Brandon Johnson

the proposal that came out of the Senate that you referred to earlier would still require a 35 to 40 year ramp to be able to generate the amount of revenue, though there's no stream, to be able to finance a stadium.

What we're saying is this is the most responsible way to protect taxpayers.

Because even if you think about what was initially being discussed for the suburbs, the mega projects bill,

baked in a 40-45 year freeze on property taxes.

If you're talking $150 million to $200 million a year, you're talking about over the next 40 years, that's $4 billion.

So, between the potentially $1.5 billion, maybe $2 billion that you're going to need for infrastructure,

the $4 billion that essentially would be at the expense of taxpayers for a privately owned stadium.

And here we are offering a publicly owned stadium in which the Bears committed 72% of paying for.

And then you have the hotel tax, which is already baked in to ISFA, which, yeah, you could finance it for 30 years.

But the return on that investment, again,

We're talking about 43,000 jobs for the entire region, 24,000 jobs for Chicagoans, $8 billion in total social impact in terms of revenue.

And so the benefit of being able to enjoy a Bears game at the number one tourist destination anywhere in the state, the economic region, we are the global capital, quite frankly, of the world.

And so the experience that fans have had

And we'll continue to have.

Coming downtown to enjoy the Bears game.

We're the only viable plan for a publicly owned stadium in which the Bears made a commitment to a couple of years ago.

Now we need fans.

We need players.

We need the legislature.

If my proposal was good enough for them to mimic it in a law, why not just use the structure that already exists?