Geoff Buchholz

Yes, exactly.

Yes, that's exactly correct.

And Representative Buckner made the point that a lot of local communities are trying to attract businesses to come to their area, not just with sporting facilities, but data centers and, you know, whole kinds of other things you can imagine.

And this would give them a way to work out.

Whatever property tax arrangement these developers would need in order to bring development and jobs to the state of Illinois.

It's important to point out that before the vote on the bill, a representative from the from Americans for Prosperity, which is a conservative leaning organization founded by the funded by the Koch brothers.

testified against this bill suggesting that this particular legislation would force property tax burden onto private homeowners living around such a mega project, which is sort of an interesting take.

I mean, that is certainly an argument.

One of the other people we heard from before the vote was Stephen Maher, the acting chief financial officer for the city of Chicago, who went down there and said, you know,

The Bears leaving Chicago was going to put a big hole in our economy.

We want to be part of any conversations.

We think there should be a more fair approach, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Curtis Tarver, who was the head of the committee, began his questioning of Mr. Maher by saying, how long have you been the CFO?

And the answer is 26 days.

He's just stepped in for Jill Jaworski, the former chief financial officer who now works for the Navy Peer Foundation, I believe.

So and and a lot of it, a lot of the response from the chairman of the committee was I'm not I don't want to make this into Chicago versus Arlington Heights net.

That's not what this bill is about.

And also, my understanding was that the bears in the city of Chicago were talking three years ago.

Why are you now here today, three years later, saying we need more time?

I think the city wants what Representative Buckner has said that he wants for the city, which is he wants the city to be made whole in some way.