By: Diane Benjamin
Sometimes my stories just write themselves. This is one of them.
See today’s article in the Pantagraph about Tari Renner’s trip to Cuba: http://www.pantagraph.com/business/renner-reconnecting-bloomington-to-cuban-sister-city/article_5b63446a-77b9-588c-861a-05765c99bde1.html
The article ends with this quote from Tari:
Free Enterprise? Here?
Let’s look at what the Bloomington City Council will be considering Monday night: http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=11529
See PDF page 181:
So who decides what the “right” fit is? Tari? Fidel?
Where in “free enterprise” does government have a say in who is allowed to conduct business?
Did Bloomington’s leadership learn that at the Karl Marx School of Economics?
It gets worse!
Flip back to pdf page 11:
Limiting new businesses to what Tari Castro approves as the “right” fit has been enshrined in the City’s Strategic Plans.
Remember when Tari used to parrot: “Strip malls are dead”?
Evidently they aren’t anymore since Colonial Plaza rose from the dead and downtown hasn’t.
More on downtown sometime this weekend – it’s back on the agenda for Monday.
I am actually laughing at this? This Strategic Plan Significance is fairy tales from Fairy Land to say the least. These two cities are in a race against time to diversify their economies. They should welcome ANY business that will relocate here. Preserve property/home values? Good luck with that when State Farm begins it’s downsizing. And better working relationships with the cities and clueless the EDC and the Chamber? A match made in the 20th Century that dooms us to more ineffective ideas and policies. The cities are beginning to swirl around the drain and these jokers want to spruce up the bathtub.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Green sustainable construction are code words for most expensive, on the taxpayer’s dime of course!
Construction of anything (public) needs to be in a cost-benefit framework. And when I say benefit, I mean can this construction actually generate income for the community. And when I say generate income, I am not talking about capitalizing on disposal income of in-town or out-of-town residents, I am talking about real income generation that creates services or products that are sold worldwide. Our community leaders don’t seem to understand the difference. The entire UpTown Normal boondoggle is based on cashing in on the disposable income of the students, their families and visitors to ISU. This is not the way to build a sustainable economic base. Millions of dollars in construction that can become worthless overnight with a downturn in the economy or a reduction in the student population. Imagine what 50 million dollars could done to fund startups and new business? We could have build a diverse economic base instead of a one trick pony economy dependent on the disposable income from outsiders.
$50 mil is being generous, it actually cost MUCH more. Double that might be close
I believe it… that is the number that I was told once. What a waste! And all of it dependent on disposable income from outside the community? Whose idea was this? And when the education bubble bursts? OMG – say goodbye to Uptown Normal (it will always be Downtown Normal to me).
I like the title of the article, “Renner belongs in Cuba.” I’m in for a one way ticket for $100.00 if he never comes back.