Music >> Rameen Karbassioon: City Spotlight is supported by Consolidated Communications.

CCI is honored to salute the cities and their leaders in the area as well as providing TV, internet, and phone service to local homes and businesses.

We live where we work and are proud to support the communities we serve; more information available at consolidated.com.>> Rameen Karbassioon: Welcome to City Spotlight where we're focusing on east central Illinois communities.

Today, we're talking about Taylorville, and with us today is the mayor of Taylorville, Greg Brotherton.

>> Greg Brotherton: Thank you.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And Patty Hornbuckle of the Greater Taylorville Chamber of Commerce.

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Thank you.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Thank you for both being here.

>> Greg Brotherton: Happy to be here.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And before we get started on what's going on in Taylorville, please tell us a little bit about yourselves, Greg.

>> Greg Brotherton: Well, I've been a resident of Taylorville for almost 50 years.

Actually grew up in Mattoon until I was about 7-years-old.

In 1967 we moved to Taylorville, and I've been there ever since.

Obviously, I love the town.

It's a great place to live, and that's actually our motto.

Taylorville is a great place to live.

I've raised my family there, you know, I'll probably see my grandkids there at some point.

It's just a-- it's a wonderful place.

I worked on the Taylorville Police Department.

I had a 20-year career there before being elected mayor.

I'm in my second term.

This is actually year number six for me, and so I've got two left.

And we'll see what happens after that.

But again, I just happen to love the town, and I'm proud to-- proud to be able to fill the position of mayor.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Excellent, thank you.

And Patty, tell us a little bit about yourself.

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Well, my husband and I moved to Taylorville in 1991 from a little town called Yorkville, just west of Naperville.

And we had our pick of towns; we had to live within a 50 mile radius of Springfield, and we fell in love with Taylorville.

It was a great place for the kids to grow up.

It had everything that we needed, and so we moved there.

And my children all graduated from Taylorville High School, and now I have grandchildren that are in the system.

So, we're making it our home.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Excellent, so both of you have kind of been in Taylorville, working in Taylorville, for roughly around the same amount of time.

>> Greg Brotherton: Sure.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Greg, let's start with you.

You worked, as you mentioned, 20 years in the Taylorville Police Department.

During that time, could you maybe paint us a picture of what Taylorville looked like or what was happening around that time?

>> Greg Brotherton: Well, it was nice.

I remember when I first started my career, one of the things we have-- like a lot of small towns, we have the square, which is kind of the center of town.

And a lot of your historic shops are around there and still are today.

But 20-25 years ago, it used to be a big hangout for the high school kids.

And we used to have a cruising area down there, and you would cruise around the square.

High school kids, and it actually worked very well as a police officer because if you're looking for a kid for a certain reason, instead of driving all over town looking for him, you'd go position yourself on the square and give him some time, and in 15-20 minutes, they're going to make a lap by you.

So, it worked out very well.

But it was just the kind of place where everyone would see everyone.

It really brought the town together.

And you know, the square is still a central gathering point for us and a very important part of the town.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And as you mentioned, you're in your second term as being mayor.

What are some things that you'd like maybe want to highlight or that have been accomplished during those six years?

>> Greg Brotherton: Well, you know, during that period of time, again, like in a lot of your small towns, the infrastructure, there's problems with it.

And a lot of your small towns have that, Taylorville included.

For years, I would hear complaints and experienced them myself.

We have we-- we have major rains, there would be flooding.

A lot of water in basements, and things like that.

And it was because the infrastructure was, you know, 80-100 years old.

And a lot of that the drainage had broken and needed to be replaced.

So, in the last four years, we've invested over $10 million in trying to update that.

And we've had quite a bit of success, and it's good to get those kind of phone calls now with people thanking you.

And four or five years ago, I'd get the phone calls of how long am I going to have to put up with this, mayor?

And then now that we've invest the money, they call me back and say, you know, we got three inches of rain and my-- my basement is dry as can be, and thank you mayor for doing that.

So, that's good.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Excellent, so Patty, you told us that you moved from Yorkville to Taylorville about 25 years ago.

What did you know about Taylorville before prior to moving there?

And maybe a couple things that you've noticed during the time since you've been in Taylorville?

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Well prior to moving here, we had made a couple of trips down to central Illinois, and like I said, trying to pick out the town that we, you know, wanted to-- that we were going to chose for raising our family.

And so, you know, we were welcomed in.

We did a lot of research as far as to the local people.

We had a lot of conversations, and Taylorville was the friendliest.

You know, they, like I said, they were very welcoming, and so that's kind of what we-- that's what we, you know, decided to do was to, you know, just plant our family here.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Okay, excellent.

