By: Diane Benjamin
Is American History still taught? Evidently it’s been re-written to reflect mob rule instead of a Representative Republic. After all, the government is supposed to reflect the will of the people!
Mob rule has come to Bloomington. Bike lanes are painted on the streets (the roads that aren’t crumbling) because the McLean County Regional Planning Commission did a survey a few years ago. It showed overwhelming support for bike lanes! The only people who knew about the survey were bikers, but that’s not important to the result.
Bloomington now has TWO citizen surveys: Bring It On Bloomington and 2015 Citizens Priority Survey. Government “By and For ” the people! Not exactly folks.
Professor Mayor Renner conducts surveys with his classes at IWU. Have you seen survey results and wondered “What idiots did they ask?”. All surveys are not created equal and wacky results are proof positive. But surveys are not the point.
I’ve reported that Bloomington wants to minimize the power of YOUR elected representative on the Bloomington City Council. They tried with Modified Wards and failed. Now a “Committee” has been established to handle citizen complaints, YOUR Alderman is immaterial. The final blow is by-passing the Aldermen in the budget project – Surveys!
Instead of budget deliberations by YOUR elected representative and City Management, the people who answer the survey will decide what taxes are going to be raised and where money will be spent. The City can report any results that fit their agenda. Renner and Hales can “create” the desired results physically or by who they recruit to complete the surveys. Anybody think the City will publish the actual completely surveys?
NINE City Council members are elected by citizens to prevent exactly what is happening. Government leaders make really bad decisions because they can. They are spending your money, not their own. Renner’s goal is to create his vision of City utopia, he has extensive classroom experience, so his plan is brilliant I’m sure. All Renner has to do is leave office if the agenda turns bad. Hales can move on to another City Manger job somewhere else and blame Renner for problems under his management, or he can just retire on his fat pension earned after 8 years here. Neither have any accountability. The next Mayor and next City Manager have to clean up the mess and then create new messes because Bloomington keeps electing Mayors with Utopian agendas. Learned yet?
Meanwhile, the 7 Council potted plants are willing to give their power to people who take surveys. Think . . Think. . .why would they do that?
Besides the possibility of it being too hard for them and Renner not allowing the promised budget negotiations, here’s the REAL reason: YOU will be blamed for user fee and tax increases because that’s what the survey said you wanted! Renner, Hales, and the Potted Plants are just doing the will of the people! No need to remove them from office, they are listening to what you want!
Some of the Pots will run for higher office, the commercials can say they are the “Voice of the People” when the reality is they passed the buck to avoid hard choices.
Aldermen Schmidt, Painter, and Hauman can be replaced in April with citizens who believe in representative government. Ward 4 will pick 2 candidates in February from the 5 running. Renner already picked his candidate, the people in Ward 4 need to show up and defeat her.
Elections are government “By and For the people.” If the people stay home, mob rule will continue.
The elected City Council is there to protect citizens from government agendas. Aldermen were established to be YOUR voice against government tyranny. Renner and Hales have marginalized YOU by marginalizing your representatives. 2015 is the year you can teach them how mob rule works, if the mob votes.
So if surveys are not valid methods of getting public input, and you feel that elections do not result in the “right” people being chosen, what method of public input into policy do you suggest?
15-20% voter turn out is dismal. Each Alderman can survey their voters, but a City wide survey with dismal participation is meaningless.
Not trying to be difficult, but I’m not sure how an alderman-conducted survey is necessarily going to get more input — the city has sent notices with water bills, articles have been in the Pantagraph, and still not many people take these surveys, and aldermen (or women!) have a lot less sources to get out the word than the city does.
In addition, all commissions and the council meetings are open to the public. As you know, very few attend. As you note, voter turnout is very low. Is that the fault of those running for and in office? Again, I’m really interested in what specific methods you can suggest for getting more people involved, as I feel apathy is a huge issue.
The aldermen know the people in their wards. The ones that care stay connected to them through neighborhood meetings etc.
Judy Stearns is the only one doing Neighborhood meetings that I know of, and in my end of the Ward I reside in ( Not Stearns Ward) , I have never heard of any Ward meetings other than the joint meeting with Ald. Stearns last year. I wish our Alderman would quit posting about national and world politics on his Alderman FB page , and focus on city issues. Perhaps he could learn a thing or two from Judy Stearns page and start informing and representing his constituents. In open session at Council, he keeps referring to conversations he with his constituents, but who is he been talking to for almost two years? His neighbors??
Ask him!
Enter “Bike Retrofit, Bloomington, Normal to see what the bikers have planned for the streets. See Main Street with one lane for cars and one lane for bikes going north and same going south with a turn lane for cars. I don’t see how one lane could carry all the auto traffic especially at rush hour.
Do you have a link?
Oh I have. I have.