How did I forget? 5 years ago Tari, Bloomington wasn’t sending around $50,000 PER MONTH to Springfield for legal!
By: Diane Benjamin
Renner on WJBC: http://cdn.stationcaster.com/stations/wjbc/media/mpeg/Tari_Renner__Bloomington_mayor-1442412227.mp3
Renner on WGLT: http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2015/09/01831_09-15Renner_070330.shtml
Tari Renner: We aren’t doing anything today that we weren’t doing 5 years ago. Inflation is causing the need for tax increases.
5 years ago the City didn’t have a Communication Director
5 years ago the Admin budget:
In 2010 – $597,570
Proposed for 2017: $1,334,297
5 years ago the city wasn’t spending money on properties downtown – Sugar Creek Packing. Why are City Economic Development people trying to buy more downtown properties Tari? Do you have plans nobody knows about yet?
5 years ago the city wasn’t abating taxes for everybody who asked. Common Ground is IN downtown Bloomington AND they sell locally grown produce. How do you think they feel when the City picked Green Top to win instead of them? Green Top don’t even have the money to build, but you are letting them out of taxes. District 87 came crying to the Council for money Monday night – your Green Top plan cost them money, now you want to cost them more with east side redevelopment.
Tari, YOU keep referring to the multiple tax increases – Amusement, Gas, Utilities – as one tax increase. It wasn’t. Just the Utilities tax was multiple tax increases! Calling it one tax increase doesn’t make it true Tari.
Tari, YOU keep saying there are no free lunches. Seriously? Can that line be dropped yet? Maybe the IRS would be interested in the free lunches you, Hales, and most of the Council consume. It’s called compensation Tari for which you aren’t being taxed. Yes, there are free lunches!
5 years ago you weren’t spending $1.6 million on a new video system at the Coliseum and another $200,000 for Point-of-Sale Equipment. Page 76: http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8223
The Coliseum is an Enterprise Zone – just like Solid Waste. Why will garbage fees be increased because you want that fund to break even, but the Coliseum is allowed to lose money with no repercussions? Can you drop the Economic Benefits line now? Since the Coliseum COSTS taxpayers money through an increased Sales Tax and taxpayers have to cover the losses – it’s really redistribution of wealth!
5 years ago the Accelerated Payments to IMRF started – what did you do to stop it? Nothing, probably because it was hidden!
What else are you hiding?
Didn’t you attend TWO US Mayor’s Conferences this year Tari – at taxpayer expense? What about the travel by David Hales? You could show a LOT of goodwill with the people paying the bills if all travel to conferences was suspended indefinitely. I think I remember you saying National politics has no place in Bloomington. So, quit attending NATIONAL conferences featuring Barrack Obama, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi. Their agenda also has no place in Bloomington!
Here’s an easy fix. The County thinks 1/4% Sales Tax is easier to stomach if they call it mental health. Pass the 1/4%, not 1%. The Budget Task Force hasn’t reported yet, the Financial Statements from 4/30/15 still aren’t released, and the Coliseum Financial Statements from 4/30/15 still aren’t released. The State hasn’t said how much money they are cutting from the cities yet. The Auditor’s letters still aren’t released. The citizens do not have the information required to support your contentions.
Garbage fees have already been raised. A new Amusement Tax was instituted. Gas Taxes are at .04 per gallon. Utilities taxes hurt the poorest people in Bloomington. Your Budget Task Force is going to raise garbage fees again. You just hired another consultant to figure out what other fees should be raised.
Seriously – you want to jam through a 1% increase because it has to be filed by October 1st?
You are repeating the same mistakes as the State of Illinois. They have never met a project that didn’t deserve to be funded. Citizens and businesses are fleeing Illinois because of their irresponsible taxing and spending.
Prove to the taxpayers they didn’t really screw up by electing you!
What a jerk! The problem here is that the Renner regime has a spending problem. Can’t live within their means, has to rob the people of more of their hard earned money. Has to lie to get it as this man can’t work within the parameters of truth.
Renner has been grossly influence by Barack Obama(all those “free” mayor conferences
It is quite simple, really. Renner is a Communist. He believes that ALL wealth and property belongs to the government, not private citizens. Any tax increase, needed or not, justified or not, furthers that goal. Unfortunately, put 2 or 3 fellow Communists on the Council, and 2 or 3 more Mush For Brains Liberals, and Bloomington becomes a pit.
We must hammer this FACT, relentlessly. Both personally and ideologically, Tari Renner is a VERY evil person.
