By: Diane Benjamin
I recently had some time to read through the minutes of CIRA Board meetings and other information on their website.
Discussion about extending the soccer lease took place in March: http://cira.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/March-14-2017-minutes.pdf
Normal has every intention of forcing its citizens to pay for the proposed complex:
I found another item that is even more interesting:
3,171 more people got on planes than got off.
Some people do fly somewhere and drive back. Maybe flights are cheaper flying to a different airport and taking other transportation home. Maybe people also fly out because they moved.
Are people leaving?
Normal pays the Economic Development Council:
EDC OF B-N AREA MONTHLY CONTRIBUTION $8,333.33
Bloomington paid the same in May:
BLOOMINGTON NORMAL AREA Eco Develp To EDC $8,333.33
The EDC organizes the One Voice trips to DC to beg for money, holds the BN By the Numbers lunches, and they produce economic impact numbers and other data. One of their reports is population: https://www.bnbiz.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2016.pdf
This is from a report labeled 2016, so it must be current even though it uses 2015 data.
Note this report shows growth continuing to 2020.
The EDC told Normal their population in 2015 was 54,594.
According to this site: https://suburbanstats.org/population/illinois/how-many-people-live-in-normal
Normal has lost 2,097 people.
The EDC told Bloomington their population in 2015 as 78,730.
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According to this site: https://suburbanstats.org/population/illinois/how-many-people-live-in-bloomington
Bloomington has lost 2,120 people.
Grand Total of lost people: 4,217.
Now look at who is on the Board of Directors of the EDC: https://www.bnbiz.org/about/board-of-directors/
No clues – click the link! How many have an economic interest in wearing rose-colored glasses instead of facing reality?
Ever heard the saying Garbage In – Garbage Out?
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I believe that people are leaving and the population so far has had a slight decline. I also believe that this decline will continue and then get worse as State Farm downsizes (yes they will be forced to downsize here). I know for a fact the houses are not selling and high end houses ($275K and above) are almost impossible to sell now. There are plenty of State Farm retired empty nesters with large high end homes who will at some point move to retirement areas or to be next their children in other states. Who is going to buy $300K + homes? If State Farm is not moving high paid employees into the area – no one is going to buy these homes. No one in regular jobs in town can afford houses like this. So as these people move out their big high priced homes are sitting there unsold. So the result will soon be depressed housing prices (this is starting to happen) and many unsold properties.
Good. Then we won’t have to fix the surrounding streets so we can spend more tax dollars on downtown,,,as the main point of conversation of the backward progressive council members as they enjoy their “free” lunches with their communist comrade in chief.
Good taxpaying conservatives are being moving out of B-N and being replaced with liberal self entitled Chicago turds. Unreported shootings on the west side and other colorful neighborhoods are becoming more frequent than they have ever been. Little incentive to stay here as the true quality of life is collapsing in front of our noses.