State efforts to reopen the long-closed Eagle Creek Resort on Lake Shelbyville in central Illinois haven't gotten very far -- especially with the current budget crisis. So local officials in Shelby and Moultrie Counties have formed a task force to tackle the problem themselves.
Moultrie County Board Chairman Dave McCabe says the task force's membership includes local government officials and lawmakers. It held its first meeting in June, and will likely meet again later this month. McCabe says their objective is to find a developer to fix up and re-open Eagle Creek Resort, which was ordered closed due to mold problems in 2009.
"Locally, there's always been a great deal of interest in getting the facility up and moving again. And I think we just decided that since the main interest was local, we need to try to work with that as much as possible, and try to be the driving force to get it up and going."
McCabe says the task force is waiting on a state-funded engineering study on whether a new developer could feasibly fix up the current Eagle Creek Resort building, or should instead rebuild from scratch.
The state budget impasse has put that study on hold. But McCabe says task force members will continue to seek out private contractors and developers who might be interested in the resort.
