By: Diane Benjamin
http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=20759
Tari is giving his State of the City address – it will be a can’t miss event! Listen for “Right Fit” and “Structural Deficit”. Of course everything is rosy.
Amelia (let’s move the library) Buragas is being reappointed to the B-N Economic Development Board. Rob (gas taxes don’t raise the price of gas) Fazzini is being appointed to the Public Building Commission.
No this isn’t a misprint:
These laptops plus some other equipment are specifically for the police, but they cost $6,865.00 each. The computers they use now are from 2014.
Details start on PDF page 26.
I wonder if bar owners know something we don’t? Four Liquor Licenses are on the agenda to be transferred to new ownership:
Cheeks Bar and Grille, Baxter’s American Grille, Coppertop Lounge, and Pub 1.
Downtown Bloomington is getting $580,080 worth of Wayfinding signs! PDF page 194
If the signs are being approved Monday, I wonder where this one came from?
Just design of Hamilton Road from Bunn to Commerce Parkway (Phase ll) is costing $558,460.32 PDF page 215.
That’s it! Tari’s message might be longer than the rest of the meeting!
Nice signs… they do look like they would be really expensive. So it is 2019… maybe a phone app with integrated Google street view would make a little more sense? (You are here and this is what is around you) And event calendar and sign up for notification of events in the app? It could also be integrated with beacons for businesses and non-profit facilities to broadcast a notification when people with the app are in the downtown area. All this would be vastly cheaper and actually communicate with the people who have money and may want to spent it downtown. Now all of this uses 21st Century technology that is available right now. Yet we spend 1/2 million dollars on old fashioned signs that sit on the street?
LIke people are going to stand out in the cold and read a sign?? WHO’S the DUMBA** who thought THIS bright ideal up? It has the smell of NORA all over it.
And when ARE THEY GOING TO GET THE STREETS PLOWED??
Haha! What Nora the Explorer and Trish don’t get is that you have to actually travel to Downtown in order to read the signs. So, I’m not sure how this is going to help anyone other than the sign maker and design company. If they want people to go Downtown, the area must have something people want, need, and desire.
Just weighing in on the laptops- Especially if that price includes any service or warranty, that price may not be a ‘great deal’, but it’s about in the ballpark for that type of laptop computer. These need to not only be rugged, but they need to have up-to-date tech to handle current software including the highest security protocols (for obvious reasons). The fact that they are getting 4-5 years out of them is actually impressive. It’s not the “wear and tear”, it’s the fact that after that long, the 4-5 year old tech can’t keep up with the updated software, security patches, etc. (I’ve learned this from my son who is in software engineering.) -Lane
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For a council person to sit on a panel, commission, etc. leaves open the opportunity for
conflicts of interest. Sadly, we have become an “Oh well, so what society”.
“When it gets down to the brass tacks, it’s all about money.” JFK
Amelia’s reappointment to the EDC is to help Tari and the town government maintain undue influence on economic development. She has zero business acumen, believing that the Downtown is the center of commerce (seriously, just ask her) and that government should take the lead when it comes to economic development. Her glasses are rose-colored just like Tari’s. There’s nothing wrong with our local economy, everything is fine.
OK, downtown IS the center of economic activity, if you’re talking about 1900!! Even when I had my paper route there in the 70″s you could OBSERVE the decline then. Kresges and Woolworths leaving or closing, as well as other shops. More lawyers moving in, Making STREETS ONE WAY (which I wish SOMEONE would explain to me WHY they think that will draw people downtown, as they STILL believe that—-is it in some ancient spell book?)
Buildings getting emptied or burned and NOT getting replaced-except by PARKING!
MAybe they should put in bicycle lanes and the cyclists can do victory laps around the museum..
I was here in the 70’s and you are correct. And yes, the one way street thing really caused a lot of grief and kept people from going down there. When they first changed the streets and then the next time I went down there… they had changed them again (some exactly the opposite). Nothing that the city has done in the last 40 years has done anything but accelerate the decline of the downtown area. And now that the downtown area is the walking dead, they want to remake it into the center of economic activity? This is insanity….
You can see the example sign hanging on a building on east street, these were the Dream Big signs that got rejected and then agreed upon in this shape.
Google Earth Link
The Pantagraph ran an article with Renner saying there isn’t enough money for capital improvements. However, in the same article it discusses a few things:
1.) How the surplus was only achieved after increasing taxes/fees, along with budget cuts.
2.) Spending over $500k for signs in addition to nearly $100k already spent on the project. This doesn’t include any staff time already associated with the project.
3.) The city’s debt still owed on the Coliseum – $22 million in outstanding bonds.
What it doesn’t address: pension spiking, which would mean the city would have millions more to spend on capital projects. Now this spending should not include the land Renner wants to buy for “the right fit” developments (aka throwing money down the tubes). Any surplus should be used to either cut taxes/fees back or put towards streets and sewer infrastructure.
You make too much sense for government!
Wow! TJ, that’s so level-headed and rational thinking. Common sense is not so common in government, especially in Bloomington. Like Koos, Renner overspends on frivolous endeavors with a demonstrable history of failure and refuses to stand up to government employees/pensioners, which of course are part of their base and help them both maintain control of the community. The Pantagraph is either too stupid or is politically sympathetic to Renner, likely both, so no need to ask serious, relevant questions. Ironically, because the local softball media is easy on both Renner and Koos, they struggle to rationally debate critics or formulate a cogent policy statement in support of their positions.
Diane, I didn’t see any liquor commission news about the 4 bars transferring ownership. Did that happen?
Yes, no discussion. It was on the consent agenda.