By: Diane Benjamin
David Hales is bemoaning taking $1.4 million from the General Fund to cover services because the fees charged aren’t high enough to cover the costs.
News Flash: You weren’t fooling anybody when you hired yet another consultant to exam the City’s fees!
$1,400,000
The General Fund is $94,553,780. That $1.4 mil is about 1.5%.
Meanwhile: http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=21&parent=8220
- Economic Development is subsidized $2,224,802 Book 1 page 385
- Miller Park Zoo is subsidized $655,824 Book 1 page 224
- The BCPA is subsidized $497,873 Book 1 page 210
- The two pools are subsidized $192,279 Book 1 page 261
- Recreation is subsidized $797,382 Book 1 page 192
- Legal is subsidized $1,199,093 Book 1 page 169
- Connect Transit is subsidized $578,050 Book 1 page 398
- Coliseum is subsidized $244,325 Book 2 page 188 (Actually much more since they can’t pay the bond payments)
Hales: Please explain why these subsidies are fine, but others are just a $1.4 million disaster!
How much can citizens expect their taxes to decrease once you make everything pay for itself – except what you don’t think needs to pay for itself?
If all services must cover the cost, will citizens be billed for fire calls next? Dialing 911? Calling the police to an accident scene to make a report? Walking on sidewalks?
How about using the bike lanes?
They cost a lot of money, why are riders subsidized?
Obviously the fee study was a scam to justify fee increases. The Bloomington City government is much more transparent than they think they are.
Renner is on his way out, so now he’s in overdrive. Tuesday he will try to sell the citizens on Utopia. Maybe he thinks union construction jobs will save him.
They have fancy drawings of the new downtown.
They computed the Huff’s bailout and called it land acquisition.
They don’t have a hotel lined up.
Only 1 of 4 restaurant/bars has a tenant
Nobody has financing.
A plea for $13 million will be made anyway. (How many roads would that fix?)
Convention space isn’t needed. A downtown hotel won’t revitalize downtown any more than the BPCA and the Coliseum did.
As long as bars rule Thursday – Saturday, and the City can’t live without the taxes they generate, downtown will remain a dump.
Here’s the new tactic: We believe in Bloomington
http://www.webelieveinbloomington.com/
All those great minimum wage jobs at the hotel, restaurants, and bars will be amazing.
It’s almost like Bloomington wants to create poor people.
Thank you so much for the post. Your argument for raising the minimum wage to $15.00 is very powerful.
Regards
Tom
Sent from my iPhone
>
Since they need $13 million for the project – paying minimum wage, it won’t be built if $15 per hour is required.
Owner of http://www.webelieveinbloomington.com is private. Giebelhausen Group has no office I can find. Two addresses listed: one doesn’t exist. The other is a home address. They also don’t have a website. How can a developer not have an office or a website? “Jeff Giebelhausen, Principal of Giebelhausen Group, LLC has merged the brokerage operations of the firm he founded in 2010 into Coldwell Banker Commercial Devonshire Realty.” Doesn’t Jim Fruin work for Coldwell Banker?
I’m guessing that website was put up by Nora or some other millennial. Scott? Amelia? Are there? Diane, where was that website found?
Facebook
What is the source of the 25% occupancy rate for restaurants/bars? That figure is astounding.
Also, that website is hilarious. Whenever government has to demonize anybody, there is something fishy going on. Power only attacks the credible threats such as when a vocal minority is on to them.
IF the “feeblehausen” plant is SO GREAT, then WHY does he need ANY money from ANY other source-PERIOD!! If you have a initiative, plan, business, etc, that is a GUARANTEED money maker, aren’t YOU and you ONLY going to want the profits?? NOW, if that deal isn’t such a “peach” THEN is when you get other people willing to “go down with the ship” to invest, so YOU ALONE don’t wind up without a posterior! Secondly, IF he needs the $13 million to finish “building” HIS hotel, then MAYBE he shouldn’t be building it-that’s like buying a jet pack to get to the bus stop!
Absolute Madness! That any City official or private developer would even dare insult the intelligence of the Community with bilge like this is unbelievable. Have we actually become this stupid? (But then again, look at support for Comrade Sanders.)
Leading Labor in Bloomington (www.leadinglabor.com) made the page. They charge $3000. Not sure who paid. Or they made it themselves?
From their website: “Technology can help catapult Labor back to its rightful position of power. The key is understanding how to effectively use it.” From their Facebook: “To advance Labor through the aggressive use of technology.”
More information has been added. Seems the developers had the page created. They’re quick to go after us. They really want this hotel to happen. Who knows where the form goes? I bet they delete negative messages.
Whoever put up this We Believe in Bloomington site repeatedly says, “we envision” in the Q & A section.The site was most likely set up by the “broker” of the deal. Mr. G. is not a developer but is a real estate broker who will be the only one guaranteed to make money if this deal goes through.
as I read the page all I could think was that the person who did the page also did the green top grocery page. all hot air and Alice in Wonderland views/ideas.