After the Illinois General Assembly failed to pass legislation aimed at keeping the Chicago Bears in the state, reaction is bitterly divided.
On the Illinois side of things, most leaders were expressing disappointment on Monday, including in suburban Arlington Heights, where a village board meeting was held mere hours after the legislature failed to reach a deal aimed at convincing the Bears to build a stadium in the community.
“It’s a disappointment. It’s a disappointment that a legislative session can go for weeks and weeks and nothing happens,” Mayor Jim Tinaglia said.
There is still a chance a special session of the General Assembly could be called to address the Bears issue, but a bill would now have to receive a supermajority of the vote in order to pass.
Tinaglia said he’s hopeful something can still be done even after the failure to get a bill passed by the end of the day on May 31.
“I have been extremely supportive extremely positive and confident that the leaders across the state, the legislators, (and) our governor, that they have been doing a great job to help make this happen to keep our beloved Bears in Illinois,” he said.
The Bears themselves put out a statement of their own Monday, indicating they intend to stick to their original timeframe of making a stadium decision in late spring or early summer.
“We will finalize our evaluation of both Arlington Heights and Hammond, and remain on the late spring/early summer timeline that we have previously communicated,” the team said.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker made it clear that the state wasn’t planning to give billions of dollars to the project, but expressed disappointment in the lack of a good outcome in talks.
“I don’t want the Bears to leave Illinois, and I’ve worked really hard to make sure they stay,” he said.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is still holding out hope the city can convince the team to stay, even as they continue to say they are choosing between Arlington Heights and Hammond, Indiana.
“I still believe it’s going to take all of us to get something of this magnitude done,” he said.
On the other side of the coin, for Hammond officials the news of the legislature not passing a bill was heartening, and they’re continuing to express optimism that they can lure the team across the border.
“I think they’re going to choose Hammond, I hope,” Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said. “If the Bears say no, we should know within the next month, and if they say no, they get to go back and deal with this in Illinois again and Hammond will be out of it.”
For now, it remains to be seen if the legislature will be called back into session to address the Bears stadium drama, or if the team will make a decision before the bill can be debated again.
