>>Rameen Karbassioon: Coming up on City Spotlight, we are talking Arcola with the mayor of Arcola, Larry Ferguson, and Arcola City Administrator Bill Wagoner, who will discuss the sewer work project in the Arcola Acres subdivision, updates to the Arcola Police Department, and Arcola's involvement in the No Job Left Behind initiative.

And at the end of this show w'ell take a look at one of the newest additions to Douglas County: the Aikman Wildlife Adventure Park.

That's all next on City Spotlight.

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Welcome to another edition of City Spotlight.

We turn our attention today to Arcola.

And joining me today is the mayor of Arcola, Larry Ferguson.

>>Larry Ferguson: Glad to be here.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Arcola City Administrator Bill Wagoner.

Gentlemen, glad to have you on again.

>>Bill Wagoner: Good to be here.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Excellent, and last time we had you on the program was around last year's Broomcorn, which we had a great time taping that feature.

And we saw firsthand why it's such a special event and Arcola's proud to have it every year.

I believe 46th this coming year.

>>Bill Wagoner: Yes.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: And at the start of the new year we had a series of education related shows, and we had Dr. Tom Mulligan from Arcola schools on the program.

And we talked obviously about schools and technology in the Arcola schools.

And we talked just a little bit about the Arcola Purple Riders football team and their run to a state title.

And just wanted to ask you gentlemen, I know Bill, I saw you at a few of those playoff games, what was the atmosphere?

What was Arcola like in that great November run there?

>>Bill Wagoner: Well I think the grade school students saw the most excitement.

The players would help them unload in the morning and walk them into the school.

And I think there was a good connection there between the seniors, all the way to the kindergarteners.

And I think that was really great.

It was very heartwarming to see the kids look forward to Fridays and the games, and supporting their team.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: And Larry, Arcola has such a proud tradition with their schools and their football program, as much success in the past.

And for the town to light up like that again had to be a special time in the community.

>>Larry Ferguson: Yeah, it certainly was.

You know, the tradition's been really rich and great through the past years.

Kind of a lull in there between.

You know, sometimes you have those big families that have, you know, the athletes that come along at a good time.

And I think that's what happened this time, is some really great athletes came along.

And the coaching, you know, I think it's his second year, and he just had a great work ethic for the kids and they followed him.

And that bled over into the town, I believe.

It just put Arcola on the map again, as far as the sports community.

Even though we do have that, you know, ongoing every year, but this really, but this really was special.

You know, the year before we made it into some playoffs, but we had some heartbreaking loss right there.

But the town really embraced them.

Even from other towns, even other people from other communities, you know, embraced that.

And we saw a lot of, you know, a lot of different views from surrounding communities and how they supported Arcola in what they achieved.

So, it was really exciting.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: It was great to see the town lit up with a lot of purple obviously, and the banners.

A lot of great memories for people to dwell on as we move forward.

Let's stay with school right off the bat here, and let's talk about No Job Left Behind and how is Arcola involved in this program.

What is it, and when did it get started?

>>Bill Wagoner: Stepheny McMahon with the Sullivan Chamber of Commerce is really the driving force behind it, and Lake Land College.

But we're just kind of a small piece of it.

But we've been working with them for the last two years now on doing surveys of our manufacturers and trying to find out what skill sets they need, where we're kind of missing the boat right now with their hires.

And hopefully we can help build a better regional workforce for our manufacturers.

And then you know, in turn, you know, not everybody's going to go to a four-year university.

There's a lot of opportunities for welders, machinists in our area.

If we can identify these career paths for the kids and help them stay here, that grows our population and helps our businesses.

And we can attract other businesses when we have good skills with our workers.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: I've talked with other city leaders from other communities about being able to give these opportunities for youth to learn skills through the local businesses.

And how important is it to teach the youth in Arcola some of these local skills from the local businesses?

>>Larry Ferguson: Well I think we've looked at these things before where, you know, these graduates go on to a four-year school and they don't come back to Arcola.

You know, everybody has that in a small community, not keeping your youth.

And you know, you can understand most of that is going to dissipate.

But I think that's important if you can actually bring in the manufacturers we have, you know, in our community to help out and reach out to these different areas, I think that will keep some.

You know, actually we can continue to grow in Arcola with our, basically our graduates.

So, I think it's very important to do that.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: I've done a little reading about the program, and there are several Central Illinois communities involved with it.

