Peoria City Council approved funding Tuesday, Nov. 10, for a second public-safety helicopter, advancing a planned expansion of the city’s joint police and fire aviation unit.
The council voted 5-1 to accept a $2.85 million federal grant and add $1,988,065 in one-time general-fund money to the project. Mesquite District Councilmember Matt Bullock voted no, and Acacia District Councilmember Jennifer Crawford was absent, according to the Nov. 10 meeting record.
The funding action does not mean a second helicopter has been delivered or placed in service. A vendor, purchase contract, delivery schedule and operational start date were not identified in the records reviewed by West Valley Post.
A $5.79 million funding package
The full funding package totals about $5.79 million. It combines the $2.85 million federal grant with about $2.94 million in city money. The city share includes $952,000 that had already been approved and the new $1.988 million budget amendment.
The federal money appears in the fiscal 2026 congressional funding agreement as a U.S. Department of Justice allocation for a Peoria police helicopter. A funding request submitted by U.S. Rep. Abe Hamadeh described the aircraft as a regional resource for law enforcement, search-and-rescue missions and emergency response across the West Valley.
Peoria’s capital plan identifies the project as PD00042, Public Safety Helicopter, with a project location of 6801 N. Glen Harbor Blvd., near Glendale Municipal Airport.
Why Peoria wants a second aircraft
City budget documents say a second aircraft would keep the aviation unit available when one helicopter is undergoing maintenance. Splitting flight hours between two aircraft also would delay major overhauls and extend their useful service lives, according to the capital plan.
Peoria launched its first Bell 505 in August 2024. The city described the unit as a joint police and fire operation intended for searches, suspect tracking, firefighting support, disaster response and missing-person cases. The aircraft is based at Glendale Municipal Airport and can assist neighboring West Valley agencies when requested.
The first aircraft was financed with a $3.5 million state appropriation. Peoria’s 2024 Police Department annual report said the aviation unit responded to 113 high-priority calls during its September-to-December training period. The report credited the unit with assisting in seven missing-person searches, 10 cases involving fleeing suspects and arrests in 12 felony and seven misdemeanor cases.
Those figures cover the unit’s early training period and do not establish the current annual workload. The report had projected full operational status for April 2026, but the funding documents for the second aircraft do not provide an updated service schedule or current flight-hour data.
What comes next
The Nov. 10 vote establishes the funding plan and budget authority. The next verifiable milestones will be a purchase contract, an identified aircraft and delivery timeline, followed by training and deployment details.
Until those steps occur, the project should be understood as funded and authorized, not delivered or operational. The second helicopter would expand a unit designed to serve Peoria while also providing regional backup for fast-growing West Valley communities.
Featured image: Representative Bell 505 law-enforcement helicopter. This is not Peoria’s aircraft. Public domain image: Alameda County Sheriff via Wikimedia Commons.
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