By: Diane Benjamin
Tonight Bloomington is holding a public hearing on the budget for the year that starts May 1st.
All you need to know is Bloomington is planning on hiring 4 more employees which will make the pension liability even higher and, to balance the budget, they are robbing the Enterprise Funds:
I guess you are supposed to celebrate they are stealing less than last year. Keep this in mind when your water, sewer, etc rates are raised because the FUND balance is low.
In case you missed it, I’ve written about this before. I simply updated the table from the current budget – Book 2.
Previous story: https://blnnews.com/2017/02/23/administration-and-robbing-enterprise-funds/
So, why are citizens totally ignored by both the Bloomington and Normal Councils?
Both Councils are dominated by people who, regardless of what party they claim to belong to, think government’s job is to rule over the citizens. They believe they have to right to do whatever they want because they won an election. DEMOCRACY! Listening to you is a threat to the Constitution.
I wouldn’t have made that statement without proof.
I finally got around to reading something a guy sent me a week ago. The story was about Julie Crowe who successfully sued Bloomington because they wouldn’t grant her a vehicle-for-hire license. See the story HERE
The article contains quotes from Brian Day who is now Normal’s lawyer. When this case happened he was an attorney for the Illinois Municipal League – another organization I’ve written about before: The IML Scam
Quote from Day:
“The entire purpose that we elect our public officials is to make decisions.” To have some group say ‘Well, we want the decision to be set in stone constitutionally and no discretion of elected officials’ defeats the purpose of having a democratic process.”
Quote from the writer of the article:
Mr. Day’s comments reflect a philosophy that, unfortunately, is all too prevalent in government today: the Constitution is an impediment to government, to be ignored when it gets in the way of those elected by the “democratic process.”
Much of the work done in both Bloomington and Normal is completed by the City Managers. THEY AREN’T ELECTED.
Another quote from the article:
Ms. Crowe appealed the decision of the staff to the full City Council. When Ms. Crowe appeared before the council, it was apparent that the members had no idea of why the case was before them, what the issues were or what they were supposed to do. The council ultimately denied Ms. Crowe’s appeal, with the mayor saying that they needed to “trust” the staff.
The Bloomington City Council made no effort to do anything other than listen to David Hales – the guy that nobody but them voted for.
If you have ever attended a Bloomington City Council meeting and watched most of the elected during Public Comment not paying any attention to the speaker, now you know why. They were elected and their opinions are superior to yours because this is what democracy looks like.
It also explains why Normal passed a Public Comment policy that still violates the law. They don’t care what you say because they won – you didn’t.
Conservatives don’t think like this.
Before reading this article I had no idea big government people think this way. It’s antithetical to how this country was founded. Conservatives believe citizens were given the right in the Constitution to govern themselves. Progressive big government types (in both parties) think they need to control your life.
It also explains national politics where Democrats are glued together to pass whatever unconstitutional legislation fits their agenda and the Republicans have trouble working together on anything. Democrats are almost all progressives (Move Bloomington Forward!). Republicans are both progressives and conservatives.
The local Chamber of Commerce is running their PAC ads again for this election. Every candidate they mention is a progressive because that is who they are. They want big government because they love crony capitalism.
Electing progressives is why the Coliseum was built. It’s why local government thinks they can create economic development by picking winners and losers. It’s why the roads are a game of dodge-the-next-pothole. Their priorities aren’t the priorities of citizens. They just don’t campaign on their plans because they wouldn’t win. Did anybody ask Renner about his Request For Proposal (RFP) the City and IWU will be issuing soon concerning the North Main property the City bought? He made that statement at the last debate. What does Wesleyan have to do with it? (crickets from the media)
It’s a dangerous path that can only be changed on April 4th. If Renner and Koos are reelected, Bloomington and Normal are choosing socialism. Koos and Renner just don’t refer to themselves as such on the ballot because it’s a non-partisan election.
Their Utopia isn’t just another tax increase away, but bankruptcy sure is.
See this story: http://www.sj-r.com/news/ 20170121/springfield-not- alone-in-seeing-revenue- shortfall
Bloomington’s finance director, Patty-Lynn Silva, told the council that the city expected to collect $1.5 million less in the fiscal year, even after it raised its sales tax rate by 1 percentage point to 8.75 percent last January.
“They were surprised that the sales tax is declining, since we just raised the rate,” Silva said in telephone interview.
Simple economics Patty-Lynn that progressives ignore.
This also explains why progressives keep referring to us as a Democracy instead of a Republic.
Joseph Story (September 18, 1779 – September 10, 1845) was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845.
(click to enlarge)
Lower the sales tax to 3.75% and you will see people driving here to buy things – How many cars would be sold with a tax rate like that? We would become the car buying capital of Central Illinois in ten minutes. Mayor Koos thinks people will drive here for our new hot dog stand… If you want to spur local retails sales – lower the sales tax – don’t raise them and wonder why your sales receipts are lower!
Lawrence your concept is correct but wouldn’t apply to cars. the sales tax you pay on a car depends on where you title the car. I live in McLean and we bought a car from a friends dealership in bloomington last year and we only had to pay 6.50% in tax. if we had to pay bloomingtons tax rate we would of bought some place else. we try not to buy anything in bloomington. great article Diane
Thanks Bill
Funny the last car I bought in El Paso – I got a bill from the city for the difference in tax rate – so once again why can the rate be 3.75%?
I paid my bill with a bag of pennies 🙂
Makes too much sense Lawrence! Besides, UPTOWN will sell WAY more hotdogs then cars, so by sheer volume even a no-brainer like KOOS can see that hotdogs will make more at 10% then cars at 3.75%. People won’t drive here for cars but they WILL for Portillos hotdogs! Wink, wink.
I know you percentage profit on hot dogs is great – forget cars and other big ticket items – Mayor (I should be running my bike shop) Koos is right!
Democracy is nothing more than a slightly civilized version of mob rule. In a democracy, the winners do whatever they want. The founders created us as a representative republic precisely so the majority could not oppress those groups not in power. It’s the reason we have the electoral college — to reduce the power of more populous states and increase the power of less populous states.
If only two people show up to comment at a public hearing, the Council thinks everyone is satisfied with their budgeting skills and don’t mind the increases. Those two people are then targeted as nay-sayers. You get the government you deserve and pay the taxes they dictate.
This is an amazing newsletter. Thanks for all you do Diane. I especially loved the comment at the end from Joseph Story. Today’s culture doesn’t have a consistent desire for honesty.
-Blair
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