By: Diane Benjamin
Here are some more emails I received under the Freedom of Information Act from the Town of Normal. The first two shows again that Bloomington was involved in the Paradigm deal BEFORE Rob Fazzini quit the Council. Once again, in Illinois this is not a crime! Ethical? Since when does that matter!
Normal, did you know you hired a Chicago lawyer?
George is Paradigm’s lawyer. I have many emails talking about meetings with Normal’s lawyer, Brian Day. This one reveals a Chicago lawyer was hired.
This email shows why so many lawyers were involved.
3 separate agreements were part of this deal. Acquiring a location also took many hours and meetings.
Yes, many many many hours were spent on Paradigm. Then it all fell apart. I still have lots more emails if you are interested. Leave a comment.
The only questions I really have about this Paradigm business that Fazzini was trying to huckster us all with is how could this collective of lawyers and politically connected (LOL) individuals, after spending countless hours and thousands of dollars, FAIL so spectacularly? Who in their right minds would go through the trouble of calling a joint session of both city councils without knowing this end result was even a possibility?
A ‘Yea’ vote in favor of this nonsense should have been the end result, yet here we are. This wasn’t even a matter of getting shot down in flames – that plane blew up at the terminal with no one on board (Thank God!). THAT… is what has got me curious about this whole sordid affair.
There’s a story here to be sure. It is one of either gross incompetence in handling serious business affairs (cough, cough ‘Rob’), or TeamParadigm was outbid at the last moment by players much more interested in maintaining the status quo. Rob may very well be an arrogant jackass, but I have serious doubts that even he could be this buffoonish in business affairs. If he is, I’m buying tickets to his next production of ‘Amateur Hour with Rob Fazzini’
The only thing I am certain about with regard to how this turned out is that nobody involved in this delicious disaster (save Sterns and Lower) had any intention of looking after the well being and hard earned dollars of the citizens of Bloomington-Normal.
Thank you Diane for looking into this for us. I really need to throw you a couple of Benjamins (pardon the play on words…I couldn’t help myself…LOL) when I get a chance.
Seriously. What you do is important…and necessary. Keep it up!
Thanks Gent! I’ve got emails that describe what happened. It looks to me like the lawyers kept changing what they wanted in the agreements – right up until the joint session. It’s very complicated, of course with lawyers it always is.