What Happened in Springfield? Plus, Dreaming of Summer Break

Bloomington, Indiana's always been a town of lifelong learners, lectures that run long, dinner table debates that run longer. We're always studying something. But this year, the syllabus changed. We learned about blitzes and blocks, pick sixes, and play action. And what the inside of that outside stadium looks like on a sunny Saturday afternoon. We may not always understand the whole thing, but man, if it isn't fun to learn. Visit Bloomington, learn something new. Today on Citicash, Chicago. What all did lawmakers get done in Springfield? Well, one thing they didn't get done is a bare stadium plan. We're going to talk all about it. Plus, we're dreaming up our perfect Chicago summer vacations. It's Tuesday, June 2nd. I'm Jacoby Cochran, and this is what Chicago is talking about. Welcome, welcome, welcome, everybody. I appreciate y'all making time for the podcast. Today we got executive producer Simone, Ali, say it in the building with us. Simone, how are you feeling? How was your weekend? I'm good. The weekend was too short. I missed Memorial Day. Once you have that first three-day weekend of the hot season, you're just like, oh, give me more. But it was good. I made it out to Kingspot. I had a nice time. Come on. That's your thing, bro. That's your thing. I know. I love Kingspot. It's my Disneyland. It truly is. This weekend, I spent a ton of time with my family. My sister was in town. celebrating her recent graduation from Tulane and New Orleans and Norlands. I spent a lot of time on my bike this weekend, which was really nice. I had plans to go out to the Zach Fox concert. I've been talking about it for weeks on weeks. But he was going on midnight to 2 a.m. And at the last minute, I ended up looking, oh, because we ended up just standing in the house with my sister and my parents. But hey, it was a good weekend overall. And while. We were out enjoying our weekend, however short it was. Lawmakers were up well into the middle of the night trying to get a state budget across the last month. They didn't submit anything until like right up on, like right in the weekend. And then they added more stuff like at 2 a.m. Monday morning. It's always interesting to me because it. By the end of it, you're like, man, look at them. They up late at night working. That speaks to something. But some of this feels like this could have been done already. I mean, yes. So Governor J.B. Pritzker gives his budget address in February where he lays out, here's what I would like to see happen, right? And lawmakers have between then and the end of May to... as far as budget goes, right, to pass a budget that, you know, either aligns more or less with what the governor is thinking or differs or whatever, right?

You and I have been through this now. We've been through several cycles of this, right? And this is kind of how it goes. There's always last minute stuff. There's always a late into the night, a new amendment, and you wake up Monday morning. And they're like, so they didn't pass this big thing or this thing did pass or whatever. You know, I think it's interesting because this year, there were certainly challenges that lawmakers were dealing with, particularly all, you know, federal funding, right? Big question. The other thing hanging over their head, right, is like, okay, how are they going to pay for some of those services they want to try to backfill because of federal government cuts? But, oh, wait, we're in an affordability crisis. And if we're going to raise taxes, that could get really, really dicey for the people of Illinois. They certainly still raised new taxes. There's new taxes in this budget. Spoiler. But the progressive taxes that some lawmakers wanted that a lot of people wanted, like taxing major corporations, taxing billionaires more. That may have been on the table back in January, February, but by, you know, the end of or the top of Monday, some of those progressive taxes weren't there and it was more a lot of little. taxes across the board in other places. Yeah, and I think some wells that we've seen Illinois lawmakers go to again and again and some that are a little bit new. Lawmakers did vote to suspend the gas tax increase that was set to go into effect in July. They've postponed that to January. Now, that doesn't go as far as, you know, some lawmakers had called for just suspending the gas tax altogether. Some other states have done that with the rise in gas. prices due to the war in Iran. Another thing that they passed is something called a sales tax holiday. Basically, there will not be sales taxes applied to school supplies between August 7th and August 16th. So those are sort of two like tax relief. There's also a property tax relief plan that lawmakers pass. This one gets a bit complicated because it has to do with the sale of tax debt. And it also gets Illinois in compliance with the 23 Supreme Court ruling. So this is not done out of the goodness of their hearts by any means. But basically it... You know, what this will mean for homeowners is a makes it easier to set up payment plans for people who are delinquent on their property taxes, who have failed to pay their property taxes. And it also creates more opportunities for in the event that like that property tax debt does get sold off, properties are foreclosed on. that homeowners can recoup at least some of the lost equity. Yeah, speaking of some relief, one of the programs I was interested in is the families receiving emergency support for hunger or the fresh program. This is a one year, $70 million program that is for people who may have lost access to their SNAP benefits for one reason or another. We know that immigrant families have lost access based on the new work requirement, lost people have lost access.