So, not just Arcola, but a lot of communities are being helped by it.

Let's shift from schools to budget.

I have to ask you gentlemen about, unfortunately, the Illinois State budget.

And people are seeing this program here in the middle of July, and the State of Illinois doesn't have a budget.

And how has Arcola had to adjust a little bit more with not having a state budget to work with?

>>Larry Ferguson: Well I'm going to pass that on to Bill.

He really takes, tackles our budget.

Doest a fine job with that.

And I know we're bare bones again this year, but I'll pass that on to Bill and he can speak to that.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Well Bill, specifically you know, we've talked about it with city leaders from all the towns we've had here on City Spotlight since it initially, at this point maybe last year.

And just what are the challenges of having to continue to tighten what you're working with, and trying to plan ahead?

>>Bill Wagoner: Yeah, I think one of the big things is we know for sure our motor fuel tax money is going to be cut off in July.

So, the money that we use to fix our roads is going to be gone, so we have to work with what we do have.

I think going forward there's some uncertainty of when they're going to pay.

We've always had the State pay, and it's usually been on time.

If that goes away I think we will have some concerns.

We're fortunate that we have a public utility and our water and sewer departments that can help step forward and loan some money to the general fund, which covers you know, your police, your parks, your streets and those kind of things.

So, we can help cash flow those operations while we're waiting for the State to give us our funds.

And then you know, we have our property taxes, and that's 25% of our budget.

So, that's going to be there.

So, we just kind of, you keep the lights on as long as you can.

And then you know, if you see that the State's not keeping up their end of the bargain, then you have to dial back.

And I think our operations are fairly lean, and we're down one employee from our public staffing in public works.

And I think we'll probably be that way until, you know, hopefully the administration figures this budget thing out and allows us to get back to our full strength, that level.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Hopefully very soon for all of the communities in Central Illinois.

One of your areas in town, the police force maybe looking to add a new officer.

But tell us first off how many staff do you have in the Arcola Police Department.

>>Bill Wagoner: At full strength we're at five full time officers.

They also have a secretary, dispatcher that works Monday through Friday.

And we're looking to get back to the five, but we're currently at four.

We lost somebody earlier in the spring.

And then down the line we're kind of looking at adding a sixth officer.

We're fortunate that we're right on the interstate, but we're unfortunate, too, because you draw in some of those problems.

And you have to adequately staff your department, you know, full time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

We really need another person to offset that.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: You guys also mentioned you have some part time officers, as well, that help out.

So Larry, the importance of safety in the community.

You have to have it.

>>Larry Ferguson: You have to have that.

You know, and the other thing I like to be able to mention is the 24/7.

We don't just have an eight hour shift, you know, Monday through Friday.

It's ongoing.

And with the, we do have officers that have spent a lot of time there in Arcola, have a lot of years under their belt with their PTO, their paid time of has increased.

So, we have to cover those.

And you know, they have vacations and things that they're doing.

So, you know, it's hard to cover our shifts the way it is.

So, when there's vacations involved, you know, it makes it hard.

So, getting a sixth officer would definitely help, but we have to have the funds to be able to do that, though.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Absolutely, the budget would certainly help there.

And I understand a K-9 was retired recently.

Are you going to be replacing it any time soon?

>>Bill Wagoner: Yeah, we recently retired Voodoo in May.

He recached his ninth birthday, so he's living the life of luxury on the couch with our K-9 officer, Nick Suding.

And we have a new dog that's coming to us in the fall, and it's coming out of Decatur.

It's a Dutch shepherd.

And it's a little smaller dog than what we had, but it still does search and rescue and drugs.

And so, we're hoping to get a little more longevity out of this dog.

>>Larry Ferguson: Not to interrupt, but what was nice is we had some great donations to purchase the dog.

I think the Arcola Foundation, is that correct, Bill?

>>Bill Wagoner: Yeah, the Arcola Foundation.

>>Larry Ferguson: And Libman Company and Monahan Company.

A bunch of, you know, a lot of the businesses around town actually, you know, pitched in some dollars to buy the K-9 dog.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Great support there to help you guys out there.

Let's shift from public safety to public works.

I understand there's been some sewer work on the northern end of Arcola since the fall, and it's about to be completed?

>>Bill Wagoner: Yes, we're wrapping it up right now with the roadwork to kind of fix all the holes that we made, I guess.

