CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

Candidate: Matthew Tyler Tucker         Position Sought:  Council Person (4-year term), City of Pekin

BACKGROUND

1. Please provide us with some basic information about yourself (family, education, employment, etc.)

I am a native born and raised Pekinite. I attended C.B. Smith, Edison Junior High and of course Pekin High. After graduating in 1985, I entered the ranks of The United States Marine Corps for a 4-year enlistment. Upon my discharge from the Marines, I enlisted to Illinois Central College and earned my Associates Degree in Liberal Arts and Science.

After earning my degree, I moved to Champaign, Illinois for 2 years. While there, I was employed with an advertising company and then for a retail company known as Rent-To-Own. At the end of the two years I moved to Chicago for fifteen years. For three of the fifteen years, I was employed as a Plant Manager. Here I oversaw the production of advertising buttons, magnets and key tags as well as 75 employees.

At the end of the three years I began my current career path. I was initially employed as a loan processor for a capital equipment financing and leasing company (H.P.S.C Financing). After cutting my teeth for three years at H.P.S.C. Financing, I worked as a leasing agent for three other companies prior to starting my own company, Semper Fi-nancial.

2. What education, skills and experiences do you bring to the Pekin City Council?

See #1.

3. What has motivated you to seek this office?

Having been back in Pekin for the past 11 years, I have seen many areas in which we need to increase our pride in being a citizen of Pekin.  I want to se Pekin become a destination similar to Galina or Sandwich or many of the neighborhoods of Chicago which reminds me of Downtown Pekin.

4. What is your vision for the community and how are you going to get us there?

See #3.

GOVERNANCE

5. What do you believe is the role of a city council member in the city manager form of government?

A Pekin City Council Member is supposed to know the communities’ concerns and wishes and then legislate policies, city ordinances and laws in order to address their concerns and wishes.  The council members should be able to trust the city manager is serving in the best interest of the citizens of Pekin while carrying out the directives of the council.

6. Do you support the city manager form of government? Why or why not?

As long as the city manager is made aware, they are hired and fired at the will of the city mayor and council, this form of government can be effective.   Since the mayor and council are hired/elected by the citizens to act in the best interest of the city citizens, the city manager must know if their actions go against what the mayor and council feels is in the best interest of the citizens, they will be fired.

7. Do you support Home Rule in Pekin?  Why or why not?

A limited Home Rule for Pekin could be a productive tool for Pekin.  I don’t support large governmental oversight into the lives of The American People.  Home Rule could help streamline many needs of the council and citizens.  My only concern is the councils use of Home Rule too often and for matters other than what is beneficial to even the “least of our citizens”.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

8. What, if anything, should the City Council do to retain, expand and attract "head of household" jobs and new residents?

The City Council can begin to attract “Head of Household” and new residents by attracting family orientated businesses and creating or promoting family orientated events.  We need to work with community organizations, schools, the library, churches, the hospital, the park district, …. and brainstorm on ideas to promote and excite kids and parents about participating in these events.

We can use what Peoria has done with their warehouse district and how they had commissioned artist to create sculptures for their streets.  We can have art classes throughout the school districts to come up with the design, then wielding and wood working classes can construct the sculpture.  Erecting some sculptures throughout the city will generate some pride in the younger generation as well as the parents.

The City can start by switching The Farmers Market from Wednesday’s between 11:00 and 2:00 a Saturday beginning around 8:00 or 9:00 until 2:00.  At the beginning maybe we could get some of the nearby restaurants to serve breakfast?  I have seen The Railhouse has had a booth at a couple of street fairs.  Maybe we can invite some other and more local restaurants to serve breakfast or a brunch?  Maybe the participating restaurants could use some of the produce at The Market.  This way the produce vendors and restaurants can co-promote?

