Community Corner

Patch Flash: Historic Lake County Hotel on eBay Auction

Chicagoland news to talk about: CEOs say Illinois is third worst state to do business in.

The historic Fox Lake hotel that previously served as a hideout for notorious mobster Al Capone is now up for auction on eBay. The Mineola Lounge and Marina was listed Monday on eBay with a starting bid of $2 million. The listing, which thus far has not attracted any bids, says that the lakefront hotel was built in 1884 and placed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1979. The property is on a 17-acre lot and includes the hotel, a full-service marina and a home which has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms and three half bathrooms.

As the Illinois unemployment rate continues to fall, Gov. Pat Quinn and other state lawmakers have been celebrating. But the rosy numbers are bad news for some Illinoisans -- specifically those who have been out of a job for more than 79 weeks. On Wednesday, the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) announced that an Extended Benefits program that started assisting the long-term unemployed in 2009 will end May 12 due to the falling jobless rate.

If Congress fails to renew a 2007 law that halved the interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford loans, Illinois students will be staring down $380 million per year in debt. The law that expires this July would double interest rates on college loans from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. Data released by the Illinois Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Thursday shows that that increase could be particularly damaging for college students in Illinois.

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A national survey of CEOs released Wednesday contained bad news for Democratic Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn as the survey identified Illinois as the nation's third worst state to do business in. Illinois was ranked 48th in the survey -- the same place where Chief Executive magazine ranked the state last year -- and only placed above New York and California, which has ranked last for each of the eight years the magazine has conducted the survey. Texas, Florida and North Carolina again ranked as the nation's "best" places to do business. The survey brought together responses from 650 CEOs, who are asked to grade states where they do business based on their taxes and regulations, workforce quality and quality of life. It specifically pointed to the state's "new tax burdens" as a major source of its business-unfriendliness.


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