Arlington Heights mayor promises public input on Bears project — after vote in Springfield

Some Arlington Heights residents this week demanded more transparency from village officials in the ongoing Bears stadium saga, but Mayor Jim Tinaglia promises that time will come soon enough.

“I think we can all agree this (Bears project) is going to be a decision that changes Arlington Heights one way or another more than any other decision in our history, and I don’t feel like the residents have had a voice,” resident David Korney said at a village board meeting Monday night.

Village officials have said public meetings about the NFL franchise’s proposed redevelopment of the 326-acre former Arlington Park racetrack are coming, but Korney argued now is the time to get those forums scheduled. He also called for formal polling of village residents and a referendum on the November ballot.

“Because after they make a decision … there’s going to be a lot of pressure to move quickly,” Korney said.

Added resident Norbert Piotrowski, a frequent meeting attendee and Daily Herald letter to the editor writer: “I don’t think there’s been transparency in this village.”

Tinaglia said the focus for months has been on Springfield, where legislators are considering megaproject legislation for which the Bears have lobbied to guarantee a long-term tax break at the old racetrack site.

He said the spotlight may soon return to Arlington Heights — for the launch of what would be a monthslong municipal review and approvals process — if the legislation is approved by the end of the General Assembly’s spring session May 31.

“I stand exactly where you stand,” Tinaglia told Korney. “I’m concerned. I want to make sure this is done right. … My commitment to this community has been and remains this will be done really really well, really really carefully, really really transparent, really really thoughtful, or it won’t happen. It’s going to be carefully scrutinized and carefully planned.

“And it hasn’t started all those details just yet because the Bears have had some difficulties with deciding where they’re going to actually build,” Tinaglia added. “We might know more in the next week and a half to two weeks. At that point, it may be a heroic movement forward, or it may be something that has to be thought more about. But it would be silly to do anything more than wait right now and see what Springfield comes up with in the next two weeks.”

Bears brass on Tuesday briefed 31 fellow NFL owners about the stadium search and the two sites they’re examining — in Arlington Heights, and a golf course near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana — during the league’s spring meeting in Orlando.

After the Illinois House voted 78-32 on April 22 to advance the megaproject bill to the Senate, Bears officials said they welcomed progress on the legislation, but sought amendments to it, as well as alignment on infrastructure funding.

The team’s ask for public dollars for roads, utilities and site improvements in and around Arlington Park is as much as $850 million, by one estimate.

Without giving a specific number on how much the state might provide, Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday defended some level of public investment as part of a Bears project in Arlington Heights.

“Much of the infrastructure that’s being talked about that people are calling ‘infrastructure for the Bears’ is actually infrastructure for the region around Arlington Heights,” Pritzker said during an appearance in downstate Normal. “So I know people are trying to say, ‘Oh it’s some giveaway to the Bears.’ Certainly some of this is an incentive for the Bears and is relevant only to a stadium. But also much of it is relevant to just having good traffic flow, like we need everywhere.”

The mayors of Palatine, Rolling Meadows and Schaumburg have asked state leaders for a seat at the table in discussions about infrastructure upgrades that would be needed around a Bears stadium, as detailed in a story in Monday’s Daily Herald.

At the village board meeting Monday night, Korney pressed Tinaglia about whether those mayors will be included in talks.

“They will be made straight,” Tinaglia said. “Those other mayors and I have communications, and we will make sure that they get a seat at the table, no doubt about it.”