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'We're trying to get things done'

Posted May 11, 2015 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler The Herald Tribune

CHESTER -- U.S. Rep. Mike Bost (IL-12th District) visited Chester on Monday as part of his Congressional Listening Tour, which gives constituents a chance to ask questions directly to their representative in Congress.

Speaking to a gathering of roughly 20 people, Bost answered questions on a variety of topics, including the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare), Veterans' affairs and local concerns such as the state of the Randolph County Jail and the Chester Bridge.

"We watched Congress over different places around the United States having town halls," Bost said. "In a town hall, it gets to the point where somebody stands up here and tells you everything.

"We decided we're going to have listening tours, because I'm new, I want the opportunity to listen and hear your concerns."

Chester was the seventh stop on Bost's tour and the Republican former state representative from Murphysboro is in his first term in Congress after defeating Democratic first-term incumbent Bill Enyart in November.

Bost defeated Enyart 52.5 percent to 41.9 percent with Green Party candidate Paula Bradshaw picking up 5.6 percent. Bost serves on three committees - Agriculture, Veterans' Affairs and Small Business.

"The only way you can represent people is to make sure you are in touch with them," Bost said.

Bost also brought along Matt Rice, his district director based out of Bost's main Belleville office. Bost has additional offices in Carbondale, Mount Vernon and Washington D.C.

"People ask me 'Mike, what's it like?' and I said 'My old job on steroids,'" Bost said of being the district representative. "Because it's big staff and we're trying to deal with so many other issues.

"Let me tell you, it's been exciting and the learning curve has gone straight up trying to keep abreast of every issue."

Bost later said downtime in his new role is minimal and "We're trying to get things done."

Bernice Cowan asked Bost about whether he thought Obamacare would be abolished or amended. The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether or not to halt Affordable Care Act subsidies in the latest litigation targeting President Barack Obama's healthcare law.

"Right now, we're not sure what the courts are going to do," Bost said.

Bost later talked about discussions regarding leaving the system in place until a decision could be made on where to pull the trigger to avoid a collapse of the healthcare system.

"I am reminded of the statement 'We've got to pass it to see what's in it and what it does,'" he said.

All three commissioners - Ronnie White, Dave Holder and Chairman Marc Kiehna - of the Randolph County board were in attendance and Kiehna asked about both Veterans' affairs and educational reform.

In his question about Veterans, Kiehna noted that he feels Randolph County is "perfectly placed" for a U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs satellite clinic.

The VA has a facility in Marion (Marion VA Medical Center) and St. Louis (VA St. Louis Health Care System).

"I know that we have a lot of Veterans in our particular area and we would be placed right between St. Louis and Marion as far as Veteran access to facilities," Kiehna said in a follow-up interview with the Herald Tribune on Tuesday. "Whether we open a clinic in a location that's close to a hospital or in relationship to a hospital, since we have three of them, we could use our assets to help the VA and help our retired soldiers who live around here to get services quicker and better."

During Monday's session, Kiehna spoke on the need to emphasize state control of the direction of education.

"I certainly have legitimate concerns when it comes to the direction of our schools," he said in the follow-up interview. "Funding is a big piece of it and I feel much of education reform has been driven by the federal government."

Kiehna added that he is concerned that the federal government is "holding money out there like a carrot" in order to get school districts to buy into their programs.

On the local level, Randolph County Sheriff Shannon Wolff highlighted the county's jail is in need of $500,000 worth of repairs due to faulty doors.

Only 29 beds in the 45-bed facility are able to be used because of outdated security equipment and issues with plumbing.

"The emergency system is no longer working," Wolff said. "You have to have a maintenance man come into the jail, climb up on a ladder, take a panel off and use an iron bar to pop the (cell) door open.

"That's great if there isn't a fire or somebody in the cell dying."

Wolff said the jail is averaging about 30 inmates and warned that average would climb.

"Our jail is deteriorating quickly and we're going to have to build a new jail eventually," he said. "It's getting to that point."

In his response to Wolff, Bost said his staff was in the learning process of trying to find out where the connections are to funding and grants.

"There's federal inmates that could be housed and that's done in all the counties surrounding us," Wolff said. "You can make quite a bit of money doing that if we built a facility a little bit bigger than what we needed, we could potentially house 15 to 20 federal inmates and make almost $400,000 a year."

Other topics discussed included foreign trade issues, welfare reform, revamping the tax structure and the condition of the county's roads in regard to tractor-trailer traffic.

"We've got to get IDOT to pay attention to some of these highways," said Chester Mayor Tom Page, who met privately with Bost before the session.

Gene Korando, a board member with the Randolph County Farm Bureau, asked about the possibility of replacing the Chester Bridge, which will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its original opening in 2017.

"It's aging out, but I haven't heard a long-term plan," Bost said.

The final question of the evening asked about the grant programs Gov. Bruce Rauner has recently frozen and how long they would stay that way.

"I can't give you an answer on how long," Bost said. "If we can get our House of Representatives and Senate in the State of Illinois to work side-by-side with the governor - and I know they're going to argue on the cuts and that's between them - but to make sure we kick the door open, not just crack the door open, and start doing things like saying 'Hey, Illinois is such a great place to come for business, let us say what we're going to do for you to come here.'"

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