By: Diane Benjamin
It looks like Bloomington has to be destroyed by government spending before people realize local elections matter. Or, maybe only the people who can’t move will be left paying the bills which are about to get much bigger.
Monday night the Bloomington will see the results of doing “Wants” before Needs. MANY 10’s of millions was stolen from you for the Coliseum and BCPA while everything else was neglected. Your roads and sewers didn’t deteriorate because past Councils and two City Managers cared about NEEDS.
A new library isn’t needed – they are going to do it anyway because it is what they “WANT”.
But now they have to catch up on essential spending – of course you will pay.
Page 20: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=14672
When any government does the below – it means these are the taxes they are going to increase:
Then Normal can raise taxes because they are low – then Springfield – etc – etc – etc. This is government’s evil game played only to steal your money!
What does the City want to spend money on?
Streets – 53.3 million over 5 years
Parks – 31.4 million over 5 years
Fire – 9.1 million over 5 years
Facilities – 62.2 million over 5 years
Library – 27.8 million over 5 years
Water – 9.2 million over 5 years
Storm Sewer 15.7 over 5 years
Sanitary Sewer – 13.4 million over 5 years
Those number Do Not include the parts that are funded!
All of these numbers are UNFUNDED. And the total is:
$222,100,000
Citizens will still have a never-used Fire Station and $2.4 million taken out of the Water Fund and handed to the Coliseum (never to be seen again).
See pages 16-17.
Page 21 explains what they are up to. Borrow the money! Of course, then they need money to pay the principal and interest which will amount to MUCH more than $222.1 million.
That’s where raising taxes come in. Nothing can be cut. Pensions spiking is still welcome along with the lavish salaries and benefits.
Besides Sales Tax and Property Taxes, the pages following show what increases they want in sewer and storm water rates.
The McLean County Chamber of Commerce is THRILLED because they believe government spending creates prosperity.
The local Democrat party is THRILLED because their union people will have work and their radicals got elected by calling elections non-partisan.
The Chamber and Democrats are also thrilled that most registered voters in Bloomington stayed home last April. None of this would be possible without those who didn’t vote.
Political Science majors aren’t smart enough to know tax receipts will continue to decrease as they increase rates. Common Sense is MIA.
I know you have not written an article about this, but I feel that Hales is doing anything he can to “get out of Dodge” while anyone will still take him. Once the Illinois State Police releases their investigation findings, that is going to be another huge black mark on Hales’ record, and there are only so many of those he can cover up with non-disclosure agreements.
I wonder what would happen if citizens of Bloomington reached out to Joliet leadership and informed them of the pension spiking, the police investigations, and other situations where issues have been bungled.
If I’m the council here, why should I give him a new contract? Why would I give him a raise? It is clear he does not want to be here, as evidenced by constantly applying for new positions. He can’t say, “This is my dream job.” or “This is close to my family.” for them all.
I considered hiding stories about him to help him out! I really hate employers who just pass their problems on to others though.
Need not to worry all they have to do is google , tax toilet bloomington iowa to get the skinny story on Hales
Does anyone have the address where to send accolades to get him hired someplace else? I saw the other day he was in the run for a position someplace else. Good riddance! Most employers if they find out you are looking elsewhere write you off as in your career here is toast.
The Library is a separate taxing body and has already reported a desire/need to increase their portion of property taxes. There already are outstanding Bonds for Sewers. I’m not sure when the $10M Bond for street resurfacing will be paid off–actually much of it was used for other than street resurfacing. There is nothing in the charts to indicate the terms of repaying the $2.2M “borrowed” from the Employee Health Account. Does the Council understand how much retail/food purchases are necessary to generate $2.2M in revenue? The current debt burden is nearly $1K/capita. The interest rate for borrowing for Bloomington is higher than for Normal due to the liability associated with the Arena, aka Coliseum. None of this extraneous information is in the packet. The Council has a history of having a short memory when it comes to spending.
Another Downtown “catalyst” is the last thing this City needs.
The sales tax table doesn’t include the food and beverage tax of 2%. Whenever I eat out out of town I try to check the tax rate. Springfield for instance does not charge food and beverage tax so by comparison Bloomington / Normal is 2.25% points higher than Springfield for eating out or 26% higher than Springfield.
Now you did it! Nobody was supposed to know that!