By: Diane Benjamin
I’ve always been a huge fan of history. People who don’t know history repeat the same mistakes over and over. The current crop of Council members are doing just that because they don’t know Bloomington’s history – especially of downtown.
Judy Markowitz didn’t want to wait for the results of the non-binding referendum because she and Tom Hamilton wanted to start building now. The Council relented to the cries from citizens and waited for the final vote until after the referendum. 1500 signatures were needed to put the referendum on the ballot in March of 2004, the opponents gathered over 4000.
Reading many many stories proved Markowitz, Hamilton, and half of the Council thought they were smarter than everybody else. They only pretended to care about what people thought, they totally ignored the referendum results. The City did their own email survey – it showed 80% support even though very few people participated. Of course the survey was sent mostly to downtown supporters. It sounds just like Tari’s Downtown Task Force, only people who support spending money downtown are members.
I found a Letter to the Editor in the Pantagraph dated November 21, 2003. It’s available at the library on microfiche.
How did he know you would pay?
Duh, history.
Don’t forget who saddled taxpayers:
Does today’s Council want their names linked to future failures? It sure looks that way since citizen opinions rarely matter.
Jamie Mathy came up with putting parking meters back. History Jamie, do some research!
You can ALWAYS count on ole Mike M to keep his “union boys” working, no matter how stupid the ideal! Mother Jones would give him a good tongue lashing if she were still alive!!
And Karen Schmidt is STILL on the council, isn’t she?
And Judy, well, built it and they will be taxed!!
I don’t care if you have monkeys who burp “My kind of town” while juggling moon rocks performing on the street corners, you’ll NEVER get people DOWNTOWN unless you have competitive shops with a variety of items. Lawyers, bars and craft galleries are NOT going to cut it!! PLUS you NEED to have FREE parking without the hassle of an ILLEGAL parking patrol.. And ALL the brick streets are not going to change that..
I hear bikes are heading there in droves, they just aren’t seen in the bike lanes.
Good ol’ “Makework Mike”. Let’s knock it down and build it back up to create jobs.The cost doesn’t matter, that’s immaterial you know. Yup, you got it!
Detailed research and analysis…a technique by which many critical decisions are made outside of Bloomington City Hall.
I talked about the current Council’s legacy. Empty Buildings and poverty. That will be their legacy, but they DO NOT CARE!
They will never learn. SSDD
I have said it before but will again a pink flamingos exhibit on the square not only a great quality of life thing but people will swarm to downtown in droves. If we the voters don’t start draining the cesspool in the next election I can only hope my house brings a good price.