By: Diane Benjamin
The Pantagraph reported around 50 people showed up yesterday for Tari’s big announcement. I hear 25 of them were media. If you can read the Pantagraph on-line, the comments aren’t promising for his 2nd run: http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/government-and-politics/elections/renner-touts-city-progress-wants-nd-term/article_512365c5-7492-5c1f-b834-e6b3fb38c2f5.html
Tari claimed he stabilized Bloomington’s finances. I thought David Hales did that in 2008 and 2009 when the large layoffs took place. (pre-Tari) If Tari’s idea of stabilizing government means massive tax increases and spending – he succeeded!
It wouldn’t be a Tari speech if the truth wasn’t s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d. He claimed Bloomington had a transparency score of “F” when he became Mayor. According to the Illinois Policy Institute who is responsible for grading local governments, Bloomington had a “D” in 2011: (Pre-Tari)
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/school-districts-lead-the-way-in-bloomington/
There is a bigger problem than lies. Tari gets upset when all that transparency allows citizens to find information they could never find before. Exposing government is WHY transparency is needed. Quit getting upset Tari when people actually use the info!
I’ve covered Tari’s version of economic development (subsidies) many times.
Tari fails to realize the fastest way to turn around an economy is to let people spend their own money where they want to spend it. We’ve seen Tari’s plans – subsidizing some while competition goes out of business, stealing business from Normal, and government’s version of Quality of Life.
Think it was smart to elect a college professor?
(Did you notice the Pantagraph didn’t fact check?)
.
.
.
Thanks Diane for the daily funnies! Fact checking by the Pantagraph, darn, I gotta get back up on the chair on that one. And Tari stabilizing the local government, yessiree! Just like Lenin stabilized Russia!
The Pantgraph’s name should be changed to The Pravdagraph and remove all doubt.
“Four years ago I also said that streets and infrastructure were going to be our top priority in terms of spending, and that is exactly what we’ve done,” said Renner.
“He noted that the city has invested more than $22 million in street resurfacing in the last 3 1/2 years — nearly 300 percent more than what was put in during the four fiscal years preceding his term in office.”
It pains me to see the spin he puts on his claim to address the infrastructure. The investment of $22M/3.5 years is $6.3M/year out of an approximate $175M budget. Ten (10) million dollars of the $22M is in bonds that involve the addition of interest payments. Public Works reports the need for $60M/year over 5-10 years to bring the quality of streets to the level of “fair”–not even to the level of “good.” I don’t know what kind of new math is being used but in the true sense of percentage, 100% is the maximum. If the Mayor were being straightforward, he should say, “3 times as much” or “2 times as much” whichever was the case. And, remember, the 4 previous fiscal years prior to his term in office were during the worst recession in nearly a century. “Let’s be clear about this.”
🙂
or Townie as it is working for Venezuela (not)