The Illinois Business Journal

October 2005 issue - Vol.6, No.1, 24 pages

We Mean Business. Illinois Business.

Watson, Blagojevich clash over repeal of gasoline sales tax

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Bridge connecting the Village of Ketchikan with Gravina Island

Although Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich initially considered supporting a temporary repeal of the state's sales tax on gasoline, aides say he is now reluctant to forego the revenue. State Sen. Frank Watson and 16 others are leading the charge for the repeal. In 2000, a temporary repeal saved consumers about 10 cents per gallon.

By JIM PARSONS

   Is the tank half-empty or half-full?
   This petroleum-themed play on the familiar optimist/pessimist test may be the best way to examine how the summertime spike in gas prices has affected Illinois.
   With pump prices regularly venturing above $3 dollar per gallon, being among the seven states that charge sales tax on gasoline purchases has been a boon to Illinois' state and local government ledgers.
   A recent report by the bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability predicts that gas prices will deliver as much as $175 million in extra sales tax revenue during the 2006 fiscal year. That's on top of the $80 million that rising gas prices contributed in FY 2005, which ended June 30. Illinois' 6.25 percent tax is divided among the state (5 percent), municipalities [continue]

Senior women volunteer work crew builds Habitat home in Alton
By KERRY L. SMITH

   ALTON - Contractors traveling a distance to build homes or commercial structures is not unique; but those who make the trip and assume the task in a purely voluntary spirit - and who build hearts as well as homes - should make construction news history.
   A Habitat for Humanity corps of women, many of them seniors, traveled several hundred miles and several states to build a home in Alton for a mother and her three children. Volunteer builders came from as far away as Arkansas and Alabama. Women from across Illinois also teamed on the project.
   In addition to sharing their homebuilding skills, their time, their sweat and their tools, these [continue]

Geneva Mayer, left, from LeRoy and Debbie Moore from Hope, Ark. measure boards for a Habitat home in Alton. Volunteers worked 10-hour days with temperatures in the 90s.

Homebuilding, commercial development send regional tax base soaring

Federal funds will cover the cost of a new interchange at Interstate 255 and Davis Street Ferry Road, opening up thousands of acres for development by Clayco Realty Group.		By ALAN J. ORTBALS DUPO - When Congress passed the new transportation bill on July 30, it marked an end to a two-and-a-half-year-old struggle between two municipalities and two developers. Clayco Construction Co. and the village of Dupo won out over G. J. Grewe Inc. and the city of Columbia in a battle over funding for a new interchange, land control and annexation. The $17.5 million interchange will be built at Davis Street Ferry Road - not at Fish Lake Road as Grewe and Columbia had wanted. In early 1993, Thomas Hutfless [continue]

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