By Dave Dahl/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – New trees – replacing those damaged by the emerald ash borer – are coming to the Illinois State Fairgrounds.
The Illinois Green Industries Association committed to the donation – fifty trees a year until 2019 – and joined Gov. Bruce Rauner and other state officials for a ceremony near the fairgrounds’ Lincoln Stage.
Saying his constituents would not have been interested in working with Rauner’s predecessor on such a partnership, IGIA executive director Joe Khayyat said, “The business climate has changed. We appreciate where the state’s headed and what the governor’s doing.”
Separately, not far from the Lincoln statue near the fairgrounds’ Main Gate, Rauner planted a sapling said to be from an acorn from an oak in Washington, Ill. – an oak whose lineage is traced to Abraham Lincoln.
