By: Diane Benjamin
Some angry citizens of Normal appeared at Public Comment asking the Trustees to at least investigate moving the proposed fire station to a different corner. Staff had spent too much time to backtrack, they voted to proceed with “the plan” as presented anyway. Kathleen Lorenz and Scott Preston voted against it. One speaker claimed the people she represented would show up at the April election. I hope she meant it. RC McBride should be gone not only for his vote but because he is part of the media who will spin what really happened. Council candidate Stan Nord also spoke, a business guy with common sense is badly needed.
Many references were made by trustees to the Comprehensive Plan. Normal has the same problem Bloomington does, the “Plan” is all that matters. The “Plan” is infallible and must be followed. The Planning Commission (with member Mike Matejka) had already approved the plan even though one person stated up to 50 citizens had attended their meetings asking for the station to be moved.
The Town of Normal evidently never investigated the costs of simply moving the station to vacant commercial property across the street. An attempt to delay the vote by Kathleen Lorenz so it could be investigated failed. One citizen claimed the current plan is developer driven. Gee, they all are.
Chris Koos was absent, I believe Jeff Fritzen claimed he was in Washington DC.
Marc Tiritilli spoke first. He mentioned the Dan Brady/Rodney Davis lease of a building in Uptown for $2. The taxpayers of Normal are forced to subsidize their offices, nobody on the council pulled it from the agenda for discussion. Demand for space in Uptown must be non-existent.
Jeff Fritzen was the acting mayor. If found him hilarious when he mentioned if the Town had listened to citizens Uptown and Constitution Trail would never have been built. Jeff, I can think of a lot of citizens who wish they weren’t more than $80,000,000 in debt and taxes hadn’t been raised on everything while revenues are precarious. Worse, Normal isn’t done. Was Koos in DC begging for money again?
Taxpayers of Normal should watch their fellow citizens – just hit play:
Koos is currently out in DC for the Conference of Mayors. He’s definitely out there to kiss butt and beg for money for the ridiculous underpass project. He’s also probably out there to hang with Tari and drink on tax payer dime. I don’t really understand how the Mayor can even be out there when the government is closed. I’m pretty sure that any members of congress (as worthless as they all are) have better things to do during the shutdown than to meet with Mayors. To me it’s just a huge waste.
Tari was at his meeting last night. Maybe he flew out after.
Good point Mike, that $14m+ uptown pedestrian underpass-to-new-library plan isn’t dead, it has always been festering below the surface. No surprise that Koos will make a final push for it as his crowning achievement of “vision”
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Rainbows everywhere! I don’t think I WANT TO KNOW what they’re doing out there. It’s most likely NOT constructive..
Wonder If Mike Matejka LISTENED to his “World Godly Liberal Transmissions station this a.m. and their LONG story about HOW the MAGA hat kids from Kentucky were wrongly accused, and the footage was shot from a bad angle and the original posting account HAS BEEN CLOSED, and MOST LIKELY has RUSSIAN links.. Hear that MIKE-RUSSIAN. And YOU bought into it. Being somewhat of an epicurean I like different foods, but how does crow taste Mike?
I simply don’t understand how a supposedly pro-union guy like Mike Matejka also supports illegal immigration that works as cheap labor. Any of you union folks out there got an answer to that, I’d like to hear it.
Not a Union person……But – Not a problem here! All you need to to do is implement a $15.00 minimum wage and the world’s problems are solved.
It is very frustrating the town refused to accommodate a small request, of their own citizens, and take the effort to ask the other property owners if they would sell and how much? Their entire premise is based on the town’s assumption no one would sell reasonably, not even fact. At one point, everyone assumed the earth was flat.
Jeff Fritzen’s lack of respect for citizens is appalling. He’s long overdue for retirement.
Everything on the agenda has already been passed in backroom discussions. The only variables are how many citizens bother to speak out against them and whose turn it is to make the token ‘no’ votes.
We need to get Stan, maybe Karyn*, and hopefully somebody else worthwhile in there so either things will change or people will notice that Everything passes 4-3.
* I did some looking into the 8 candidates on the ballot. A short summary of my findings is is four are there to represent the elites (though Joel seems less bad than the others), one is there to represent the Mexicans, one is there to represent the special needs community, and one is there to ensure the elites keep the blacks and other minorities in their place, poor and voting for their leftist/Dem plantation masters. And Stan who wants to actually represent the citizens of Normal. Karyn is the ‘special needs’ candidate, but complains about the current fiscal irresponsibility and has a financial background, putting her well ahead of all but Stan imo.