The Peoria City Council candidates for the large 5th District, encompassing most of North Peoria, have similar priorities, but diverging plans on how to accomplish them.
Denis Cyr is the incumbent, running for his third term. Cyr said his run for reelection centers around a desire for continuity.
“Really, my biggest accomplishment is the relationship I have built with people, and I just wanted to finish some of the things I’ve started over the last eight years,” he said.
When asked what some of those projects in progress are, Cyr mentions Tax Increment Financing [TIF] Districts on Allen and Galena roads, specifically future development areas for a Maui Jim by Kering Eyewear facility and the area where Natural Fiber Welding’s facility lies.
Cyr said his overall platform is simple: safety, business growth and infrastructure. He also frequently references endorsements from neighborhood associations, the BizPAC of Central Illinois, and the Dunlap School District.
A financial adviser and former professional hockey player, Cyr also touts his leadership role in securing tens of millions of dollars for Civic Center renovations and a new ice plant.
“I think I’ve done a very good job communicating with everybody in the 5th District and the City of Peoria, and I’m just proud of my record,” he said.
Challenger Hind Abi-Akar, a retired Caterpillar scientist who spent decades at the Peoria business, has criticisms of Cyr’s record, and said she brings an analytical perspectives she thinks is currently lacking.
She mentions Cyr’s votes on the public camping ban and the shutdowns of fire stations 8 and 20 as examples.
“That created a huge gap for people. They were nervous about the time for service,” Abi-Akar said. “And when I looked into that, the risk that was created for the residents was certainly not worth the savings. And this is the type of analysis that I will do, listen to the people and understand the risk.”
Abi-Akar also lists public safety and growth and development as priorities for her platform.
Business development
As far as continuing the growth of the business-heavy district, Abi-Akar said she wants to “streamline” the city’s processes, especially when it comes to small businesses.
“I’ve heard, especially from small businesses, that they have quite a bit of barriers to get to opening the business,” she said, adding incentives for small business also important. She mentions TIF districts and historic tax credits as useful tools for encouraging development.
Cyr has similar proposals for business development in the 5th District, tax incentives and streamlining business procedures, as well as pointing out what he’s already achieved while in office.
“We just got to make fair and good rules, good rules, fair rules and just get out of the way and let people do what they do best,” he said. “And try to help them be successful with, like we say, we have a lot of grants available to help new business and small businesses and we need to keep doing that.”
Cyr said he works closely with Community Development Director Joe Dulin to find and eliminate city codes he said are obsolete or stand in the way of new businesses. As an example, he mentions a recently purged rule that applied a fee to new bowling alleys based on the number of lanes.
“That was just, to me, it was a stupid rule. So that’s gone, that page is gone, and we have others like that,” Cyr said. “We worked really hard with landlords the last eight years, just in trying to make Peoria friendlier for landlords and have quality rental properties.”
Where the candidates diverge most distinctly on business development issues is the city’s purchase of the PNC Bank property in downtown Peoria.
Abi-Akar said the property presented a particular challenge because the alternative could be much worse for the entire downtown area.
“Let’s not get into private property and private ownership of the city. There are better developers who can manage the properties. But sometimes we have to step in, and that’s OK,” she said. “I am not into being in one box.”
Cyr voted against the motion to purchase the building, saying if there is a situationwhen it makes sense for the city to own a property, he hasn’t seen one yet.
“I hope that my colleagues who voted 'yes,' I wish them success,” Cyr said. “I hope that whatever plan they have, whatever they want to do, and whatever the city manager will be ordered to do with that building, I hope it’s a success for Peoria. But I just don’t like that route.”
Property taxes
Rising property taxes are a common issue raised by Peoria residents. Cyr said he introduced a motion to freeze the city’s tax levy last year. The motion narrowly failed to pass the city council.
He said he gets a lot of calls about high taxes, but wants to remind constituents that the city is just one of many taxing bodies on their annual bill.
Only 12 or 13 cents per dollar go to the city, said Cyr, while 50 to 58 cents per dollar go to the school district, or the county, or the park district and other taxing bodies.
“So people have to understand, too, and we’re trying to obviously make that 12 cents go as far as we can,” said Cyr.
Abi-Akar said the best solution to lowering the tax burden on Peoria residents is bringing more income to the city through the previously mentioned economic development strategies.
“Especially businesses that are trending for the future, such as green energy businesses, data-related businesses, these are thriving and the federal government has incentives for these businesses that we can benefit from,” she said.
Abi-Akar also mentions the city’s relatively small portion of the tax revenue pie.
