By: Diane Benjamin The audit is done, not released though: Evidently the City doesn’t think they have to print the P-Card spending list anymore, just 1 big amount. Amazon purchases are listed without a descriptions – pages of them. Link to Bills and Payroll: https://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=25260 Agenda: http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1090&Inline=True Tari wants to re-appoint Rob Fazzini to the […]
By: Diane Benjamin I bet the Council will still refuse to meet in person. Chris Koos can knock on doors however for his campaign. https://normal.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2163
By: Diane Benjamin https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nMCbsR02FZVZZcIO2k0rG8eyPHwSKrFI/view The Connect Transit Board met on September 22. Success! Over $1 million lost in August: A few of the listed expenses: Why does an “essential service” have to advertise? See PDF page 55 – they still think they can recruit more people to give up driving to ride the bus: What […]
By: Diane Benjamin Never let a good crisis go to waste. This was Twitter yesterday after the Breonna Taylor decision. A grand jury – CITIZENS called on to make decisions – agreed two of the officers should not be charged. The decisions were not made by the police, a State’s Attorney, or even the BLACK […]
by: Diane Benjamin In my opinion voting in September for an election in November is lamebrained, dim-witted, and unintelligent. There will be “October surprises”, the presidential debates don’t even start until next week. The ONLY reason to vote now is to pretend you investigated all the candidates and have determined which ones represent your values. […]
By: Diane Benjamin A reader asked me yesterday if I knew who won the Tiny House raffle that supported the Midwest Food Bank and Spread Truth. See one of the previous stories: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/30/tiny-house-press-release/ I didn’t know, but I found out. They live in Strawn, IL. This post is from Facebook:
By: Diane Benjamin The building codes discussion wasn’t very interesting until they got to sprinklers retro-fitted in old buildings – mostly downtown. If more than 300 people attend events they might be requiring sprinklers within the next 3 years. Evidently they want to see a lot more empty buildings downtown! Even Jenn Carrillo knows that […]
By: Diane Benjamin See Part 1 here: https://blnnews.com/2020/09/22/normal-council-the-best-comedy-show-in-town/ Everybody wants to pull things from the Omnibus Agenda now. Remember the 10 minute meetings? They are long gone. Scott Preston pulled approving the fire protection agreement with ISU just to gloat about how well the Town and ISU work together. Stan dared to ask if the […]
By: Diane Benjamin At the last meeting (September 8th) Kevin McCarthy pulled approving the bills from the Omnibus Agenda just so he could state “it is just a report”, everything spent was already approved in the budget. Last night Kathleen Lorenz pulled the same item so she could give the same speech. Who’s turn will […]
By: Diane Benjamin It was September 2nd when the Normal Town Council brought their hammer down on ISU large groups. Soon after the student athletes marched through campus demanding the athletic director’s resignation for daring to say: Redbird Lives Matter. The ISU Social Justice warriors think only Black Lives Matter can be uttered, true Marxists. […]
By: Diane Benjamin https://tinyurl.com/Committee-of-the-Whole If you haven’t figured it out, anything discussed at Committee of the Whole meetings is already a done deal. It’s a setup for upcoming votes. First on the agenda is a riveting discussion of changing the building codes. Included are links to previous meetings: I have no intention of watching them, […]
By: Diane Benjamin How Jenn describes herself on her Alderman Facebook page: How FIVE candidates running for the County Board describe themselves: Notice anything? All Jenn progressives The Democrat Party left you. Progressives want to run your life, they don’t think you are smart enough to run your own. Of course they think you are […]
By: Diane Benjamin http://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3742 The semi-annual Cost of Living raises for employees are being delayed until April. (After the election?) Have they ever gotten a COST of Living decrease? The other big one is adding another $.04 gas tax. The minutes on PDF page 9 don’t adequately reflect the discussion that happened during the September […]
By: Diane Benjamin Today: This announcement brought out the police haters in the Hispanic wing of Black Lives Matter: Roy countered with this: September 27th: Connie Beard, Chairman of the McLean County Republicans announced that on Sunday September 27 the County is invited to honor McLean County First Responders by attending a rally at the […]
(It’s much easier if you know who is really in charge)
By: Diane Benjamin Jenn Carrillo posted 2 voicemails she received: I have no idea who the two people are who left these voicemails, but they serve ZERO purpose. She doesn’t care about your opinions. Your job, if you don’t want want Jenn’s on the Bloomington City Council is to inform other citizens and actually get […]
By: Diane Benjamin If you haven’t figured out by now Democrats running Illinois has been a disaster. There isn’t enough of your money to satisfy their insatiable spending lunacy. Changing the Illinois Constitution so they can tax more proves that fact. Voting YES to tax the rich proves you are the problem. It is impossible […]
By: Diane Benjamin http://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/17188/CAFR20-FINAL-DOC The best information is often in the disclosures added after the financial stuff that is purposely difficult for average citizens to understand. Look at PDF pages 219 and 220. Normal could have printed these in landscape mode, like they did on other pages, but that would make it too easy to […]
Today is Constitution Day On this day in 1787 the final draft of the Constitution was signed by the members of the Constitutional Convention. It is a magnificent document that few follow these days. Today is the perfect time to re-read it, or for Jenn to read it for the first time. https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/full-text
By: Diane Benjamin I remember years ago when I mentioned “limited government” some people didn’t understand what that means. Politicians are constantly claiming they will save us from whatever and they actually make the whatever worse. Just this week Minneapolis citizens and their leadership are wondering why the police don’t show up when called. Other […]
By: Diane Benjamin It takes FOREVER to receive FOIA’s, so now you have to think back. Susan Kalter is the chair of the Academic Senate at ISU. She wanted to hold a faculty meeting that wasn’t open to the media and didn’t comply with the Open Meetings Act. See all previous stories here: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/28/susan-kalter-explain-your-meeting-to-the-attorney-general/ In […]
By: Diane Benjamin http://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/17188/CAFR20-FINAL-DOC From Normal’s just issued financial statements as of 3/31/2020: Note the Long-Term total debt – $224,909,947. It increased more than $25 million in 1 year. What makes up that debt? $84,320,000 is bond debt, the IEPA loan doesn’t have interest expense. PDF page 31 Below is a chart showing the biggest […]
See the entire Press Release here: In case you don’t trust the Post Office to actually deliver your ballot: Excerpts: Click on the link above to see those locations.
