By: Diane Benjamin
Faulty planning forced the citizens of Bloomington to pay for a Fire Station that has NEVER been used. Tom Hamilton thought Mitsubishi would bring another 10-12000 people to the southwest side of town. He guessed wrong and wasted millions of dollars!
From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_planning
The most notable critique of economic planning came from Austrian economists Friedrich Hayekand Ludwig von Mises. Hayek argued that central planners could not possibly accrue the necessary information to formulate an effective plan for production because they are not exposed to the rapid changes in the particular time and place that take place in an economy, and are unfamiliar with these circumstances. The process of transmitting all the necessary information to planners is therefore inefficient.
Proponents of decentralized economic planning have also criticized central economic planning. For example, Leon Trotsky believed that central planners, regardless of their intellectual capacity, operated without the input and participation of the millions of people who participate in the economy, and would therefore be unable to respond to local conditions quickly enough to effectively coordinate all economic activity.
Both the left and the right admit it doesn’t work!
Don’t ever forget that Bloomington’s Comprehensive Plan originated with the failed “Bring It On Bloomington” survey that fell far short of the participants they wanted: Bring-It-On-Bloomington-Flops
If the council in 2014 had any integrity, the results would have been rejected. Instead, all the Master Plans below followed. It would be very difficult to say how much taxpayers paid for these plans, I would expect the total to be at least a million. What these plans do is make it impossible to respond to changing conditions. Very few bikes in the bike lanes? The plans call for “complete streets”, so new bike lanes will continue to be built instead of just fixing the roads. Downtown actually gets worse every year, especially after State Farm left, but the Master Plan claims downtown is the future so spending continues unabated.
Tuesday night the Bloomington council is going to hear the latest Parks Master Plan. It doesn’t matter it was revised in 2010:
2010 Parks Master Plan https://blnnews.com/2017/01/16/how-much-did-the-last-parks-plan-cost/
The new plan cost taxpayers $114,999. I wrote about it in October of 2017. It was appalling then and even worse reading it now: https://blnnews.com/2017/10/22/can-the-council-read/
The report is 199 pages (evidently) meant to correct the opinion of the 86% who were already satisfied with what they had before the report. http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=20825
Bloomington is run by people who want your money to control your life. They consider themselves a lot smarter than you. The Master Plans only exist to achieve that goal.
At every meeting somebody mentions whatever they are discussing fits the Master Plan.
Nobody ever mentions it doesn’t make sense. The PLAN is all that matters.
It won’t be getting any better anytime soon.
Why isn’t the Citizenry of Bloomington outraged ? Is apathy a contagious disease ?
When Tari got re-elected it became too late. He has everything stacked now.
We are. It’s just that most of us left (or have plans to leave). Personally, I felt that few, if any, in local government or private sector leadership cared for the citizens. The productive members of society are and have been leaving Bloomington for some time, especially within the last couple of years. Those that can leave, will leave. Those that can’t, well…not sure you want many of them to influence and shape Bloomington. It’s sad. Glad I left, but sad for those that have not. I’m even sadder for those that don’t realize (or refuse to acknowledge) just how dire the economic fundamentals of Bloomington are.
The best master plan is the one that includes ONLY the purposes for which a city council was originally created, like security and sewer and streets and water!!!
John P. Brown
It’s ironic the progressives don’t like their master plan to progress.
Hopefully the new Illinois A.G. will do a better job than Mike Madigan’s daughter did.
Don’t count on it
wishful thinking!
Master “plans” Consultants, UPTOWN, Comprehensive Plans, B.I.O.B. Bicycle lanes, Green Space. Downtown “2.0” ALL this CRAP is just Mumbo Jumbo for the “knckleheads that THINK they are doing a good of running things, to make US believe they are doing a GREAT job. In REALITY the WHOLE of them probably could NOT escape a convertible with the top down.
WHAT kind of IDIOT SIGNS OFF on a fire station that NEVER gets used? The same for some Lame Brain who builds a Water Tower too short so that it don’t get proper pressure! I STILL find this just MIND BOGGLING as it’s pretty much Hydrology 100… A simpleton could look look it up on a computer, but to BUILD the darn thing.
And THEY keep coming up with NEW dumb and idiotic ideals that they want to spend OUR money on and have us BELIEVE they are doing a good job?? For GOD’S sake… ENOUGH
Fix the streets, we’ve only had 2 snows basically, and they already have potholes you could break an axle in. That’s NOT to mention the sewers, etc.
