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A girl and woman were stabbed and several people were displaced after a man set fire to an apartment and barricade himself on the Far South Side. | Sun-Times file

Police found the child and a 31-year-old woman stabbed and a man barricaded inside a residence about 2:25 p.m. in the 1400 block of East 79th Street.

An 11-year-old was among two people stabbed, several people were displaced after a man set an apartment on fire Thursday in Avalon Park on the Far South Side.

Police found the girl and a 31-year-old woman stabbed and a man barricaded inside a residence about 2:25 p.m. in the 1400 block of East 79th Street, Chicago police said.

The 11-year-old was stabbed in the leg, while the woman was stabbed in her arm and leg, police said. Both were taken to Trinity Hospital, where they were in good condition, police said.

The suspect, a 38-year-old man, allegedly set an apartment on fire and jumped from a third floor window, police said. Seven people were displaced, but there were no reported injuries resulting from the fire, authorities said.

As of about 4 a.m. Friday, the man was in police custody and was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center for treatment to unknown injuries, police said.

SWAT were involved, and police said this was a domestic-related incident.

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At Lardon, Logan Square’s new all-day cafe, Chris Thompson puts Midwestern twists on traditional European cured meats. The build-your-own charcuterie and cheese board is the star. Here’s what to order.Read More

The trendy thing for Chicago Bears fans to do since the team performed poorly last Sunday in Cleveland is to call for Matt Nagy to lose his job. That might make fans feel better but the Chicago Bears’ problems run deeper than that. Matt Nagy didn’t put together a shoddy offensive line – General Manager […] Chicago Bears: The failures so far are not all Matt Nagy’s fault – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & MoreRead More

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Nagy is 29-24 in four seasons coaching the Bears, including playoffs. | AP Photos

As Nagy’s offense sinks below Marc Trestman’s, he says, “It’s time to fight.” The Bears are fighting for their season, but he’s also fighting for his job.

No matter how bleak it got for the Bears last season, it was still too much of a stretch to say that coach Matt Nagy’s offense made people miss Marc Trestman.

A ridiculous exaggeration.

Hyperbole beyond reason.

But now?

Still a hard pass on Trestman, who last coached the XFL’s Tampa Bay Vipers, but the state of the offense has gotten so dismal that Bears fans would take just about anyone else over Nagy. He got this job as the next Picasso of play calling and the da Vinci of downfield passing attacks, but it all looks like scribbles that even the most loving parent wouldn’t put on the fridge.

We could do analogies all day, but here’s the raw truth: The Bears offense under Nagy is worse than it was under Trestman and negligibly improved from the John Fox years.

And if it’s bad enough to lose to the Lions on Sunday, the Bears might have to make an exception to their policy against firing coaches during the season. Nagy escaped with his job after an epic meltdown against the Lions last year, but it’d be naive to think he’ll get away with it twice.

He genuinely might not recognize what’s at stake and wouldn’t contribute to that story line by acknowledging it if he did, but he has everything riding on this game.

“It also comes with the territory,” he said of the fury he correctly assumed has been directed at him. “You understand it. Do you like it? No, but the competitor in you accepts it. My job now is to be the greatest leader I can possibly be for these players… If I let the other distractions take away from anything, then that’s taking away from them, and I won’t do that.

“It’s time to fight. And when you fight, you do it together and you understand it and then you do everything you can to be the best for the Bears. That’s it. You keep it real super simple.”

That’s a good and earnest approach, but ignoring the pressure doesn’t make it disappear.

The exasperation with Nagy is not an overdramatic reaction to this moment, when the Bears are coming off a net total of 47 yards against the Browns — their lowest output since 1981 — and have scored just four offensive touchdowns in three games. For the entirety of his tenure, the Bears have scored the 10th-fewest points in the NFL at 21.8 per game. Trestman had them at 23.9, and Fox checked in at 18.3.

Only the Jets and Washington have averaged fewer yards per play than Nagy’s 4.97, which is well below Fox’s 5.41 and the glory days of Trestman’s 5.62. Both of them outdid Nagy’s 36.8% success rate on third downs, too.

The Bears have also averaged the sixth-fewest yards per carry (4.02) and posted the 12th-worst passer rating (87.2) — prompting a harsh, but crucial question: What exactly have they been good at under Nagy?

The biggest difference between Nagy’s 29-22 record and the 13-19 that got Trestman fired after two seasons is that Nagy benefitted from one of the NFL’s best defenses while Trestman was saddled with one of the worst.

