CANDIDATE
QUESTIONNAIRE
CANDIDATE
QUESTIONNAIRE
PEKIN CITY COUNCIL
15. Are there areas where spending needs to be increased? Are there deparments that are understaffed? If yes, where does spending need to increase and where would the money come from?
Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce: We need to hire a full-time, experienced, economic development professional. Much of the funding for that position could come from the Downtown TIF fund, and the Tourism (Hotel/Motel Tax) fund. Street maintenance needs to be a higher priority in the budget. We need to lobby the legislature for our fair share of the Local Roads funding.
Rick Hilst: Did not respond to the questionnaire.
Karen Hohimer: I don't think spending NEEDS to be increased. This community needs to work smarter, not harder.
John Abel: The street department we need to watch. As Pekin has grown in sq miles, we have gained miles of streets. If any department need to be looked at closely for future growth it is the street department.
David Nutter: After the 17/18 audit is available I can provide a more comprehensive response.
Matthew T. Tucker (Tyler): See #14: This may not fully answer the questions but this is my honest reply. Depending on the circumstances, believe a budget is forever expands and shrinks. It has been my experience people seem to not care as much about expenditures if it isn’t their money they are spending or if they don’t have some sort of “stake in the game”. When it comes to cutting budgets, I would like to see the department heads and the employees be given some incentives to come up with solutions to cutting their own budgets or ideas where we can spend money to make money or how some funds need to be spent as preventive measure and save us money in the future.
As a hypothetical example. If there is a better solution than salt to be used on our roads (which destroys the roads) and an employee presents it to us, this employee should receive a bonus. Why not “reward” an individual who can show us, if we use their alternative solution, we can save funds from not having to repair pot holes, curbs, roads…. Why shouldn’t they be compensated?
If someone in the waste disposal department was able to show proof that by having two employees on one truck can reduce the starts and stops and decrease the time it takes to pick up garbage compared to only having one employee thus reducing the number of trucks (gas, maintenance, insurance, wear and tear…) why shouldn’t that individual be rewarded?
It is my understanding there are two aspects within the police department should be re-instated. The first, is I would like to see the Police Liaison at the housing area re-instated. I understand this program was successful in decreasing crime in the area as the tenants felt comfortable going to the police as they had a better understanding of who the police were as people and not just law enforcement. Of course, when you reduce crime, you reduce all of the expense associated with the crime. This also gets back to making people feel better about where they live and the positive cascading effect it has on the community as a whole.
The second aspect within our police force I believe needs to be re-instated is the motorcycle police patrols. From what I understand, the two motorcycle officers were able to better patrol our streets and recognize traffic violations than a patrol car. It is also my understanding these officers were able to actually increase the revenue generated from speeding tickets and hand-free violations. These officers were able to more than pay for themselves and the two motorcycles. If this is true, why would we not still have them patrolling our streets?
While in The Marines, I was fortunate enough to be under the command of a Naval Commander, Commander Grenin. Commander Grenin was a Navy Corpsman attached to The Marines in Vietnam. He once told me, he quickly learned those in charge who were truly successful all had one thing in common. They leaned on, trusted and listened to the grunts out on the frontlines. The grunts on the frontlines who were “in the thick of it” knew much more about what was actually happening than any officer “in the rear with the gear”. This is the approach I will take as a Pekin City Council Member.
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