A tale of two headlines:
Bears’ new stadium deal unlikely before year-end, says Gov. Pritzker
Gov. Pritzker says current Bears stadium proposal unacceptable ‘to anyone in the legislature’
Those are two very different messages! What did Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker actually say?
“Well, I’ve done a lot of research on this topic, but let me be clear, there isn’t much change,” Pritzker said Monday. “I mean, I made it clear to the Bears’ leadership that it would be near impossible to get anything done. If there was a proposal put on the table by them that could get done, you couldn’t actually get it done probably during the veto session and would have to wait until next spring. But in reality, there isn’t a proposal on the table right now that would be acceptable to anyone that I know in the legislature.”
In other words, Pritzker said that there’s no time to get a deal done before year’s end, but also that the Bears’ current plan, which involves potentially $2.65 billion in public subsidies, is DOA in the legislature — the latter of which seems more important, since that’s not likely to change in 2025 either.
Not that any of this is really news, since Pritzker previously called the Bears plan a “nonstarter” in May, then reiterated two weeks ago that his position hasn’t changed. But just as elected officials who are in favor of stadium subsidies get their every pronouncement dutifully transcribed in the local media, so too do those who are opposed to them, so don’t look gift stenography journalism in the mouth.
Speaking of Pritzker, he’s on the short list of potential vice-presidential candidates for Kamala Harris, though he might get eliminated for being too rich to quickly determine whether he owns anything embarrassing, which is just a thing that happens with our political candidates these days. If Pritzker did end up as Harris’s #2 and had to leave the governor’s mansion, that would potentially affect the Bears plans depending on who succeeded him, though leading legislators seem eager to stick a fork in them on their own. It’s now been nearly two years since Bears execs started playing footsie with Arlington Heights about a new stadium there, and playing off Chicago and its suburbs doesn’t seem to be shaking loose much public money as of yet — clearly team leadership needs to deploy more kayaks.
Not to be too political here but I doubt that Democrats will say “we’ll counter your hotel guy who was born into a lot of wealth with a hotel guy who was born into a lot of wealth”
“The Theory & Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” suggests they would not necessarily be opposed to doing so.
CPS desperately needs billions to renovate and replace 100 year old schools
CTA constantly needs to renovate 130 year old elevated tracks so they don’t fall down.
Why are we talking about spending billions to replace a 20 year old football stadium?