And just this past year, Taylorville has celebrated 175 years.

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Yes.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: What was that celebration like?

And more importantly, what does that mean for Taylorville celebrating 175 years?

>> Greg Brotherton: Well, it was quite an experience, and I learned myself a lot.

It's-- if you don't have the opportunity and haven't had the time, I wish everyone would take it to kind of look in your town's history because looking at some historic figures, they really tell a story.

And you-- you look at some of the old buildings around town, and-- and it's hard to think about how many lives went on through those buildings.

You know, like some of them are well over 100 years now, and so there's been four or five generations of workers and their families that have gone in those buildings.

And there's been, you know, a dozen different businesses there.

And something you didn't know that 80 years ago that used to be a pharmacy or something else or they used to do upholstering for wagon carriages or something like that.

But you see these old pictures and you look at the faces of the people there and it just-- you just feel a connection.

Again, you're a part of that now, and you know that sometime now in the future, people are going too look back at pictures today and think the same things.

You know, I wonder what they were thinking about this time?

Were they facing the same types of problems and concerns that I am now, today?

So, it is very interesting.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And prior to our taping, you told us that you had the celebration around the same time of your annual Chilli Fest.

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Yes.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: A lot going on there, we'll talk a little bit more about Chilli Fest later, but what was that whole experience of-- because you had it at the same exact time as Chilli Fest.

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Yes, we put it in conjunction with Chilli Fest.

You know, if we were going to bring that many people, you know, to the town for Chilli Fest, we might as well, you know, have the 175th then, too.

And like I said, and double the experience.

And we also did it in conjunction with the Christian County Historical Society.

And so, what that meant to them was, you know, all this history that we have talked about, you know, it brought people over to the historical society, people that have been here all their lives that have never been over there.

You know, the original courthouse for Christian County is located there.

And like I said, there's the historical buildings that they have, is just amazing.

So, if they haven't been there, you know, they need to go and like I said, we really try to push that, too.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: A couple pictures you sent me over, one of them was the beard competition.

We'll put that on the screen for people to see.

One of them was yourself, so what was that-- what was that all about?

>> Greg Brotherton: Well, you know, I had a beard twice in my life.

When I first married about 30-40 years ago, I had a full, red beard.

And one thing I noticed this time, it's no longer red.

In fact, the beard was as white-- white as the driven snow, you know.

And I had several offers to play Santa Clause later in the year, in which I didn't take anyone up on.

But it was quite an experience and I'm glad I did it.

It was a lot of fun.

And then as for the contest itself, you know, we advertised it for, you know, six-eight weeks prior to the actual contest and we had, I don't know, probably 10-- 10 or more participants in it.

And we picked out winners from that group, and I think everyone really enjoyed it.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And the last question around the 175 years, you talked a little bit about a time capsule, and how folks can still contribute to that?

>> Greg Brotherton: Yeah, on Memorial Day weekend, we're actually going to have a time capsule buried up there, and our intent is to take pictures of today, the current day, and put it in the time capsule so that, you know, whether it be 25, 50, 100 years in the future whenever that's opened up again, people are going to have that experience and have that feeling of being brought back in history and that tie with the town.

And so, we're looking forward to that, and we're asking our local businesses, you know, take pictures of your buildings, take pictures of your staff, so that the future generation will have a chance to look back and ask all the questions I look back on now at the old photograph I shared with you.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: That sounds like a lot of fun.

>> Greg Brotherton: It will be.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And for people to be able to look back on, that'll be a great-- a great thing.

Let's move into some of the current issues in Taylorville.

And if you could describe the economic landscape of Taylorville right now.

>> Greg Brotherton: I think it's challenging.

I think municipalities across the state are in the same situation.

There's not enough money to go around, and again infrastructure, I have to bring that up once again.

If you drive through the roads of Illinois, you know that state-wide we need some work.

And municipalities are no different.

It's just very expensive to try and keep those roads, you know, looking good and working well.

And I'm not sure where that money's going to come from, again.

So that's something we face every day is, you know, how are we going to pay for that.

The other infrastructure we hit on a little bit, the sanitary sewers, we have to work on them along with the storm sewers.

And again, there's stuff that have lived there-- used the life, they're kind of at the end of it.

And so now, a lot of the small towns have to make the decision how much investment are we going to have to put back into it.

So, we continue to grow, and so that's one front, and again, to get that revenue you have to bring businesses into your community.

And so, it's one of those situations where you really have no choice, you have to invest and grow because the only other situation is just to live there and die a slow death; no one wants to do that.

So, the path is pretty clear, it's just, you know, how can we work together to get there.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And Patty, I'll have you elaborate a little bit on a couple of your major employers in Taylorville.