Think back to 2018, when Nagy was the newly crowned king of the city and the Bears were thinking Super Bowl after going 12-4 and winning the NFC North by a landslide. The defense made that team great. The Bears had 36 takeaways, a mark matched by just two teams in the last five seasons, and boosted the team’s scoring average from 22.4 to 26.3 with defensive touchdowns and turnovers that set their offense up with a short field.

The claim that Nagy turned Mitch Trubisky into a viable quarterback that season was just as flimsy. His signature performance was a six-touchdown bonanza against one of the NFL’s worst teams, and he posted an 89 passer rating over his other 13 starts.

The quarterbacks keep changing, but the offense doesn’t. Nagy collaborated with general manager Ryan Pace to trade for Nick Foles, sign Andy Dalton and draft Justin Fields. But the Bears plunged to 17.5 points per game in 2019 (29th in the NFL) and 23.3 last season (22nd) after a late binge on terrible defenses.

NFL teams averaged a record 25 points last season. Counting the playoffs, Nagy’s Bears have scored fewer than that in 36 of his 53 games.

“When I first got here, I explained to everybody here that this offense — it takes a few years to get going,” he said shortly before a 34-14 season-opening loss to the Rams in which his team attempted just two passes that traveled more than 10 yards through the air.

“We saw that in Kansas City because it took a few years — not just the players that were coming in, but them learning and understanding [the scheme]. After three or four years, it really started picking up and going. I feel like we’re at that spot right now.”

The on-field failures have eroded his greatest asset: his personality. Nagy has been a positive force inside Halas Hall and he’s an easy guy for whom to root. But the high-octane enthusiasm has felt like it lacks substance lately, and every meandering, empty answer about his Fields, Dalton and the offense chips away at whatever public confidence remains.

There’s plenty to criticize, but he has always conveyed steadiness — and the Bears surely needed it in the darkest depths of a four-game losing streak in 2019 and a staggering six-game slide last season.

But even that quality is in question after he gave up play calling to offensive coordinator Bill Lazor last season, then took it back in the offseason and now won’t say who’s calling the plays.

Amid the turmoil, all the Nagyisms roll into a droning buzz that just won’t stop. Things are going badly, and he says, “We know that.” He talks incessantly about the “plan” for Fields, but it’s never clear what that is. The team is 17-18 since 2018, but don’t worry, he understands, “that’s not good enough.”

And he’s always looking for “the whys.” Like chipmunks digging up his yard, those pesky whys constantly elude him. It shouldn’t be too hard to find enough of them to beat the Lions. But if he can’t, he might suddenly find himself with a heap of free time to continue his search.

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U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth — the state’s highest-profile combat veteran — hasn’t had to pay any property taxes since 2015 on the home she and her husband own in Hoffman Estates. Over the past six years, her tax breaks have totaled $42,479 — $4,637 from the homeowner’s exemption that nearly every homeowner receives and $37,842 under a tax break Illinois legislators passed in 2015 for disabled veterans. | Patrick Semansky / AP

As disabled vets, Sen. Tammy Duckworth and former Ald. James Balcer are among those with tax bills of $0. Income isn’t a factor in getting the tax break for disabled vets. In some states, it is.

No one likes to pay property taxes. This year, the owners of 27,288 homes across Cook County don’t have to.

Their property tax bills: $0.

That they’re paying nothing means the rest of the county’s 1.8 million property taxpayers — the remaining homeowners and business owners — have to pick up the slack, a total of just under $102.8 million.

The pay-nothing bills result from a host of property tax exemptions the Illinois General Assembly has given homeowners over the years. The biggest tax breaks go to homeowners 65 and older and disabled veterans.

Among the homeowners whose property taxes are entirely wiped off the books because they are disabled veterans are U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, former Ald. James Balcer and some veterans who are now Chicago police officers, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.

The $102 million-plus is a sliver of the $1.5 billion in all real estate tax exemptions granted to Cook County homeowners this year as a result of six types of property tax breaks the Illinois Legislature has established.

And what one homeowner ends up not having to pay as a result of those exemptions means that the rest of Cook County’s property owners have to cover a bigger share of the $16.1 billion in property taxes billed countywide to pay for schools and other government operations in Chicago and suburban Cook County.

“What we have done is to create all special sorts of categories — veterans, disabled people, senior citizens,” says Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a Chicago tax watchdog group. “And all of those exemptions administered by the county basically undermine the integrity of the property tax system.

