By: Diane Benjamin
It wasn’t that long ago the data pertaining to City functions was available. We used to know what the tax receipts were – now we don’t. We used to know traffic at the library has been declining – now we have no idea. Traffic isn’t included in Library Board reports either.
The City Manager used to print informative monthly reports, transparency is now dead.
This page shows the reports issued now: http://www.cityblm.org/government/advanced-components/documents/-folder-1652
Some of the reports have comparisons with prior years, some don’t. Most of the information is meaningless.
Meanwhile the library is still planning on expanding without any proof they need to – only that they want to.
The library will raise your taxes to do it.
Attacking the poor is what government does!
Raising property taxes will increase rents. Un-affordable housing will become more un-affordable.
It doesn’t matter the citizens have been taxed to death in recent years by ever-increasing taxes.
Below is part of the library’s vision statement: http://www.bloomingtonlibrary.org/about/mission_vision/
To meet our community’s expectations, the library embraces its responsibility to thrive and grow. Mirroring the exponential development of the community, the library will expand its locations, services, collections, and programs. The main library, located downtown, provides the full range of services and will be enhanced by branches and other access points, both physical and virtual.
Where is the “exponential development of the community”?
If the library – and the City Council – agree to yet another tax increase, Bloomington will become more un-affordable.
Living within your means is for citizens, not government. Your money isn’t really yours. They have plans for it. Pay up plebs.
Since the City of Bloomington no longer publishes useful information, are we supposed to assume that info would be bad? If it was great they would print it!
Maybe the 80% who didn’t vote finally will. Until they are decimated by their government they won’t wake up.
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Correction: The stats are published and available in the fiction section! 😉 Haha! Seriously, libraries are a dead business model. The not-so-progressive progressives don’t understand that the information is readily available online at the click of a button. And don’t give me that bs that not everyone has access to the internet. C’mon! Connectivity is very accessible and is about as close to 100% as possible.
I’m very pro-library and feel they Do serve a useful public service. I personally wouldn’t even mind a tax increase or making a donation towards expansion. However, in the current political and economic environment, any such plans should be approached with an acknowledgement of that environment. Unless/until the truly stupid spending like the Coliseum and the Sports Complex are stopped, it would be irresponsible to burden the taxpayers with a ‘nice-to-have’ like a better library.
I guess IF I was desperate I COULD go there and read the Pantagraph, but why do that when I can go to Milner and have one of the best libraries pin the country at my disposal?? Most ANY government document is there since it’s a repository, and their map collection IS the best in the state and one of the best in the country. So WHY go to Withers?? Heck, even Ames is WAY better!
I really don’t get how anyone could think libraries are needed in the Age of Information? As a seriously devoted nerd from an early age (I read the encyclopedias at recess time) I currently have absolutely NO possible reason to physically go into a library. I remember the first time I was able to go to the Library of Congress – what an amazing thing it was and still is! But do I need to go there when I can click here: https://www.loc.gov/collections/ Anyone who thinks we need to expand libraries either has a hidden agenda or they are clueless about the real world.
Library employees and supporters have votes, just like the city garbagemen who want their guaranteed 3% and other city workers who want their pension spiking. You have a huge collection of people who are motivated to vote. It will take a lot of pain, more tax increases, more fee increases, etc. to get enough people to vote the mayor and council out. Normal was very, very close. I hope Tiritilli runs for council, along with a few others in Normal and then he runs for mayor.
If the city population shrinks, will the library shrink?
not a chance . the remaining taxpayers will foot even more of the bill. Just think of the library this way. If it grows then the homeless will have a bigger place to live in, which is what the library is right now, a homeless shelter supported by taxpayer dollars.
The library Is the bellwether…so says Tari’s friend Alex C.
Bellwether has two meanings. First is “a leader.” Second, is “a predictor.” I wonder which definition is more accurate.
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It also means the castrated sheep that leads the other sheep….
Good one, Angela! LOL
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Well Lawrence, I goes some of us still just like the smell of an old “attic dust” book..
Besides, some of the stuff I go to hunt up on the internet, i.e.: books on google, they didn’t get the whole text of. But alas yes, the internet IS a very good place for research.
Still, some books just are not on here.