appeared to spur some action in Springfield<\/a>, where the team is seeking legislation that would allow them to negotiate payments with local taxing bodies in lieu of paying full property taxes.<\/p>\nAn Illinois House panel had been set for a hearing on such legislation Thursday, but the committee canceled the meeting.<\/p>\n
Gov. JB Pritzker, who has supported the prospect of publicly funding infrastructure projects to support a stadium, has expressed optimism in ongoing negotiations with the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that progress has been made,\u201d he said Wednesday, after delivering his annual State of the State address.<\/p>\n
Other sources close to the Arlington Heights negotiations were also optimistic about the direction of talks.<\/p>\n
A Pritzker spokesperson on Thursday said \u201cIllinois was ready to move this bill forward. After a productive three hour meeting yesterday, the Bears leaders requested the ILGA pause the hearing to make further tweaks to the bill. This morning, we were surprised to see a statement lauding Indiana and ignoring Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Indiana bill would empower a newly created Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority to build a stadium for the Bears and sell it to the team for $1 once the 40-year bonds are paid off. The Bears would also have the option to buy the Indiana stadium sooner by retiring the outstanding debt.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the Bears would sign a 35-year lease that would allow the team to retain all revenues generated by the stadium.<\/p>\n
Hoosier lawmakers are aiming to pass it by the end of the month. Illinois lawmakers are in session through May.<\/p>\n
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun trumpeted his state\u2019s progress with the team, saying their legislation \u201cputs forward the essential framework to complete this agreement, contingent upon site due diligence proceeding smoothly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe State of Indiana moves at the speed of business, and we\u2019ve demonstrated that through our quick coordination between state agencies, local government, and the legislature to set the stage for a huge win for all Hoosiers,\u201d Braun said in a social media post. \u201cWe have built a strong relationship with the Bears organization that will serve as the foundation for a public-private partnership, leading to the construction of a world-class stadium and a win for taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hammond Bears? Indiana state legislators sure seem to think that\u2019s where Chicago\u2019s football team is headed \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-478427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}