And while it's only going to provide $400 for those people, which according to WTTW, about 2 million Illinois residents, 900,000 people in Cook County rely on SNAP benefits. And the average monthly payment is about $370. So for the average person that may have only covered one month. But what I'm hopeful for is that it sets up a program that says, here's a place where a pot of money will be. And so lawmakers can now. you know, arguing the next session, maybe the special session, or when next year's budget comes up, that we should refill that pot of money. Yeah. I was interested by this, too, because I do think the mechanism, it's a one-time $400 payment to those families recently booted from Snap. I think, you know, you mentioned sort of that, that larger number of overall people who... are on snap have snap benefits but um you know i think it's some 100 000 people who are expected to be uh who have been affected and who who may be eligible for for these payments um and you're right four hundred dollars one time like we've all been to the grocery store like that's that's not much right like it's it's a couple trips but I think the mechanism of that one-time payment certainly sounds familiar to those of us who got those COVID payments, who have been watching guaranteed income programs. That was really interesting to me. So, Simone, we've been talking about federal funding cuts where they didn't institute some larger progressive taxes. So how are they going to pay for some of these things? Yeah, so there's a couple things going on. First of all, so I've mentioned that we're suspending that. gas tax increase, which, okay, that's... Cool. But one of the things that lawmakers had was a surplus in revenue from gas taxes this year because the prices are so high. So like that has gone to sort of plug some holes. And that was something that they didn't know in February, right, when J.B. Pritzker gave his address. But some new revenue sources. Okay. A big one is a tax on social media companies. If this sounds familiar to you, that's because Chicago passed this in the fall winter. of 2025 and there is currently a lawsuit that Chicago is fighting because social media companies don't want to pay this tax. They think it's illegal. And it's a per user tax. So it's based on how many users these platforms have. But it looks like the state thought Chicago was doing something right because they've adopted something that looks very similar on a statewide level. So that is one thing. Similarly, you know, we're looking at taxes on crypto, right? On, um,

on cryptocurrency, also fantasy sports, creating a licensing structure for fantasy sports operators. We have seen in recent years the way that Illinois has balanced its budget on gambling taxes, particularly sports betting taxes, to the point, right, that draft kings decided to close their sports book at Wrigley, right? The physical site. The lawmakers also passed legislation to tax bets on prediction markets. We talked about this a couple months ago, you know, as this legislation. was getting underway, these prediction markets sort of becoming... The cowsheism, polymarkets of the world. Yeah, becoming this sort of like wild west of gambling. But is it gambling or is it just, is it something else? And so I think Illinois sort of dipping its toe and trying to see, hey, can we make... Can we make some tax revenue off this, you know, as well as, you know, maybe regulating it as well. And I do think like some of this stuff, like particularly around crypto, sports betting, prediction markets, and even social media, like this new kind of like Illinois's foray into taxing and regulating tech. On their own, we're going to get into some of the policy things that lawmakers pass, but like they also talked about AI and they did pass some starting like starting regulations around AI and what they are required to see from AI companies, right? And I think. state lawmakers are very interested in kind of like what is the role of the state in kind of regulating tech and again making money off of it. And I think there's, you know, given how much those companies spent in the primary this year, I think they know it's coming. I think a lot of us would argue they can go further. But I agree. Illinois has maintained its place in a lot of ways as being at the forefront. of making it easier to hold some of these companies accountable. But I think, you know, given that the conversation around tech companies is very broad, but also being centered right now on these. hyper speed data centers, like not just the data centers that are already across Chicago and Illinois that power cloud computing and allow parts of the internet in our area to function, but the ones that are going to continue to usher in AI, those data centers. You know, J.B. Pritzker said he wanted to, you know, think a little more broadly about the tax incentives on them, right? There was a push for the Power Act and for other mechanisms to hold them accountable to paying their share of rising energy costs.