We put in 6,200 feet of sanitary sewer, made 120 residential connections.

We ran pipes all the way up to the houses until we find good PVC, just to keep...

In that neighborhood there's a lot of rainwater that's infiltrating the storm sewage, and just overwhelming our sanitary sewer, rather.

And so, we got a grant from the State, 450,000 dollar CDAP grant a couple years back.

And then we had 170,000 in local funds in the project so far.

And like I said, once we get the roads done, we'll have the project wrapped up here, hopefully in the next couple weeks.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: And that's the Arcola Acre subdivision?

>>Larry Ferguson: Yeah, it's on the north end of town, runs clear up to North Locust Street and ends up in there.

But, and you know, the residents have been really good about, you know, all the...

It's been dusty, the holes.

You know, the tried to put gravel in to make the roads as smooth as you can, but they've been really good about it.

But you know, the benefit of having the new sewer system is great for that area.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Alright, very good.

Glad to hear about that.

Glad it's almost done.

Something new to Douglas County right now is the Aikman Wildlife Adventure Park.

That's in the former Rockome Gardens location.

And folks probably still sad to see Rockome be gone.

But Aikman Wildlife Adventure Park is going to be formally open to the public, I believe it's July 1.

Excitement for Douglas County and Arcola, Arthur to have something opening there and getting going.

>>Larry Ferguson: I've seen a lot of excitement and a lot of people that have commented that that's out there.

And you know, we hated to lose Rockome, but I guess that venue kind of had died out.

You know, they tried and tried to keep that going.

But the new venue I've heard a lot of good response.

Their Facebook page lights up.

The weather hasn't been the best for them to get things going.

Had a great ribbon cutting out there.

You know, it was a perfect day on a Sunday.

Had a lot of attendance.

And has great support within the community.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: A lot of unique animals they have there for folks to see.

And kids probably looking forward to see that.

And later on in the program we'll take a visit there and learn a little bit more about it.

Let's go east of Arcola.

And one thing I noticed a little bit maybe of a decorative variety, there's a new light there on the on/off ramp there off I-57 there.

That's a state matter there, but it's something you notice when you're coming in or leaving Arcola.

>>Larry Ferguson: I think right now actually on our trip to here, I asked Bill when they were going to put the lights on top of the poles.

It seems kind of odd with the poles being up.

But you know, there again it just may be a timing issue.

But you know, definitely a safety situation, your on and off ramps there.

Even though they are very easy to get on and off, unlike maybe the ones up around 74 in Champaign.

But it is different.

But I'm glad we're going to have some lighting there, so.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Definitely very noticeable.

Let's stay in that part of Arcola and talk about Green Mill Village.

And at this time last year we were talking about there was a really solid play going on there.

And that lasted for pretty much the latter half of the year.

And Bill was telling me they're changing up with a little variety now, so we're going to have different shows going on at the Green Mill Village.

>>Bill Wagoner: Yeah, they have tickets on sale now for their dinner theater.

And they've got a variety of things, like you mentioned.

They've got a Patsy Cline impersonator, comedians.

They've got music groups, murder mystery theaters.

And I think it's going to be a neat attraction.

I think one of the things they realized by having the play in their last year is they tied up their conference room a lot.

And their main business is wedding and their staying, and guests.

So, this allows them to move that production into the fall.

And there's still an opportunity that they can bring back Blue Gate, and have those Amish kind of plays at a future date.

So, it's a good fit.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: And the facilities there are a strong asset there for Arcola, for not just the plays, but obviously being able to hold conferences, and you have the hotel obviously.

Alright, very good.

And it's never too early to talk about Broomcorn.

And I saw firsthand myself there great atmosphere, great weather last year for the Broomcorn.

And now I believe it's the 46th.

And as I was talking with one of the organizers there on that final Sunday there, they're already planning for the 50th Broomcorn, which is just in four years.

50 years of Broomcorn I'm sure will be a grand spectacle.

And obviously getting plenty for the next Broomcorn right now, aren't we?

>>Bill Wagoner: Absolutely.

It's full go right now.

They just announced the grand marshals, Don and Linda Rankin.

Very good choice there.

They've been a big part of the community for a number of years and big supporters of the festival.

I think, and I'll probably get the name wrong, but I think it's William Michael Morgan is the featured entertainer for Sunday.

