 900 in that range that's something we can't control this year it was 900 so just put or I think it was 700 excuse me in this year's budget but we also had a skeleton staff in fewer events we have to be fully staffed to handle those events once we hit about October 15th there's no open Saturdays and we have multiple events and just to give you an idea of the strain on the building the first weekend in November we have a thousand person banquet Keith Urban Bill Burr and four performances have come from away in a 72-hour period so it's not like we're not working also on December 3rd I'd like to point out that we have a wonderful problem we announced Harry Connick Jr a few days later we announced Pentatonix and the greatest compliment we got were complaints how dare you have two great shows on the same night by the way both shows have sold over 70 percent in under 10 days and are both trailing towards a sellout what that says we bring the right things to town we get people from out of town to come in and spend their dollars and come to those shows so so my second question then is on Capital dollars and he touched on this a little bit we we know that we have been awarded a dceo grant that's 25 million but because of timing um we had to go ahead and start several of those projects one of those affected us right where we are right here because our heating and air is tied to the Civic Center and I think we all went for a couple of days without some air conditioning on on some hot days I may have gotten a phone call yes and and um we know how intricate that project is and that could not wait anymore I think we were down to the very bare minimum so my question on that is and then the roofing has to happen at a certain time Capital dollars that we're waiting for can you touch on the fact that you are expending them out before that and and I know the process in Springfield is working I think you guys have gotten some questions um and and so the that you needed to answer you know kind of as the process moves to the next step so we know it's coming but in the meantime you had to supply the cash to be able to keep those projects going correct so because we came out of covid so much stronger than expected we had cash flow we had plenty of money but these projects could not wait and we do not know when the money's coming from dco it's not a complaint it's just a fact so every time we think we're getting closer we get another set of paperwork it's just it takes a while so we've already expended well over seven figures to getting those projects moving forward now once those dollars come in we can repay ourselves for the grant but we're now expending our cash that we had in reserve because we had beat budget by so much so going into this next year we hope some things Trend differently but we wanted to be honest with this committee and with the taxpayers that the utilities are absolutely killing our budget next and other than turning off the lights or not doing events there's really not much we can do about it council member seer thank you madam mayor congratulations on celebrating your 40th anniversary in the Civic Center now do you have any tenants that's been with you that far or that long uh Symphony Orchestra Bradley in the hockey team well obviously kind of a Shameless plug on my part uh with the Vermin being a tenant for 40 years at the Civic Center and winning four cups right here in Peoria to IHL which I was part of unfortunately I am that old one Cali cup and one President's Cup so just a Shameless plug tonight but I love my rivermen and I also love the Civic Center I mean the Civic Center exists today and exists when I came to Peoria and that's one of the main reasons I still live in Peoria so I love my Civic Center I think it's a great Jewel for the city of Peoria on a personal note I spend a fair amount of time at the Civic Center I don't like the cashless you see ever see your policy change where we'll be accepting cash in the near future while I'm still alive I believe that is an industry that has been embraced by the majority of fans as well as staff it also reduces our liabilities because with cash there is uh problems um in the industry it's referred to as slippage and we have now reduced any of that to nil and most folks are have been transitioned during covid to use credit cards iPads or you know excuse me iPay we've really not had much of an issue but if a fan comes to our events who is not does not have a card we actually have some for sale at our box office um for them to be able to purchase so we're not turning away business it's just we're going to be doing the smarter and also the speed of service is increasing and soon we'll be unveiling a doordash product in our venue where you can order from your seats to cut down on wait time in the concession stance I just got a couple uh harder questions and maybe I don't know if you're prepared to answer or not maybe uh our city manager can help out on this uh I just want to make sure we all understand all my colleagues and especially people around Peoria can you tell us about HRA tax how that works and I only see nine hundred thousand dollars obviously I know a different but can you explain to everybody's listening about HRA tax why it does exist and word does the first 60 really that money goes and it's the difference between that and what we're giving them for operation so the the HRA taxes our hotel restaurant and amusement taxes uh the H in that is our hotel tax that we have that is I think currently at eight percent um then we have the restaurant tax which is at two percent and the amusement tax which is at two percent um so that means that everyone Citywide if you're staying in a hotel anywhere in the city you're paying that hotel tax if you are going to a an event at the Civic Center or some other activity in town a movie theater you you will be paying the a tax the amusement tax if you are eating at a restaurant in town you're paying the restaurant tax and that's the largest of the three tax streams the majority of that money goes to cover the cost of The Debt Service that was created when we expanded the Civic Center back in 2005 I think right in that area there is when that was so so that debt will be rolling off the books we've done some refinancing of that debt over the years but that'll be rolling off the books in 2028.