If another tax levy freeze were proposed, Abi-Akar would consider it after a careful look at the data.
“As I said, we need to understand the benefit versus the risk, and you don’t what to drive people away from Peoria,” she said.
Public safety
Abi-Akar said addressing “root causes” is the key to bringing down crime statistics in Peoria, while also raising public perception of safety. Truancy, housing inequity, addiction prevention and mental illness are all issues she thinks the city needs to start addressing now through programming and legislation to foster long-term solutions.
“Another thing that I really believe in, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every single time. There are communities close to us who dealt with these issues very successfully,” she said. “I would sit down with these communities and see what are the programs that worked and try to implement them for our city.”
Cyr points to his role on the council in supporting additional funding for the Peoria Police Department for the latest technology. Beyond that, he said, improving safety also means continuing to pursue the city’s legislative agenda requesting changes to the SAFE-T Act, such as mandatory detention for a wider range of offenses.
“That’s more the state. So, we need to work with all of our elected officials and make sure that we all work together and take the criminals off the street and keep them off the street,” said Cyr.
Both candidates said they would keep an open mind if future anti-violence initiatives are proposed in Peoria, after the coming and going of programs like Don’t Shoot and Cure Violence.
Abi-Akar said any similar initiative would require careful efforts to find the right experts, personnel and organizations to run them, as well as proper scrutiny as the programs progress.
Cyr would like to see anti-violence efforts that reflect his values as a Christian, saying it means a 20-year commitment to family values, good education and good jobs.
Cyr calls the 5th District a “very small sample size” of a model that should be duplicated.
“You drive around the 5th District, you’ll see a lot of nice homes. In those homes, most of these homes have a mom and a dad, these homes. And the Dunlap School District is one of the top school districts now in the area, or even now in Illinois,” he said. “So it’s a very, very small sample, but to me, it would be, 'Hey, how do we duplicate the 5th District and make it the whole City of Peoria?'”
Homelessness
Cyr is one of the council members who voted in favor of a public camping ban as a way to dismantle homeless encampments in the downtown area through potential fines and jail time. The ordinance narrowly passed a divided council.
He thinks the city is doing an “exceptional” job in continuing to provide support for efforts to help the unhoused community. Cyr specifically references the hundreds of thousands in funding secured for the nonprofit Lula NFP, which is running a makeshift shelter out of a motel and helping the residents get into more permanent supportive housing programs.
“We’re getting in a better and better situation every day. Next year we’ll be in a better situation again,” Cyr said. “But obviously money is important and we have invested a lot of money in Peoria to take care of people.”
In Cyr’s view, long-term solutions will mean increasing access to substance abuse treatments and mental health care and that requires money from state and federal sources. In general, he also said the city doesn’t do a good job “controlling the conversation” around homelessness.
“We need to build facilities to help the last 40 or 50 people, people that need a lot more than just a meal or a roof over their heads,” said Cyr. “And that part is, I’m just so disappointed that we don’t tell that message to enough people.”
Abi-Akar also said building mental health and addiction services over time is an important piece of the solution to homelessness in Peoria. However, she doesn't believe the public camping ban was effective legislation to get there.
“This is a very humane issue, and I would have voted differently than my opponent,” said Abi-Akar. “I felt that was not per the experts’ testimonies or per the known issues and data. So, his decision was to incarcerate and penalize the homeless. I would have worked for a solution to not incarcerate them.”
Abi-Akar also believes directly addressing housing availability in Peoria is a path to decreasing homelessness, by collaborating with groups like Realtors, Habitat for Humanity and local contractors for rehabilitation of vacant properties.
“I actually have talked to contractors who were willing to rebuild some of the homes downtown, but they said there were too many barriers and too many conditions, so they moved away,” she said. “We need to understand these barriers and tackle these barriers and bring the contractors who will find, also, business for themselves rehabilitating these homes.”
While Abi-Akar is critical of the legislation banning homeless encampments, Cyr and other supporters on the council argue no fines have been issued or arrests made enforcing the ordinance yet.
Nonprofits like Lula stepping in to find a solution played a critical role in clearing the encampments by the time winter’s bitterest cold set in, but Cyr goes further to credit the ordinance with acting as a catalyst for action.
He said the goal of the ordinance was to “give the power to police officers to do their job and get these people off the street.”
“That was the goal and that’s exactly what happened,” said Cyr. “Nobody got arrested and nobody paid a fine or went to jail and they’ve all found a new roof over their head and now we can keep working on finding some permanent solutions for them.”
The general election is Tuesday. Early voting is underway.
