By Verna Slate, Williamson County Bureau
CARTERVILLE — Walker's Bluff winery announced its closure last week, and now local legislators are using it to make a bigger point, according to the Southern Illinoisan: that property taxes are squeezing the life out of southern Illinois business.
Walker's Bluff has been one of the county's marquee economic-development stories of the last decade — the casino resort, the winery, the whole bet that Carterville could be a destination and not just a pass-through on the way to somewhere else. A winery closure is a small piece of that bet going bad, and it's already being turned into ammunition in the property-tax argument Springfield hears every session and rarely fixes.
No specifics on the winery's closure date, employee impact, or the legislators' proposed remedies were included in the available reporting. This bureau will keep pressing for the numbers behind the outrage.
- filed from the courthouse steps, where the ghosts take good notes.
— Compiled from reporting by the Southern Illinoisan.
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