but that's where the the probably of the of the nine million dollars roughly that we collect every year that's where a good seven million dollars goes is to pay that Debt Service First great thank you that's where I want to make sure people understand understood that the HRA tax revenue last year was seven million dollars that paid for the debt not for the operation but we also gave them nine hundred thousand dollars for the operation now uh before we say gave us 900 I want to be really clear on that it goes Debt Service CVB Arts Partners there's some City expenses and then what's left over comes to the Civic Center so we're at the bottom of the list so that's why when if it's running shy of what it normally does we're the ones that take the hit in our budget the other ones are fully funded so the difficult question for me tonight is last time you were here Mr Edgar now we agreed to make a loan today four million dollars has this loan been repaid and moving forward and we see uh like my colleague says here depreciation is a paper loss but we're looking at six million dollar loss for this coming year 2023.

Well you need you're anticipate need any more money from the city um so paying back the loan to answer your question that was part of the bond debt so it got basically just like if you refinanced your house we got Finance to the end I want to make sure people and that are listening to this it wasn't a bailout we didn't get 4 million and just walk away with we're paying it back through what we do so that's the first thing as far as needing money this year we have fronted a little over a million we would have to front about 2.5 million in the next 90 to 100 days 120 days if we do not get any DC ill money it would just be able to float us to pay for those if we get the dco money we won't need any money this year thank you very much for your time and congratulations on the celebrating the 40th anniversary thank you councilman Rodrigo I'll make I will make a motion to approve 22-333 second Ed by council member Kelly any additional discussion please cast your ballots motion passes unanimously um there we go too fast okay okay thank you Mr Edgar congratulations Madam clerk we are an unfinished business 22-310 is a communication from the city manager and interim Corporation Council with a request to approve the Smart City brokerage agreement between the city of Peoria and Peoria Innovation Hub doing business as distilled Distillery labs Mr manager uh thank you madam mayor we do have um The Distillery Labs agreement back with you with some changes and modifications to the agreement that we hope will meet Council satisfaction with this we took out the sentence under the purpose regarding the blanket permit we have changed the word sponsor and are using the word user instead and lastly we added a paragraph 30 which is a non-exclusivity agreement that just clarifies that the city can pursue working with entrepreneurials entrepreneurs directly instead of with with Distillery Labs being the exclusive agent so we just clarified all of that in the agreement we hope that's to everyone's satisfaction and answer any questions okay council member Rodrigo thank you madam mayor um and city manager thank you for making these changes uh I think that we had a robust conversation with the last city council meeting and I think it helped us really sort of understand what was in front of us the fact that the city has definitely oversight in it and what this does this agreement is allows our Innovation teams our our companies are looking to be able to innovate here a little bit more leniency with the knowledge of the city working together with the city to be able to do the things that that can actually drive them forward in talking with several different companies that are involved in Innovation that might at some point down the line have a use for something similar to this it was really important to understand that time was of the essence and the partnership because when they do something they want to be able to talk with the city back and forth and be able to work that out I think we we heard that through Public Works um and I think with the changes that you've made on vocabulary here I think this makes this a lot more understandable not only for the council and for the citizens but I think for all of those that are going to be looking towards this whether this is something they they want to utilize or not and by taking out the non-exclusivity and I think being able to open that up I think that kind of levels the playing field field there too so I would appreciate I appreciate your work on this and with that I would move to approve second by council member rigenbach discussion please cast your ballots motion passes unanimously Madam Clark 22-293 is a communication from the city manager and interim Corporation Council with a request to adopt an ordinance amending Article 19 operation of a cannabis business of chapter 18 of the code of the city of Peoria related to licenses and miscellaneous business regulations okay which one of you is gonna take this um Council thank you madam mayor our last presentation we have updated the council communication with some additional information for your review we pointed out that in the Cannabis tax and regulation act it is specific as to exactly what the City's power and authority is on certain things so we pointed out um zoning and as well as all of the areas we're Zoning for a cannabis facility is permitted by right as well as by a special use permit as you certainly heard here tonight we also pointed out that since we have had the special use process the city council has actually approved for special use permits for cannabis facilities two of those are actively operating within the city two have never applied for an actual business license with the city the other area that would be allowed under the ACT are time place and manner restrictions and those are ones that you adopted as to restricting locations within sensitive areas in our ordinance we generally describe them as schools but it can be described more broadly as areas where you would expect children to be on-premise use can be allowed or it can not be addressed our ordinance did not address the issue there is a section in four of the ordinance of the state statute excuse me that talks about the fact that a municipality regardless of our home rule status cannot regulate activities described in one through three which is zoning the time place and Mana restrictions and