“We grant people relief regardless of their income situation, and the rest of the community has to pay more,” Msall says. “It’s unfair. It’s very hard to monitor. And it’s hard to authenticate who’s getting the value. Is it the needy people? Or is it a large giveaway?”

Duckworth — the state’s highest-profile combat veteran — hasn’t had to pay any property taxes since 2015 on the home she and her husband own in Hoffman Estates.

Over the past six years, her tax breaks have totaled $42,479 — $4,637 from the homeowner exemption that nearly every homeowner receives and $37,842 under a tax break Illinois legislators passed in 2015 for veterans who have been certified by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as being at least 70% disabled.

Without those exemptions, the Democratic senator and her husband would have had to pay $6,920 in taxes this year on their three-bedroom, 1,600-square-foot home, which Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi values at $252,250.

Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times
Sen. Tammy Duckworth and her husband don’t have to pay any property taxes on the home in Hoffman Estates (above) that’s their primary residence. Duckworth, who gets a salary of $174,000 a year as a senator, and her husband also own a second home — a six-bedroom, 4,100-square-foot brick house in McLean, Va., with an in-ground pool — that they bought in 2017 for $1.3 million. Income isn’t a factor in Illinois in qualifying for a full no-pay property tax exemption as a disabled veteran. It is in some states.

Duckworth and other Illinois veterans certified by the VA as 70% disabled don’t have to pay anything in property taxes this year if the assessor valued their homes at no higher than $775,000 last year.

For those whose homes are valued by the assessor’s office higher than that, the law gives disabled vets steep tax cuts. That has resulted in minuscule tax bills even for some who live in wealthy communities like the Gold Coast and Winnetka, the Sun-Times found.

Once someone is found to be eligible for the disabled vets exemption, it’s good for the rest of the vet’s life — and it also continues for the rest of the spouse’s life unless the spouse remarries.

And, unlike some states, Illinois doesn’t put a limit on household income for veterans and their spouses to be eligible.

Duckworth, 53, who gets a salary of $174,000 a year as a senator, first qualified for the tax exemption while she was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. She uses a wheelchair after losing both legs when she was shot down in Iraq in 2004 while piloting a helicopter for the Illinois Army National Guard. She was awarded a Purple Heart. Her husband Bryan Bowlsbey, who also served in the National Guard, retiring with the rank of major, works for a cybersecurity company.

Duckworth and Bowlsbey also have a second house — a six-bedroom, 4,100-square-foot brick home with an in-ground pool in McLean, Virginia, about half an hour from the U.S. Capitol — that they bought in 2017 for $1.3 million.

Her memoir “Every Day Is A Gift” brought her more than $300,000 in royalties in 2019 and also in 2020.

Duckworth and her husband do pay property taxes on their Virginia home, for which they were billed $16,351 this year.

Like Illinois, Virginia offers a property tax exemption for disabled vets. To get it, though, the law in that state would require Duckworth to declare that her primary residence, which she couldn’t do while representing Illinois in the Senate.

Duckworth didn’t respond to an interview request through her Senate spokesman Ben Garmisa.

Garmisa says the senator gets the same benefit that any similarly disabled vet could get.

Illinois “offers this benefit to all veterans with service-connected disabilities above a 70% rating,” he says. “Sen. Duckworth has always believed that everyone should pay their fair share in taxes and that those who served this nation in uniform deserve and should claim the benefits they earned.”

Among the proof required to receive the tax break for disabled vets in Illinois is a letter from the VA spelling out the percentage of a vet’s service-related disability. To get that rating, vets must provide the VA with proof from private or military doctors of three things: a current physical or mental health problem; an injury, disease or exposure to something toxic that occurred while they were in the military; and evidence that the current health problem stems from something that happened while in the service.

Qualifying conditions can include chronic back pain, severe hearing loss, scar tissue or ulcers as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and traumatic brain injuries.

“Military service is very difficult on the body, so a lot of vets who end up with 20 years will end up with a number of conditions stacked together,” says David Eckert, chief of the VA’s Schedule for Rating Disabilities regulations. “And 100% disability doesn’t mean that veteran isn’t able to do anything.”

For instance, sleep apnea that’s treated with a breathing machine “wouldn’t prevent you from working during the day” and would rate a 50% disability, according to Eckert.

Multiple conditions can be combined to determine the percentage of disability, and that percentage is rounded to the nearest 10th, from 0 to 100%. So, for instance, if an Illinois veteran’s conditions add up to a 65% disability rating, the rating would be rounded up to 70% — enough to not have to pay property taxes.

Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times
Retired Ald. James Balcer speaking at a wreath laying ceremony at the “Eternal Flame” at Daley Plaza on Aug. 2, 2020.

Balcer, the former 11th ward alderman whose Bridgeport home is valued at $542,810 by the county assessor, is another of the disabled vet homeowners in Cook County who pay no property taxes on their homes.

Balcer, 71, enlisted in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam war and later was commended for bravery. He was wounded as a teenager in 1969 when his company came under fire in Laos, and he led efforts to rescue trapped fellow Marines. His combat tour began in 1968, and he was sent home after being wounded.

“I have been treated for PTSD and other disabilities,” Balcer says. “PTSD and vertigo forced me out of my job as an alderman. I realized I needed treatment, and I’ve been going for seven years now” to the VA.

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
Former Ald. James Balcer’s Bridgeport home is valued at $542,810 by the county assessor. He gets an exemption for disabled veterans that erases his property tax bill.

In 2001, then-Ald. Balcer was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery for carrying wounded comrades to safety in February 1969. He also received three Purple Hearts.

Since retiring from City Hall in 2015, Balcer has been collecting a pension topping $100,000 a year based on his final aldermanic annual salary of $117,333.

Asked whether he thinks the property tax break for disabled vets should be tied to an income limit as it is in some states, Balcer says, “That’s a tough one for me to answer. Myself, I go to the VA. I paid a heavy price being in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, and I don’t regret it one bit.”

Bernard Banks, who retired from the Army at the rank of brigadier general, is another vet who benefits from the same tax break, though he does pay some taxes. Banks, who is an associate dean at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, owns a two-story home on Sheridan Road near Lake Michigan in Evanston. Kaegi places a value on the 5,286-square-foot house at just over $1 million.

When Banks bought the house in 2017, the tax bill was close to $30,000. But thanks to his disabled veterans and homeowner exemptions, Banks’ tax bill was $5,436 this year. He understands that might upset other taxpayers because, when one homeowner gets a break, others have to pay more to cover that to keep schools and local governments running.

“Our state is a hurt locker when it comes to taxes,” says Banks, who has relied on the disabled vets exemption to lower his property taxes for three years. “I get why we have the conversation. This was not designed as a loophole. You can’t game your [VA] rating.”

After 30 years in the Army, Banks has a disability rating of at least 70%.

Tyler LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Retired Brig. Gen. Bernard Banks, now a Northwestern University associate dean, bought this 5,286-square-foot house on Sheridan Road near Lake Michigan in Evanston in 2017. The tax bill was close to $30,000 then. But thanks to his disabled veterans and homeowner exemptions, Banks’ tax bill was $5,436 this year. Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi places a value on the 5,286-square-foot house at just over $1 million.

“I’m an inch shorter than when I joined the Army from carrying heavy packs, jumping out of airplanes,” Banks says. “I did a lot of things that took a toll on my body. I’m not carrying a cane, but I certainly have back issues. Tinnitus. One of my thumbs is super-impacted. My big toe, I can’t flex it.

“It’s a very complex system, how the VA assigns the rating,” he says. “Flat feet could be 50%.”

Banks says he supports the tax breaks that Illinois and other states give veterans not just on property taxes but also on such things as hunting and fishing licenses.

“People are applying for benefits that were accorded to them in recognition of their service to the nation and in recognition of the toll that service did to their body,” he says.

Another vet who benefits from the exemption is Travis R. Coburn, a Chicago police office who is in his 30s and lives in Edgebrook. Coburn is one of five Chicago cops the Sun-Times identified who didn’t have to pay any property taxes this year because the VA determined they are at least 70% disabled.

Coburn and his wife saved $10,373 in property taxes this year, the bulk of that because of his disability exemption.

Coburn, who, according to the city, has a yearly salary of $84,564, declined to comment.

Records show he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2007, got a bachelor’s degree, and worked for other police departments before getting hired by the Chicago Police Department in August 2014.

The police department didn’t respond to questions.

In Illinois, homeowners can combine exemptions to lower their property tax bills, say by claiming the homeowner exemption and, for those over 65 whose household income is under $65,000, the senior freeze exemption, which freezes the value of their homes even if prices in their neighborhood go up.

Other exemptions can lower tax bills. And more people claim the senior freeze. But only the disabled vets exemption can immediately zero out an entire tax bill.

A total of 6,083 homeowners in Cook County who take the disabled vets exemption pay nothing in property taxes. That collectively saves them $33.1 million — or about $5,450, on average, per property.

