By: Diane Benjamin
http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=21&parent=9539
The award-winning City Manger monthly reports won’t be winning any more awards of they don’t exist.
See the link above, nothing has been posted since January. David Hales doesn’t do these reports. The departments compile the information and hand it to Administration. Administration either:
- hasn’t put it all in a PDF and posted it
2. doesn’t want to.
Which one is it?
The Finance Department hasn’t posted any updated since the 2nd Quarter – October 2015. http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=21&parent=36
Without any current financial data, Aldermen Black, Hauman, Painter, Buragus, and Mwilambwe voted to raise the cost of a Liquor License anyway. Adding a fee to each video machine got tabled – but it will be back. (Only cuts never come back)
Unless the aldermen have inside information, they don’t know how tax receipts are doing now. They were ahead of budget. Are they still? The last report was pre-Mitsubishi closing and the unemployment rate increasing. Did the liquor license fees get raised only because Renner could? He went into a LONG diatribe last night, followed by another one from fellow liquor commissioner Jim Jordan. When it takes that long to justify the increase, Renner knows he created enemies.
Maybe next November citizens can find out how the year is going when the financial statements finally get released for the year ending April 30. There is nothing better than current data. Of course all the info will be meaningless by then – six months into a new budget.
Meanwhile, raise taxes and fees. The huge video gaming income (free money for the City) isn’t enough to satisfy the tax and spend liberals ELECTED to represent you. As of January, with only SEVEN months included, Video Gaming income was $405,562. All the City had to do was cash the State checks.
Tari: Let me know which statement you are standing on:
More I say, we need more money!
We attack capitalism because we can.
We have better uses for your money than you do.
You make too much money, fork some over.
One more thing Tari. You mentioned again last night that nobody would want to build a hotel in downtown Bloomington without the Route 66 Visitors Center. Look up Route 66 Bloomington, Il on TripAdvisor. It’s the museum and beautiful old courthouse that draws people, not the Visitor’s Center. It was ALWAYS about the museum. Nobody bothered to market it before taxpayers were forced to fund it.
Not one comment about hotels! https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g35691-d3164217-Reviews-McLean_County_Museum_of_History-Bloomington_Illinois.html
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In addition to the two reasons you’ve given for why the information is not yet posted, I’d add a third: Administration does not have the needed information to post it. Look at CIAM. Their figures were not posted because they don’t have the figures. You’re assuming that individual departments within the city are doing their job and accurately reporting their figures on time. That’s a broad assumption with this administration.
Maybe library traffic is still dropping and they don’t people to know. Makes expansion hard to get past citizens.
Well, it COULD be the unemployment is up because NOBODY at city hall is doing anything but chewing on erasers and shuffling paper! As for spending that’s simple, the local economy WILL NOT look good if Tari and his tribe don’t eat out at least twice a day and spend OUR tax money, and what with EVERYTHING increasing-GOD knows they’ll need more to be able to fund it, meanwhile Koos and some other tag along are in Deutschland hawking the Mitsubishi plant at a conference that will be attended by over 250,000 people-do they REALLY think they’ll stand out in that crowd?? It’s this small town “business as usual” and UPTOWN “nonthinking” that’s gonna kill this once great place to live. IF they even cared about this town, they’d look at the streets, expenses, and ASK the citizens WHAT they think, and not some consultant.