Last Night I Attended a Team Lake County-- Economic Development Summit

Last night I went with Dale Multerer, Trustee Sherry Perkowitz, and Trustee Jerry Shaw to the one of the excellent programs that Lake County Partners puts on for economic development. We heard from Dr. John Lewis a Associate Vice President with Northern Illinois universities Regional Development Institute on the results of the second annual "Cost of Doing Business in Illinois"” survey, which revealed good news for Illinois in terms of productivity and cost attractiveness and uncovered some challenges in the manufacturing arena, as well.

We then also heard from Kristi Lafleur the Chief of Staff for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity on what Illinois is doing to retain and attract business to the state. Plus she talked about some of the issues that Dr. Lewis brought up and how the state is moving to meet them.

So what does this mean to Round Lake? Well I was struck by how some of the issues that confront us out here in our southwest quadrant are symptomatic across the state as well, transportation, land use and infrastructure. You only have to pick up the paper and see that Abbott has bought over 500 acres in Kenosha county Wisconsin to see that these issues of transportation and the lack of, the difficultly in reaching infrastructure can be damaging to the state county and regions economy. Because I can guarantee you that Abbott did not buy that property to build a summer cottage.