By: Diane Benjamin The meeting lasted a little of an hour. Tari wasn’t there because the internet was out at his house. Mboka Mwilambwe acted as mayor. Tim Gleason was also absent, nobody said why. Maybe he didn’t want to be present when they voted on his contract extension and raise – without any discussion. […]
By: Diane Benjamin The left never accepted the results of the 2016 election. They won’t accept the re-election of Trump either. Tweet last night: Response to her tweet: In case the police want to find Zach when Trump is reelected: I’ve got a packed day today, so I will leave this to you readers for […]
By: Diane Benjamin Maybe the local “environmentalists” missed the California brown outs. They are all in on 100% renewable, too bad it doesn’t provide enough power to keep people from having to unplug or get involuntarily unplugged. Below is one of the currently inoperable turbines east of town. All that black at the top is […]
By: Diane Benjamin In case you forgot, Tari Renner endorsed Daniel Biss a committed socialist for governor. https://blnnews.com/2017/09/05/tari-still-supporting-biss/ Jenn Carrillo and Jeff Crabill are democrat socialists. Many of the rest lean left, some farther than others. Two socialist candidates have already announced they are running next April. It’s still really early but nobody in Bloomington […]
See this link: https://wirepoints.org/heres-the-central-misleading-claim-constantly-made-about-the-fair-tax-proposal-quicktake/ Excerpts from the article: Don’t be deceived: The State of Illinois can not live within their means. The Progressive Tax Amendment is just the latest scheme to get more of your money. Instead of reforming un-affordable pensions, they want more of your money. Jobs will be lost and more people will […]
By: Diane Benjamin Monday: Bloomington Council meeting: http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1089&Inline=True Bloomington will get their own cannabis dispensary. It will be centrally located at GE Road and Veterans Parkway. It is owned by the same company that operates the one in north Normal. Likely it will draw customers from Bloomington and Normal. Sorry Normal. (Let the city wars […]
By: Diane Benjamin The second installment of your property taxes are due on 9/17. The check you will be writing is higher because of many things, but a BIG one is Tax Increment Financing. TIF’s The Uptown TIF is Normal’s huge one. The 2020 comprehensive report isn’t available yet, so I have to use the […]
By: Diane Benjamin See the agenda packet for Monday here: http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1089&Inline=True City Manager Tim Gleason is getting a 3% raise because he’s doing such a wonderful job: See PDF page 57. You have to continue reading to find out how much the new salary is before benefits: $197,219 I wonder if Jenn Carrillo is okay […]
By: Diane Benjamin http://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/17188/CAFR20-FINAL-DOC See the below on PDF pages 177 and following. The only good news is the first one will be paid off next year. I added the interest rates in the lower left corner. The loans with no payments for many years carry high interest rates likely for that reason. This isn’t […]
By: Diane Benjamin The mantra of the left is Equality – unless you earn more money than somebody else. Equality is not stealing a higher percentage of income from the people who earned it. A completely FAIR tax is taking the same percent from everyone. The proposed change to the Illinois Constitution to Tax The […]
By: Diane Benjamin During Tuesday’s night Normal Town Council meeting much was made about the Financial Trends Reports and what a valuable tool it is. This year it isn’t. It recaps what happened from 4/1/2019 through 3/31/2020. Something happened around the time this report ends: Glance through the report. It contains little current information: http://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/17189/Financial-Trend-and-Condition-Report-FY2019-20 […]
By: Diane Benjamin Much of the meeting was spent talking about the 3/31/2020 financial statements and the financial trends report. Neither are on-line yet, so they aren’t worth discussing much here. Many accolades were thrown at staff for doing a good job preparing for the audit. I agree, but isn’t that what they get paid […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal met for almost 4 hours last night. See the 6:00 pm Work Session story here: https://blnnews.com/2020/09/09/stealing-more-from-you-the-town-of-normal/ I’m going to start with the END of the regular meeting since I might have been one of the few still awake watching it. Chris Koos is attempting to fix his image since he was […]
By: Diane Benjamin When you vote for progressives your taxes will go up. Utopia takes cold hard cash – YOURS. During the Work Session at 6:00 pm last night the only topic was increasing the gas tax. The theme at this meeting and the 7:00 meeting was “pots” of money. Think about how you handle […]
By: Diane Benjamin Green Top Grocery has a program called Positive Change. Customers that bring their own bag get and token with which to “Vote” for a non-profit. There doesn’t appear to be any benefit of winning the “vote”. Instead of choosing non-profits that aren’t controversial, Green Top must want to alienate at least half […]
By: Diane Benjamin If you want a County Board full of Jenn Carrillo buddies – vote Democrat. Her socialist buddy who is running for Bloomington City Council (unless he chickens out) identified one for you. County Board meetings were already live streamed before COVID. Lawler and Laymon want to make sure the public won’t be […]
