Before we get to the actual news in the Chicago Sun-Times’ latest article on the Bears‘ Arlington Heights stadium plans, let’s get all the football metaphors out of the way:
A ton of things need to happen before the Bears’ quest for a new stadium reaches the end zone in Arlington Heights
for the foreseeable future, Arlington Heights has the ball and Chicago isn’t even on the field playing defense
it will take the legislative and political equivalent of a 99-yard touchdown drive
moved the ball closer to the racecourse site in Arlington Heights
The rookie mayor will essentially say that he inherited the ball deep in his own territory and drove to within scoring distance before the drive stalled.
Essentially! Equating sports team owners getting money for new stadiums with the teams’ own on-field success has a long and sad history, mostly serving to encourage fans to root blindly for ownership even if it costs them tax money, and really should be banned by journalism ethics codes. Here’s hoping the Sun-Times got it out of its system, and will never go down this road again.
Anyway, buried amid all that was some actual reporting on how the Bears’ proposed new stadium would cost Arlington Heights residents tax money:
Even if the Bears get their bill in Springfield, they would still have to find other sources to bankroll billions of dollars in building roads, sewers and other infrastructure to make the old track site viable, not to mention traffic upgrades to get almost 100,000 fans in and out of a stadium campus every game day.
Most of that funding would likely have to come from a tax increment financing district, Walker said, kicking off another political scrum at the local level.
The Arlington Heights plan has always depended on what Bears execs called “property tax certainty,” which is another way of saying they want their property taxes capped at a certain level, which is also another way of saying they want tax breaks. (This would come via legislation capping taxes on “megaprojects,” the same as the Bears tried to get two years ago, attached for some reason to the tax law on breast pumps.) The TIF district sounds separate, though, in that it would siphon off additional property taxes — from the surrounding development, presumably — to help pay for “billions of dollars” of infrastructure, which sounds like kind of a lot. And while this would be “new” money in terms of being revenue Arlington Heights didn’t collect previously, that’s not the same as free money: Any new housing development would require schools, for one thing, which are normally paid for by property taxes, so if those are already committed to roads and sewers then taxpayers will need to cover the education budget some other way.
There’s still a ways to go on any Arlington Heights stadium deal: Newly elected mayor Jim Tinaglia said last night when asked about it at a village board meeting that “this entire board” will “all have something to say” before it’s approved, plus the state legislature would still have to approve the megaproject legislation plus any TIF district. It’s still an open question whether this is Bears management’s preferred stadium plan or mostly another effort to push for more public money for a Chicago stadium — here’s a summary I wrote up two years ago that still holds today, and even ends with a football metaphor, sorry about that.
I am amazed Illinois politicians haven’t caved yet on the stadium subsidies. Either they recognize the bears have no leverage and this is a bad deal for taxpayers, or they are digging in their heels to get a bigger payoff as the lease on soldier field winds down.
I really don’t get why the Bears won’t try northwest Indiana. We’re stupid enough to waste billions of dollars on a football stadium.
Because the Bears own Arlington Park but want all costs subsidized by the government. There’s a word for such behavior: grifting.
So the Illinois legislative session ends in 11 days with two Saturdays and a holiday in that timeframe. Was the Bears waiting until the very last minute to bring this “megaproject” legislation forward a calculated decision or incompetence? All evidence points to the latter, but even by Bears’ standards it doesn’t make sense.
Why do I need “property tax certainty” on a house I can never afford to build?
> attached for some reason to the tax law on breast pumps.
>
Makes sense to me since both involve suckling from a teat.
My guess is that they’ve decided to start building the stadium in Arlington Heights without the surrounding infrastructure.
Then come to the state afterwards when major traffic issues happen.
Meanwhile, they want the village of Arlington Heights not to ask too many questions.
Neil, you missed a football metaphor, albeit it was a rugby football.
“Most of that funding would likely have to come from a tax increment financing district, Walker said, kicking off another political SCRUM at the local level.”
Respectable publication panders to Dumb Chitown Sportsfans with all those football metaphors.
As if that’s not bad enough, last weekend the printed Sun-Times included a Sunday supplement full of AI slop. That supplement featured a “summer reading” listicle of real-life authors whose names were attached to books that do not exist.
And polite society wonders why the public doesn’t trust the press.
If anyone is still in the editor’s chair at the CST and they published that piece of shit article, they should be fired immediately.
That piece would have been embarrassing for a Grade XI student who one day wanted to be a journalist, not someone who allegedly is.
Or maybe the CST is now just printing articles submitted for free by “contributors”, or some cheapass discount version of an AI program (as you suggested) or whatever…
The public doesn’t trust the press because the press no longer exists as a functioning asset.
How much of that is the fault of the public who aren’t willing to pay to support good journalism (or good quality appliances, or good quality cars, or clothing or healthy food or…) and how much the wealthy press owners is a matter for debate, but I don’t think anyone can argue that it is the case.