By: Diane Benjamin
I have to try the bird-cage liner approach for a minute, only because all this stuff doesn’t fit together:
Cheers
To Alderman Hauman for offering to lead the next retreat instead of paying Lynn Montei huge bucks. The Council still has to make it official next Monday. Little jeers to some Council members who think it’s impossible to lead and participate. You take yourselves far to serious.
Cheers
To Alderman Schmidt for pushing the Council to act on proposed cuts by the Budget Task Force. Obviously the City Manager has no interest. She should add legal expense and the admin budget to the discussion since they were left out by the task force.
Jeers
To Alderman Black for his snide comments about the Freedom of Information Law. See video below starting at 51:15. Scottie: All records belong to the people, it’s up to government to prove what is exempt. It’s NOT your money, therefore either be more transparent or FOIA requests will continue to pour in.
Jeers
To David Hales. A work session was held before the Council meeting. Part of it focused on Solid Waste for the 3927th time. 10 years ago garbage service was included in taxes residents already pay. The City added a $10 per month fee back in 2005. Hales moved Solid Waste to its own fund and now requires it to pay for itself. New trucks and new cans were purchased. Fees were increased, more than once. Large item pickup was changed to every other week. It still doesn’t break even by a lot of money. The Assistant City Manger provided the Council with far too many options involving fee increases. If citizens have to cover the entire cost, why is the City involved at all. Privatize it.
Are you trying to make the citizens sick of the dallying? What they ARE sick of is your incompetence.
Cheers
To the citizens who spoke at public comment and former Officer Brent VanHoveln. It appears the city fights in court when they shouldn’t and fails to fight when they should. Legal expenses are out of control. The City needs to SERIOUSLY consider whether to waste more taxpayer money. Public comment starts at 2:00. Skip some if you want, other you won’t want to miss!
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Brent VanHoveln is the recipient poor personnel tactics at the Bloomington Police Department that continue to linger long into Brendan Heffner’s administration. Granted they were inherited, but Heffner’s done nothing to improve the situation. It is clear VanHoveln received legal backlash from the Bloomington PD when he took his case to the arbitration panel as he should have. This should never have been a legal issue. I’m not defending what VanHoveln did, but it’s a personnel issue and should have been thrown out of court, but Judge Drazewski had his mind in other places (I digress, but I just couldn’t resist). The city will waste thousands more trying to defend themselves. If they were smart they’d accept VanHoveln’s offer last night and move on.
I remember being on a school board and the superintendent always said you should pick and choose what to fight and some things are not worth fighting for.
Looking from the outside I see the VanHoveln case as a loser for the city, settle and move on.
The sooner the voters elect new council members except for Lower, a new mayor, and the new city council ousts the city manager and his assistants and now the police chief the better things will likely be. It is time for a house cleaning purge.
Jeers for making me physically ill.