The Peoria Heights Village Board established an Office of the Fire Chief at its Tuesday, Sept. 15 meeting.
The move comes against the backdrop of the Village’s deliberations over the future of its fire department given the pending retirement of current Chief Greg Walters.
The Village essentially has whittled its options to two, either keeping fire operations in-house with a paid fire chief, part-time or full-time, who oversees a largely or completely volunteer force, or contracting fire protection out to the city of Peoria. The intention at this point is to ask local voters what their wishes are in an advisory referendum in April, 2021.
Tuesday’s vote puts a process in place if the Village Board decides to hire a new chief at some point down the road. Walters recently delayed his retirement, originally scheduled for November, to give the board more time and to relieve some of the immediate pressure to make a decision.
“It’s good to have it on the books,” said Village Attorney Mark Walton, who expressed surprise that such an ordinance didn’t already exist. “It clarifies the process for appointment and approval by the board. Frankly, it’s something we need.
“Just to be clear, I think if Chief Walters had told us he was going to work for another 15 years, I would still recommend we adopt this ordinance,” Walton added. “Nothing is changing. We’re formalizing that which we’ve already been doing.”
“Really, we’re just laying the groundwork if we need to hire a fire chief in the future,” said Mayor Michael Phelan, “so we’re not reacting, we’re ready to go.”
In other discussion, trustees again went back and forth on the wording of a non- binding referendum, should they decide to put one on the April 6, 2021 ballot. They have until late January to make up their minds on that score.
The goal, said Walton, is “to get as much input from the community as you can in a one-sentence question,” with the language as comprehensive as possible “so that when someone says yes or no, it has more meaning.” The difficulty is in finding the right balance, as the question can’t be so long and loaded with information that it’s “indecipherable” and people don’t know what they just voted on, he said.
The potential cost to taxpayers, for example, is an important consideration, but even that poses a conundrum.
As he has previously, Trustee Brandon Wisenburg questioned the reliability of the Peoria Fire Department’s cost estimates.
“I don’t feel comfortable telling the citizens of Peoria Heights that this is going to save them busloads of money when in a couple of years, it could be equal or more” to keeping fire protection local, he said. “We also need to put ... response times in the question,” especially in light of budget cuts in Peoria, he added.
“I don’t really want to load the question in any way,” said Wisenburg. “I want it to be as neutral as possible ... I’m a little cautious about even putting a number on there.”
Village Administrator Dustin Sutton explained that Peoria’s proposal was based on the Heights’ emergency call load in 2019. “Those numbers could increase if our calls go up, but it could decrease if our calls go down,” he said. “They had to have some starting point.”
“That’s where I get nervous,” said Wisenburg. “We can’t go back” after the decision is made.
“What I want to know is are you willing to pay more money if that means keeping our fire department in house,” said Trustee Sarah DeVore.
Trustees generally indicated they believed the cost to taxpayers would go up over time regardless of which option is ultimately chosen.
Walton responded that trustees may not want to put too much stock in what a referendum might tell them, especially given the low turnouts in off-presidential election years. Indeed, that “may be the least valuable” gauge of public sentiment.
“There are other ways to solicit public input,” including community forums and surveys on social media platforms, he said.
Even the status quo could remain an option, especially if Walters has more success in recruiting additional volunteers, said Sutton. That doesn’t mean the Village should not go ahead with the referendum -- which is not binding, he reminded the board – or that leaders should not prepare themselves for any eventuality.
“It’s a public safety issue,” Sutton said. “We’ve got to keep pushing everything forward.”