By: Diane Benjamin
If you missed Tari’s State of the City address last Monday you can see my recap and listen to it here: https://blnnews.com/2019/01/15/taris-state-of-the-city/
Recycling his talking points, Tari once again proclaimed the Illinois Policy Institute “continues” to give the City an A+ transparency score.
Disregarding IPI discontinued the program in 2014, their transparency scores were based on what information is available on websites. It has ZERO to do with how accountable government is to citizens. Tari always leaves that part out.
Now there is proof Bloomington is far less than transparent!
The Better Government Association (Illinois’ non-partisan Full-Service Watchdog) recently completed a study on how frequently government agencies violate the Freedom of Information Act and the Open Meetings Act. They used data from the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access cases.
I’ve written many times about Public Access and their inability to comply with the law, the report only slightly mentions that. This section is the most interesting:
Top 14 offenders: Public bodies that wrongly used exemptions to deny records
Illinois has 6963 public bodies, so being in the top 14 proves the law is really immaterial to these 14. Keep in mind the results only show FOIA requests appealed to Public Access. If a person denied records didn’t appeal, that denial of records is not included.
What did they find?
Percentage of FOIA violations:
Bloomington is less transparent than the Governor’s Office!
Many on the list are from Chicago.
This report proves Bloomington corruption now rivals Chicago while Tari pretends Bloomington is transparent.
Bloomington’s documents belong to the people who paid for them: taxpayers.
The citizens of Bloomington should be outraged you are on this list.
Tari wanted a “culture change” when he first took office. Evidently that meant laws are immaterial, you aren’t entitled to documents, and government For and By the People is passe.
See the entire report here: Illinois law hasn’t stopped public agencies from withholding records
One more note: Illinois has more government bodies than any other state. Voters failed to get rid of one when you had the chance – the Bloomington Election Commission. Illinois corruption will never end when thousands of fiefdoms are allowed to exist.
Deceive to achieve = Tari Renner.
WOW! This is GREAT! I thought reading history was fun, but this beats the heck outta that! These guys make Ivan the Terrible look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm. Now I KNOW why the Pantagraph is losing subscribers-It’s the WRONG fit! (to borrow a well oiled phrase) We should ALL be getting and READING the TYOMIES instead! Are you WITH me COMRADES??
Maybe Tari will offer FREE copies of TYOMIES to people who attend HIS open house..
One bright spot. For the time being the most corrupt city in the nation East St Louis is ranked ahead of Bloomington.
Only 3 cities made the list and one department from Chicago. That means Bloomington is among the top 4 most corrupt cities in Illinois. Celebrate now.
What does each of these three cities have in common? I’ll give everyone a second to think about that.
How do they get away with it? Oh wait, they use taxpayer money to harm those they are meant to serve. This way taxpayers can’t afford to fight back in the corrupt court systems…isn’t one of Tari Renner’s attorney’s a new judge in McLean County? I was with that attorney when the District 87 Superintendint if schools told him he was young and didn’t understand how things worked around here. Obviously that young lawyer understands just fine. I just don’t believe in justice anymore.
Justice = just us,,,for them. 🙁 The rule of law has become a joke.
I believe that there is support to abolish the Bloomington Election Commission (BEC), and the main issue was the poorly worded referendum. We should plan to put it on the ballot again. With more voter education, this should easily pass in our area.
It was badly worded but they had to so it didn’t appear partisan.
Just wait , when King Tari’s liberal court jesters get seated on the Council that ranking will go higher and the quality of life in Bloomington will go lower!