[Op-Ed] Proposed delivery tax: Last thing Illinois small businesses need right now

When Michele Azan and Elisabeth Perez visited North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains in 2007, they fell in love with the area’s natural beauty. In 2015, they purchased a century-old property near picturesque Hendersonville that had once been part of a mountain resort. After transforming the property’s two-story stone guesthouse and several other rundown buildings into…

Run by the Kelsey family for 80 years, Montana’s Nine Quarter Circle Ranch offers guests a magnificent mountain-and-river landscape, traditional Western activities including horseback riding and fly fishing, and old-fashioned family-style meals that promote conversation and community. Many of the ranch’s original buildings are still in use, and the Kelseys continue to breed, raise, and…

Laid off from his corporate job in 2001, Minnesotan Jeff Taxdahl turned a moment of crisis into a moment of opportunity. With a single embroidery machine, some spare room in his basement, and years of marketing experience, Jeff and his wife, Wenda, started a new business: embroidering local companies’ logos onto hats and shirts. Within…