By: Diane Benjamin
Chris Koos was on WJBC this morning. Hear the interview HERE
Did you know that Uptown is NEVER going to be finished? Yep, Koos said that.
He is running for a 4th term because he isn’t done with his vision.
Bloomington-Normal will be paying for a new sports facility if Koos and Renner win on April 4th. Normal raised the Sales tax 1% to pay for part of it. Bloomington is waiting until after the election to join in.
The most troubling part of the interview was Koos justifying the $1.8 million (before interest) given to the Portillos developer. Tartan has been involved in much of Koos’s vision. Koos claimed the hotel was the only place that fit their needs. If Tartan hadn’t been involved the new restaurant might have been in Bloomington. Tartan has a relationship with Koos, so what proof doesn’t Koos have Portillos was only interested in Normal?
It got worse. Koos said existing businesses need to reinvent themselves to stay competitive. Scott Laughlin asked him if Portillos would mean smaller businesses might close just like HyVee closed Cub Foods. Koos said his businesses have to reinvent themselves, and he’s right about that part, but businesses should never have to fear THEIR GOVERNMENT forcing them to reinvent themselves. It isn’t free market capitalism, I know what government attacks feel like. The Obama administration attacked my business and made it impossible to recover.
It never dawned on Scott or Chris the Town will collect LESS taxes in the future because they have to return part to Tartan. Sonic and all the other nearby eateries will have less business which means even less tax income.
Adults need to be put in charge of Normal Town Hall!
If you missed the interview on Cities 92.9 with Marc Tiritilli Tuesday, you missed what a real serious thinker sounds like.
Two of the segments are at the bottom of this link: http://cities929.com/portal.asp?pid=9156862&sid=3309
The whole interview lasted an hour including commercials and news. Ben Yount had to hold himself back from saying “Vote Tiritilli”.
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Kookie Koos, yeah his visions are kookie! His spending is kookie. If it walks like a kook and quacks like a kook, it’s a kook!
You are exactly right that businesses should not fear government intervention into the free market. “Reinvent themselves?” What exactly does that mean? As someone who talks to small business owners all the time, I can tell you that many many of them are struggling to just keep their doors open. And a Mayor tells them they may need to reinvent themselves because of how the city as decided to favor a new business over their established local business? Right… and where is the money going to come from for this reinvention? Established businesses don’t get tax payer handouts. So what the Mayor is saying is “when we tip the scales in favor of a new business, you better be ready to spend a lot of money to reinvent your business or go out of business.” This sounds like centralized planning from the past communist era. The central committee has determined that you need to reinvent your business because of what we have done to help our new business succeed. This man is clueless and out of control.
Perfect!
Koos “reinvented” his business by spending tax dollars on multi modal transportation and complete streets. Anything related to bicycles.
Does anyone need to be reminded that the property tax for Normal went up significantly? Did any one ask Koos about that? If the town gives property tax rebates and sets up TIF districts that don’t perform, the tax has to come from somewhere. What assets are being leveraged? The taxpayers. The taxpayer is the only leverage government has.
You are on the list of my candidates for the next election. Lawrence too.
By then, there will be no leverage left and it will be too late. The change has to happen now!!
I was surprised that the relationship with Tartan went back as far as 2003 when Tartan bought the property where the Golden West restaurant was at. They certainly as it seems are milking Normal for every cent they can.
Even worse is that Tartan is going to build more restaurants. Someplace in all of this mix there are bound to be some that will have to close. Restaurant owners should be complaining that government should stay out of it.
Tes. Tartan was given special zoning variance for the parking lot at the planned eatery complex adjacent to Mandarin Garden (formerly Wildberries)–no need for the usual landscape buffer while expanding parking from 40 to 80 spaces. Traffic in that area is going to be a nightmare.
Shall we say that area is a potential fire trap. We don’t even bother going to that corner because it is so congested. Drivers darting around behind Red Robin and you have to watch everyone.
I wonder how much of a kickback King Koos gets from Tartan?
So if someone decides to open a bike shop down the street from Vitesse then does that mean Koos would be reinventing himself or would he bend over backwards to keep that shop from ever opening?
Normal has ways of preventing businesses from opening that they don’t want. The latest was a guy who wanted to open a pizza place in Uptown. They told him it didn’t fit.
Once again I got beat to the punch here. Renner says that Eastland will need to RE-INVENT itself and now it’s also a KOOS buzz word, (did he steal it from Renner?) Hopefully this re-inventing won’t stop and on April 4th there’ll be a couple of mayors that will find out what re-invent REALLY means! Maybe that’s what they learn at those mayors conferences??