Last night’s meeting of the Libertarian Party of Peoria and Tazewell counties looked to be a regular meeting based on the Facebook invite. Kiran Velpula is a new Peoria City Council member that was slated to speak. These things can go all different ways and you never know what you are going to get when a local politician agrees to talk to a group of Libertarians.
I was blown away. Kiran came up and (in his very humble style) began to talk about his mentoring of future doctors, brain tumor expertise, and opportunities to leave this area for greener pastures. That said… He then went on to talk about how he hates seeing his friends leave the area for those opportunities. He has quizzed them and wants to know what it takes to keep people in Peoria.
Crime and shootings came up along with the hiring of 30 new officers by the City of Peoria. Kiran circled back to education and jobs. It would have been so easy to get drug down in a conversation about gun violence. He didn’t take the bait.
Once he talked about business and education being the key to crime and violence in Peoria I knew we were kindred spirits.
Education and jobs are key. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s where we have to start to give people hope for change!