9. How should the City Council invest the remaining Downtown TIF funds?

The City Council should spend the remaining TIF Funds in the downtown area. In my answer to questions 3 and 4.  The neighborhoods I lived in Chicago always reminded me of Downtown Pekin.  Businesses like boutiques, restaurants, cafés, were on the bottom floors while the upper floors were apartments.  The neighborhoods flourished because of the people who lived in those apartments and the surrounding areas.  I believe if we get a “living community” in the downtown area, the surrounding neighborhoods will begin to flourish.  As the surrounding areas begin to flourish, the property values increase along with rents.  Once property values increase, so does the property taxes without The Council having to raise the rate.

These neighborhoods also held street fairs which brought in hoards of people from the surrounding suburbs and neighborhoods of Chicago.  If we held one street fair a month, we could have them start in conjunction with The Farmer’s Market.  These street fairs had many of the vendors you would find at The Marigold Festival, they had bands playing throughout the day and night.  I have seen the crowds the Car and Bike Shows bring in and I believe the more of these events the more interest will be given to Pekin from people outside of Pekin.

10. What, if anything, should the City Council do to promote tourism in Pekin and the region?

See #9.

INFRASTRUCTURE

11. What are your thoughts on the completion of Veterans Drive all the way to I-474?

To be honest I am not educated enough on the Veteran’s Drive Project.  I believe if it was important enough to start such a large project, it should be important enough to finish it.  I am not sure how the completion of this project into areas such as Groveland and East Peoria has anything to do with Pekin’s City Council.  I would imagine this is more of a question for Groveland and East Peoria.  I don’t believe we should be willing to help these communities complete their portion of the project without some future compensation.

12. Should the City of Pekin continue to invest in the infrastructure of the Pekin Municipal Airport? Why or why not?

I believe the City of Pekin should put the Municipal Airport up for sale.  I don’t see spending tax payers’ funds as an investment when it is being spent on infrastructure for an airport which only a hand full of people in the city actually use it.  Now of course opponents of this position will say it is essential to the business owners of Pekin since it is convenient for some business people to fly into the Pekin Municipal than it is to fly into Peoria and without it, some of these businesses will move out of Pekin.  My response is for the business owners who do use the airport to partner up and purchase the airport and then manage it themselves.

The funds going towards the infrastructure of the airport could be better spent on other much more urgent expenditures.

13. Please identify the three most important infrastructure projects in the City of Pekin. How do you propose to pay for these projects?

The first large infrastructure project of The City is the condition of the streets, sidewalks and curbs. We can begin to pay for these projects through the funds already allocated to The Street Department.  We can stop allocating money ear marked for set projects to other projects. When we rob Paul to pay Peter, we don’t make both Paul and Peter rich, we make them both poor.

The second large infrastructure project is the overall appearance of The City of Pekin.  We have far too many buildings and vacant lots in disrepair.

The third large infrastructure project is the riverfront.  The pier and park at the riverfront are nice.  It is my belief the riverfront can use some sprucing up.

FINANCES

14. Are there opportunities to cut expenses?  Are there departments that are over-staffed? Where, specifically, would you support cuts?

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.

15. Are there areas where spending needs to be increased?  Are there departments that are under-staffed? If yes, where does spending need to increase and where would the money come from?

See #14.

VISION

16. If elected, what would be your top three priorities?

My top three priorities can be summed up in one phrase, I want to increase Pekin Pride.  In order to increase the pride, we need to start policing our neighborhoods and cracking down on violations of laws and/or ordinances.

We need to start making Pekin a “destination”.  We need to bring in or create reasons for people to want to come to Pekin and visit and ultimately want to move here.

We need to incentivize and increase citizen participation in volunteering their time and energy into making Pekin a better city.  By doing all of this and much more, we can increase Pekin Pride.  When people are proud of where they live, they take better care of it.  When they take care and are proud of where they live, this pride typically becomes contagious and it grows. As the pride grows the better Pekin becomes.  The better Pekin becomes, the more people will want to visit and eventually move here.

17. What distinguishes you from the other candidates?

What may set me apart from my colleagues is my set of fresh eyes included with the history I have with Pekin.  Sometimes it takes stepping away from a situation to see it in a clear light. I have seen what other communities are doing and how they have been able to grow and improve.