Will County Gazette

Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) believes some lawmakers rely on schemes instead of smart policy to attract unnecessary businesses to Illinois.

“If the state of Illinois had a good business climate, the kind we should and need to have, we wouldn’t have to result to gimmicks like this and everyone would be wanting to do business in this state just because,” he told the Will County Gazette.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports lawmakers have gifted at least $420 million to some 1,817 television and film production companies over the last decade in an attempt to attract more of Hollywood to Illinois.

Mica Freeman

What those companies did to earn the good fortune remains a mystery, as lawmakers have never audited their books, the Sun-Times states.

“It all boils down to not enough lawmakers in Springfield doing the job they were sent there to do in terms of making Illinois everything it could be,” said Batinick, running for re-election in the 97th District against Democrat Mica Freeman.

Batinick isn’t surprised the program appears to be ripe for corruption, he said.

The U.S. Attorneys recently filed extortion charges against longtime Teamsters boss John T. Coli for allegedly strong-arming Cinespace Chicago Film Studios co-founder Alex Pissios out of $325,000 by threatening to stage work stoppages at the West Side studio where productions like “Chicago Fire” and “Empire” are filmed, the Deadline Hollywood website reports.

Coli also allegedly introduced Pissios to the lawmakers that helped him procure $31 million in grants and tax breaks to build Cinespace, the website states.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” Batinick said. “Historically, when you have programs like this in Illinois this is what you get. It’s bound to happen, and speaks to why we need to stop the practice of just throwing money at every problem that comes our way and thinking that’s any kind of viable solution.”

The 97th District includes all or parts of Oswego, Plainfield, Troy and Wheatland.