that I didn't see that policy ultimately making it through this spring. No, it did not. And I think between that and the bears, which we're going to talk about a little bit later, I think that's probably one of the biggest sort of like punts of the session. So as you said, in his initial budget, J.B. Pritzker called to end tax incentives for new data center construction, which again is a pretty kind of modest step. you know, in a state that has had a proliferation of data centers and that has constructed quite a few of them, especially after there's been so much pushback in so many different parts of the state, particularly around Chicago land, around, as you say, hyperscale data centers. The Power Act, so there was the tax incentive thing, which again, lawmakers chose, they didn't pause those, so those are still in effect. And that dates back to J.B. Pritzker's. like one of the very first policies he instituted in his first term. Yeah, he was a big proponent of bringing those data centers to Illinois as an economic driver. The Power Act would have gone even farther, right, and would have created more regulations around transparency. It would have created more regulations around like the resources that the companies building those data centers would have to pay for strictly like electricity and stuff. It also would have forced them to work with, like, communities to establish community benefits agreements, Illinois EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, and so, you know, more transparency in the process of them being built. I think we're absolutely going to be talking about this next year. Like, I think, I think data center construction is not going to go away and the concerns around it are not going to go away. No. One policy that also didn't go away is that a pesky cell phone ban. Yeah, the school cell phone ban. So this finally passed. This is something J.B. Pritzker's been kind of gunning for for a while. And this is this will affect school districts and schools that don't already have a policy around cell phones. But basically, the general concept is... kids can't have cell phones during the school day. I think there's an exception for high schoolers are allowed to have it like during lunch and stuff, during breaks. But generally, the idea is like, you got to put your phone away or there has to be a place that kids can put their phone and they can't have them during the school day. So proponents, right, the idea is like cell phones are disruptive and, you know, kids shouldn't be on them all day. And like, and there's also like questions around screen time and kids, right, and trying to limit that. In addition to sort of the... the disruption of the disruption of schooling, right? You know, I think opponents generally have been, you know, parents who are concerned about reaching their kid in an emergency. It's something that we've seen school districts and, again, individual schools approach. And so I'll be curious to see which schools this ends up affecting who don't already have bans and what this means for kids.

Simone, we also got to talk about your favorite thing, the Chicago Bears and their future stadium. I was really hoping to be done with this by now. This was the whole point. I'm going to be honest with you. When we first talked at the top of the session, I was pretty confident. The confidence mostly buoyed by like you or frustration with this entire process. But I figured the Bears had played their best card with... floating going to Indiana. Lawmakers seem to be rushing to the table. But I, yeah, they had a deal. They scrapped that. And now late at night, they pitched yet another plan. Okay. Let's talk about this. Let me get into this, Jacoby, because I'm, I'm all fired up about this. Okay. So. What you're referring to, there was a deal on the table. And this is a deal we've been talking about most of the session, the mega projects bill. We've talked about it. We've dissected it. But basically, as you point out, what it would have done is it would have freeze property tax rates for the Bears in Arlington Heights and would allow them. And other $100 million plus. It would apply to other potential projects. But again, it was essentially designed. It was designed with the bears in mind. And this was the sort of preferred. deal too from the team. It would have frozen, right, they would have given them for the bears, the way they put it is it gives them property tax certainty. Um, basically like they don't want to build a big stadium and then have to pay all the new property taxes that would be incurred by adding value to that property. Who does that? Right. Uh, And, you know, they would make a payment in lieu. So basically it just kind of sets it a bit more flat. And so they kind of know over the course of construction, especially as they build Bears Town around the stadium. They would kind of know what they're paying in property taxes. And again, as you point out, this megaprojects bill would apply to future developments of similar sizes all across the state. And, you know. I certainly have, like, I think there's a lot to criticize about that plan. Like the idea, again, to me, and the, you know, the Cook County Treasurer's office pointed out the same thing in a report, the idea that, like, you should be saved the effort of paying, of, you don't have to pay for that value that you create on the property when that's the way, the whole point of how property tax works. It's a bit absurd to me. It isn't, right, handing over. you know, $2 billion to build a stadium. But it is in line with the scrutiny we've had and researchers have had with these stadium deals across the country that they don't work for cities and municipalities. And they ultimately don't work for fans nearly as much as they work for the owners. And so, yeah, that deal on the table, bears were cool with it, house was cool with it. The house passed it. That was the thing. The house passed it. And so whatever, whatever my issues are with that bill, it seemed to be happening, right? Again, I have long said, like, the bears have owned the property in Arlington Heights. Why are they going to rent from Indiana when they own property in our... What are we doing here? Why? Let's just... Whatever. Like, we'll get through this.

