By: Diane Benjamin
No, transparency doesn’t exist in Bloomington!
This FOIA request was made on July 31st. I did receive the information on the dinner at Lucca Grill, I have not received the names of the people money was paid to IACE Travel for. A second request on August 10th and a third request on the 15th remain unanswered. The Clerk claims names are legally redacted under the FOIA law. So according to your government, taxpayers bought tickets for people you aren’t allowed to know the names of. https://blnnews.com/2017/08/10/japan-what-we-dont-know/
Next, the FOIA that would have given me a LOT of information. I requested the General Ledger of the Sister Cities accounts. That would be a list of all transaction involved with this trip. It would have said who paid for what and how much of the over $100,000 was reimbursed by the people who went. I received this on Friday August 11th:
I attempted to “pick-up” this FOIA on the Monday the 14th. The Clerk’s office couldn’t find it! I asked them to MAIL it since I’d already made one trip downtown. They said they would. Today is Thursday – still nothing. What are they hiding?
You can’t know the names of the people on the trip or who paid for them to go. Very transparent.
One more having nothing to do with the trip:
On August 14th I filed this request:
I have a specific purpose for filing it, more maybe later.
Yesterday I received this request from City Clerk Cherry Lawson asking me to narrow the scope:
I explained to Cherry that only 3 employees are listed on the 2017 compensation report with “legal” in their job title: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=12646
I only asked for their hours for two weeks. I have not received a response. Maybe another lawsuit is needed for real transparency!
This is the Culture Change Tari wanted when he was first elected.
He wanted supervisors NOT from Bloomington so they had no attachment to the City or its people.
Why do you think the city is now full of employees brought in – not the ones who climbed the ranks?
Change is much more difficult when history is respected. It no longer is.
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this is how the dems use the power ,he is replicating the Chicago set up here , build a base of supporters , widen the expanse of unaccountability , widen the bureaucracy and those who favor your actions and choices , keep spending frivolously or for favors later , taxes can be raised forever
,,,until the taxpayers are exhausted of which to put it kindly the perpetrators (mayor, council) will be tarred and feathered.
I think we need Sheriff Andy Taylor, seriously, we NEED at least two or three “good ol’ boys on the inside so to speak who won’t back down and who won’t put up with this foolishness of Tarry and his high falutin’ fancy eatin’ city folk.