By: Diane Benjamin
The March edition of David Hales’ City Manager report is out: http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8528
The usual Strategic Plan is on page 5, note how many items the City of Bloomington is failing to achieve –
- Financially sound City providing Quality Basic Services See parts a-e.
- Upgrade City Infrastructure – Quality roads
Check the rest of the list yourself! Don’t miss number 6 though – it’s all about downtown. Points 1-5 aren’t achievable because the City doesn’t have enough money – so making downtown a destination takes priority!
As usual, the report is filled with statistics. Police and Fire are both short on personnel. Would you rather have people out the field or behind a desk accumulating data? The City thinks data is more important. I wonder how many man-hours it takes and who is in charge of the stopwatch so we know how long response times are. Is morale still a problem? Maybe it has something to do with being constantly analyzed.
Jump to page 24.
The Ecology Action Center conducted their 2015 Waste Audit.
At the last Council meeting a payment to EAC was approved:
ECOLOGY ACTION CENTER 05/11/2015 NonDept Elec Agreg CHECK TOTAL 38,265.50
The City of Bloomington makes a commission on electric aggregation – it sure looks like their commission is going to the Ecology Action Center. In other words, you are paying for what they do. Priorities!
Anyway, read the EAC study. They took 142.8 pounds of garbage in Normal and 124.15 pounds from Bloomington and analyzed it. The report says they have been doing this since 2009. Imagine 9 volunteers suited up in medical gowns and gloves going through what you threw out! Bacon grease, the stink of decaying meat scraps, used cat litter – don’t you wish there was a video?
What did they find? 83% of what Bloomington residents throw away is REAL garbage – stuff that can’t be recycled.
In Normal it’s only 67%! ISU and Heartland buy into the global warming/global cooling/climate change bull. Chris Koos wants you driving electric cars, but Normalites don’t recycle?
Evidently the residents of Normal throw paper away. Any of it have your name on it? I wonder if EAC made a list? The feds have now forced people to buy health insurance, how long before Koos and company demand you quit throwing away paper? How much are the fines going to be? Failure to comply with liberal logic has consequences!
Page 28 is a seven-year recap. Nothing much has changed – so the conclusion is more education is needed. Nudging people in Normal doesn’t seem to be working.
Maybe the residents of Normal just refuse to comply with Koos edicts in protest. Since the Council is stacked, elections are all at-large and unrepresentative, the Chamber of Commerce picks the winners, and Koos thinks bikes take priority over cars – maybe failure to recycle is civil disobedience.
Or maybe they don’t care about the environment. Who knows?
How about analyzing the trash from Heartland and ISU?
Don’t miss page 33 – Pepsi Ice.
This is one part of the City that can break even or earn a profit – not enough to pay for the building, but better than most City ventures. Pepsi Ice is so busy they have to rent ice time from the City owned Coliseum. The problem is the Coliseum charges them $375 per hour. Pepsi Ice only charges $205. Oops, there go the profits!
One more page not to miss: 40.
This page shows how bad tax receipts are – except for the new taxes passed last year. If your pockets hadn’t been picked for even more money, the City finances would be a disaster. Expect more picking – the Friends of Renner Budget Buddies Club are busy figuring out how to sell it.
I recall the director of the Ecology Action Center at the time on local media claiming they had no position on Energy Aggregation. Within a couple days the Ecology Action Center was sending out electronic flyers asking people to vote for it because they were concerned it wouldn’t pass.
The environment was best taken carafe when we repaired things rather than discarded them for new. A TV repairman used to come out to fix your TV rather than now when one is broke it is thrown away. Ink pens used to take refills, now we throw them away for a new one. Soda pop came in glass bottles that were returned and re-used. I am willing to bet you $100 to your $1 that many if not all of these so called ecology action people buy and continue to buy material throw away TV’s, ink pens, and plastic soda bottles, etc. I’ll bet you that they take it all for granted, claim they can do nothing as they do nothing but support the madness of a throw away society.
Actually what will happen is the garbage carts will get smaller and the recycle carts bigger. Note that nothing is being mandated. It’s just the citizens being nudged in the “proper” direction.
My Bloomington family of 5 (with 2 in diapers) manages with the smallest trash can. We are not environuts. We just believe in not wasting things. Mudd is right on the throwaway culture. It’s why we don’t make things in American anymore. They are too expensive upfront even if money is saved over the long term by not buying as many cheap knockoffs. Plus you don’t get the thrill of spending money and having something new.
Definitely ask the ecology action people if they cloth diapered their kids. If they didn’t, they are phonies.