* Subscribers know more. Crain’s last week…

Hoping to keep the Chicago Bears in the city, Mayor Brandon Johnson has floated giving Chicago more control of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, a complicated plan likely to receive significant pushback in Springfield.

The discussion is part of the mayor’s broader effort to convince members of the General Assembly to stall or shoot down a megaprojects bill that would help the Bears move to Arlington Heights and creates new tiers of tax subsidies meant to spur development in Chicago.

The mayor’s plan would give the city the reins of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, or ISFA, to control how future money is allocated while potentially expanding the agency’s authority to finance other tourism-related infrastructure projects.

Johnson would not detail his conversations with state lawmakers or share specifics of his proposal, but told Crain’s the city should have “the ability to be able to control our destiny at a time in which more and more development is happening in Chicago.”

The governor appoints four members of the ISFA board, while the mayor appoints three.

* The Sun-Times…

“After years of shifting proposals, the Mayor’s Office still has not presented a concrete plan that could pass the General Assembly and with support from the Bears. Now, the Mayor is floating a new idea to directly spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from IFSA…” Pritzker’s office said in a statement released to the Sun-Times. “The Governor has been clear for years that we must protect taxpayer dollars from being spent on a privately-owned stadium. Instead, the Governor has brought together legislators, local stakeholders, and the Bears to work towards a fair deal that keeps the team in Illinois, requires them to pay property taxes, and supports public infrastructure around major economic development projects.”

* Gov. Pritzker was asked about Mayor Johnson’s pitch for the City to takeover the stadium authority at an unrelated press conference this morning…

Reporter: I’d like to get a little more informations about the Mayor of Chicago. He has said repeatedly he has the only fleshed-out plan—

Pritzker: He has no plan, there’s no plan [laughs]

Reporter: He’s also floated this idea now to have the city take over the ISFA. Have you seen that? Have you said anything to him about it?

Pritzker: No. And in fact, this is kind of typical. The mayor has shown up every spring at the end of session to pronounce what he would like to see happen. And as you know, the budget gets put together starting in November. I present my budget. Well, really, we start at the beginning of a fiscal year, but about in November we’re in the details of the budget. I present that budget to the legislature in February, so that seems like a good time period to come talk to the governor’s office. Then there’s February to May, there’s all that time to come talk to the legislature, which has my budget in hand or the governor’s office again, we’ve seen almost nothing out of the mayoral administration here on that subject, or really any other. And so to show up in May and have a bunch of demands seems like late in the game, and it’s unfortunate that’s happened most years.

Thoughts?

* More…

* Politico | What’s old is new again: Mayor Brandon Johnson is working to keep the Chicago Bears in the city. His proposal would allow the city to have greater control of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, the independent government agency that currently finances stadiums. The mayor sees the agency as growing to also fund, with hotel tax dollars, future tourism-related projects. […] “That’s a new proposal I’m just hearing about,” said House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch in a separate interview. “Everything is on the table.”