A McLean County Board member who represents west and north Normal is seeking a second term against a candidate who is running for a second time.
Democrat Jim Rogal was appointed to the McLean County Board for District 4 in 2021. Rogal was elected to the seat the following year.
Rogal is running against Republican Jerry Klinkner, who also ran in 2022. Klinkner declined WGLT's request for an interview.
Rogal, a former state legislative liaison and Illinois Senate staffer, works at the Laborers union job training site in Stanford west of Bloomington-Normal. He's an instructor and grant writer.
Rogal said is role with the Laborers has informed his views on mental health and how well the county has managed one of its largest initiatives.
Rogal pointed out construction workers are four times more likely to die by suicide than they are to die on the job. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention estimates the number is five times.
Rogal said it's a reminder for everyone who needs help to seek it. He said many still can't. He said access to mental health services remains a problem for many, especially for people who live outside of Bloomington-Normal.
“There are people that are falling through the cracks, even people that have insurance fall through the cracks because they don’t always have that time to find a counselor or to change counselors to make it to those sessions,” Rogal said.
Rogal said the county needs to come up with ways to expand its mental health outreach into rural areas. He says telehealth is not a good option for many rural residents because broadband service is so unreliable out in the country.
“It’s probably a logistics problem that needs to be addressed or at least studied,” Rogal said.
Rogal chairs the county board's transportation committee. He said the county's plans to contract with Connect Transit next year to provide rural transportation service may offer an option.
Renewable energy
Much of the county's rural landscape is now dotted with wind turbines and increasingly solar farms. Construction on the county's first big solar project in eastern McLean County is expected to begin soon.
Rogal said the county wants to make sure fertile farmland doesn't get squeezed, but that's not been a problem yet.
“The other ones we have are all under 5 megawatts that are more in harder to farm locations,” Rogal said.
Carbon capture
The state of Illinois has a moratorium on carbon capture pipelines. That's where climate warming carbon dioxide is buried deep underground. Rogal said he wants to see plenty of guardrails to protect a primary source of drinking water.
“After the leaks they were seeing at the well at ADM in Decatur, it’s worrisome that you would drill through the (Mahomet) Aquifer that – at least this section of the state and have the potential of a leak,” he said.
Rogal says the emergency funding through COVID relief helped the county get caught up on a lot of infrastructure — and address other county needs. He says new software will streamline billing and communication between departments to make county business run more efficient.
“It doesn’t seem like to the average person that we are doing more with less, but things are more expensive so we are doing more… with the same people,” Rogal said.
Rogal said that new software is also going to help the county transition smoothly should it eliminate the county's elected auditor. McLean County voters will decide that in this election. Rogal supports that referendum.
Rogal said he is hoping McLean County voters will do something they've never done before — put Democrats in power. The board is currently split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.
“We’ve seen a huge change within this county over the last five to seven years. When I moved here in 2015, we had five Democratic members of the county board. We now have 10 Democratic members of the county board."
Rogal said Democrats have pushed to make county government more accessible, moving monthly meetings to evenings, and relaxing rules for public comment. Next, he says Democrats want to make it easier for board members to participate in meetings remotely.
“I think we are looking at making those changes as well. We’ve had some pushback on that from the other side, but I think there’s been some movement on that as well,” he said.
Republicans on the county board rejected a request for a Democrat to participate remotely during a board meeting last year. That enabled Republicans to hold on to the chairmanship in a party-line vote.
Early voting is underway. Election day is Nov. 5.
