SR0587 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

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SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The Illinois Film Production Services Tax Credit was established in order "to preserve and expand the existing human infrastructure for the motion picture industry in Illinois" and "to promote and encourage the training and hiring of Illinois residents who represent the diversity of the Illinois population"; the credit is calculated as a percentage of salaries paid to Illinois residents and payments made to Illinois vendors, with an additional credit available when the production company employs residents of high-poverty or high-unemployment areas; and

WHEREAS, Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, owned by renowned filmmaker Spike Lee, who is perhaps best known for his honest and compelling treatments of race in America, including "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X", has applied for a Film Production Services Tax Credit for eligible expenses it expects to incur while producing the motion picture "Chiraq"; and

WHEREAS, Lee's film will be set in the Southside Chicago neighborhood of Englewood, a predominantly African-American community where unemployment stands at 21.3%, significantly above the national, State, and city averages; the production is expected to employ nearly 3,000 extras, 100 crew members, and 20 interns, most of whom will be residents of Englewood and surrounding neighborhoods; contracts for services with local vendors will also benefit the homeowners, businesses, churches, and schools whose properties will make up 90% of the film's locations; and

WHEREAS, Illinois law requires companies applying for the Film Production Services Tax Credit to file diversity plans that include specific hiring goals for minority individuals and women and goals for contracting with vendors certified as disadvantaged business enterprises; the applicant must demonstrate a good-faith effort toward achieving those goals; and

WHEREAS, The production of "Chiraq" not only promises to employ, train, and impart valuable job experience to residents of a community buffeted by unemployment, depressed property values, and a chronic lack of investment, but to shine a spotlight on the scourge of violent crime that helps perpetuate the cycle of poverty and economic neglect and claims the lives of hundreds of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters each year in Chicago; and

WHEREAS, Communities such as Englewood need better statistics, not better semantics, a commitment to people, not perceptions, and a focus on public safety and the public good, not merely public relations; the name "Chiraq" is a shocking but honest acknowledgement of the fear, pain, and hopelessness too many Illinoisans experience daily; and

WHEREAS, Spike Lee seeks to depict in art the human toll of violence in high-poverty neighborhoods and communities of color and to challenge society's acceptance of the unacceptable in its forgotten corners, a commendable goal in and of itself; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge the Department of Commerce and Economic Development to award an Illinois Film Production Services Tax Credit to Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, as long as it meets the requirements of the tax credit program, in the belief that the filming of "Chiraq" in Chicago will result in a positive economic impact on the State in general and on disadvantaged, high-unemployment communities in particular; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be delivered to the director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development and the director of the Illinois Film Office.