You obviously have a hospital, but GSI and MBM.

For those that are not familiar with those, what are they and what do they do?

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Well, GSI is a-- it's actually called Grain Systems, Inc. And they're also-- they're owned by AgCo, and they do grain bins, and they also do like poultry systems so that they can actually-- if somebody's going to build a whole poultry farm, it's everything that they possibly need, and it's all manufactured, you know, right here in Taylorville.

And there's a second plant in Assumption.

And then, MBM is a fast-food merchandising-- or distribution plant.

And what they do is they have all the food come in and then it's distributed to each one.

And like you said, both are very, very major employers.

And along with the hospital, too.

So, and that's what we'd love to attract.

You know, maybe not quite as big or we'd love to have them just that big as far as new businesses to town, so.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And there's a new industrial park in the works on the northwest side of town.

>> Greg Brotherton: Correct.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Why don't you-- want to elaborate on that?

>> Greg Brotherton: Yeah, well I think we both can.

Again, obviously when you're trying to attract new businesses, the first thing you have to have is a place to put them.

And so, we're trying to establish a good location, and I think we've got one picked out.

We're in the process of actually putting the infrastructure they will need in place.

And so, then we'll be able to market Taylorville as a place for them to locate.

And so, we're excited about that.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And one of your newer businesses is the BNR Barge Company, it's been there a couple years now.

Two part question: tell us a little bit about that business and with a newer business, what are you looking for in a newer businesses or prospective businesses coming to Taylorville?

>> Greg Brotherton: Sure, well I think, again, we're looking for something that'll hit that niche, that'll make, you know, Taylorville special, and draw people to, not only the business itself, but will allow it to grow and expand.

And this business has found that niche.

Again, they make barges, and you wouldn't think in central Illinois, you know, what-- where are on Earth would you use a barge?

But there's a niche for a lot of the small lakes, a lot of the small streams, and stuff like that that need that kind of thing to work on it.

Our lake, for example, was built in the early 1960s, you know, and it's a wonderful lake.

But we have such a large watershed, and it's a tradeoff.

If we get a good rain, it only takes a day or two to fill our lake back up to the proper level, and that's a good thing.

The bad thing is it brings a lot of silt and things in there.

So, after, you know, 50 or 60 years, it's time that we need to probably dredge that lake, which is a very expensive proposition.

We will be using barges in some form to do that kind of work.

And so, to have a manufacturer right there in our own community that bodes well for us.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Excellent, and you had mentioned before we started taping that trying to strengthen the work force through the local community colleges.

>> Greg Brotherton: Right, well again, you know, we're trying to educate our work force because that's one thing our employers are looking for is well educated work force.

So, you know, we're using the colleges for that purpose.

The barge company, for example, you know, obviously barges are made of steel, and so there's a lot of welding involved.

And so, they've contacted our local colleges, and who have these welding programs, and got some of their top students out there and now have offered them full-time jobs and it's worked out real well for them.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And for the community as a whole, for Taylorville and the surrounding areas, to have access to-- you have one kind of there, a location, but you are also are nearby other ones.

Either one of you want to talk about having the local community colleges nearby?

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Well yeah, like I said, with Lincoln Land, you know, and the Taylorville facility, you know, not only do we have that, but, you know, we're very close to Springfield.

We also have Richland and Lakeland College, and so, you know, both of those have great work force centers.

And like I said, so that's the key is to get these people trained.

And we have the force to do it, you know, we have the people that can work, and we just need them, you know, to have some place to go.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Let's go back to talking about the square in Taylorville.

A lot of central Illinois towns have that, talk a little bit about those businesses that, as you mentioned, a lot of them been there for over 100 years.

What is their importance to Taylorville?

>> Greg Brotherton: Well again, it's such a tie.

The people that have lived around there for, you know, most their lives, 50 or 60 years, the way I have, again you kind of grew up around that square, that was the center-- that was the gathering place.

We talked about 175th celebration, you can go back and look at the pictures, and there'’’s literally thousands of people that would gather on that square for different events.

In fact, looking at the picture, I was telling Patty on the way up here, every time you look at them, you find something new.

And if you look at some of those pictures, you'll look up and see-- you know, you'll see a fuzzy kind of picture of a person looking upward, and say, I wonder what he's staring at.

And I noticed today, they must've had a circus in town at that time, because there's a guy on a tightrope walking it.

Another guy, you know, had some kind of apparatus in his teeth and he's dangling in the air, just, you know, the only support coming from his mouth.

And so, it's good to look back on that, but-- and I talked about in-- 20 years ago, the kids would gather there and cruise around that square.

