By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News

With the State of Illinois wavering from time to time with different forms of funding, Pontiac hasn’t been facing some of the problems other similarly sized communities have.

Mayor Bob Russell said, from a local standpoint, the city has been benefitting from being the home of so many businesses. He said currently, there is only one storefront open in the downtown, which is an amazing statistic.

“We have the opportunity now where you come here and you’re not indoors the whole time, walking from building to building, but it’s not very far. You can see a lot of high end shops now that are helping to draw people here. It’s happening. We just have people from all over the State of Illinois here on a regular basis because they’ve heard about us and they’re in our stores shopping, they’re eating, they’re buying gasoline, they’re spending money. That’s what keeps us afloat without having to raise taxes,” Russell said.

Russell was a guest on a recent Community Forum, where he updates listeners on the latest city council meeting.