Update:
https://blnnews.com/2017/12/23/updates-miller-park-normal-west/
By: Diane Benjamin
I could write volumes about last Monday’s 7:00 pm Council meeting at the BCPA. For now, just listen to a comment made by Jay Tetzloff during his presentation to the Council about the zoo.
Jay is all excited about having food available both inside and outside of the zoo for patrons of Miller Park. He says for decades people have been bringing their own food in. Most people call that a picnic.
Once the new concession stand is completed – you will not be allowed to bring your own food to the park! Government will force you to either leave the park or buy THEIR food!
Bloomington is turning into a police state. Inspectors are roaming the streets looking for violators, now government will tell you what food you are allowed to eat. The zoo plans on profiting from holding a proverbial gun to your head! Maybe they will only serve tofu burgers! Maybe they will only serve fat food and then demand you take an exercise class because you ate it! Shut up and eat – after you pay exorbitant fees for it.
I wonder if the police will be patrolling the park looking for food violators? Maybe Parks and Rec can deputize their employees to write tickets and confiscate your lunch! They don’t enforce fishing license requirements and park hours, but they will force you to eat their food. No more 4th of July picnics – unless you buy their food. Maybe they can launch a delivery service to the other side of the park, or maybe that part will be closed so you can’t sneak your own food in.
Fast forward to 1:02:40 after you watch the below. David Sage asks if banning food applies to the whole park, Tetzloff confirms it. Sage voted for this idiocy anyway. $900,000!
Did the press report this BIG nugget?
That would be NO.
Just hit play – it takes 5 seconds to hear it
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They will be forced to walk that back. Favored group A and favored group B will no doubt be screaming about this. They like large family picnics.
Oh I hope they ARE forced to “walk that back” and I don’t care how or by the demands of who – it’s absolutely ridiculous, and petty but then, so are they (the current powers that be)
So will we have to pay to have the grills removed? Will people who cannot afford concessions be forced to leave the park if they bring their food from the food pantries? Will there be ordinance violations that target the poor. Will the concession stand accept food stamps? What the hell is going on?
Where will my family reunion or a Park United Methodists Church potluck be held?
Comply peon!
Oh they MIGHT allow that, for a fee of course….., a hefty one would be my guess. I have never heard of food being banned from a park – They have lost what is left of their mind and yes I mean mind singular since they all seem to think pretty much the same.
I guess I missed the no food can be brought to the park. The speaker said into the zoo, and the follow up question from the alderman was responded to that when groups that came (assumed to be the zoo) would not be able bring their own food. I assume that the zoo is different from the park, it would be foolish to even consider eliminating picnics as they greatly contribute to zoo attendance and the no food brought into the park idea would make the park useless and severely limit the revenue of the zoo.
I too can see reason in not allowing food to brought into the Zoo itself – that even makes some sense if it IS the whole park, well, like I said they have lost their mind.
The concession stand will be open to the zoo side – so evidently food can be brought in!
So if I decide I want to spend the day at a publically funded Zoo, but can’t afford to buy concession food, I have to leave. I guess that’s how they do it at the Normal pools. So why not follow along. I’m gonna start sneaking food in my backpack.
When it opens about a year from now we need to throw a party and bring out own food
How about camp kids? This won’t fly just like the soda tax in Chicago.
Well…Duh!
The very idea that government exists provide security and justice for it’s citizens is a lie.
In practice, a small group of favored stakeholders, usually those who make campaign donations, use government to benefit themselves at the expense of the whole who pay for such benefits with taxpayer dollars. Such benefits are enforced with government’s monopoly on violence and coercion that is granted to it’s agents – soldiers and policemen.
While I tend to focus my outrage at the macro level in which this occurs (the wholesale invisible genocide of innocent Yemeni Bedouins -that I have no beef with – using US taxpayer funded weapons and drones on behalf of our Saudi masters, for example), I always marvel at the minuscule scale at which these things happen as well.
