For among the challengers for Chicago mayor, the departure of the Bears is a foregone conclusion. Some wish to hold the group however have supplied few specifics. Some have given an emphatic “no” to using metropolis tax {dollars}. And then there’s the issue of what to do with a Bear-less Soldier Field.
At a discussion board in December, three candidates — Paul Vallas, Ja’Mal Green and sixth Ward Ald. Roderick Sawyer — quipped that town ought to simply let its NFL group go. Green elaborated that the subsequent mayor ought to concentrate on revitalizing Soldier Field by “maybe a couple of $100 million” so it may be leased for school sports activities or to a different NFL group.
Candidate Willie Wilson, however, deflected and stated: “That depends on whether they got a contract or not. … What I would do, I’ll buy another team in Chicago.”
Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson stated, “Let’s keep them,” whereas state Rep. Kambium “Kam” Buckner and 4th Ward Ald. Sophia King signaled there must be efforts to maintain the Bears, however beneath sure circumstances.
Buckner stated he “would hope” to maintain the Bears, but when they pack up and depart, the subsequent mayor ought to concentrate on reworking the lakefront Soldier Field right into a “space that speaks to the future of what Chicago is going to be.” Meanwhile, King advocated for the state to entrance any deal that will hold the Bears in Chicago.
“We should definitely try again and keep the Bears,” King stated. “The funding for the state is there. It’s got to come from the state. I think if it goes anywhere, it should go to the city.”
The prospect of the Bears leaving their iconic lakefront stadium in favor of Arlington Heights, and what would then occur to Soldier Field, is a problem the subsequent mayor of Chicago will invariably should sort out.
Buckner, who performed faculty soccer for the University of Illinois, was vocal on Twitter this fall about how the Bears should not take a single “public dime no matter what” as negotiations proceed.
He launched a press release decrying the group’s request for public subsidies to maneuver, saying it was a “plan to put their profits over the people” as he recounted how Chicago taxpayers gave the group $432 million for stadium upgrades again in 2002. For the group to ask for public cash now to go away Chicago is simply grasping, Buckner argued.
“Springfield has done the tough work of moving the State to financial solvency and dealing with the issues that affect the everyday lives of our 12.8 million residents,” Buckner wrote. “Giving the Bears another gift-wrapped subsidy should not be on our list of priorities.”
More not too long ago, when a developer on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s job drive on Soldier Field and the museum campus launched a “video tour” of a “reimagined” stadium, Buckner criticized it as means to shake free billions of {dollars} in public subsidies for the developer’s mammoth One Central plan close by.
“Like any native Chicagoan, I want to always watch Chicago Bears football in Soldier Field. But this feels like a last-ditch to save both a faltered Mayoral Administration and a tenuous project … that still has more questions than it does answers,” wrote Buckner, whose state House district contains the stadium.
Johnson stated in a press release that as a fan, he’d choose that the group keep, however “due in part to the defiant nature of the Lightfoot administration, that relationship has soured and their departure seems all but assured.”
Lightfoot has proposed a $2.2 billion stadium renovation that would come with including a dome. When she made the proposal, Lightfoot didn’t say how she would safe funding for the stadium.
Johnson stated that cash could be higher used if it had been channeled “back into our communities” for such wants as eradicating lead pipes, addressing homelessness and paying down money owed “all of which would also generate economic and quality-of-life returns for the people of this city.”
Another candidate within the Feb. 28 election, U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, stated in a press release any Soldier Field answer must be reached “collaboratively” with out inserting “an additional tax burden on Chicago residents so we can make critical investments in public safety and our communities.” He didn’t elaborate on different potential makes use of for Soldier Field.
García, too, positioned the blame for the group’s exit on Lightfoot’s combative fashion.
“At the core, the problem here has been a non-working relationship between City officials and the Bears,” he stated. “If people do not feel like they are engaged in good faith negotiations, they will leave. We are seeing those consequences.”
In a tweet again in July, Vallas dinged Lightfoot on her Soldier Field overhaul plan: “Bears are gone. @chicagosmayor had 3 yrs to get a plan at no cost to city but waited to last min. Her Soldier Field plan amounts to spending $2.2 billion to build a taxpayer subsidized stadium anchored by a soccer team.”
Another tweet from Vallas a month earlier directed extra of the ire on the NFL group: “20 years after BEARS forced taxpayers to subsidize $660 million spaceship lakefront stadium ($1 bi. in current dollars), Bears going to shake down city again, hinting at move to Arlington Heights. If Bears move to Arlington, demand TAXPAYER REFUND & call them the Arlington Bears,” Vallas wrote.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com