on-premise use in a more restrictive manner than the state act and then in section five it goes on to talk about the prohibition on location and it says that regardless of a home rule status the city council has the authority to enact an ordinance to prohibit or significantly limit a cannabis business establishments location so in response to councilwoman Jensen's question even though the state act allows a social Equity applicant to cite less than 1500 feet from an existing cannabis business the statute does give you authority to place some additional restrictions on that square footage or prohibit it altogether for example um with that I'm happy to answer any questions in regards to this particular ordinance and I would just um urge the council to keep in mind that we're going to have a policy session on canvas on October the 11th um I do want to kind of poll everyone to see if you want to start that meeting at five o'clock instead of six o'clock so we'll be reaching out to you to ask that question it may jump start and give us a little bit more time that evening but should we wait defer this item until we have that policy discussion it's your call council member Jensen yes I think that's a good idea to just move to defer this discussion and for our policy session on October 11th okay seconded by council member Sierra but I think we need a date right to for four weeks four weeks deferred for four weeks you okay with that council member sir okay defer first four weeks any other discussion let's cast your balance motion passes unanimously okay so is there any other unfinished business manager uh thank you madam mayor um first I I had a conversation earlier this morning with councilman gribb in which I apologize to him that we didn't have the policy session on the agenda or the the presentation on the safety act on the agenda this evening and I want to apologize to all of you as well for that and uh and to the listing audience just to make it clear we will come back on October 11th with a presentation on the safety act we will have it be both from the police chief and from our legal counsel we've also extended some invitations out for some subject matter experts to come in as well to hopefully come and speak to the council if they can't that night maybe we can have them back at a future council meeting but we want to continue to have that dialogue and to keep the public informed okay good I think some things have happened in the meantime like some trailer bills and this is like evolving so fast so it may be better that we've waited in the first place uh Council thank you madam mayor since I sent an email to council yesterday just within a few hours of that there was actually a 72-page trailer bill that was filed it's still so new you can't find it on the attorney general or on the Illinois General assembly's website yet but we were provided with a copy of it and we anticipate additional trailer bills will follow suit in the next month Adam Clerk we are at new business okay I want to start with a new business item then we've got a couple lights on there's been a lot of discussion regarding immigrants Asylum Seekers coming to Peoria buses coming to Peoria so I wanted to provide some some clarifications around this issue because it was probably 10 days a couple weeks ago that rumors started flying that buses of immigrants or Asylum Seekers may be coming to Peoria to our city and there's been no validity to that I think that most of those rumors started because buses started showing up in Chicago as of Friday last Friday there were 20 buses that arrived over a period of days at Union Station in Chicago and that city has been forced to accommodate these individuals many of which come off the bus dehydrated malnutritioned some have coveted and other ailments and so they've they've been really strapped to try to accommodate because of that the governor's office IML officials have reached out to cities across Illinois to ask whether cities were willing to accept buses or accept immigrants or Asylum Seekers Peoria did not respond to say yes we are inviting buses to Peoria we have not responded in that manner but we did agree that we should begin to put together some type of structure in the event that a bus does show up in Peoria so a meeting was held with the county with the Continuum of Care Organization those organizations that kind of provide shelter and support homeless populations I was pleased that councilman rigenbach joined that discussion of City staff County staff and really a lot of the same people who worked on the covet structure the command it was like a command incident structure where you have a commanding officer with covert it was Monica Hendrickson with the health department but we are wanting to put together a structure in the event this does happen to Peoria that we're not caught off guard that we have something in place and so there have been uh there was a meeting with our police chief who wanted to reach out offered to reach out to the Hispanic and latinx Community because we know there's a lot of non-english speakers that are part of these individuals on these buses you have to have culturally relevant responses and so there was a meeting held I think last Thursday at the police station Friday last Friday and about 50 individuals showed up Spanish speakers that wanted to step up in the event this happens to Peoria that that they were willing to step up and that's what we've really gotten a lot of people that volunteered that said in the event immigrants show up in Peoria we're willing to assist in some ways we've had businesses to step up with some accommodations the secretary of the Illinois Department of House of Human Services idhs reached out through the governor's office to indicate that they have resources in the event that this would happen but again there may be some State coordinated efforts to move people from Chicago to other cities some cities has volunteered I've spoken to the mayor of Normal Illinois they're probably going to have a meeting this week or next and putting together a structure in the event that they invite or that they experience new visitors coming to their city so I just wanted to to put that out for the council as well as for the public and that's that's really what I wanted to communicate councilmember Jensen new business um yeah my my new business item wondering now that we haven't had I think push carts for the last two or three years um if we could maybe revisit the restrictions we put on food trucks