By: Diane Benjamin
The City of Bloomington has been trying to minimize the power of the City Council. The 9 aldermen are elected by citizens to be their representative, but the seven potted plants on the Council continue to defer to David Hales instead of making common sense decisions for themselves. Frankly, I’m surprised there isn’t a Hales ring-kissing session before every meeting.
In Washington DC your elected officials have given away their power – they rarely make laws anymore. Instead the EPA, IRS, Dept of Energy, HHS and on and on make regulations. Congress can’t figure out why government has grown and the laws they do pass rarely resemble the intent once the un-elected bureaucracy mangles and twists laws to fit their agenda.
The Bloomington City Council is doing the same thing. At the Work Session, prior to the City Council meeting, they held a brief discussion on procurement. The City wants David Hales to have more power in awarding bids or not requiring bids at all. No need to bother the Council on approving purchases like vehicles and trivial things like that. David Hales will have the City checkbook at his fingertips.
It probably wasn’t a good meeting to discuss giving Hales more power to purchase items when the Police Department pulled the $43,698 ammunition buy so my claims of a much cheaper available price could be investigated. I’m not claiming victory here, I will wait for the police to determine if I am comparing apples to apples. I did check to see if website stores could supply huge quantities, and yes they can.
Previously I reported the City wants citizen complaints going to David Hales, not the aldermen. (http://blnnews.com/2014/11/08/bloomington-retreat-report-cough/) City staff claims to be intimidated by your representative. Now the City will seek to limit Aldermen further by taking spending approval away. The Council is becoming immaterial – worse, the potted plants don’t care. They aren’t on the Council to be your voice, they are there to be invited to parties and be honored guests at meetings. Power and control is their only desire. Their power is in name only because they have been handed it to THEIR employee – David Hales. The only thing missing is his throne.
A vote at the Council meeting gave the City even more power. An Administrative Adjudication System to hear cases with judgments up to $50,000, including foreclosures, will be created. Aldermen Lower and Stearns tried to change the limit to $10,000 because they believed $50,000 gave the City too much power. The potted plants voted against the $10,000 limit. (Any chance they voted against it because Lower and Stearns proposed it?) Instead of the Civil Courts hearing big cases, the City of Bloomington’s hired lawyers will adjudicate. The original intent was to free the court system from minor cases, the reality could be much different.
Why King Tari? Because none of this would be happening if Mayor Not-Transparency didn’t tell Hales what to do. Hales is Renner’s puppet, just hanging around for his 8 years so he can collect a pension. Here’s an email I received from Tari when I asked after his election if Hales would be removed as City Manager:
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4/11/13
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