By: Diane Benjamin
Last year the Town of Normal gave away $50,000 and called it Harmon Arts Grants. They are currently taking applications for this year: http://www.normal.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1739
The announcement says the decisions will be made by the Harmon Arts Grant Committee. There is nothing on the Town website saying who is on the committee, so some group is deciding who deserves some of your tax money – we just don’t know who.
PDF page 45: http://www.normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/2899
On March 1st Normal voted to quit paying for the recycle drop-off locations in order to save $138,000. How many votes do Harmon Arts Grants garner compared to recycling drop off locations?
Normal had just passed a recycling ordinance that made MANDATORY recycling possible. Priorities?
These are last year’s Harmon Arts Grant winners:
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Wow! Spread some taxpayer money around to a dozen or so groups to buy some votes, and cloak it in “investing in the arts and culture”. What a racket! So nice of us taxpayers to fund the Democratic Party of Normal’s get out the vote initiative. Has anyone ever noticed how much the arts are dependant upon government? Virtually none of these groups can stand on their own without handouts. Makes you wonder if they’re truly providing a product or service that people want, need, or desire.
I greatly prefer the traditional private patronage system to support “The Arts” if you are truly good, talented or doing some good, someone will foot some bills for you – I truly resent supporting things I couldn’t care less about. Also one would think that the University could fully fund the University gallery – wouldn’t you think? I mean seriously what could they possibly need? Grants are a very murky and not well understood part of the swamp, and while some grants actually do some good and are legit, many are NOT, at all. One only needs to look at all of the at least partially government supported “art galleries” around here to see the not so good in action.
Going to the council with questions! That $50k and travel to conferences buys mosy of our recycling back. Wants vs needs. Spread the graf around or serve your constituents. We see what they did. Vote them all out!
Any gift of tax miney to the YWCA should be illegal. They basically tried to take Karen Schmidt out and are responsible for the Jenn Forward campaign. If that’s not supporting a specific candidate I don’t know what is.
Can’t say I’ve noticed Schmidt standing up for anything but dumb liberal causes for years so perhaps it will be somewhat amusing to watch the the in fighting. This is Tari’s council and don’t you forget it!
I predict Jaren doesn’t run again
If Schmidt doesn’t run, Lil’ Jenn might win by default. God save us all.
I’ve been wondering if Karen will simply step down to avoid the headache. If you’re on the Council, you either support Tari or be prepared to endure his veiled threats, verbal abuse, and manipulation. Again, no sane people running for City Council. What a shock! WHo wants to deal with Tari?! Seems to me that Tari’s plan is working.
I don’t support tax dollars going to fund any non-governmental organization. Who chooses these groups over others and why?
And to top it all off, giving tax dollars to the YWCA….that is truly a knife in the back.
The non-profits have a large number of voters. Our dear leaders support their ideology and get out the vote with taxpayer money. It’s such a racket.