LESS studies and MORE action LOCALLY.
And don’t even get me going on the “Way finding signs” Which they got in Springfield!
“Master Plans” never work. Ask any Movie, TV or real life historical villain.
Communist economies are great at Master Plans. That’s why, in the old Soviet Union, janitors used girl’s dresses for rags. Central planning made them less expensive. Also, why ball point pens were so highly priced as gifts from Westerner tourists. Almost unobtainable. Do you remember that Professor Tari? Ocasio Cortez? JD?
Locally and statewide, you are witnessing the SYSTEMATIC Left wing destruction of our Society. Coming nationwide within 4-8 years.
The ONLY thing that REALLY seems to have worked for the communists was when they built a building! Then they KNEW how to do it, how long it would take, and WHAT mistakes they had made. Then they would rectify the mistakes, figure out HOW to do it quicker, cheaper, etc and built a whole ROW of them.. This can be seen in most ANY former Soviet Bloc country.. Rows of buildings that look alike, with the SAME floor plan.. They are depressing and bland..
Central planning never works, ever. Locally, is there anything that would suggest the “leadership” of the City of Bloomington has ever been successful with economic planning? Anyone that believes Downtown Bloomington is the center of commerce in Bloomington (ahem…Tari, Amelia, Jamie) cannot be taken seriously. What a joke! Do they even register as 0.5% of local GDP yet? By the way, does the master plan take into account what will happen with State Farm? Of course not. They carefully danced around that in their analysis. There were no plans for diversifying the local economy, but plenty of plans to grow government and plan your life for you. This is not going to end well.
I have a fairly easy master plan ! FOR THE PEOPLE should be the first and ONLY words in it!
OK… let’s talk about master plans. I am reminded of a lyric from John Lennon’s last album. “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans”. In the 21st Century, what happens to municipalities and economies is not something that can be predicted or planned for in any way. We are in an age of exponential technological change that is altering our world daily in ways that can’t be predicted or prepared for.
The people who are running our municipalities (as well as the business leadership) are operating in a world that no longer exists. They are 20th Century people trying to solve 21st Century problems. They will never be successful because they start with a 20th Century notion that government can somehow create micro-economic successful outcomes by the government physically creating environments for these micro-economic systems to grow. Even if this would be possible in the 21st Century, the rate of technological change would make even the best laid plan obsolete before it was complete.
Does government and business leadership have a role in creating economic development? Yes of course. We see it happening all across the country in cities with smart visionary leadership. Creating economic development requires macro economic policies like lower taxation and less regulation. It requires business leadership that is also smart and visionary.
So we have in our towns, leadership that loves to create “plans” that are fundamentally flawed in their premise, that government can build infrastructure that grows micro-economies. They of course love retail establishments. In the age of thousands of retail businesses closing across the country, building a multi-million dollar building (with tax payer money) for a few retail shops and some apartments, somehow makes sense to them? And our business leadership goes along with any and all of the anti-business antiquated 20th Century policies and ideas coming out of the local governments?
I will conclude with a lyric from Frank Zappa (musical genius and social commentator): “There is no way to delay, that trouble coming every day” to Bloomington Normal.
Downtown Streetscape Lighting Master Plan? What are we smoking to come up with the idea that downtown Bloomington has a streetscape that is worthy of or needs to be the subject of an illumination plan? Really? They are called street lights…. what else is needed to show off the beauty of downtown Bloomington? Glitter balls? Strobe lights? Laser beams?
The Christmas lights were childish at best
I agree…. Downtown Bloomington is a dump…. a pig with shiny lights is still a pig…. what happens to the downtown happens… it is not worth “saving” or worrying about. We can start worrying about what is going to happen once State Farm and ISU begin to swirl down the drain, as they become disrupted by technology and their inability to change. But then State Farm will always be here right? Just like countless other companies in the United States that are now lines in the history books. And how could Illinois State University ever be gone, right? What in 1857 it started and it is going to be herding students into classrooms forever, in-spite the fact that they have priced themselves out of their own market and helped put an entire generation in lifelong debt for degrees that are not needed in a 21st Century economy.
Given the seriousness of the area’s impending economic downfall, this list of master plans should be held up as evidence that the administration and leadership in Bloomington should be certified insane.
Bikes lanes and increased funding for empty buses prove that!