Several Peoria-area community leaders are set to speak Monday night on possible local impacts from the “Big Beautiful Bill” and other federal policies.
The non-partisan discussion entitled “Refuse to be Silenced” is the latest in a series of “teach-in” speaking engagements hosted by the League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria.
The event is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Universalist Unitarian Church at 3000 W. Richwoods Blvd.
WCBU recently spoke with LWVGP president Chris Kaergard about the reasoning behind engaging the public in this kind of conversation at this time.
This transcript has been edited lightly for brevity and clarity.
What do you see as the purpose or goal of bringing having this conversation between community leaders and the general public?
Chris Kaergard: This is the next in a series of conversations that we’ve been having since early on this year because there’s been so much that’s been happening and so many changes that have been occurring in Washington, D.C. — whether that’s by presidential order, whether that’s by DOGE, whether that’s by legislation passed by Congress like the 'One Big Beautiful Bill.' And for so many people, this is taking place in our consciousness through a short news story or through a tweet, and we’re really not understanding what the effects might be, positive or negative, to these changes at the local level here in the Peoria area.
What we’ve wanted to do is be able to dig deeper in on these issues by having local experts, people who deal with these subjects day to day, that can talk for 10 or 12 minutes about their specific issue or agency and what the effects are, whether that’s in the past — we have talked about public media funding; we’ve talked about funding for energy assistance programs like LIHEAP or food assistance programs, Meals on Wheels, voting rights and access. All those issues where at the local level, things may look different than they look in a national headline, and we want people to understand how they are different here or what the effect is on our friends and neighbors here.
You’ve kind of touched on it already there, but why do you feel a discussion like this one that’ll be Monday night is important and necessary at this time?
Kaergard: We’re so fractured as a country and fractured in the media that we consume, and it’s important to hear from people who truly know what’s going on, to give them an opportunity to speak more in depth, to answer questions about this that people attending might have and want to dig more deeply into.
I think it’s really important to have this as an event that is put on by a non-partisan organization — the League is non-partisan. We don’t endorse or support candidates. There may be local or national issues that we take issue positions on, but only after we’ve said, we’re going to study this, we’re going to look at all angles. We’re going to arrive at an informed position on that issue.
This is an offshoot of that, in that we want people themselves to get a better understanding of these issues and see face to face those who are dealing with it and be able to question them in an informed way.
Who are the featured speakers at this upcoming event, and what will each of them be sharing with the audience?
Kaergard: We have five different individuals who are speaking at this event on four subjects, and we’re particularly proud that we have people who are speaking as elected officials who have either a D or an R after their name. This is bipartisan in the perspective we’re bringing, and we have others who are non-partisan, who run an agency or an organization who are addressing some of these issues.
We have Peoria County Sheriff Chris Watkins, who’s going to be speaking with us about his perspective or his experience on local immigration-related issues and whether they’ve been advised of any immigration enforcement that’s happening here. The Peoria County Health administrator, Monica Hendrickson, is going to be talking about vaccines and public health care, and how what’s happening at the national level with the FDA and others is trickling down into Peoria County as we get into traditional annual vaccine season.
We have two regional superintendents of education dealing with dozens of school districts, between them — George McKenna from Peoria County, and Jeff Ekena from Tazewell, Woodford, Mason County — who see what’s happening in the schools, and part of the 'Big Beautiful Bill' legislation directly addresses issues in K-12 education that they’ll be seeing the early effects of. And then Arnitria Shaw, who’s the vice president of workforce and diversity at Illinois Central College, is going to be talking with us about what the changes federally on DEI policy are looking like on a local level.
And you’re going to be speaking as well. Without giving too much away of your presentation, what’s your message going to be to the audience?
Kaergard: My message to the audience is twofold in this. First, I’ll be offering up some background because since we did the first one of these in February or March, there’s been a lot of change since then. We did another one in April and another one in June.
To take but one example, funding for public media has been subject to the vote on rescission, and the funding has been taken away for this year. What does that mean? So sort of recapping the effects or things that have changed since our prior events.
My big message, to people who attend this and people who watch us on the live stream or watch us afterward on YouTube, is: your voice still matters, and if you support or if you oppose these changes, if you feel strongly on a particular issue, you have the ability to speak out, to contact your federal lawmakers about this and have your opinion registered.
Democracy isn’t a spectator sport. We’re all called upon as voting citizens in the United States to sound off about our opinions because we live in a representative democracy.
You mentioned the changes since the last discussion. Things are changing so rapidly, too. I mean, how do community members just keep up with what’s all happening?
Kaergard: We hope that they’ll be informed, that they’ll continue to listen to substantive news broadcasts about this. And we hope that they’ll continue to come to our events and hear from these experts in a much more in-depth way about it.
The League holds other events, including a monthly “Drinks and Dialogue” event, where we encourage people to come in and have a soda or something else and hear an expert on a subject over a one-hour period of time — talk to us and respond to questions. These aren’t always on federal issues; sometimes they’re on state or local topics. But we see ourselves as an opportunity to encourage informed citizens and informed voters.
I see the title of the event is “Refused to be Silenced.” Especially in a time like this, how important is it to hear have voices speaking out from all aspects?
Kaergard: It’s truly important that we have our opinions registered. Our opinions as a group, our opinions as attendees may differ, but you need to share what your views are with the people who are in power. That’s their job to receive those views as people who represent us and to understand what the effects are of their votes on the communities that they’re serving.
And yes, our subhead for this is “Refuse to be Silenced,” but we’re calling this a “teach-in,” which kind of harkens back to the ‘60s and ‘70s. We view it as an opportunity to be educated, to question. We’re having five people who are in positions of authority who are there, who are going to be responding to questions that are submitted from the audience on these subjects as they give their presentations. It’s important to come and ask questions, just as it’s important to hear what it is that they’re telling you they’re seeing.
What else should people know about this event in particular, or the League of Women Voters in general? I know there’s it’s a free event, but you’re asking for some donations, if I’m not mistaken?
Kaergard: Correct, free for entry at the Universalist Unitarian Church from 6:30-8pm Monday, Sept. 29. We are asking people, particularly to help the food insecurity need in our area, to bring donations of canned goods or ready-to-make meals that can be given to Neighborhood House. We’re going to be loading those up the night of the event, and we’re taking them down the following morning to give to Neighborhood House to help our family members, our community members in this area with their food insecurity needs.
And as a thank you to the Universalist Unitarian Church, we are accepting donations that will go to them as a free-will offering, but certainly not mandating those. We do encourage people to bring a canned good if they’d like to donate that.
Anything else that we haven’t already discussed that you’d like to add in summary?
Kaergard: I think simply that it’s really important for residents all around our area to pay attention to what’s happening. This is a key way to do that, that allows you to share your view, that allows you to become more informed. Wherever you sit on the political spectrum, we are better as people participating in our democracy when we’re informed about what the effects are of that democracy, locally in our own neighborhoods.