A total of 17,829 homeowners who claim the senior freeze pay nothing in property taxes. That collectively saves them $24.5 million — or about $1,375, on average, per property.

Google Maps
Kurt Unter saved $14,309 this year in property taxes on his 3,244-square-foot home in Palatine (above) thanks to the disabled veterans exemption and three other exemptions.

As a disabled vet who’s over 65, Kurt Unter, the founder of BrewSmart Beverage, a coffee company, gets four exemptions that have erased what he otherwise would have to pay in property taxes on the 3,244-square-foot home on a 14,574-square-foot lot in Palatine home for the past five years. This year, that has saved him $14,309.

Unter’s home is valued by Kaegi’s office at $447,280. The breakdown on how he cut his tax bill to zero goes like this: $993 saved as a result of the homeowner exemption, $794 from the exemption for seniors, $2,928 thanks to the senior freeze and $9,594 from the disabled vets exemption.

Without the sort of income ceiling that some states have imposed, Illinois’ disabled vets can end up having to pay nothing in property taxes even on mansions.

Google Maps
As a disabled veteran, Dean Ebert doesn’t have to pay any taxes on his 5,900-square-foot Georgian home in Barrington that he bought for $1.9 million in 2019 – which the county assessor has valued at $698,520.

Like Dean Ebert, a retired Marine who is a vice president of defense contractor Northrup Grumman. Ebert doesn’t pay any taxes on the 5,900-square-foot Georgian home in Barrington that he bought for $1.9 million in 2019. The house — which Kaegi values at $698,520 — sits on 4.4 acres and is on a lake. Ebert, who couldn’t be reached, moved there with his wife from a 4,000-square-foot home in Los Angeles County.

Others end up with just a tiny tax bill. Like Adam DeSantis, 33, a lawyer who is an associate with the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP and served six years in the Army, according to his LinkedIn profile.

DeSantis, who declined to comment, and his wife own a Lakeview condo the assessor’s office values at $832,960. A disabled vet’s exemption saved the couple $17,728 in taxes this year, leaving them with a tax bill of $587.

Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times
Adam DeSantis and his wife own a condo in this Lakeview building that the assessor’s office values at $832,960. A disabled vet’s exemption saved the couple $17,728 in taxes this year, leaving them with a tax bill of $587.

In the south suburbs, where tax bills have been high for years, Air Force veteran Endrell Rucker and his wife bought a new home in Flossmoor last year for $480,000, knowing they wouldn’t have to pay any property taxes on it. While working for the VA in Georgia, Rucker says he had qualified for a similar program that cut his property taxes there.

“It definitely made housing more affordable, especially in Flossmoor,” Rucker says, where “taxes are considerably higher than living in the city. So it was definitely a motivator to come back” to the Chicago area.

Rucker, 45, declined to describe his disability but says the VA rated him at 100%.

“I’ve retired due to disability,” he says. “So I’m not currently working a 9-to-5 or anything like that. My wife is the breadwinner.”

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
Thanks to the disabled veteran’s exemption, Air Force veteran Endrell Rucker and his wife pay no property taxes on this home in Flossmoor that they bought last year for $480,000.

The homeowner with a zeroed-out property tax bill who saves the most money as a result of the disabled vets exemption is Jesse Miller. A Country Club Hills resident, Miller would have to pay more than $32,000 in property taxes on his home, which the assessor’s office values at $422,370, if not for the tax break.

If not for the disable veterans exemption, Miller’s property taxes would have more than doubled since he bought the six-bedroom, brick home less than a decade ago for $175,000.

“It’s really distressing to see they raised the local property taxes like that,” says Miller, who declines to discuss his military service or disability. “A lot of vets couldn’t afford a home without this program. So it’s a really good program.”

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
Jesse Miller saves more than $32,000 by not having to pay any property taxes on his six-bedroom home in Country Club Hills (above) than anyone else under the disabled veteran’s property tax exemption.

When the Illinois Legislature first gave a property tax break to disabled veterans a decade ago, it saved them just a few thousand dollars.

Then, in 2015, state Rep. Deb Conroy, D-Villa Park, got the legislature to approve a much more generous break. It eliminated property taxes altogether for many with at least a 70% disability rating, and provided for smaller discounts for those 30% to 70% disabled. The measure was signed into law by then-Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican.

Google Maps
Stephen Curda, who headed the Illinois Department of Veteran Affairs under former Gov. Bruce Rauner, hasn’t had to pay property taxes since 2017 on his WiImette home, which the Cook County assessor values at $656,190.