And today, things, you know, it's more of a challenge.

Society is changing, we talk about bricks and motor stores giving way to, you know, a lot of the internet shopping.

So, that's always going to be a challenge.

We had to deal with-- we have an incredible Wal-Mart located in Taylorville, but, again, people would now go to Wal-Mart, that pulls some of the people out of the stores up there on the square.

So, now you have to look for, you know, people to fill those special niches to get them in there.

They offer something that the local Wal-Mart doesn't; that makes them special.

And so, we're always looking for someone to step forward and do that, and because of that on a yearly basis, we usually see one or two different stores open up on the square area, and try to make a go of it.

And some of them have been very successful.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And one of those locations, you told me that it structurally came apart.

You told me a little story about a gentleman that has kind of brought it back up.

>> Greg Brotherton: Sure.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And what does that say about Taylorville and maybe that gentleman in particular wanting to build that building back up?

>> Greg Brotherton: Well, I think it-- I think he recognizes, you know, how important the square is to us and to the vitality of the city.

Again, the building itself is over 100 years old.

It used to be-- it's well known for the people that have been there most of their lives is George's Candy Shop.

And that was, if you look back to the 1950s and 60s, the malt shop typed thing, that's kind of what it was for our area.

And so, when that building came down and the front of it just kind of collapsed.

And so, the danger was, you know, are we now going to have a hole in our square.

Again, it's a beautiful historic building, and then all of a sudden you have a space, then now it's like a beautiful smile with your front tooth missing.

So, we definitely did not want that to happen.

And we were all worried about that because it's very expensive to put these buildings back up.

But the young man that owns it right now, he is very responsible, he stepped forward, he cleaned up the mess, and he's fully dedicated to restoring it to its former glory.

And he's making great strides towards that.

The brick is now all back in place.

He's going to start next week working on the windows, trying to put in the authentic window type that was there 100 years ago.

And we were-- we're very excited about it.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And Patty, you told me your office is on the second floor of a building overlooking the square and you've kind of caught yourself glancing a couple times.

Tell us about when you look out your window, what do you see?

>> Patty Hornbuckle: My view is actually breathtaking.

Like I said, we're on the second floor of U.S. Bank, and so we look directly onto, you know, the south entrance of the courthouse.

But there's always a lot of activity there.

But everyday I'm just amazed by the trees that are there and, you know, just the people that are walking around, and like I said, it's just-- it's a beautiful, beautiful courthouse with a lot of history.

You know, it's got the big clock tower on the top, and it's-- like I said, it's just beautiful.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And I want to talk about the location of Taylorville, located more central Illinois.

30 minutes from Springfield and Decatur.

Talk about the location of Taylorville being a strength?

>> Greg Brotherton: Well, I think it's a huge strength, especially for people that aren't big fans of the big city life, for example.

Both those towns, Springfield and Decatur both have 100,000 or so in population, and so they offer everything we might want.

The same token, the problems that come with living in town that size, you go 30 miles south to Taylorville, and you escape all that.

We talked on the phone, I mean, some of those towns they have some crime problems, they have some problems with gangs; we've never had that kind of problem.

And so, we get the best of the both worlds, I guess, the quietness of small town living here in Taylorville, but yet we go to either one of those sites and enjoy what the large cities have to offer.

So, I couldn't imagine a better location for a place like Taylorville.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And the road that connects Taylorville and Springfield is Route 29, Illinois 29.

It's becoming a four-lane road, and I understand that's a project that has been in the works for quite a while.

>> Greg Brotherton: Yeah, well over 20 years.

And we had a local group there that got behind it early.

I mean, it was kind of a hazardous drive, you know, 20 years ago.

And there were a lot of accidents and unfortunately quite a few fatalities, and a local group got together and said we're going to change this, you know, we need to make this road safer, and make it a four-lane would not only do that, but it would also enhance Taylorville's economic future.

And they worked hard on that, they got the first part done, you know, probably what six-seven years ago?

There were some fear that, you know, there was a part of the middle about the 6.3 miles that was left unfinished, and never knowing what the state legislature is going to do.

You never know if they're going to get back to finish that or not, but we're happy to report that they allocated the money for it, they started work on it last year, and they should finish it up this year.

So, we're very excited about that.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And we've talked a lot about the infrastructure already in Taylorville, one other thing that I don't think we mentioned is a new water plant.

>> Greg Brotherton: Right, there again, we've got a water plant that was aging.

It was built in the mid-early 1950s.

And you know, technology has changed so much that it's like anything else.

You can't buy those parts anymore.

We kind of joke that our current one was kind of held together with bailing wire and duct tape.