And then overnight, at the last minute, the Senate's like, actually, no, we don't like this at all. We don't like anything about it. They produce this completely different plan that involves basically allowing municipalities of a certain size, although, to be fair, that size refers to... Chicago and Arlington Heights, basically, allowing municipalities to create their own stadium authorities. So the state has a stadium authority. They're the ones who, you know, that's how we got Soldier Field. It's how we have all our stadiums here in, mostly here in Chicago, right? Again, when we talk about Soldier Field, it is publicly owned. It's a publicly owned stadium that the bears are renting, essentially. And so it would allow the cities to create their own stadium authorities and then kind of make the deal as you wish. It would be up to those municipal stadium authorities to, you know, if there's any kind of tax incentive or whatever, whatever the kind of plan they want to put forward to do that. And it's a bit confusing in Arlington Heights because the bears would like still own the land, but they wouldn't own the stadium. That would be the... stadium authority, and then they would create a similar deal like the one that's being proposed in Hammond. And what the Senate lawmakers who, you know, passed this, they say like, hey, basically like Arlington Heights, Chicago, this means if we do this, this means you guys can duke it out and we can step back and we don't have to be involved and like none of us have to be responsible for the bears leaving Chicago, basically. The Senate passed this, but by the time they passed it, the House had already adjourned. So the House wasn't going to take it up. And so now we have nothing. The bears say, the bears that are, you know, kind of playing as they can. They're like, we're maintaining our late spring, early summer timeline. It's June 2nd. It's late spring, early summer to make a decision. And they still say that their only two options are Arlington Heights and Hammond. They are not considering Chicago. They're not considering Soldier Field. You know. I wonder if there's going to be a summer session, a special session on this issue, just because I do think there's a lot of pressure on it. But yeah. Yeah, I think there will be. And again, the more I've looked at the Hammond deal, I understand how the Bears are leveraging it. They are being told they'll get all of the revenue from, I believe, Bears and non-Bears events, which now with the deal with Chicago, they get the Bears revenue, but the non-Bears money goes to the city. They'd agree to a 35-year lease. And after, what, 40 years after the stadiums paid off, they buy it for a dollar. from Hammond. And you know, these billion dollar corporations are thinking long term. I can understand that. But let's be real. They purchased those 326 acres. They hoped it would be a breeze to get through. They thought the biggest difficulty was just going to be the part of convincing Chicagoans that, hey.

