Bryan Vogt: Hey welcome back to Ready Set Sold with your host Bryan Vogt. Thanks so much for staying with us. As I mentioned earlier in the show that we have a special guest, actually he was the first guest that we ever had in our debut of the radio program and that is Mayor Jim Vernier. Mayor are you there?
Mayor Vernier: Yes I am. Good morning Bryan.
Bryan Vogt: How you doing today?
Mayor Vernier: I’m good how are you.
Bryan Vogt: I’m doing fantastic. Thanks again for spending some time with us today. We do appreciate it. What we wanted to do, and this is kind of a series that we’re putting together, we wanted to kind of talk about different cities and some of the uniqueness that they have and why they’re such a great place to live, and we thought there would be no better person to have and that is the Mayor of the city.
So, with that Mayor, we’ve been trying to look at three, I’m sure there’s more than three reasons why Shiloh is such a great place, but maybe you can give us a few reasons. Start us off with the first reason. What makes Shiloh so special? Just so you know, Ilive in Shiloh. I’ve lived there for over 20 years. It is a great city, so I want to make sure I put that out there to everybody, but Mayor, I know you’ve got some insights on that too.
Mayor Vernier: Well, yes Bryan. There are several reasons why Shiloh is a great place to live, but I think what would be one of the top reasons would be the location where we’re at. We are centrally located in the areas on this side of the river that are the largest employers. We are next to Scott Air Force Base. We have two hospitals within a mile of Shiloh that are very large employers. On the south end of Shiloh, we have BAC or SWIC college, which is a large employer. McKendree College in Lebanon is a large employer. It’s only about 10 minutes drive from Shiloh.
And of course, to get to downtown St. Louis is about a 25 minute drive and from there you can access all of the fun things in the city of St. Louis. I do believe that our location is probably the number one reason that I would say people live in Shiloh.
Bryan Vogt: I love that too Mayor, because what I’m really hearing there too is that Shiloh is a city, is a town that you can actually work and have a good paying job. The hospital, you can be doctors and nurses, whatever those facilities may need, and same thing at SWIC and of course the Scott Force Base where the military come in and go, so it sounds like a great location.
And you can get to St. Louis, if you want to work there too. That’s an easy access because the interstate that is so available to you. I think that’s a fantastic point to make because you’ve got so many things going for you that if you want to go to St. Louis, you can, but you can do very, very well by just staying where you’re at. I mean, that’s what I’m hearing from you.
Mayor Vernier: Yes, and just staying in Shiloh, specifically for a weekend, is not bad either. We have a lot of recreations opportunities in the community. We have two golf courses and several others that are not far from Shiloh. We have several large parks, in fact the average ratings on acreage per park, Shiloh is much higher than the average, so parks. We have bicycle trails and currently under construction with another bike trail to Scott Air Force Base. We just completed a bike trail in our Three Springs Park. It takes you around the lake, a couple miles around the lake.
Yes, we just think that we have a great community here and again, five minutes from Scott Air Force Base, which is the region’s largest employer, I believe. Of course, the two hospitals, Memorial Hospital East in Shiloh and St. Elizabeth Hospital, which will be opening another couple of weeks in O’Fallon. Combined, there’s 3,000 jobs in those two locations. And again, SWIC University on the south side of Shiloh is probably another 800 employees that work there. You can, again, you can work at these large employment opportunities and be five minutes from your home. Where else can you do that?
If you lived out in St. Charles, to get to downtown St. Louis, you could be talking about a 45 minute commute. From Shiloh, it’s about a 30 minute commute to downtown. Same with Chesterfield. Chesterfield into downtown St. Louis is a very long drive, especially in the morning, you’re looking at the sun in your eyes the whole way. When you live in Shiloh and you head west, you have no sun in the morning and the traffic with the new River City Bridge, there’s hardly any traffic backup anymore on the bridges going into St. Louis. If you work in Missouri and you live in Shiloh, its bad thing to get to work or get home in the evening. Again, the sun is a big factor both ways.
Bryan Vogt: Well and you know, I think that works both ways too because two points I want to pick up on. Number one, if you are a Missouri person living in the St. Louis or in the even the St. Charles area, that you could very well be a doctor. You could be a nurse. You could be somewhere in the, one of the two hospitals, or you can teaching at SWIC, so even if the situation was, and if you chose not to live, why, we don’t know why you wouldn’t want to live in Shiloh, but if you didn’t, it’s a great way, it’s a easy commute going the other way too. So it’s a win, win situation for people that either want to work or that they want to live in Shiloh.
Mayor Vernier: Yes it is, and we’re ranked, there’s a group , a national organization that puts literature together, or statistics, and Shiloh, it’s an overall grade of an eight to live in. Number 128 best place to live in Illinois is Shiloh.
Bryan Vogt: Wow, that is fantastic. I’m glad you brought that up. The other thing that you mentioned too that I kind of want to maybe highlight too and just the other day I took my grandchildren to the parks in Shiloh. The one on FrankScott Parkway and there’s other parks near the schools and there’s a lot of what they call green space, and I think that’s such a big thing because that has so many things going on. I think it has a soccer field, it has a, what a softball, baseball field. It’s not just a park. There’s things you can do in it, correct?
Mayor Vernier: Yes, oh yes. We have a baseball, soccer, as I said the walking trail that was just completed, that goes around the lake and we will be opening the lake up for fishing this fall, or in the spring, one or the other, depending on if we get everything together or not, but the lake is stocked with fish. It’s not currently open, but with that new trail, it’s accessible now, so we’re going to open it up for fishing. And of course, if dad wants to go over and play a round of golf while the kids are playing in the park, it’s right next to Tamarack Country Club, and great golf course. One of the top rated in the area. As far as the cost goes, it’s pretty reasonable as well.
Bryan Vogt: It is reasonable and I do go out and hack at golf. I will just say that. I can’t say, I mean I do play. I do have clubs and I do ride a golf cart, but as far as that, it kind of ends with that, but that’s just a personal …
Mayor Vernier: Same here Bryan.
Bryan Vogt: Yeah, well we need go out and play then. We’ll just take the whole afternoon though, because it’d be probably what it’d take to get it done. Hey, running out of time with this segment, but when we come back I want to kind of go in a little bit deeper too about, again, one of the things I love about Shiloh too is just the community roots that it has and I want to kind of expand that more in the next segment, that is has everything that you just described.
It has the businesses, it has the opportunities for people to live in Shiloh, but it also has that sense of community that I think is really important when people are looking to either move into an area or where they want to put roots into, and that could even be for Sky Force Base in the military or for whoever.
So with that said, you’re listening to Ready Set Sold. I am your host Bryan Vogt. You’ve been talking with the Mayor of Shiloh, the Honorable Jim Vernier, and we’ll be back after a few minutes.
Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #21-02: Jim Vernier Mayor of Shiloh Il: Mayor Jim Vernier tells why Shiloh is the place to live
October 14, 2017