The one thing I can count on is Maggie accusing someone of being a Communist. I guess that makes me a Communist because I voted for Obama. Even though I am against unjust taxes; suppression of free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression; against unauthorized surveillance, violation of privacy, unlawful search and seizure, unlawful detention. I eat apple pie and sleep with the American flag (not really. Just like to add my own absurdity)
I am just dying to know Maggie, are you planning on drawing social security when you retire. It’s a Socialist Program you know.
Tari is inept. But there are a lot of Republicans who are happy to suckle at the teat of government subsidy. Funny how I don’t hear them mentioned when you post.
Crickets from maggie…
Since when is Social Security a Socialist Program? It’s not! The damn government doesn’t contribute a dime. It’s money paid into a fund the government controls, and both the employer and employee pay into the fund. The government just steals from it.
I really did not want to teach history tonight but here it goes:
http://i.word.com/idictionary/socialism
Do I really need to explain it? It’s SOCIAL SECURITY. It is a socialist program. Yet plenty of people, including my mother draw from the fund, even though she thinks Obama is a socialist, anti-Christian moron. I am afraid to point that out to her because she will still have half a mind to slap me upside the head.
My point of this is that what has been created by Diane and her supporters is a real grassroots movement. It is a movement that can draw from both sides of the spectrum. But if we are only going to go around and accuse people of being communists, socialists, fascists or atheist, satan worshipping transvestites, then it will only accomplish so much. We may not agree on everything but we can agree that government ineptitude and malfeasance will lead to more taking and abuse. I would rather we not bring McCarthyism.
A person who kept (keeps?) a picture of Che Guavara in their office IS a Communist! Case closed.
(And is also an admirer of a sociopathic, murderous thug.)
Miley, you posted a definition of Socialism, but you did not put forth the any type o history of Socialism giving birth to Social Security. Just because the word “Social” is used, does not mean it is a Socialist program. Read my post at the bottom of page.
Yeah I got to agree renner’s ideology seems quite communistic. Same with his man crush buddy king koos in uppity town.
Renner is a Progressive,just like his mentor Koos,whose mentor is Obama
As has been said BEFORE , people are LEAVING B/N. Tari do you NEED proof. Go to Uhaul and ask them WHICH direction most of their vehicles go or even BETTER YET! Look at the old VERIZON/GTE parking lot on E. Empire and look at how many cars are there! Now, they go and come BACK on car carriers by the truck load-I know because I live by it and SEE it ALL the time, and have a friend at Uhaul. OBSERVATION is truth. Where are all these NEWBIES/Millennials? How much tax are THEY going to pay when they get done with student loans, buying a car, house, etc?
We got out of B/N two years ago when we literally saw the signs. We got out just as Koos decided the ppl of Normal needed to pay for ISU’s 500K sign.
Tax receipts should rise with inflation since most are calculated as a percentage of some figure. As inflation rises the sale prices/property values should increase thus causing tax receipts to rise. The fact that receipts are not rising has a number of possible causes including good paying jobs leaving and people spending less money as more of their income is appropriated by the government
The Council doesn’t get basic economics. Increased number of personnel and increases in salaries for City of Bloomington employees drain the revenue.
In their rush to jam through a tax increase there was another “operational failure” by not holding a valid a Public Hearing. The Sept 14, 2015 Agenda says “Public Input and Public Comment.” There was no Public Hearing form to sign by the speakers therefore no written record. I don’t subscribe to the Pantgraph so I don’t know if there was a notice placed in the paper. A year from now when they want taxes raised again they can claim no one spoke on Sept 14, 2015. With all those highly paid, valuable employees with substantial retirement benefits one would think the job would be done right.
It now appears McLean County approved their budget which “includes” the sales tax revenue from B/N. Didn’t realize the Council already voted.
…and a property tax increase
Yeah and guess who I just saw at Elroy’s downtown. Was so tempted to ask if that meal tastes better when it’s paid for by the taxpayers.
You should have!!
Knowing Tari, he probably would have yelled at you saying, “the good and decent people of Bloomington will prevail! This lunch is necessary to attract millennials and potential buyers of the Mitsubishi plant. We will not let mean people deprive me of doing “official business” over lunch! Now back to Angry Birds!” Then the Pantagraph will say he apologized to you when he never did. I must commend you on resisting temptation.
He works out at Gold’s Gym Express in Normal. It’s funny. Wonder why he doesn’t go to the one in Bloomington?
Why didnt you? You are a taxpayer!
Green Top is not getting a tax abatement. The developer who is building the “strip mall” is getting the tax benefit. Green Top will be leasing from the developer. Another manipulation of the truth in the name of Economic Development.
Correction…Green Top is getting a Sales Tax “break” and the Developer is getting some other tax break.