And it might just be a sales pitch, but the guy that helps us book entertainers convinced them to book him in December, which is the earliest we've ever booked anybody, because he said that this guy could be bigger than Garth Brooks.

Now I'm pretty sure that's a good sales pitch, but we'll see.

I know he gets a lot of air time on the radio stations, and especially Sirius XM, so.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: And Garth Brooks, obviously there's a little history there.

Garth Brooks came through the area when he was coming up, and he's turning out to have a pretty good career.

>>Bill Wagoner: He did okay for himself.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Alright, very good.

Gentlemen, that's all I have for you.

Is there anything we've left off or that you'd like to leave us with as we proceed here on the show?

>>Larry Ferguson: No, I think that's wrapped that up.

And we're happy to be here.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Alright gentlemen, it's been a pleasure to, again, always have you on City Spotlight.

Larry Ferguson, the mayor of Arcola, Bill Wagoner, city administrator of Arcola, pleasure as always, gentlemen.

>>Bill Wagoner: Thank you.

>>Rameen Karbassioon: Thank you.

And coming up next here on City Spotlight, Kelly Runyon from the Paw Report will visit with the Aikman Wildlife Adventure Park.

And we'll learn more about that, one of the newest attractions in Douglas County.

But first let's take a look at some of the upcoming activities going on in Arcola.

[music plays] >>Kelly Runyon: The question everyone has asked you over, and over and over again is how in the world did you come up with the idea to create a wildlife adventure?

>>James Aikman: Sure, yeah.

So, I was a banker for 10 years.

And I'd always loved animals, but never thought I'd be doing anything like this.

On the night of October 22 I had a dream that my wife and I owned and operated a wildlife park.

And I thought it was a cool dream.

I told her about it the next day.

She said, "Our son's going to be born in about two weeks.

We have enough on our plate.

We need to just forget that."

>>Kelly Runyon: Forget the dream.

>>James Aikman: And I agreed with her completely.

And the next night I had the exact same dream.

And so, I told her, I said, "I don't know why, but I really feel like this is something God's wanting us to do."

And so, it kind of, from there my finance background made me want to find out what all was involved from a financial aspect of a zoo or a theme park.

And so, we started researching what other places do, as far as bringing in attendance and expenses like that, and kind of put together an annual budget and cash flow, and took that out to 10 years.

Because, we said if, we said God, if this can't support itself it would be very difficult for us to justify it.

And to our surprise, it could support itself.

And so, from there doors started opening, and things started happening.

And here we are, two-and-a-half years later.

>>Kelly Runyon: How does a banker, who sits down and puts pen to paper and crunches numbers, now have to pick up feed and feed buffalo, and feed wildebeests, and take care of peacocks?

>>James Aikman: It was an interesting change, that's for sure.

So, my day started earlier out here.

I was no longer working in an air conditioned office.

I was out in the heat, doing things.

And what I noticed, to my surprise, is my reflexes started coming back.

So, I think sitting in a desk for 10 years, my reflexes had kind of gotten a little lax.

And then all of a sudden I started noticing when things were falling, I could catch them, but I couldn't catch before.

And I was moving, I'd move out of the way of things.

So, I think it's just working around some of the bigger animals like the water buffalos or the bison, and things like that, or even just our skid steer, you always know that these are big animals, these are big machines.

You have to be paying attention, you have to give them the respect that they're due.

And then that makes you a little bit more aware.

But no, I've lost probably 10 pounds at least since I started working here.

So, I didn't have time to really work out before.

And so, here just on a daily basis I'm running different places, or I'm lifting 50-pound feed bags or things like that.

And so, it's been a very cool transition.

It still has its challenges.

There are different challenges than what were at the bank.

But now, with the bank I always loved my job.

But there's nights now where I go to bed and tell my wife that I just can't wait for morning to come because I'm excited to get out here and continue doing things.

Because, you know, we have a lot of stuff to do before we can open it up with the public.

>>Kelly Runyon: So, you found out that...

This is the former location of Rockome Gardens, which a lot of people know about.

You find this location, it is up for sale.

So, how do you, was that a long and daunting process to get approval for a place like this?

>>James Aikman: So, with this location, we knew from the beginning that it could be an option.

It was not for sale in the beginning, but we knew it could be an option.

We kind of looked at the aerial map multiple times, and this location had quite a few challenges associated with it.

Enough so that we didn't really feel it was worth looking into at that time.

Then we started pursuing other sites.

