by: Diane Benjamin
Add to the title: And the Aldermen who voted to give him another contract and a big raise!
Of course, you don’t know which ones did because they also voted to NOT release the minutes of Executive (Secret) meetings where they do the evaluations. Think the 7 potted plants. Same thing happened to former City Manager Tom Hamilton’s evaluations. Taxpayers don’t have the right to know anything discussed in their secret cabal about holding the guy THEY hired to manage the City accountable. Aldermen Stearns and Lower voted against the contact and pay raise. Everything that happens in the City is his responsibility, how do you think he is doing?
So what is his fault?
Start with this statement from the November 10, 2012 Panatagraph:
BLOOMINGTON – When it comes to problems with the downtown bar scene, the buck now stops with David Hales.
To date NOTHING has been done to clean up the Downtown Bloomington Bar scene. DAVID HALES fault.
Then there is this from the Pantagraph 26 Mar 2008:
The Bloomington City Council approved a $2.9 million bid from Peoria Metro Construction for the station, which will be built at Six Points Road and Mitsubishi Motorway.
Construction could take about a year. Deputy Fire Chief Dan Shanks told the council Monday that he believed the station could be staffed by February or March 2009.
The Fire Station is built and has NEVER been used. Construction was shoddy and the building leaks. Who has been held accountable? David Hales is throwing away $2.9 million of YOUR money. Why are YOU not contacting your alderman? Why haven’t you screamed at the Mayor and City Manager? $2,900,000 up in smoke, but now they want to raise taxes and spend $11,000,000 more on staff?
Here’s what David Hales said as reported in the Pantagraph March 13, 2012:
Referencing the city’s brand new but unused fire station on the city’s west side, City Manager David Hales said he intends to push for “a much more rigorous” process for prioritizing projects.
Where are Hales priorities? Not reducing pension expenses – he keeps hiring and hiring and hiring – every new hire comes with a new pensions that must be funded. Is it streets? The new budget proposed uses $10,000,000 of borrowed money and takes the City’s $4,000,000 out.
How about the CLOSED Coliseum parking garage? How many millions is that going to take to fix? Will it have to be torn down? Nobody knows because the City isn’t talking. Repairs are not in the budget, and the contractor isn’t talking either. Have you contacted your alderman yet? I probably have at least $5,000,000 just in this post that David Hales is allowing to be thrown away.
Here’s what David Hales priority is – Item B:
Hales wasted 45 minutes of Council time and countless staff hours on a program to compare Bloomington City services to other cities around the country. It all on video – watch the exasperated staff yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuFlvn38avM&feature=share How much is in the budget for this continuing comparison project? Nobody knows!
Does David Hales have his priorities right? Obviously the 7 potted plants think he does. That’s why you have 3 choices:
- Don’t pay any attention to what the Council does and watch your taxes go higher and higher
- Contact your alderman and demand answers
- Demand your alderman FIRE David Hales, then fire your alderman in the next election
Here’s the dirty little secret being buried with the Modified Wards referendum:
The alderman do NOTHING other than vote Yes or No for what is on the agenda and handle citizen complaints. The alderman are the last line of defense against out of control City spending. They are suppose to represent you! They CAN NOT put anything on the agenda. The Council hired David Hales to manage the City. The Council SHOULD be there to hold him accountable. The potted plants are not doing their job. If the Council is dysfunctional it is because they are NOT doing their job. Electing At-Large alderman won’t change a thing. Water wells have not been started on the west side because they are not a priority of David Hales. That won’t change with super-aldermen.
The only way to fix the dysfunctional Bloomington City Government is to quit electing dysfunctional representatives. Mayor Renner, Alderman Black, Alderman Mwilambwe, and David Hales are currently at a League of Cities conference where they are attending lectures about redeveloping downtown and hearing people like Democrat Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz speak. Of course you are paying for it. Mayor Renner posted this on Facebook from the conference:
Mawqsc
Is Mayor Renner dysfunctional? Alderman Scott Black “Liked” the post, does that make him dysfunctional too?
Are you getting your money’s worth Bloomington?
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.
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You’re right – nothing is being done. Everything necessary is ignored. It’s the same point that was made in Quality of LIfe vs. quality of life.
