Austin Bonta

I'm hopeful that they're going to agree that the Portage site is the best and that our deal is the best offer on the table.

But there are also political and economic things going on that are definitely beyond our control and maybe outside of any one person's control that's going to ultimately influence where the bears go.

we've not been reached out to the colts and my understanding of it is there certainly colts fans in portage there certainly colts fans you know in northwest indiana but ultimately northwest indiana is bears country um... i have to remind everybody every time the bears play the packers it's a violation of our city ordinance to wear packers hats which always uh... the kind of a big stir but we gotta make sure that people are aware uh... ultimately uh... bears coming to what we consider to be

the Bears coming to Northwest Indiana is still the Bears coming to Bears country, and it's still the Bears coming to Chicagoland.

We're proud to have that part of our identity here.

It really doesn't.

And to start,

It doesn't feel like it was late to the game for us because we started working on this on December 18th.

I guess you could say December 17th.

Cause I was on the phone as soon as the statement from the bears came out and we had people ready to go.

It took us some time to put together a proposal that we believed was

realistic and a proposal that we thought was workable.

And we did send it out to the bears sooner than it made the news.

It recently made the news this week in a really big way.

And we definitely felt it was important to take the opportunity to get it out to the media and explain the details of our proposal.

But at the end of the day, I can tell you that from the calls we've been getting and from the attention it's received, I think this is very real.

Definitely more real than Iowa, but I think about as real as the other Northwest Indiana sites.

Oh, that's a great question.

And certainly, to put it simply, one day I'm sure there'll be books written or maybe one great book about the story of the Bears and

how they ended up in the stadium that ultimately comes their home that we all know and love.