By: Diane Benjamin
The video below is from the cell phone video by Angela Scott of the Black-Sage-Schmidt Town hall held January 9, 2018 at the BCPA. I go to meetings to listen, but I ended up talking anyway.
The City of Bloomington claims to be doing priority based budgeting, but their priorities aren’t the priorities of the citizens. Demands to fix the roads have been the number one citizen priority for years. Roads are not the priority of the City of Bloomington!
The ONLY money spent on roads is 1/4% of the recently raised Sales Tax and the taxes raised from the also increased Motor Fuel Tax. That means the City is only using taxes they increased to fund the roads. Jim Karch has been saying for years he needs $8 million a year to get all the roads rated at least poor. This year he got $3.8 million.
It’s difficult to hear Karen Schmidt’s response to what I said, but toward the end she stops and asks City staff if I am correct about the $3.8 million. You can hear her say “I stand corrected”.
How can the Council pass a budget when they don’t know where money is spent?
How can the Council claim to do priority based budgeting when the priorities have never been stated?
Until roads are a priority your roads will never be fixed! I’m sure the Council will happily increase taxes or borrow for roads. So far we can’t get and answer to one question: Are the above taxes being used to pay the $10,000,000 bond for roads borrowed a few years ago? Only 10 miles of the more than 300 in the City were resurfaced this year.
This is a TWO minute video! Please watch it.
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They also have no idea how much they spent in n Downtown Bloomington this year. The difference is Sage has consistently voted NO for mor spending downtown while Scott and Karen have voted spend, spend, spend AND SCOTT BLACK IS PROUD OF HIS TAC INCREASES. He said it, I asked him if he is really proud of that? And he stood by it.
Snotty Scotty is a close ally of Tari and loves higher taxes and bigger government. I believe he was trying to encourage people to take their bikes to work every day…because, of course, he doesn’t have any kids and doesn’t understand the impracticality of this. I’m sure he’ll be traveling by bike to work this week. Not!
Sage is running for re-election.
TERM LIMITS by vote!
Who is or has voted for term limits?
Nobody – the voters need to impose them
It is my understanding that the Local Motor Fuel tax is to pay for the $10M bond issued for rial resurfacing and sidewalk repair. It is a Federal mandate that every time a road is resurfaced, the ADA tamp has to be replaced. $10M doesn’t go very far. Total revenue is flat or declining, usage is declining which means less for roads. But, there is money for buying land Downtown.
Sage looks like a spendthrift now but he has been in the Council for almost a decade. He is just as responsible for the City’s fiscal woes as the rest of them.
The roads are even worse now with the hard freezes and plow trucks running on them. There are potholes littering almost every street.
Any spending less than $8 million a year will make them worse.
The busses cause more wear and tear as well.
Even empty? Ha Ha
No question about it, we do have prioritized budgeting in local government. Our local governments have misplaced priorities.
Traveler: Hey I was staying out at a motel on West Market Street and thought I’d check out downtown Bloomington. OMG you people, the road to downtown is horrible filled with potholes and bumps. Is this one of the sh**holes Trump was talking about?
Citizen: Well not exactly but yeah our roads are bad all over but,,,,gee, you might be on to something.
Actually many sh**hole countries have smoother dirt roads than the pothole and crumbling roads in B-N. Think W. Market, Mercer Ave., Veterans Parkway, Center Street, etc. OMG they’re everywhere!