What a difference a year makes!  How many of you out there have taken on a task, only to realize that a year has passed? Not knowing where time went. That feeling that you have not accomplished a lot, only to look back to see the many steps forward that have been made?  I say this because one year ago I was appointed to be the City Manager for the City of Pekin. When I was first appointed as the interim manager in May of 2023, I had many difficult tasks facing me. The city did not have an HR Director, Economic Director, Finance Director, as well as other open positions through a variety of departments. Further we were behind on audits, people were looking for other opportunities, and basically the city was just a hot mess.

I want to take a moment to thank those leaders who chose to stick it out and be a part of change. Change is something that is not easy to accomplish within an organization, but those who stuck it out with me have been true leaders. It is because of them that when I look back at this past year, we all need to celebrate what we have accomplished. We are moving the city forward in a positive direction. Now granted, there will be some out there who focus narrowly on things and will have negative comments on this, but they don’t know what we have been through and all of the change that has been accomplished and implemented. Nor will they know how much we are moving forward. That’s OK though as we know what we need to do and are committed to accomplishing this change.

That being said, first, we have hired all of the open department head positions. This includes a finance director. I think what is unique is that we focused on the quality of the individuals that included their education and experience we all felt was a good fit for the city. Further, this was not me hiring qualified people, but rather an “us”. By “us” I am referring to the fact I had all of the department heads with me at the table through the interview process as well as staff the department heads would be working over. I felt it was important they have some say in whom they believed to be the right fit. This also creates buy-in and credibility from the staff when that person arrives.

Then there were the economic development opportunities that presented themselves. Several occurred, but Cullinan was probably one of the biggest. We were able to negotiate a fair deal on the City’s behalf and come to terms with them. There are four major retailers planning to open in 2025, and construction has begun!  We are excited about this opportunity and there are other things on the horizon that we are excited about as well that are helping put Pekin back on the map. I would be remiss if I did not mention Luttiken Property. This acquisition increased our footprint by 10% and this opens the city up to immense opportunity. It is early, but we will push forward to develop this opportunity.

Next, we have spent much time focusing on internal processes. We have been working on reporting and transparency. We have made strides in this area, but realize we still have much work to do. We again are moving things forward. We have continued the updates. We have changed the format a bit, but are publishing them on social media and our website. We have implemented a quarterly report, that will work its way into an annual report. This will be a work in process until we get all of the metrics from council that they wish to see. We are also working on the website. We agree that it could be so much better. We are to the point that we are most likely going to rebuild it from the ground up. Our goal is to put as much as we can on the website to reduce staff time with FOIA or other requests. This is all a work in process, but it is a goal we are working towards.

Implementation of Guardian Tracking and Lexipol. Both lead to accountability and documentation. Guardian Tracking will help us recognize employees for the positive things that they do, and on occasion track any disciplinary issues that might arise. Lexipol will put all of our city policy in one place and help us to keep it up to date. All things that were missing.

Finally, we have been working on the audits and have completed 2021. 2022 is in partner review and 2023 is slated to start immediately after 2022 is completed. This is extremely fast in the audit world and we are on track to have these completed by this time next year. This was a huge undertaking and staff dedication has got us to this point. We understand people being upset with this. However, this staff of individuals inherited this and are taking the bull by the horns to fix what they were given. We will get there. We also have spent a large amount of time restructuring the budget. Our intention is to make this more transparent. We believe during the last budget discussions with council in the public setting all of this was displayed in the most transparent of manner. Now, moving forward, we will build on this and continue working to have the best practices in place.

There are many more things that have been accomplished, but only so much space on this page. I feel confident we have our best foot forward and will continue with the success we envision.