That law wiped out the tax bill on the Wilmette home of Stephen Curda, a 30-year Army veteran, who Rauner later appointed to run the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.

Because of the exemption, Curda hasn’t paid taxes since 2017 on the five-bedroom, two-story home, which the assessor values at $656,190. This year, that saved him $16,769 in property taxes.

Curda, who no longer runs the state veterans agency, didn’t return messages seeking comment.

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The Chicago Bears are taking steps that would enable them to leave Soldier Field. | Kamil Krzaczynski / AP

Even if they do leave Chicago, they’ll still be the source of endless exasperation, unfounded optimism, sporadic excitement — and three wasted hours on fall weekends.

So the Chicago Bears want to move to Arlington Heights. I say: Let them go.

I don’t say it with any animosity. It’s not even like I’m adding under my breath: And don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out.

All things being equal, I’d rather the Bears stayed in the city. But, if they want to go, go.

Really, it doesn’t matter.

As long as they don’t want a public subsidy to make the move (and I won’t believe that part until I see it accomplished), I wish them only the best.

The Bears are no great economic engine for the city. Their 10 home dates, which include the increasingly useless two preseason games, are just a drop in Burnham Harbor.

Everything else the Bears contribute to city life won’t go away just because they’re playing in the suburbs.

For starters, they’ll still be the Chicago Bears. It’s not like they’d be moving to Portland or Brooklyn. Your Bears jersey won’t be obsolete.

If you want to see a game, you’ll still be able to drive there. Or take Metra.

Tailgating won’t be as cool as it is along the lakefront, but people will adjust.

And let’s drop the bluster about them having to call themselves the Arlington Heights Bears if they move, which was nonsensical when first uttered by Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1975 and has only grown more silly as it gets repeated through the years. That’s not how these things work.

They could move to Gary, Ind., or Iowa City, Iowa, and still call them the Chicago Bears if it suited their purposes.

Wherever the Bears play, they’ll still be the source of endless exasperation, unfounded optimism, sporadic excitement, occasional inspiration — and three wasted hours on fall weekends.

I’m a Bears fan dating to Bill Wade at quarterback and Ditka at tight end. But I’m content to watch them on television, which will still find a way to capture a view of the stadium that includes the city skyline, albeit in the distant background.

The New York football teams play in New Jersey. Washington’s football team plays in Maryland. The Dallas Cowboys play in Arlington. San Francisco plays in Santa Clara. Boston’s football team plays in Foxborough.

None of those cities is in any danger of drying up and blowing away. They haven’t lost their identity. Neither will Chicago.

True, this is a tenuous moment for Chicago, coming off the pandemic and the civil disturbances that have left downtown a shadow of itself.

But the Bears aren’t going anywhere just yet, and I remain confident urban living will bounce back from the pandemic. If we don’t, we’ve got a lot bigger worries than where the Bears choose to lose their games.

The future of Soldier Field is a legitimate concern. Without its anchor tenant, the finances of its upkeep could go south in a hurry. But Soldier Field has a life beyond the Bears.

I’ve never been as opposed to the current redesigned stadium as a lot of people. But I can see it’s become inadequate for the Bears’ needs and that the team could make more money at another location.

But I also remember that the revamped Soldier Field initially was a financial boon to the McCaskey family, greatly increasing the value of the team and their net worth.

People don’t seem to realize the McCaskeys aren’t like most wealthy sports team owners who make their fortune and then buy themselves a professional franchise. The McCaskeys’ wealth is the football team.

One of the strangest parts of this affair is that the Bears aren’t telling us what the plan is. They don’t have any public affairs firm making a case for a new stadium — in the city or Arlington Heights.

I’ve read how the Bears could make a privately owned stadium in Arlington Heights feasible — a loan from fellow NFL owners, selling personal seat licenses, naming rights. I still think they’re going to need a deep-pocketed real estate partner or help from taxpayers.

On the latter, the answer is no, absolutely not.

Go, Bears. Go in peace.

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A woman was killed Friday morning in Chicago Lawn on the South Side. | Sun-Times file photo

The woman, 26, was standing outside of a residential building about 12:45 a.m. when two males approached and opened fire, police said.

A woman was fatally shot Friday morning in Chicago Lawn.

The woman, 26, was standing outside of a residential building about 12:45 a.m. in the 6200 block of South Rockwell Street when two males approached and opened fire, striking her in the head, Chicago police said.

She was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Her name hasn’t been released yet.

No one was in custody.

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