Jim Ardis
| Jim Ardis | |
|---|---|
| Mayor of Peoria, Illinois | |
|
Assumed office May 5, 2005 |
|
| Preceded by | Dave Ransburg |
| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1958-1960 Peoria, Illinois |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Mimi |
| Children | Three children |
| Residence | Peoria, Illinois |
| Alma mater | Illinois State University (B.S., 1982) |
| Profession | Corporate Executive |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Jim Ardis is the mayor of Peoria, Illinois, a position he has held since 2005. He served on the Peoria City Council from 1999 through 2005. He is mainly known for the April 2014 scandal where he used his mayoral powers to order SWAT teams to the residence of Jon Daniel, the operator of a Twitter account parodying Ardis. The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression gave Artis one of its annual Jefferson Muzzle Awards for "the past year’s most outrageous and ridiculous affronts to free speech and press", declaring that he had "abus[ed] the power of his office to intimidate and silence a harmless parodist".
When Ardis was 10, his father, Jim Ardis, Jr., became a Peoria city councilman, serving from 1969 to 1973. His grandfather, John Bulger, had been Peoria County clerk.
Ardis graduated from high school at Spalding Institute in 1977 and from Illinois State University with a bachelor of science in industrial technology in 1982.
Ardis owned O'Leary's Restaurant from 1994 to 1997. From 1999 to 2006, Ardis worked in sales for Univar; from 2006 to 2010, he was Midwest Vice President of ELM Locating. Since 2010, he has been Executive Director of Corporate Strategies for Peoria-based Axis, Inc., part of Jupiter Strategic Technologies Pvt. Ltd. of Bangalore.
Ardis sold O'Leary's Restaurant in 1997 and was appointed to the Peoria city liquor commission. He was elected a Peoria city councilman at-large in 1999, and remained a member of the council until 2005.
Ardis was elected as mayor in 2005, defeating incumbent Dave Ransburg. He won re-election in 2009 against General John Parker.
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