Sorry, this is going to be good for all of us. And now that we're hearing that there have been these potential emails or calls between city officials and the Bears and they're trying to woo them back to the city, Chicago Arlington Heights, like in terms of building this larger Bears town out. seems like their best options. But now that we're here, how can you not stay glute in to see if they, because I do think it would be calling the city and states bluff to ultimately, to move across the state. But I don't, but I don't think that's a giant game of chicken. Yeah. And that's what lawmakers did. They said, they clearly said, they said, we don't believe you. We don't think. We don't think you'll actually do it. Yeah. We don't think you'll pull the trigger. on Hammond, no matter how much you talk about it. We don't think you'll do it. Some of the takes I saw in the public is that Illinois lawmakers are terrible negotiators, that they've had five years to figure something out to keep the Bears somewhere in Illinois, and they can't get it done. And I think managing what is clear from the public that they don't want billions of dollars and it over against the broad fandom of the Bears. and their own political desires. I think they have done honestly a pretty decent job of carrying this as far down the field as possible. And I do think if the Bears ultimately choose Arlington Heights, this move, regardless of what deal they end up with, I do think signals lawmakers pulling the, like pulling the ball back on their side a little bit. But yeah, I'm over it. I'm over it. At this point, I think the bear should just go on and call the Hammond thing, signed a deal with Indiana and throw the middle fingers up because that's all that's left on the table. Yeah. I just like, just make the decision. Just make the decision. And like this, you know, it's a. Yeah. This last deal felt fake, though. Of everything. The public stadium, the municipal stadium authorities. Because I get what they're saying. They're like you, if you're willing to accept a publicly owned stadium there and you already have one, you're willing to do it again against everything you're saying about wanting your private state. Yes, I think it feels like an abdication. That's my problem with it. It's state lawmakers saying, actually, I don't want to make this decision. And that because of that, it feels fake. Because they do. They do. And also, like, we could have proposed municipal stadium authorities years ago. Years ago. We could have had this conversation. But now we're on the wire and we want to have this. Okay, cool. It was a big conversation at the barbecue over the weekend. Was it really? Like, yeah, people were like. So are so is Chicago really done? Are they really leaving Chicago? Like people are still in that part of the conversation like are they really gonna something was like they're not really leaving Chicago. They just want more money and they want a better deal. I was like no, they are definitely leaving there. But.

And I was like, are they staying in Chicago? When is the lease actually up at Soldier Field? 2033. I think the early termination might be before that. Okay. Yeah, there's, I mean. I just don't know. What else is there to say? Like, what else is there to say about this? And somehow we're still talking about it. Everyone else is still talking about it. It feels at this point you are either staunchly on one side of things. You either think. Illinois has been terribly negotiating this the entire time. And if the Bears leave, that will be a stain on all of these politicians' records. Or at this point, you are thinking, hey, they have held out years, not just handing over billions. Maybe. I mean, or we're going to see, like, what happens when you don't, right? And we're going to have to suffer the consequences, which could be the Bears moving to Indiana. And we'll have to manage. Shimon, we was talking about it earlier that the weekend was not long enough. But beyond that, something I've been feeling the last couple of weeks, and I feel it every year around this time because of my childhood conditioning, it's this feeling that right as summer and the weather is breaking. that all of a sudden I'm like guaranteed these months off of school. I'm just like, ah, like all the way, because I went to school from preschool all the way to grad school and never took a break. And so I kept getting summer vacations into my 20s. And so my body still, and like I dream about it, like this idea of like, oh my God, June is here. I'm going to get this break. And then I go. No, I got to go to work. No, we're still working. Just June 1st, I got to go to work. You know, I guess in the spirit of summer vacation, as school is about to end on Thursday for CPS, and they're going to get 81 days more than they had 67 last summer. They're going to get 81 days. Simone, if you had 81 days off. You didn't have to come back to work until August 24th. How would you spend your summer vacation? The caveat being, like obviously we would travel and do a whole bunch of stuff. If you had to just spend your summer in Chicago, what would be your priorities? What would be your focus? I think. I would take advantage of all of the free museum days, 100%, because they're all on weekdays, which is great, particularly in the summer, especially for Illinois families, you've got kids, you want to go to the shed, you want to go to the Art Institute, you know, you want to go to the field, whatever. But every time I see like free for Illinois residents on Tuesday or Wednesday, I'm like, cool, must be nice. Should be fun. Come on, get this free Wednesday in. Yeah, all right. Go to go to all the things and just wander around and be air conditioned and go look at all the cool things and learn.

