The bittersweet part of the story in “Forrest Gump” — his trajectory through his “ping-pong diplomacy” during Vietnam inspiring Apple Inc., desegregation at Alabama, uncovering Watergate, embracing Civil Rights, meeting the Black Panthers and owning a Shrimping business — is that only Forrest knows what happens during his incredible journey from beginning to end.

His story is grand in scale, but it doesn’t even occur to him how special his trajectory was from his vantage point among all the chaos around the world.

Back here at home, what’s next for Peoria? In what direction is this beautiful city moving toward with its current trajectory?

In 1988, a new feature surfaced on ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings putting Peoria up against New York City. They literally said Peoria was in and New York was out. Peoria Mayor Jim Maloof and New York counterpart Edward Koch even traded friendly jabs at one another during the piece. We were on par to be the “it” city in every way.

As a child, all of this gave me passionate love and faith in my city. I just knew Peoria was going to be the best place on Earth. We were better than New York City.

But this city’s trajectory in my 44th year is veering toward a downward spiral. Are we losing control? What has happened to the spirit of our city? Why is it so much more violent?

Politics in Peoria

Trying to push Peoria to that “it” city vibe that I felt growing up in the 1980s and ’90s, I became a Peoria Police Officer in 2004. After I joined the ranks I saw a department at war with itself. A department on the brink.

Pre-George Floyd, the Peoria Police Department was like many across the country with its Internal issues, segregation, its good and bad officers, outdated rules and regulations (i.e. couldn’t wear black hair a certain way), the blue line code of silence. Post-George Floyd, it is a department with change in progress. From the trajectory of my comet, I saw firsthand the internal struggle and, in my role now as Director of School Safety, I hear and see the stories of a department at a crossroads.

I have faith in the leader the department now has to bring it over the finish line. He fights a battle on two fronts: One internally against old systemic issues and officers and another for the soul and faith of a city in the midst of it. He cannot fight alone.

In 2023 I decided to run for Peoria City Council. I figured that serving in my role and observing the issues in the Peoria community, I could make change through policy. I hoped this would course correct our city faster more so than only being an officer on the ground. This change in my trajectory showed me the dirty games of Peoria politics.

When I announced my candidacy, I was met with emails to speak to different groups, political action committees, interviews, etc. Politics in Peoria isn’t set up for the “common” person to run for office. If you aren’t a part of a clique, kiss the ring of people in power, aren’t financially set up, etc., you have a bigger hill to climb. I was iced out of some things. I took interviews with PACs that I knew would not endorse me even having never met me. I was tipped to the turmoil of internal fighting from friends in the mix. They just so happened to match my trajectory at one time or another.

I knocked on so many doors and spoke to so many people in disenfranchised areas while campaigning because I knew I didn’t have the money, staff or backing that the others did. I had to do it grassroots. I felt that if I could inspire Peorians who normally were not in the process to have that hope I had in the ’80s and ’90s, we could reach for the stars. Sadly, I lost my campaign, but it opened my eyes to some of the reasons for Peoria and its shift in trajectory.

Peoria’s political process isn’t designed for the people, it’s designed for those people. We as Peorians must demand more from ourselves to change this.

Beat up

Peoria has also seen the shift in youth violence. Growing up here in the ’80s and ’90s, it was rare to have serious youth violence. Sadly, now stolen cars, shootings and homicides are the crimes that fill our Juvenile Detention Center. It makes it hard for Peoria to thrive when so many of its youngest residents have never seen or were given that hope in this city I was provided as a child.

Peoria has become more and more segregated. It expanded North as wealth followed. Disinvestment ran southward.

I used to love South Peoria in the summertime. So many people owned homes with beautiful yards, nicest community you would ever meet.

Run down

Growing up on Proctor Street, a neighbor named Jim was the first guy I had ever seen water grass. It was so green we never walked on it.

Jim’s grass and home was kept up meticulously. He even would give us a few dollars to help him pick the grub worms out of the grass. We did it in our socks or bare feet to get a few bucks to walk up to Dale’s on Lincoln Street hill to get candy. After Jim died in the late ’90s or early 2000s, I never knew who got that beautiful house and that lawn.

I remember hearing about a house fire on Proctor. It was Jim’s old house. I drove into the old neighborhood, and that beautiful home was rubble. A few days later, it was torn down. And that beautiful grass soon turned into weeds. Sometimes I drive through and see that the gap where Jim’s house was occasionally becomes a parking lot for the next-door neighbors. Poor Jim is probably haunting those people for parking in his grass.

This level of disinvestment is rampant in many areas in Peoria — mainly our South and East Bluff. Homes burned down or missing, whole neighborhoods changed; Proctor street is so different now (as are many streets) missing the homes and yards we grew up enjoying. The community culture of Peoria is fading.

Real talk

Fighting back for a vibrant Peoria again through reinvestment is key. That can’t be achieved until the people whose doors I knocked on in those underpriviledged areas demand better. And by demand, I mean vote. Show up to City Council meetings, flex power by making those who are running for office fear your numbers. There are more of us than them.

Are you still sitting on the bench listening? Just being in the orbit of the spaces of Peoria — police, politics, schools, community events, etc. — you get a unique view of the trajectory and scope of Peoria as a whole.

If you haven’t left the bench yet hearing this story, it’s ok. Get up to do so now. But it’s only ok if you are getting off the bench to do the work. That is what Peoria demands. Know the story, know the struggle, and know the work that needs to be done.

Peoria didn’t rival New York by mistake. We earned that by our determination and our grit. And it is that determination and grit that will get us back. By the people — not a handful of people with power or several “community leaders.”

By us as a collective, a community. Let’s get off the bench.

Together.