There are serious issues with the mentally ill in McLean County that need to be addressed and throwing more money at it like Matt Sorensen and his pals on the County board want to do is NOT the answer. If anyone thinks the Bloomington City Council is inept (and it is) then we also need to start looking at the McLean County Board and get an accounting of what they’re up to. Bloomington pales in comparison.
Currently the mentally ill are being taken in at the McLean Co jail, receiving treatment that includes prescription drugs and they are being turned loose on the streets to sell the drugs they’ve been given at tax payer expense. Yes, people this IS happening! Yet, treatment for them has won the sympathy of many in this county and it’s being used as fodder for a proposed increase to the sales tax, a done deal before it’s even “debated” by a community that has consistently voted down tax increases. Now the powers that be are turning to their home rule powers to get the job done.
I’m not sure what the answers are to helping the mentally ill. All I know is that we are currently on a very dangerous trajectory that is feeding off their sympathies.
Even if money will be used toward treatment of the mentally ill, it will never be enough and the tax increases will just continue. There are far too many entities in line for a handout right now. The expected new tax revenue will be spent before it even comes in.
And I haven’t even addressed Connect Transit and the proposed soccer complex, let alone the school districts that “want their fair share.”
Wake up America!
I think the County just wants the money to cover building and meds. They aren’t allowed by law to hold people indefinitely, so what’s the point of building a place to hold them? What happened to ObamaCare? I thought sick people could sign up at the hospital!
4-H, you’re right. The citizens are being manipulated. Both mayors sat on the advisory council which developed the Mental Health Plan (no comments about who is off their meds, please)
The tax increases for McLean County will be used for the Jail expansion and for staffing for female inmates as well as inmates who suffer with mental illness—what the County refers to as “behavioral issues.” The tax will also be used to provide matching grants for a Federal TIGER Grant to incorporate Connect Transit’s Multi-Modal Center for Downtown Bloomington. See the link to the City’s website below.
http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8616
Social Security has always been a socialist program. Eugene debs ran on social security on his platform as a socialist candidate for president. FDR adopted social security from Debs, This is well known unless you are a frequent fox viewer. If so, I fully understand how you didn’t know this.
I hate top differ with you Tim, but let me edumacate you. First, here is the definition of Socialism: “an economic and political theory advocating public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources”.
Traditional Social democrats advocated the creation of socialism through political reforms by operating within the existing political system of capitalism. The Social democratic movement sought to elect socialists to political office to implement reforms. The modern social democratic movement has abandoned the goal of achieving a socialist economy, and instead advocates for social reforms to improve capitalism, such as a welfare state and unemployment benefits.
Social democracy should not be confused with democratic socialism:
Since the rise in popularity of the New Right and neoliberalism, a number of prominent social democratic parties have abandoned the goal of the gradual evolution of capitalism to socialism and instead support welfare state capitalism.[6] Social democracy as such has arisen as a distinct ideology from democratic socialism.
So, while the social democracy movement did, in fact, grow out of the idea of creating a socialist economy democratically and within the political system of capitalism, today the idea of social democracy falls squarely into both the political and economic spheres of capitalism.
I think it is fair to label programs such as Medicare and Social Security as ”reforms to improve capitalism” that were driven by the Democratic Party. So, then, as a capitalist country with some limited social programs, could the U.S. be called a social democracy? Certainly. Are Canada, Australia and the countries of Western Europe better examples of social democracies? Certainly. Have we taken different routes to end up at roughly the same place? Yes.
But, forget all of this for a second. What’s important here is that the Democratic Party does not have its roots in socialism, democratic socialism, or even social democracy. (Contrast the U.S. to European countries where there are actual social democratic parties that play a real role in politics.) Social Security was first created as part of the New Deal, the creators of which specifically did not include any members of the Socialist Party. Medicare and Medicaid were created under the Social Security Act of 1965, during the height of the Cold War. Only in the most paranoid conservative circles could anyone claim that these programs stemmed from the desire of Democrats to try to implement socialism.
Bottom line: The U.S. can be called a social democracy and its limited social programs are not manifestations of socialism.
Source: Daily Kos 2/28/11
This is rich………quoting Daily Kos as a source of scholarly and responsible information about political theory. Clever joke. Too funny! You are joking, right Kevin? Kevin?
Okay guys, enough already. How about discussing local issue that are destroying Bloomington?
Agreed Diane, but would argue that Renner makes Communism a “local issue”, every day.
But of course Maggie!
Here is my real reply:Just because a program is a government program, doesn’t make it socialism. Social security would not qualify as socialism, because if you do not pay into it, you do not get any benifits from it and the amount of benefits are directly related to how much you paid into the program. i.e.rich people get bigger SS checks than poor people, since they paid more into the program. Socialism is when you get a benefit, without having to pay to fund the program.