The candidates competing to fill a Peoria City Council seat vacant for the first time in more than a decade are making some tweaks to their platforms.
If unofficial results from Tuesday’s primary election hold, Alex Carmona and Estrella Diaz will advance to the general election for District 2. One of the two new faces in Peoria’s political races will fill the seat long held by council member and three-time mayoral candidate Chuck Grayeb.
District 2 covers several significant Peoria locations, including the Center and West Bluff neighborhoods and downtown. A strip of central Peoria in the district also includes Bradley University and Illinois Community College.
It’s an eventful district with established leadership, and both Carmona and Diaz say they feel prepared to assume the role.
In December 2024, both candidates spoke with WCBU about some highly visible Peoria issues like the homeless encampment ordinance, downtown revitalization and economic growth. Both Carmona and Diaz have issues they plan to increase their campaign’s focus on heading into the April 1 general election.
Carmona said neighborhood infrastructure is one of those issues.
“There’s a big push right now, obviously, to try to revitalize the downtown area, which is my district,” he said. “But after talking to a lot of constituents and walking around a lot, it’s been very clear to me that they’ve been overlooked and that the regular people of this town who are just working people, who have families here, their neighborhoods are not being taken care of infrastructure wise.”
Carmona suggests roads and sidewalks are in dire need of repair throughout the district. He points to projects like the Adams and Jefferson Street two-way conversions as a potential misallocation of infrastructure support in the district.
“A lot of places around town, I think money could be allocated in a smarter way, because the downtown area is going to grow and I don’t know if putting that amount of money towards changing the streets for an area that the roads aren’t in bad condition, I just don’t know if that’s the smartest way to use taxpayer dollars,” he said.
The city project to revert downtown traffic patterns has an estimated total cost of more than $12 million.
Diaz said she’s been evaluating what populations her primary campaign may have “alienated.” As of Tuesday night’s unofficial results, the gap between Diaz and Carmona is just five votes, a sign every single vote carries weight in the general election.
“I’m not going to change my whole platform because I will keep things that I stood for in the beginning of the campaign, such as low income families, crime and whatnot. Those will be at the forefront,” she said.
One of the groups Diaz plans to spend more time on outreach with is local businesses.
“It may seem like I don’t care about what their issues are, or I don’t care about what their concerns are, but that’s the furthest thing from the truth,” she said. “But I know that that’s how I may have come across and I don’t want them to think that I don’t care about what they do.”
Diaz said her sister-in-law was a small business owner and she wants businesses to feel welcome.
Carmona has made business growth a prominent part of his platform, emphasizing his support in both interviews with WCBU for a “hands-off” government approach to business that minimizes red tape.
Diaz proposes a different approach to small business support.
“Definitely having more resources for them and talking with people who have more knowledge about it, like the Distillery Lab, just because they are a startup business for startup businesses,” she said.
Diaz says the foundation of her strategy will be to connect with small businesses and get a clearer picture of their needs and the resources she could help them access.
Both candidates are learning into their familiarity with the district and understanding of the citizens that live there. Carmona, an artist who moved to Peoria five years ago, said getting out into the district’s neighborhoods remains an important part of the rest of his campaign.
“I do understand a lot of the issues that are going on and I’m understanding a lot more of the nitty gritty ones when you actually talk to citizens,” he said. “So I know that there’s going to be a learning curve going in there, as far as processes go, and just the whole, how the council functions. But, I’m a hard worker. I’m a fast learner.”
Diaz has lived in Peoria most of her life, is a frequent speaker at city council meetings and has been active in local political organizing. She emphasizes her desire to “work for the people” and her openness to concerns and comments from voters.
“I think people want to change. They want to see something new and something fresh, rather than having the same thing over and over,” she said. “Usually, most of the time when people vote, they vote with somebody they know the name of. So I definitely feel it was time for a change.”
The primary election results will be finalized March 12. The third District 2 candidate Krista Wresinski is trailing Diaz and Carmona by 6%.
The general election is April 1.
