by: Diane Benjamin
You probably didn’t hear, but the Coliseum had an audited operating loss last year of $1,637,477. The only Central Illinois Arena Management (CIAM) report posted for this year is for May-July. Is shows a loss of almost $140,000. Since there were very few events since July, that’s probably why nothing has been posted since. You aren’t suppose to notice though, ZERO transparency.
Then there was the Paradigm fiasco. Hours and hours and hours of taxpayer paid time spent by employees of both Normal and Bloomington and it blew up. Did you notice Mayor Renner, Scott Black, and Karen Schmidt didn’t attend the joint Council session? Distancing themselves from the disaster? Scott Black might have been out of town, but I haven’t heard why the other 2 were absent.
That leads me to the Brady-Fruin-Central Catholic-State grant mess. Either the whole thing was a scam so Central Catholic could have a closer practice field at taxpayer expense, or everybody involved was incompetent. Maybe the airport should have spoken up sooner. It took them from Tuesday to Friday to reveal Central Catholic could use their present field another 15 years!
Citizens will continue to get more of the same. Mayor Renner continues to push a downtown hotel, new lighting, and expanding the library. All will end up the same way as the projects above because he isn’t using his own money. Government uses YOUR money for their own agenda. They don’t have to be responsible, there is always somebody else to blame, or they start the project and leave office and the mess to the next elected group.
“Limited Government” means limiting what government involves itself in. Winning elections isn’t a free ticket to your money, most local elected officials think it is. The job of governing is a lot more boring when you just fund what the citizens expect to be funded. Boring government means your money is safe however.
Bloomington is losing 1 of the 2 people on the Council who understands, Judy Stearns
If you are sick of constant tax increases, can you think of new questions now to ask people wanting your vote?
