Who is telling the truth?
Buzzing around I saw plans for a huge complex on the west side. It wasn’t only soccer fields.
Some people think if they get elected it’s their ticket to do whatever they want, some don’t.
Pick wrong tomorrow and you have Coliseum 2.0
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Metro Zone 2.0 lol
Shared sales tax. Tax increase? There is $24M budgeted for infrastructure but the “projects” are not identified.
BCPA 3.0
Didn’t someone donate land out west for soccer? I haven’t heard anything about it in a while.
I think they want to sell it. They were planning on development that hasn’t happened, so get government to buy it.
Bloomington Normal is uniquely positioned in the center of Illinois to benefit from having a dedicated youth soccer development complex. With the coming closing of the PCSL fields due to airport regulations there will need to be new fields anyway. The Chicago Fire has teamed up with both Illinois Fusion and PCSL. The goal is to provide the area with ongoing youth sports involvement, highest quality team play and hopefully to host regional if not national tournaments.
CHICAGO (March 2, 2017) – The Chicago Fire Soccer Club announced Thursday a strategic partnership with Bloomington-Normal’s largest travel and recreational clubs, the Illinois Fusion Soccer Club and Prairie Cities Soccer League, which will merge to become the Illinois Fire Juniors.
Beginning this summer, the Illinois Fusion will be rebranded as Illinois Fire Juniors and provide more than 550 players with continued high-level, yet affordable soccer programming and additional expanded opportunities. The Prairie Cities Soccer League will retain their current branding and operations but will also receive access to new training and player development opportunities for the 1,700 players currently in their recreational league.
Through this partnership, the new Illinois Fire Juniors players will be provided with methodology, professionally developed to build the technical level of the player while increasing the individual’s knowledge of the game.
“Adding Illinois Fire Juniors to the club network is a very important step in the evolution of our programming within the state of Illinois and we look forward to building our presence with players, coaches and parents within the Bloomington-Normal community,” said Paul Cadwell, Senior Director of Youth Development.
Illinois Fire Juniors become the 11th Juniors club in the Fire network that currently spans six states with clubs in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Michigan. More than 16,000 players represented the Fire Juniors during the 2015-16 season.
Additional information on the Fire Juniors can be found at http://www.firejuniors.com.
Many things could be called great community assets. That’s not the question. Why should taxpayers pay for any of it? Seniors on fixed income, people who can’t afford to have their kids play, singles trying to pay off student loans, etc. how much of other people’s money is soccer entitled to? You had years to raise money, meanwhile the pony fields did it all themselves.
I want this community to continue to grow and retain residents, and you have to have youth soccer to do it which is the largest sport by far for children.
Further development is only logical.
How much money is not up to me but it would be foolish to waste the opportunity by saying none when we have willing partners, near perfect location and serendipitous timing.
I’m not against soccer, but I am against building a complex with taxpayer dollars. Gibson City manages to fund their own complex through registration fees and advertising. Why can’t bloomington?
Yes, Fire, we have read that article in the Pantagraph. There are about 3,000 soccer players in this community out of a total population of 180,000. It is the local businesses in this community which benefit from influx of tournament participants that should be sponsoring this endeavor, not the taxpayers. The City only gets a small percentage of total dollars spent in the community for taxes. The soccer complex would not provide the necessary return on investment to the taxpayers. Surely, there is a soccer family who has the necessary skill set to formulate a short term and long term plan to develop a sports complex. Begin soliciting corporate sponsorship from national restaurant chains, cable providers, phone service providers, the major employers, car dealerships, etc. There is a valuable life lesson learned by children when they have to work toward a goal to earn the reward. Isn’t that what you are trying to teach the children through sports activities or are you teaching that they get a trophy for showing up and playing?
My kid wants to surf so let’s build an ocean. Now THAT would be so doin’! Think about all the kids in the area that already know how to swim. Learning to surf would be a great way for them to excercise virtually all muscle groups with little impact. Truly this would be a destination as we would have the only ocean in the midwest. Meet me down at the grassy area in front of the BCPA next Wednesday, I’ll be serving free kool-aid all day. We”ll talk.
Actually, Court Jester, an indoor water park could provide an opportunity to learn and practice surfing. That would be a unique experiences not offered in Central Illinois. The City might actually become a destination with an unusual attraction.
I’d rather they don’t come up with any idea, but unusual isn’t what they think of. Arenas never make money, they wanted one anyway. Complete streets is a complete left wing idea. The transit system is unsustainable. If anybody needs a reason to vote the two mayors out – the new guys get to appoint representatives to the Connect Transit Board!
I’m jesting with the jester. The City needs to take care of what it already has. Municipalities should not be in the business of entertainment, sporting events or real estate. The City should be providing a clean safe environment for its citizens, nothing more.
Somebody forgot to tell government.
IF there’s so MANY kids that would be affected by no soccer fields, then how about giving them ALL a box of $1 candy bars, sell them until they have enough to BUY their own field? That’s what WE used to do. Besides it would be good exercise. That’s called capitalism AND free enterprise, not welfare….