That'd be like, I feel like that's like the equivalent of adult summer camp is spending time in the museums. Yeah, I am spending like this past weekend, I rode my bike from my house all the way to my moms. And. just the entire time, I just was like, I just want to keep doing this. I just want to stay outside on my bike. You want to go ride your bike to your friend's place and then be like, hey, get out here. And then like go ride your bike together somewhere. Yeah. And I also got two bikes. So I also got an e-bike. And so when I, if I don't, if I just want to ride and just breeze through the city under 28 miles per hour in a bike lane, like I would just. explore this city via bike as much as possible. The concerts, I'm trying to get in as many concerts as possible. Like in June alone, there's like the Juneteenth Jubilee coming up as Salt Shear, which just got announced. which is free. All you got to do is RSVP. Another free one at Navy Pier. Shapes Fest, Part 2 is back on June. So that's June 19th. The Juneteen Jubilee is June 20. If those back to back days, I'm just music. My friends and I were talking about this, Jacoby. Do you know by chance offhand? where you can have bonfires in Chicago. I know Promotory Point. Yeah, because I know Promotory Point got one, because we do that every, every summer for sure. Evanston apparently also has pits. But Evanston Beaches, though, you have to pay to get into Evanston Beaches. Oh, Caldwell Woods. Okay. That's got to be more like campfire. When you say, it's South Shore Nature Sanctuary. Oh, yes. Another thing I would spend a lot of time on the water in a kayak. Oh, I did not do a new year. Have you bought a kayak yet? Or are you still in the rent life? I was very close. I was very close for a while. But if I had a full summer vacation, I'd spend a lot of time kayaking the river. and also out there on the lake a little bit. Like, yeah, it's extremely relaxing. And I mean, it's not, besides the kayaking, it's not too off how I spend my summer vacation as a kid. I spend most of it on a bike somewhere with my friends until high school when the rink came. And then my life was, my summer vacation was over. Yeah. Working on summer. But, yeah, I miss a good summer vacation. I'm not going to lie to you. I was just going to say, I do think there is something, as we were talking about this, like there's something so nostalgic about.

summer vacation and kind of what that means and how that's different from taking a vacation from work where like you know you have to put in and you're planning something and you feel like if you don't take advantage of it you've completely wasted it like summer vacation is truly the it's the opposite of that you there is the the pressure is none and so you simply are out for the sake of being out uh And I did a little bit of everything. I had structured summer vacations where they did camps. I had completely unstructured. I had vacations where they just put us in a car and dropped us off in another state for like two months. Oh, speaking of, speaking of like adultifying those experience. I know the Chicago Public Library has brought back its adult summer reading program. So if that was your jam, if you were, you know, one of those Pizza Hut pizza, the personal pan pizza kids. Summer at CPL. This year's theme chapters of Chicago celebrates the story, sounds, flavors, and creativity that define our summer. They've got kickoffs at Solzer, Legler, and Woodland and Woodson this Saturday from 10 to 3 p.m. I will say hanging out in a library or bookstore for, well, probably a library for hours on end. Just like chilling and reading. That's certainly on the summer vacation list for me. Chance to get a limited edition library baseball cap. I think that's the. Is that the prize for the adult reading program? Simone, you're looking for apartments right now. Anyone that got a deck or a porch? They almost all of them do. Or a sun room. My toxic trade Jacoby is I think I'd be fully healed if I could work outside on a porch. I think I'd be fully fine. Would you set the mic up too? It was funny. One of the places we toured, the agent made sure to point out like, oh, there's an outlet on the deck. And I was like, no, that's that's big. That's good. I don't got to do an extension cord. Run it through the living room. No, that's clutch. Because you can be barefooted, too. That's how I am. I like to be barefoot on my porch. 100%. I'm with it. I'm with it. We want to hear from y'all. What would you do if you had 81 days in front of you of summer vacation schools out type energy? Let us know. 773-780246. Leave your name, your neighborhood, and your summer vacation itinerary. I want to give a huge thank you to our executive producer, Simone Alisaia. Hey, thanks, Jacoby. Up next, we got a segment just for our neighbors. We do this every Tuesday where our neighbors get a taste of what the team talks about behind the scenes. It's just one of the many perks you get when you join at membership.citycast.fm slash Chicago. This week, we got some bad roommate stories. We've also got a live taping coming up and our neighbors got first dips to RSVP today. We got a lot of perks for y'all, membership.citycass.fm.fm.

Before we get out of here, you know, I got some good news for you. Blount Gallery and partnership with the Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley Institute are presenting a brand new art exhibition this week in honor of what would have been Emmett's 85th birthday coming up in July. The exhibition is called From Memory to Movement Emmett at 85. I'm going to drop a link in the show notes so you can see all of the Chicago artists who are participating. I'm definitely going to be stopping by. As always, we appreciate you for listening and reading. We're going to be back bright and early tomorrow. We'll talk to you then. Peace.