This measure deserves to be nullified and openly violated daily by as many citizens as possible, and the concession stand boycotted to the point of bankruptcy.
In wishing each of you a Merry Christmas, I would ask each believer to recall that our Lord was born with a price on his head, and to briefly remember that innocent children were murdered by a king and his soldiers seeking his death – a goal achieved 33 years later at the hand of another king and his agents. Also note that the wise Magi did not help and cooperate with Herod and his evil designs. Neither should we.
Peace be with each of you this holiday.
Ordinance and zoo
Hope they give free refills. Gets pretty damn hot in there with no trees to sit under. Nursing home goes there with sack lunches and eats under the covered slab. With only 30.00 a month they are given out of their social security Check (the rest goes to the govt) im sure they won’t be getting any drinks there or food now . It’ll be too expensive with what they pay to get into the zoo. That 30.00 includes for all month their haircuts. Needs.socks shampoo Clothes —-they play bingo just to get help with their lives that people donate items to the nursing home for bingo.
The council never asked the cost of items OR what kind of food would be served. . He’s so Fing dumb. Benefit to the west side???!!!!! He said that for the recorded record. Those people are poor as dirt down there. U have to pay to get into the zoo. They don’t go into the zoo. They just pull up a picnic bench by the trees to wait and do drive by drug runs. But when The gangs keep shooting down there like they did last week, nobody will be going again to the area or to the park
And I think I heard general fund in there as means of payment. You would be on top of that tho.
Eutopia. He’s the one that brought the “ profitable” flamingo idea! Pretty sure he knew they was all gonna vote yes befire the meeting. Him talking was just a formality. They was all to quick to say yes.
What a shame. What a sham People with too much power …..To change our police. Our lives.
If that ordinance goes thru, Bloomington and normal, MCLEAN county will be so unsafe. No outside federal agencies will come in to the limits and help the police solve the crimes. Heffner is right. Bob said this befire he even said it. And remember….. criminals don’t stay in the safe city. That’s where they hide. They do crimes and breaking rapes outside the city also.
Those outside agencies have the resources and databases on ALL criminals and people to solve the crime . Locals do not. U see now why he wanted the citizens board first and now a welcoming ordinance? He’s stacking the deck against law enforcement.
I know people can’t comprehend this because they don’t do the job but to put it in terms easy to understand. If the outside agencies know the feds and other state agencies will not be allowed in the city limits to assist Bloomington or normal in apprehension , those agencies know the hassle and their time and money they have to put in to get the criminal will not be worth it because once they hit the city limit, all that work they’ve done would be null and void. They want support from their asking city that needs help. It’s A waste of time for them. In Chicago, The mayor decides who to let in. This is why Chicago is out of hand. And Bloomington is getting an uptick in crime now
Bob did some of these assists with other locals and state only to get to the Chicago city limits and they was all told to turn around. He was with the fbi at the time. They was not granted permission to come in. The waste of money … but what did Chicago care. Money means nothing to a progressive. The mayor up there decides who comes in Why do U think rahm Emanuel told the gangs to take it and fight it out in the alleys. This is what happens when the word gets around that is a safe harbor that’s why your getting an uptick in shootings here.
The citizen review board was just the first step in tying our law enforcements hands in doing their job to the best of their ability. And to be clear. Most professors don’t like police presence. On campus. Or anywhere. They say it’s “ oppressive” to society.
Progressives do not like police because ThEY want the power to control. They don’t support the military in their job they have to do —they kill. And they don’t like police. Remember the 60s slang when they called police, “ pigs”. Those people are now running your country. And city.
There’s 3 things you HAVE to protect. 1. Constitution and laws 2. Your amendment to keep your guns and protect yourself 3. Do not let them get control and power over your police.
