By: Diane Benjamin
39 people from Bloomington-Normal went to DC to get money.
THIRTY-NINE!
2016 Annual Washington D.C. Fly-In Details
Date: Tuesday, March 1 – Thursday, March 3
Cost: $1550 per person. This includes hotel (2 nights), receptions, most cab fares and most meals.
Hotel: Four Seasons Hotel Washington D.C.
There are three projects we will be taking to Washington D.C. for One Voice: seeking funding for a McLean County Criminal Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) curriculum development which will reinforce the pipeline connecting our school districts to the workforce, and searching for funds to finish a south side transportation corridor in south Bloomington.
2016 One Voice Trip
The 2016 trip will choose local projects to support in their quests for federal funding. Each project must meet three criteria:
♦ It must have an economic development impact in McLean County
♦ It must improve the quality of life in McLean County
♦ Federal funding must be formally requested for the project
Source: http://www.bnbiz.org/News-Events/One-Voice.aspx
BlnNews 
Wonder if all 39 were paid for with tax dollars. Total cost: $60,450.00
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EDC is funded by government, don’t know if it’s 100%. I don’t know who all 39 are, but a lot of them are EDC and government. I can’t wait to see the bills. Of course, EDC can’t be FOIA’d.
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Airfare is an additional expense not included in the two day event.
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Looks like a band of thieves.
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Don’t forget the additional round trip airfare × 39! Private corporations do most of their meetings online now because travel is unaffordable in today’s bad economy.
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Airfare for One Voice: $575.20 plus $25.00 (probably for baggage) each.
http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=9731 Pg. 90
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I can bring home the bacon
fry it up in a pan
and never, never let you forget you’re a tax payer
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NOT a single John Deer cap or Seed corn jacket in the WHOLE crowd! Wonder WHO they represent?
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You know, most of these people are HUGE status seekers. If we shun them, if we disinvite them from social activities, if we are quick to publicly and very personally convey our displeasure at their behaviors, at least a few of them might get the message.
(And an unstable hothead like Renner might physically accost you–which would create delicious way of solving a problem.)
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Why couldn’t they wait until Kirk comes back to Illinois? He and Durbin come back a lot. Would save lots of money.
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I really don’t understand this rant. Should we leave the money for others?
Sent from my iPhone
>
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No! Let’s spend future generations money. We are entitled!
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That is a very valid question and one that is frequently mentioned when seeking federal dollars. If we don’t take the money, someone else will. The use being that the taxpayers money will be spent regardless so let’s grab what we can. It sounds good in theory. The issue is that federal money always comes with strings attached. I don’t know what strings would be attached to the money being sought on this trip, but it would definitely involve giving up some local control.
The bigger issue is that this town has more than enough money to pay for the functions of government with begging for money from the Feds. The reason our government keeps running out of money is that they have spent heavily on quality of life things such as the Coliseum and the BCPA in addition to numerous other failures well document by this website.
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Small typo. That should be, “without begging for money”.
Additionally, the tens of thousand spent on this trip most likely could have been saved if they had just waited for Senator Kirk to come back to Illinois and meet him then. Does anyone know why they had to travel to DC?
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They think it looks like everybody supports their efforts.
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