And along with the new EPA regulations, you know, it kind of made it a no-brainer for us.

We couldn't update to the point we need to with the existing plant, and so the best bang for our buck was to build a new one.

And now when I say best bang for the buck, we're talking about $27 million.

And our citizens will be quick to point out that'll be paid primarily through water rate increases.

And so, you know, that's-- as a politician, that's not something you get excited about telling your folks, guess what we're going to probably double your water rates.

But most of them have understood, they know where we are, they know that's where we have to go at this point, and they've been very supportive of it.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: We have just a few minutes left, so I'm actually going to skip over the things we were going to talk about, and maybe in a future episode, we can talk a little bit about-- I want to hear about the connection Taylorville and Abraham Lincoln.

So, if Patty kind of give us the cliff note story on that?

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Well, obviously, many years ago, Abe-- Abraham Lincoln, he practiced law, and Taylorville was on his circuit.

And so, he had a fairly important murder case that he was working on and he was trying to, you know, plead his case.

And there was a lot of noise underneath our original courthouse, and the courthouse was obviously right above the ground because that's where the pigs would wallow.

And so, with this noise coming from the pigs squealing, Abraham Lincoln asked the judge for a writ of quietness and actually wanted that to be, you know, you know, a law.

So, that happened, and that's kind of what made us famous for Abraham Lincoln and the pigs.

So, we actually have a pig statue on the square, Abraham Lincoln and the pig.

And there's been a book written, we've got a local author that's also in charge of tourism, Carol Alexander, that's-- like I said, she's made that book pretty famous.

And like I said, she's-- its-- we're in this history books.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: I think it's one of the coolest-- there's a lot of Abraham Lincoln history across the entire state, obviously.

We're the Land of Lincoln, but that one really does stand out.

If you haven't seen it, you should definitely take a look at it.

All right, quickly, tourism in Taylorville and a couple of annual events that you have that take place there.

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Yeah, we have several annual events, of course, with the chamber of commerce.

One of the events we have is our annual banquet and awards of excellence.

So, it's one of those important things where we have the citizen of the year award and things like that, and we have a keynote speaker, and it just kind of gathers all the business entities in the, you know, in the community and gets them all together.

And we try to make it fun; we make it a derby party.

So, it's always on the Friday before the Kentucky Derby.

So, we have the hats and everything, so we make it fun, not just boring.

But our really crowning event is Chili Fest.

This will be our 30th annual Chilli Fest.

And it's where we have about 12-14,000 people come on the square, you know, over the course of two days.

It's a sanctioned Illinois-- International Chili Society sanctioned event.

So, we have-- last year we had about 30 chili cooks and a lot of rules and regulations that go along with that.

But we have stage presentations, we have kids rides, we have over 100 vendors, we have bags tournaments.

I mean, we just make it a really important tourism, you know, stop.

So, if anybody wants to plan a weekend, that's what you need to do.

It's always on the first weekend in October.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Easy to remember, and it's Chilli Fest with two "L'’’s".

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Two "L'’’s", yeah.

We also-- we hold the Chillinois regional is one of our regional events for the chili cook-off.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Okay, my last question for both of you, and I'll have Patty go first; strengths of Taylorville moving forward?

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Oh, I just-- I wouldn't even know where to start as far as, you know, I'm in love with the school systems.

You know, that to me, we've got some new structures going up in Taylorville with an addition onto North School.

But like I said, with kids in the school system, with grandchildren in the school system, I think that's a really good, strong pull for us.

And with us being, you know, very close to Springfield, even if they work in Springfield, I want them to live in Taylorville, and you know, go to our schools and shop at our stores.

And like I said, it's a great place to live.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: Greg, what can you add upon that?

How can Taylorville build upon that?

>> Greg Brotherton: Well, it's about the same thing.

Again, we talked about location, and again, having been a person who's actually raised his family here, I cannot imagine a better place to do that.

Again, it's small enough where you're going to know who your kids are friends with, you're going to know who your neighbors are.

And so many of the larger towns, you've kind of lost that now.

So, you know, we have that unity here in Taylorville that I hope we never lose.

And so, I would just certainly say that if you need a place to raise a family, Taylorville should be it.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: I want to thank both of you for being on City Spotlight; Greg Brotherton, the mayor of Taylorville, and Patty Hornbuckle of the Greater Taylorville Chamber of Commerce.

Thank you for being here.

>> Patty Hornbuckle: Thank you.

>> Greg Brotherton: Thank you very much.

>> Rameen Karbassioon: And now, let's take a look at some of the upcoming activities going on in Taylorville.Music >> City Spotlight is on youtube.

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