um as far as their location I know we I think only permit them in two areas near downtown because we wanted to protect the food carts and not take away from their business um I know a business owner who has a food truck in town who used to have a restaurant downtown is looking to use his food truck at some locations near downtown that might be prohibited so if we could get a report back and maybe get that on the agenda to consider loosening those restrictions in some manner that would be good yeah the only locations that we currently allow food trucks are are on half of the courthouse Square block the the along Hamilton and along Adams Street and then there's a stretch of Jefferson Street here in front of the Civic Center where we allow food carts so those are the only locations that we currently allow food carts to operate in downtown outside of downtown they can operate in other locations they can on private property food trucks can go anywhere in the city if they want to operate on that some have gone to rli for example I think they have food truck Wednesdays at their at their corporate campus but you know that's the the situation that we have uh currently the policy the council has so so I guess I would like to revisit that policy I think you know if we have food trucks again that might bring more people downtown or those that are downtown might stay downtown to eat rather than go across the river or somewhere else so I think it's worth exploring and looking into since the circumstances are different than they were when we adopted those limitations thank you thank you madam mayor this is kapuska what is the legal definition of asylum can't say that one was on the bar exam so I'm not sure I know that one off the top of my head um but I suspect it's something along the lines of legal Asylum if that's what you're talking about would be that a government or agency that would have jurisdiction would grant that person the authority to be present in a particular location without fear of Retribution or consequence of any law so for example when somebody comes to the country seeking for example political Asylum and we all sort of see these on crime shows on TV right if they're granted Asylum they're allowed to be there in the country even if perhaps their method of entry into the country wasn't necessarily legal to start with thank you madam mayor I just want to make sure that obviously every time we do hey we have discussion there's always people that we pour and cons obviously and I'm getting calls and texts and people say that is you know you're our councilman now just make sure we don't have the room we don't have the room for these people here and so I just want to make sure there are people in PR that are not no they're not all for accepting these people coming here to Peoria so as we have discussion and you talked about we I don't know who the we is but I just want to make sure that we all know there are some people are just they're just not sure what we're going to do those people and just again I don't want to be facetious but just to come back to what my colleague Mr grab said earlier about the five acceptance the five rules for now as we talk to our future decision these five rules are going to have I mean I'm not sure how taking these people in here help really minority or to not the poor or whatever no the people are here in Peoria so just want to make sure it's out there that somebody has to also make sure that we see both sides and we represent our community well uh Chicago I mean buses you said they had they received in Chicago over a thousand over that was as of Friday today I don't know the number it could be so if Chicago is the third largest city in the United States I mean they should have known what it takes to take care of his people so I'm not sure we do but I'm glad that we're having a good discussion thank you you're welcome so you know there from my understanding there's a combination of immigrants who choose to leave their country as well as Asylum Seekers who don't choose but they're forced because of the nature of what's happening in their country so from what I understand there's a combination of those types of individuals that are on the buses and Chicago did not send an invitation to Texas or wherever the buses are coming they were sent you know the buses were just sent to those places so they they did not tell them to turn around because these were people in need councilman Graham I think Chicago is a sanctuary City I don't know Peoria is not a sanctuary City and a parallel that I can certainly see would go back to Hurricane Katrina but it it doesn't really even correlate councilman's here so when we had that horrible hurricane uh Katrina that affected an American city and displaced all these thousands upon thousands of people through no fault of their own uh we were asked then we had manager McKnight uh Jim Artis was on the council at that time John Morris was and I we met with stakeholders on a weekend that might help to facilitate if FEMA were to direct some of these children dispossessed by this horrible storm that basically wiped out much of a major American city that's kind of different than what we're talking about here but we were prepared to to do what we could to help those people when we had a domestic situation this is a little bit different and yes it's somewhat interesting to hear about it you know on the news um and then to be asked by our constituents about it and people have strong feelings on on both sides of this issue but that's that's the parallel that I would throw out there but it's really not quite correct to correlate the two because one was a natural disaster now we're all watching what's going to happen I believe in Tampa that could be horrific what they're talking about I think we might be called upon again through FEMA to help relocate people depending upon the magnitude of that storm but um in any case those are some of my thoughts and I appreciate the clarity or lack of clarity that's been placed on this issue thank you you're welcome Madam clerk we're at citizens opportunity to address the city council I only see one card and it is Miss Yolanda Wallace long but it's uh interesting for me to be here years later actually it's 16 years ago my very first time being at the city council and at that time mayor artist was the mayor and I was standing before city council at the same bench uh Bleeding Out tears because my son John Buckley had been killed that was September 20th 2000 2006.