Sent from my iPhone
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Miller PArk USED to be such a nice place, but between the ZOO and all the other BS there, it’s turned into a regular 3 ring circus-complete with clowns.. I don’t go there anymore, and don’t really miss it. I’m SURE this is NOT what Mr Miller intended when he willed the land … As for having to eat the BS some concession stand serves up. I will boycott it also. As for the fireworks. I go elsewhere.. and NO not to UPCHUCK either!
In order for the Concession Stand’s Business Plan to succeed, food can not be allowed in Miller Park. Picnics will be catered through Concessions.
http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=15470 Begin @ PDF page 124
Opening day we all need to show up with picnic baskets
This is quality of life…?1?
It’s called the boot of government crushing everybody because they can
When you elect a Communist Mayor and Leftist (Communist) City Counsel members, you will find yourself living in a city that increasingly resembles a Communist Dictatorship. As another of their beloved Communists declared, early in his regime: “elections have consequences”.
“This will bring revenue to the West side.”—Mayor Renner.
No, the revenue generated will be redirected to downtown. To “bring revenue” to the West side, one would need to invest the generated revenue from the Zoo IN the West side—maybe street/sewer repairs.
No, in a way, it could take revenue FROM the West Side – it’s not unusual for people to get take out from some places over there and go eat in the park especially on nice days – once again, ‘they” show themselves to be clueless clowns without any idea of reality outside of their little bubbles.
I guess then the Pavilion, located in Miller Park will no longer be the to go place for wedding receptions & family gatherings, etc. NO FOOD NO MONEY to rent the Pavillion!
The zoo can cater!
Per the executive summary the concession stand will not be open 7 days a week year round (they mention weekends only in April and October and daily in May – September so I’m making the assumption they are closed November through March). Will outside food be banned when the concession stand isn’t open? This is crazy. I’m not a resident of Bloomington but I enjoy taking my lunch and sitting in my car at the park just to get out of my office for a bit during the day.
Rules only apply when it’s open
Somebody’s payin’ attention . . . they saw how much ‘side money’ could be made in concessions from the Colesium. Maybe not a whole lot to skim all at once . . . but a little bit over time . . . And, the ability to choose the vendor/contractor for the procurement . . . might be able to muscle some ‘gifts’ out of them.
Cash and government is never a good pair
Get some money out of all those Bike BlowNow people. If they got a bike that costs more than $400 they can afford it. If they change tires for the weather, if they wear a helmut or fancy tight fitting clothes etc., let them pay for licensing and insurance. Let them pay for bike signs and paint for bike lanes and such. You want to dance? You got to pay the band! Making people pay and eat bland no nutrition food to go on a picnic is one of the dumbest things this council has ever proposed.
You know, every time I see some idiot come up with educated stupidity like this, it once again proves to me why city folks should not drive in the country side.
Some shouldn’t leave their houses or yards.
I contacted Jay and he responded with this. It seems you may have misunderstood his statements. “The rumors of banning food from all of Miller Park is completely false. There are no plans to ban food in Miller Park. Once the zoo concession stand is opened, outside food will be banned from going into the zoo, and only the zoo.”
But food isn’t allowed in the zoo, so where does that mean bring food in won’t be allowed?
Those going into the Zoo area may not bring food into the Zoo area. I suppose then one could have a picnic, finish eating and then purchase admission to the Zoo. If hungry/thirsty while in the Zoo area, only food from the Concession stand would be allowed. That scenario could reduce the projected revenue as stated in the Executive Summary.
See the update I just posted.
Rumor or not, it’s just not that hard to imagine that this council could be so stupid and crass. Nothing they do anymore surprises me, especially with that cultural marxist Tari Renner at the helm.
Did he not say that this concession would bring a lot of revenue in after all was the zoo not in the red over $400,000 last year unless I read the financials wrong. Wait a minute did not the same people support the bringing in of pink flamingos oh this was a quality of life thing pink flamingos would make the zoo a go to place. If the voters do not clean house over the next few years we the common sense residents of Bloomington are screwed!