By:  Diane Benjamin

Tari loves to say I savage Council members and City employees.  He must mean David Hales, who I believe is doing a lousy job and wasting MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars.  If you are new to Blnnews.com, it would be impossible to catch up on everything I’ve written since beginning almost 3 years ago.

I picked some of the most read and shared stories from the last 3 months.  This is not the news you will ever read or hear in the local media.  Tari can’t stand being exposed – nobody ever has held the City accountable to citizens.  This site was created because citizens deserve information.  Three years ago you didn’t get  anything but what the City wanted you to know.  Yes, I’m tough on the aldermen who almost always ignore citizens and support whatever is put before them.  Yes, I’m tough on David Hales.  Yes, I’m tough on Tari.  Unless citizens watch or attend Council meetings they have no way of knowing what is really happening.  Recaps in the bird-cage liner leave out much of the reality.  When Renner attacked Alderman Stearns with a written statement last year, the paper reported it as a “heated exchange”.  Preparing an attack on another Council member is not a “heated exchange”.  They also failed to report other Aldermen had to intervene to stop Renner.

Citizens deserve better.  Keep in mind I do this site with very little financial support.  I do it because good government matters.  I do it because people in Bloomington are willing to stand up for themselves and they want to be informed.  Most of what I write is documented to the source.  I could add a lot more stories to the list, but these will tell you why Tari lashed out at me.  He can’t handle the truth.

City employees and elected council eat at your expense:

http://blnnews.com/2014/12/18/eating-on-your-dime-where-potted-plants-come-from/

http://blnnews.com/2014/12/19/make-sure-you-are-calm-before-reading/

Follow-up story to above

http://blnnews.com/2015/01/22/remember-the-post-make-sure-you-are-calm/

City leadership has failed to fix problems identified by auditor – even though the same problems have been reported for years:

http://blnnews.com/2015/01/03/hales-and-now-renner-dont-care/

Bloomington seeks to minimize the role of Alderman – 2 of many stories:

http://blnnews.com/2014/12/30/stealing-your-voice/

http://blnnews.com/2014/12/23/bloomington-minimized-aldermen/

I’ve done many stories about the lack of City oversight at the Coliseum and misleading (being generous!) financial reports, here’s the latest:

http://blnnews.com/2015/02/06/coliseum-investigated-by-attorney-general/

This story is from last April – but citizens need to know what the Council was forced to vote for:

http://blnnews.com/2014/04/11/bloomington-pension-funding/

The Council was given 2 bad options for funding pensions – not one that would prevent massive tax increases.  The City was given an award for their pension funding with no word on how they are going to pay for what they passed.