and he was a boy who was supposed to be going to the Navy he was killed because he was talking to the police they got rid of snitches and um so at the time there's councilman Sears I think there's only one or two of you who were here at that time um but councilman Sears had was about to get reelected and he wanted to bring a program here called ceasefire every time ceasefire comes up the name of it it rings a bell in my ear in my heart that I can't sleep I've been hearing it a lot lately it's called well uh the first time I heard it mayor ardersy tried to give a uh a CBG Grant a look-alike of it and he gave it to Carver Center and the Community Action Agency and it was called Cherry Wanga then later on down the line they end up having another program in a look-alike program of the ceasefire but they turned it down the closest we got to it at that middle point was don't shoot I was the very first mother in The Calling of the don't shoot program I have committed myself to working relentlessly with I don't know now we've got three or four different police chief now I'm working with uh Chief Eric there and um but in in and I must say it has been a journey for me and I have taken on this Mission because it was a way for me to put my life back together again this was the I pulled it out because I'm hearing ceasefire again so if you say s net or if you say safety those are trigger words for me um so September 20th he got killed before all before October I was fighting for ceasefire according to the Journal Star archives so I've been doing this kind of thing for a long time started a memorial garden called the John Buckley Memorial Garden that's held behind the Peoria riverplex and also the who killed me poster Campaign which is something that I've started in our community right now we have a billboard up and I'm sure most people don't know about it because most of my efforts are volunteered and so when I get mothers who come and they ask me how did you win your case my case has been solved um uh yeah it was solved in 2007 was when we first went to court however anyway the thing about it is that I want to know how can I be a part of what the city is doing currently I work in home care and I have been still relentlessly after work extending myself to help mothers to help families in our community and um I just want to know so in the time that John Buckley got killed my son and I've got two other kids and just the whole ordeal of putting the family together again which is still not together so this thing takes a long time and now we're having more murders in the city um this was a picture that was put together by one of his classmates from Peoria High School he graduated from The Business Academy um and um he was my middle child and I had a boy and a girl and and they still are living in presently but our family is never been repaired so that now that there are a lot of and we went like two weeks for having the unsolved murder and I went around putting up posters all over the city that's when the who killed me poster campaign was developed I noticed in a lot of programs that they have and they're great programs they seem to have but there's not very many things for survivors like me to do so I volunteer over and over and over again and I don't think I can stop because I think it makes me feel like I'm doing something to help our community but I've met with um Chief Eric and I've met with the other Chiefs before him I started off with Chief settings guard and I've been going on and on and on to now it's a legacy now it's been 10 years that the John Buckley Memorial Garden has been in existence behind the riverplex without any support from my City without any support from the park district other than our partnership I have raised every dime every cent with all the families that we've helped throughout the years before the John Buckley Memorial Garden I'm also the founder of the community day of remembrance that national day of remembrance was just September the 24th it is a nationally recognized day in Washington DC and I brought it to Peoria for four years I did that for my community for our community because I want so much to be a part of it but during the midst of the time that my son was killed I was going to school I'm actually I'm from the Champaign-Urbana area and came here into Peoria and foster care system Ms Wallace wrap up about 30 seconds okay okay that's fine all right and so I just want to come and find out what other way can I really do what can I do to be a part of what am I not doing right to be a part of the team thank you thank you Madam Clerk we do not have an executive session so we are at adjournment I get a motion to adjourn move by councilman Allen seconded by council member Seer please cash your ballots thank you for your service

Watch on YouTube →