By: Diane Benjamin
Last night Normal voted to waste more taxpayer money on consultants. They already know they want an expensive underpass, but they are spending $1.4 million+ on another study anyway.
From the link above – click View Data – Indebtedness
2014 Total Debt: $86,788,630
2015 Total Debt: $94,084,399
2016 Total Debt: $99,974,191
Chris Koos sold this debt by declaring the increase in Property Values would pay for the bonds. TWO of his TIF districts had NO income last year. The Uptown TIF still hasn’t been posted on the Comptroller’s website.
Since the TIF’s are not producing income, where are the bond payment dollars coming from?
Your tax increases!
Almost $53 Million will be going to pay interest. Sustainable?
Not if you keep Koos as Mayor!
Video of last night’s meeting isn’t available yet. One of the guys who spoke during Public Comment will be announcing for Mayor. Marc Tiritilli.
Term Limit Koos – get to know Marc. I will be posting more about him soon.
2013 Election:
http://il-mcleancounty.civicplus.com/DocumentCenter/View/8074
Seriously? 4403 voters? Koos is easily beatable if the voters show up.
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Diane, Since Renardo has been mayor, how much money has this city spent on consulting fees for things like the stupid hotel?
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No clue.
dws, that information can be researched on the city’s website.
Key phrase: Koos is easily beatable if the voters show up.
They won’t, sadly.
However, with those numbers, an ISU student could end up mayor…
Maybe somebody should start doing something to motivate them!
Marc Tiritilli needs to get his name out and soon. I’m ready to start canvasing neighborhoods for him and I’m totally serious. Anybody but Koos!
A couple of things that go unmentioned with this underpass. First, it’s already a done deal in Uptown 2.0 that cost tax payers thousands if not millions. So, why another study? But, if you look at Uptown 2.0, the plans are not for taxable industry or businesses moving into the location south of the railroad tracks. It’s where they hope to build a new library and probably new police station. Ain’t no tax revenue coming from either of those. So, all these lines about economic growth are unfounded. You know, we could all drive to the other side of the tracks, if they’d ever get the crossing at Linden fixed.
He will very soon!
Last time around when VIctor Connor ran for mayor, he was a one man campaign. If anyone cares to remember, the election in Normal was not televised. The precent reporting system was screwed up and all of a sudden, Koos won. Do you think election fraud only happens for national elections?
While I agreed with Vick Connor and his assessment of Koos and the state of things in Normal, he did not run a credible campaign. Yet even so, numbers show that there is hope for a credible candidate to defeat Koos. My understanding is Tirtilli can run such a campaign and have a very good shot at winning. I just need to learn more about him to see if I can get behind him. I think I can simply because he’s not Koos.
Once elected we’re going to have to look at replacing every single member of the Normal Town Council. Jeff Fritzen has served since the 1980’s and has never voted against a tax increase.
From the socialite newspaper website today….
“It’s a big ticket, but it’s, in the scheme of things, a small amount to be able to put us in the right direction,” Lorenz said of the study. “We don’t want to miss on the big dollars.”
Spends like it isn’t their money that’s for sure. Oh heck what’s a million or more. As someone posted I wonder how many firefighters and police we could hire for that. $1.4M is no small amount, period!
I agree with one other poster. Move the train station to a site more sustainable. Who says that train station has to stay there? Moving that would put a big wrinkle in Koos’s plans. Oh darn wouldn’t that be a let down moving the station out of Normal over to Bloomington’s west side.
Since Isu kids are big users, that wouldn’t work. It’s fun to watch them squirm to vote yes though