There is an abandonment of the fundamental concepts of health, safety and welfare of the city and the citizen. While we build new hotels, new soccer complexes, pave golf cart paths and erect fancy lights downtown, infrastructure suffers, which includes the absence of a resolution for the downtown bar situation, we fall farther away from life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The out-of-hand bar mess in Downtown Bloomington smacks squarely in the face of jeopardizing every component mentioned – health, safety and welfare.
Has anyone noticed that this continuing and worsening dereliction of duty and responsibility violates the fundamental underpinnings of our rights, and thus the Illinois Constitution?
Is taking the City to court for violating the law and our rights the only way to get their attention?
The Liberal Pressed
What do you have against the downtown bar scene? Are you against hard-working, tax-paying small businesses that provide a ton of revenue for the city? Or are you just against young college students (who are of legal age) getting drunk with friends on weekends? I got two pieces of advice for you: try to repeal the 21st Amendment (because prohibition was so successful) or move to Iran (because you’ll have so much freedom there and Muslims don’t drink).
Otherwise tell your friend Big Brother to stay out of young people’s lives and what they do on weekends. Shutting down the bars has always been a Fascist Fantasy of yours that will never happen.
I’m not against anything. The problem is beer cans left on the streets, cig butts everywhere, and drunks urinating outside. Maybe you also forgot a girl got run over and killed by another drunk. The City isn’t do anything because they make way too much money off the bar scene. They just won’t admit it.
The issue with the bar-scene in Downtown Bloomington has nothing to do with
the 21 Amendment and Prohibition, Iran or Muslims.
It’s unfortunate your misguided sense of reality allows your sense of well-being to be influenced by the importance of public drunkenness, unruly behavior and disrespect for personal property and morals by college kids.
Money is relevant, however, as tax revenue pours in, and unfortunately our City officials and elected representatives are influenced by the same factors as you.
The issue is with the overall presence of this bad behavior that affects and impacts, others as well as the overall general image and health of Downtown Bloomington.
I don’t think the message is that it should be eliminated, just better policed, maintained and monitored, and preferably in a different location where the presence doesn’t adversely affect so many others.
It’s unfortunate, as well, that you have difficulty understanding and/or accepting the facts as they are based on your emotional irrationality. But then, it may exhibit part of the problem we speak of.
Maybe you could reevaluate the issue while considering the good of the whole.
Respectfully,
THE LIBERAL PRESSED
Worst mayor ever!
Is Hales running Renner, or Renner running Hales, or 2 peas in a pod?
It should be understood that if Mayor Renner is become the worst Mayor ever, its at the compliments of and facilitated by a majority City Council. The Mayor has no statutory authority to set public policy and implement it save for our City Council Aldermen allowing it and contradicting and abdicating their own authority and responsibility by doing so.
It seems clear now that pre-campaign rhetoric from Renner about “getting rid” of City Manager Hales was nothing more than, well, campaign rhetoric. Both the Mayor and the City Manager seem to have similar goals and objectives, like agendas, and both seem to follow the lead of an agenda set by another authority. Therefore, the bigger question to me would be who’s running Renner and Hales? It’s obviously not our City Council and not the local citizen.
The fact that our Council is on the bottom of the political food chain – a role reversal from fundamental responsibility – is evident. They are neither engaged with the public, the staff, the processes and apparently have little input as to the direction of the City they represent.
Worst Mayor ever?
Let’s give credit where credit is due.
I’d say worst City Council EVER!
THE LIBERAL PRESSED
Hey, 2 members are not potted plants. Watch the last Council meeting. Lower and Stearns were the only 2 to question $75,000 to buy jobs. The rest were dying to vote yes.
Why would “anyone,” especially city leaders want to waste their time on our tax dollars listening to an Obama worshiping witch like Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Are these people demented or what??? Check out Schultz’s lame and twisted excuse on why Republican David Jolly who opposed Obamacare won the Florida House seat in the 13th district over Democrat Alex Sink who supported Obamacare:
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/120706-wasserman-schultz-heck-yeah-dem-loss-florida-proves-weak-gop/
Worst council ever, due to the seven potted plants have no thoughts of their own. They simply follow the lead of the consensus crew of Hales and Renner. Notice Hales name first. Sorry Tari but you are obviously the second fiddle. These two follow a pre-written script as well. The only original thoughts that Renner has is when he occasionally flies off the handle with toddler like public rants and the famous “bullshit mental masturbation” quote while sitting at the mayors council seat one night early into his reign. The guy is a real joke.