And when we realized that those just weren't going to work out we came back to this site and said, okay, let's say that we can build the park here.

What would that look like?

And so, we took about 60 days during that time period coming out here, walking it, looking at things, looking back at the aerial map and coming up with how could we make our vision fit into an already existing location that had a lot of buildings, a lot of structures, had paths and things like that.

So, what all would be needed to make it work.

And so, we finally came up with a plan that we felt would not only work, but could even be better than what we're thinking of originally, just because there are a lot of huge mature trees here, which you don't find that very much around this flat farmland area.

It's got the pond that we have in the background and some topography, some rolling hills behind us.

So, it already has some of the features we wanted.

And then it's got a lot of the buildings and infrastructure that we were able to use.

And so, from there, once we realized that it was possible, we kind of stared dealing with the challenge of Rockome is known to a lot of people.

It has a lot of history.

We need to do what we need to do to make our vision happen, but we still need to respect that heritage and that history that it has.

>>Kelly Runyon: So, you got the land, and you're preserving it.

But probably the next step then is the animals.

And that's what everyone is interested in.

So, how do you go about selecting the animals that are here in the park?

And maybe talk about what you do have here that people will be able to see.

>>James Aikman: Sure, so as far as selecting goes, in the planning we had kind of come up with these are the animals we'd like to bring in each year.

So, we knew what animals we'd start with in the beginning, and what animals we felt we could add each year.

And when we brought in those animals that we thought we would have in the beginning, it did not look like we had many animals out here.

So, my brother and I, we would test drive the path.

We'd go three-fourths of it without seeing any animals.

So, I knew that my animal to acre number was incredibly conservative before.

But until you see it in real life, you don't realize just how conservative it was.

And so, from there we started realizing hey, we could do more animals.

What does that look like?

And we had animals that we'd like to have, but we kind of just left it open to see what was out there.

So, our animals usually come from two different places.

One is from individuals that have had an animal or two, and for whatever reason they need to find a new home for it.

Or from other parks or zoos that just have some extra animals that they just don't really have room for.

Or some places have animals that they just would rather not take care of through the wintertime.

And so, they're trying to find a new home before winter comes.

And so, we kind of just had the mindset of whatever we can see, whatever we can get, that's what we'll make due with.

And so, we've got, at the park we've got 61 different species of animals here, over 150 animals on the grounds now.

In the drive-through we probably have roughly 33 species, right around 80 animals.

In the beginning people would ask, "What kind of animals do you have?"

And I would list off scimitar oryx, addax, eland.

And people would look at me like, "What are you talking about?"

So, then I quickly realized when people ask me that question, I say we have zebras, we have camels, we have a bunch of African antelope and things like that.

And so, people can wrap their heads around zebras and camels.

They know what those are, but they don't know what a lot of the African antelope are.

So, we have animals that are native to six different continents, and so their species is native to that continent.

None of the animals have come from those continents.

And actually none of the animals come from the wild to be brought here.

So, all of our animals have actually been born and raised in the U.S.

The majority of them have been born and raised in the Midwest here, so they're already kind of used to our weather, used to our winters and things like that.

And so, that definitely helps move things along.

These last six to eight months, they've been a little different than what it will be in the future just because we've actually been building the park now.

And so, we have a big list of projects that we've been kind of checking off each day.

And so, it's kind of figuring out what projects can we get done today.

And so, we're very excited about the time when all our phase one projects are done, and then we can just take a little bit of time and relax, and kind of enjoy what we have more before we continue on with the project list.

From the beginning my wife and I have been very firm on the fact that if we can't provide a better home for the animal than where it came from, we have no business having that animal.

And so, from the beginning we knew that basically it was animals first, people second.

And so, we wanted to give them big habitats.

And so, some places habitats are small, but you do see the animal.

So, one of the things we do let people know is we're here for the animals, because of the animals.

And so, they have a big habitat, which may make it hard to see them sometimes.

So, that's just one thing we want people to know, especially on the walk-through side of things.

But the other is we wanted to be a place that families could come.

So, we see nowadays everyone's schedules are incredibly busy, that if you have multiple kids they're probably involved in different things.

And maybe you don't even have time to have a family meal together every night, or something like that.

So, we wanted to be a place where families could come, something that would appeal to a wide age range.

We have people that come up and thank us every week.

They say, "I've got kids 3, 6, 9 and 12, and they all love this."

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