Jeff Buchholz

It's really something.

And what I suspect will happen is,

is that they'll wind up doing a companion piece of legislation to follow this one that may specifically address some of the bear's infrastructure needs.

And the governor's office and the governor himself has said, and he said this repeatedly to us, that he's open to providing assistance with infrastructure for the bears as he would, as the state would for any private business that wants to expand or build a new operation in the state of Illinois.

Well, so, and Cam Buckner has a great, used a great analogy when he talks about this bill.

He says, just because you build a bridge and someone is the first person to drive across that bridge, it doesn't mean the bridge was built for that person, right?

This is designed to give local units of government a tool, really a toolbox, as Representative Buckner called it yesterday, to help

attract and keep businesses and employers in their area.

And there is one of the things that is interesting in this bill.

One of the interesting additions made to this thing is that it sunsets after seven years.

And this gives the legislature the opportunity to decide after seven years if this thing is still working, if it's something that the state still needs as a way to spur economic development and also property tax relief, or if they want to make changes to it or if they want it to just kind of go away.

This isn't completely unusual in states.

in terms of legislation that appears in the state of Illinois.

There are sunset dates on a number of pieces of legislation.

But that is one of the things that may make it more palatable for some people who may have been no votes to come over and say yes, because they can say, okay, well, we'll try this out, and if after seven years we're not fans, then we'll do something else with it.

And just as a reminder, I know we've talked about this, but as a reminder, this isn't just letting developers negotiate a long-term property tax rate and payment in lieu of those taxes with local governments.

It also provides sales tax breaks on building materials.

And that sort of thing.

Like, that's also a big incentive for businesses.

And this is the sort of thing that Representative Buckner has said that a number of other states are considering, but no one has really pulled the trigger to this kind of an extent.