As 2025 comes to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to provide our community with a year-in-review report to highlight some of our team’s accomplishments of the past year that continue to move East Peoria forward. Using city resources, these accomplishments are the results of efforts made by our Council, staff, and the various members of our boards and commissions. 

We continued our efforts this year to improve the quality of the aging infrastructure throughout the city, including the replacement of several thousands of feet of water and sewer lines that had exceeded their useful life, and making significant improvements to a large number of residential streets and their associated infrastructure. These activities include, but are not limited to, heat scarifying, sealcoating, fog sealing, spray patching, pot hole patching, crack sealing, street sweeping, maintaining signs and striping, and maintaining storm drains. Our goal is to prolong the life of all of our streets and ensure they are safe for daily public use. Significant improvements have also been made to the Camp and Riverside intersection. This project was years in the making and has finally been completed. 

The men and women of the Public Works Department have done an excellent job of keeping up with our high demands this year. Whether it be delivering clean, safe, and reliable drinking water, maintaining and replacing water and sewer lines, treating our wastewater, providing garbage and recycling services, maintaining or plowing our streets, or clearing trees and hauling out hundreds of truckloads of dirt from behind Costco, they made it all happen despite any adverse conditions. 

Public safety remains a top priority for us. Construction of the new police station located on West Camp Street began in January. River City Construction is overseeing the project as our Construction Manager At-Risk, and the construction of the 37,848 square foot state-of-the-art facility is scheduled to be completed by late July or early August of 2026. I am pleased to report that the East Peoria Police Department remains fully staffed and that our officers and other department staff dedicate their time and efforts to keeping up with yet another record year of calls for service. 

The East Peoria Fire Department is nearly fully staffed and has also seen another record year of calls for service. We continue to operate out of four stations and look to begin the planning stages for the construction of a new centrally located station in the very near future. A new fire station in a central location would enable us to scale back to three fire stations and provide full Fire/EMS out of all three stations at all times. 

The improvements at EastSide Centre continue. The Field 10 turf project was completed earlier this year, and the Fields 8 and 9 turf project is currently underway. Additional improvements have been made to the inside of our facility. The EastSide team has been busy this year with hosting a record number of events, maintaining city grounds, and kicking off the 41st Annual Festival of Lights events, including the Parade of Lights and Winter Wonderland. 

At City Hall, we bid farewell to several employees who have since retired and have welcomed several new employees who have recently joined our team. We continue with our conversion to Tyler software and hope to complete that conversion early next year. As always, our goal is to provide our citizens and members of our business community with excellent customer service, and upgrading our software will enable us to become more efficient and better serve our customers. 

The Blutowne mixed-use development project should be wrapped up in late February or early March of 2026. We welcome the hundreds of new residents now living in the Levee District. We are currently working with two developers on the next phase of the planned Center Street Crossing redevelopment project along Center Street and hope to soon make some announcements. Frontier Hospitality continues its construction of the new Hampton Inn along the riverfront and looks to complete its project in April or May of 2026. This property will be a nice addition along the riverfront. 

With unanimous support of the other taxing bodies, we created the new Riverfront TIF District earlier this year and look to revitalize the area north of 74 and west of N. Main St., stretching from the interstate to just south of Highview Rd., as part of the City’s 2045 Comprehensive Plan. 

We also held the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Levee Park. I would like to recognize the members of the East Peoria Community Foundation Board for their tireless efforts in turning their vision into a reality, and to all of the private and corporate donors for their unwavering support of this project. The park is a beautiful space that will be the focal point of the Levee District for generations to come. 

I would be remiss if I did not mention the contributions made once again this year by the East Peoria Chamber of Commerce. We have such a close-knit relationship and partner with the Chamber on everything from tourism and events to fostering business growth here in our community. 

While I could not touch on all of the accomplishments, it is time to get back to work. There are several things in the pipeline for 2026, and we look forward to sharing more details at the State of the City address in early spring. Thank you to all of the dedicated City employees who work as a team to move East Peoria forward. 

We are all grateful for the community support and will always strive to place the needs of our community first in all that we do.

Wishing you and your family a blessed holiday season!

Always grateful,
John