The new mayor of Peoria Heights is setting priorities for his term, including two of the village’s longest running and most discussed issues: an aging water system and a volunteer fire department.
Matthew Wigginton ran unopposed for the position to replace Mike Phelan in April’s municipal election. He makes the move after just one four-year term on the village board — a term when he became familiar with the challenges facing the community and what’s most important to its residents.
“It all kind of happened relatively organically. We had faced some major challenges … but I think I came out from those challenges more hardened and more able to take on a leadership role,” said Wigginton.
A father, attorney and long-time resident of the village, Wigginton said he was a “little surprised” the mayoral race was unopposed, and admits being thankful for the resulting smooth race.
Wigginton said one noticeable difference from his role as a trustee to the early days as mayor is the need to act as a bridge between trustees who have different goals or opinions.
“You have to know a little bit about where people are, how we can work collaboratively on various issues,” Wigginton said. “How I can help one trustee get one thing accomplished, but how I can also make sure another trustee who may feel equally as passionately about another project, how I can mutually get them across the finish line on both issues.”
In general, Wigginton said steady leadership and continued momentum are his goals for the village. When it comes to specific issues, many carry over from his time on the board.
Leadership changes at fire department
A few short months into Wigginton’s mayoral tenure, the village board voted 5-1 to not renew a contract with Fire Chief Dan Decker, who was hired following a period of change for the volunteer department.
At one point, the board considered a contract with the City of Peoria, an option Wigginton indicated he was open to at the time. In November 2023, the board unanimously hired Decker, a former East Peoria assistant chief and current council member there, to lead the department and its new $1.1 million budget. In September 2024, the board backed off of hiring three full-time firefighters to build a “hybrid" department.
Trustees voted not to renew Decker’s contract amid concerns about budget allocation, equipment certification standards and timely registration of firefighters with the State Fire Marshal.
In general, Wigginton said he values consistency and stability and was hesitant about “uprooting” Decker from the department as he worked to make move forward.
“However, with that being said, I think that some of the arguments that my trustees did make, they did have some concerns, and I respect those concerns,” he said. “And I think that if we have someone leading the department, it should be someone who has the full support of the trustees.”
Wigginton did not vote on the contract — the mayor only casts a vote in the event of a tie.
“I think it was time that we had a parting of ways,” he said. “Chief Decker is a friend. I wish him very well.”
The vote was held at an unusual Saturday special meeting. Decker wrote a letter to the board claiming he was notified just 24 hours before and unable to attend. In response to questions about the vote coming during a special meeting instead of regular board business, Wigginton said the contract represented a legal question that needed to be addressed.
“According to state law, all contracts of officer-level positions end with the term of the mayor. So it was my understanding that, you know, the whole vote of a non-renewal was maybe not necessary,” said Wigginton. “However, I'm an attorney by trade, and there were other attorneys that felt differently.”
Wigginton said any sense of urgency was due to wanting to get the legal question attached to the contract resolved. A few weeks later, he appointed former Peoria chief Tony Ardis to an interim role.
“He had a multi-decade career [at the Peoria Fire Department] and frankly, that’s what we were looking for,” said Wigginton. “We wanted to continue the momentum that Chief Decker had brought to the department and, with Chief Ardis, I think we got that.”
There are some improvements Decker made that Wigginton praises, including scheduling and personnel changes that have the station consistently staffed, as well as noticeable improvement in response times.
Wigginton hopes Ardis will take these changes further, adding he hasn’t considered a candidate search process yet, as he’s open to the idea of Ardis staying long term.
“We want him to get a good sense of our department, and if he needs to stay a bit longer, then I’m certainly open to that as well,” said Wigginton. “So, this expansive job search could happen, but if we see that we may need to hold onto Chief Ardis for a while, and he’s amenable to that, then we may have our person already.”
Wigginton hopes the village will be in a position to consider hiring full-time firefighters again someday, but it will take the right finances.
“Well, we either generate it through our tax revenue, through our sales tax revenue and our economic development, or I have to levy our citizens through our taxes, not a strong appetite to do that,” said Wigginton. “So what I’d really like to do is really be able to have some economic growth so we can pay for our public safety, our curbs, our gutters, all that jazz.”
Another top priority for the village requires finding the appropriate finances.
Improvements to an aging water system
The water system in Peoria Heights has received bundles of federal funding over the last few years. They include a project to replace lead mains and service lines along Route 29 and a study for water main replacements on Prospect Road.
In total, Wigginton said, the village plans to replace 222 lead service line replacements this year, with another 222 slated for the following year. He said the work on water infrastructure is being funded, in part, with incremental 5% hikes in the city’s water rate.
One already has passed the village board, with another planned for this year.
Wigginton said he previously was apprehensive about raising water rates, but now there are more “deliverables” to justify the need. He points specifically to the fact that Heights homeowners are not directly paying for the service line replacements.
“Some of our neighboring communities, they’re not taking on the full weight of the cost of replacing those lead service lines, they’re putting that back on the resident,” said Wigginton. “In order to do that, we have to have the financing. That’s where the [rate increases] come in.”
Ultimately, further federal funding will be critical to a broader overhaul of the water infrastructure that has been projected to potentially cost the village tens of millions over the next two decades. Beyond lead service lines, broader plans include drilling through asphalt to get at main pipes in need of replacement, and implementing about a $7 million water filtration plant Wigginton wants to have online by the end of his term.
“As far as the money is concerned, we’ve had our public meetings. We’ll have our public hearings,” said Wigginton. “But …if a mom has to turn on, or a family has to turn on a spigot to bathe their child and they see brown water, I don’t know how you put a price tag on that.”
Peoria Heights' identity and future development
Peoria Heights has cultivated an identity based around small business development and a village government run on surpluses from a comfortable financial position.
Wigginton credits much of that identity to the former mayor. He says he’s interested in maintaining that momentum.
“We’re a landlocked community, so I don’t have a field up in Dunlap to pave over and build a new thing,” said Wigginton. “We have what we have in Peoria Heights and I’m not going to annex any other land. We have to build, literally, upon what we have.”
Wigginton said increasing residential stock will be important to helping drive the economic growth he mentions as a potential engine for some of the village’s other projects and goals. He hopes reversing trends of declining population will be possible through mixed-use development and partnerships with organizations like Choose Greater Peoria and Discover Peoria.
“We’re going to work with those people to try to bring young and growing families into Peoria Heights,” said Wigginton.
Wigginton also hopes to raise the appeal of the Heights by declining to implement a local grocery tax, like those adopted by the majority of surrounding communities.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make us competitive and give our developers a leg up in that process,” he said.
There are some buildings with promising, potentially mixed-use futures, particularly the Heights’ iconic Pabst building.
Wigginton said it will all depend on balancing economic growth with the community’s needs to see where development in the village goes from here.
