The Governor of Indiana is optimistic about getting the Bears to move to Hammond, after the Illinois legislature’s failure to help the team with a new stadium in Arlington Heights.
Governor Mike Braun, speaking to reporters in Indianapolis, said the Bears ought to be tired of trying to navigate Illinois politics.
“I didn’t realize they’d been asking to do something for like five, six years,” Braun said. “Three years is when they turned up the heat, and it was heat, asking their governor, their legislature, and of course, the City of Chicago. Crickets. Nothing."
Braun said the team approached Indiana six months ago and Indiana lawmakers quickly passed a bill intended to lure the team to a site near Wolf Lake in Hammond.
“Look at the time they squandered,” Braun said.
“We made it easy and coined the phrase that resonated across the country that’s helped us in other areas. ‘We move at the speed of business.’ That honest conversation we had should have cued them (the legislature) that they needed to do something other than adjourning without any result.” Braun said he expects the team to make a formal announcement in less than a month.
“Where would you rather be the next fifty years?” he said. “In a place that runs like Indiana, Triple A credit rating, where you get a lot more stadium built for the money you’re going to invest, where you got friendly guidelines to have a business in general and where you’re not going to be taxed out of existence? I think that is what they’re actually looking at. I think a lot of what they were doing was just giving them a chance to put another offer on the table, and I think the fact that it fell apart with all that time, six years, three years, and then a long session that adjourned, I think that tells the whole story.”
The Mayor of Arlington Heights, Jim Tanaglia, is disappointed, but he believes this is not over. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson remains intent on a new stadium being built on the Chicago lakefront.
