The first of two forums for the six Pekin City Council candidates attracted about 75 audience members who packed the Pekin Public Library's Community Room on Wednesday night despite a prediction of freezing rain.
The candidates answered eight wide-ranging questions submitted by the audience, and they gave opening and closing statements.
Three council seats will be filled in the April 1 election.
Caterpillar retiree Dave Nutter, who has been on the council for six years following his appointment, is running for re-election.
Pekin Community High School teacher and coach Chris Onken, who was appointed to the council a year ago, is running for election.
Council member Lloyd Orrick is not running for re-election.
The other candidates are Jim (Jake) Fletcher, Matthew Johnson, Chris Hogue and Peg Phillips.
Fletcher is the owner of Pekin Downtown Auto Sales and Striketown Bowl & Bar in Pekin; Johnson is an engineering project leader for Caterpillar; Hogue is a Pekin firefighter; Phillips is a CPA and the owner Phillips Tax Service in Pekin.
The candidates answered questions about the residency requirement for some Pekin city employees; the 5% utility tax enacted by the council last year; the state and city pension crisis; Pekin's ownership of the school bus department; how to create head-of-household jobs in Pekin; public voting on large city spending; conflict at the council table; and repairing Pekin's roads.
The question that drew the most passionate responses was the utility tax, which was passed in April by the council.
"I've attended a lot of council meetings. That was the most disrespectful meeting I've attended," Johnson said. "Passing the tax was anti-public. Home rule was abused that night. Why weren't there spending cuts instead?"
Fletcher said the utility tax is the main reason why he's running for council.
"I talked to 48 people at my bowling alley after the tax was passed. Two knew about it," he said. "There's a problem with transparency in city government. You can't expect everyone to go the city's website for information. Some people don't even have a computer."
Here's the background on the utility tax, which covers natural gas, water and electricity
The tax and a proposal to raise the city's monthly garbage collection fee from $20 to $25 were approved 4-3 at the same council meeting.
Also that night, a proposal to raise the city's monthly wastewater and storm water collection and treatment fees from $7.66 to $10.70 per 1,000 gallons used passed 5-2, and the city's monthly wastewater and storm water capital improvement fee was raised from $4.41 to $4.90.
A $250,000 annual utility tax limit was put into place for high energy users.
Fletcher said at the forum Wednesday that he calculated Alto of Pekin would be paying $3 million annually without the cap.
City staff estimates that the utility tax will raise $4 million in the 2024-25 fiscal year, which addresses an expected $5 million shortfall in the general fund.
The garbage collection and wastewater and storm water fees hadn't been raised since 2018.
Proposed increases in those fees were delayed by the council because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That resulted in the solid waste fund owing $1 million to the general fund and the sewer fund owing $11 million to the general fund.
Onken voted for all the measures. He said the night of the meeting that he was against them until he ran some numbers past his wife, "a numbers person," who changed his mind. Nutter voted against each measure.
Mayor Mary Burress said that night, "Years of deep and very wide spread malpractice and neglect by prior administrations who were whistling past the graveyard put us in this precarious position."
Here are some other notable quotes from the forum
- Fletcher: "I want to bring a business mentality to the council. There's a difference between needs and wants when you run a business."
- Johnson: "Change needs to come from outside the council. I work with diverse teams on my job and a council is a team."
- Hogue: "Local government shouldn't be about politics. It should be about listening to residents."
- Nutter: "I do my homework. I challenge everything that doesn't look right."
- Fletcher: "The only business the city should be in is helping residents and businesses. Not the bus business."
- Johnson: "The city spent $40,000 on tires for buses last year. The bus department is a cut that should be made."
- Phillips: "If you lose the bus department, you lose control of it. And who knows if the lowest bidder will give you the best services?"
- Nutter: "Our bus department has 149 part-time employees. And I still challenge someone to show me how we're making money with this department."
- Phillips: "You can't put every big expenditure on the ballot. People elect council members to make tough decisions. If you don't like what you're seeing, you can change the team every two years."
- Johnson: "There should have been a public hearing before the utility fee was enacted."
- Onken: "It's important to discuss issues respectfully during a council meeting and don't have hard feelings afterwards."
- Nutter: "Conflict on issues during a council meeting can be good if it's controlled."
- Hogue: "A council meeting is a televised event. Council members are passionate about their city. Otherwise they wouldn't be running for office. That passion shouldn't be turned into something at a meeting that's giving the city a bad image."
- Fletcher: "Each city street should be reviewed every few years to see its condition. Speaking of roads, we should finish one project before we go on to the next one."
- Hogue: "Our main streets need to be taken care of because they present an image to people who are driving here."
The forum was hosted by Pekin Main Street and moderated by Josh Haflinger. To watch the forum from start to finish, go to the Pekin Main Street page on Facebook.
Another candidate forum will be held from 6-7:40 p.m. March 13 in the library's Community Room. This one will be hosted by the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with WCBU Peoria Public Radio and the League of Women Voters.
Chris Kaergard, communications director and historian at the Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, will be the moderator.
While the election is April 1, early voting starts Feb. 20.
