By: Diane Benjamin The Illinois Department of Employment Security issued the January report last week. The paper did a story, the rest of the media mostly ignored it or didn’t report the numbers. While Peoria gained 4,400 jobs comparing January 2018 and January 2019, Bloomington-Normal LOST 1,600. That is a lot of jobs that no […]
https://www.heritageberwyn.com/notices/Justin-Dodson On Thursday, March 7th, the road rose up to meet Justin Scott Dodson on the next leg of his journey. After battling ALS for 6 tough years, he quietly headed out, at home, in his big chair, with his wife and dog, under his own terms. Justin was a US Army/Iraq war veteran, 100% […]
I’ve wanted to print obituaries for a long time, funeral homes have ignored requests to refer grieving families here. People who lose a loved one shouldn’t get fleeced to get a noticed printed. The only obituaries I will print are ones that people request. These notices will create a digital story that can be shared […]
By: Diane Benjamin The former Normal City Manager isn’t sitting back enjoying retirement on his fat pension, he has a new job: https://www.govhrusa.com/associates/mark-peterson/ Mark is a Vice President for GovHR! Click the link above to see his glowing resume. Quotes: Mark doesn’t mention the still empty first floor of 1 Uptown Circle. He also doesn’t […]
Sent from a reader: Advertising on empty Connect Transit buses paid for by taxpayers: Evidently no local businesses want their name associated with this massive waste of money!
By: Diane Benjamin The participants who disrupted the Dwight City Council meeting want you to believe they are just concerned citizens. They aren’t. The group was nice enough to do a fancy video of them marching through Dwight and commenting in the gym. No, I won’t post the video. The end has a list of […]
By: Diane Benjamin Back in 2015 I did a story with this screen shot from the City website: https://blnnews.com/2015/05/13/karch-what-used-to-be-on-the-website/ Who was Mayor in 2000 when ZERO was spent on roads? Judy Markowitz. Mike Matejka was on the Council, and Tom Hamilton was City Manager. Minutes are not available on the City website. Of course the […]
By: Diane Benjamin The missing event reports from Grossinger Motors Arena have finally been posted. Details here: https://blnnews.com/2019/03/11/more-venuworks-city-fail/ Last year the Bacon and Beer Fest made a profit of $ 12,230.53. 1319 people attended. http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=15976 This year the event was held earlier in the day, attendance dropped to 1166, profit dropped to $ 8,037.07. http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=21322 […]
By: Diane Benjamin I don’t know how many people pay attention to the blathering on WJBC by Forum commentators, but what Matejka said about TIF’s is nothing more than government talking points. Matejka is after all Chris Koos’ good buddy. See what he said here: http://www.wjbc.com/2019/03/13/wjbc-voices-understanding-tif-investments/?fbclid=IwAR12JhuXkWjHND1rhHt_Y0UlUjfoszIG6WStPU9lVKiGpM2KofKlh3_DfII One side note first: It’s great to see Democrats […]
By: Diane Benjamin When Tari ran for re-election in 2017 he promised to fix the streets, he forgot to add one line to his campaign card: Tari created a Gas Tax in 2014 to fix the roads, he raised the Sales Tax in 2015 to fix the roads. NOTHING is being spent on road resurfacing […]
By: Diane Benjamin Tari Renner’s last campaign manager posted a picture of downtown on his Facebook page, Jenn Carrillo decided to share it with added comments: Those are really nice trash containers. Just who are they for? They are on City sidewalks, so the likely intended users are people walking downtown. Do people walking BAG […]
By: Diane Benjamin Previous stories: https://blnnews.com/2019/03/12/radicals-attack-dwight/ https://blnnews.com/2019/03/12/update-to-dwight-story/ Chicago is attempting to spread their far left lunacy across the State. They need support for bailing them out of the corrupt financial mess they put themselves in. Chicago has been completely controlled by Democrats for close to 90 years. If big government and taxing you to death […]
By: Diane Benjmin Follow-up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2019/03/12/radicals-attack-dwight/ I found a way to link to the video of what happened when the City Council voted to go forward with the ICE detention center. The video was posted on the Facebook page for: WCSJ Radio Morris,IL The Voice of Grundy County
See Update too: https://blnnews.com/2019/03/12/update-to-dwight-story/ By: Diane Benjamin I wrote last week about the local Democrat Party selling T-shirts to raise money for buses to Dwight to protest the potential ICE detention facility. https://blnnews.com/2019/03/09/know-what-a-stonewall-democrat-is/ Yesterday Jenn Carrillo, Sonny Garcia, Jeff Crabill and Illinois People’s Action took two buses of radicals to the Dwight City Council meeting. […]
By: Diane Benjamin THREE of your representatives, a full one third, failed to attend this meeting. Mathy, Mwilambwe, and Bray were absent. Of course the ones that did attend acted like it was perfectly normal. Only a few items of note: A guy from Millennium Soccer spoke during Public Comment. (22:50) I was not aware […]
By: Diane Benjamin Keep in mind what the VenuWorks contract says: (No Later Than) PDF page 17 – contract The Kane Brown concert, which was supposedly sold out, was held on February 28. No report is posted: http://www.cityblm.org/government/advanced-components/documents/-folder-1694 The Bacon and Beer festival was held March 2nd, tomorrow will be 10 days. People on Facebook […]
By: Diane Benjamin Since most people don’t even know an election is coming – meet your new representatives. Our Revolution is not about returning to the Constitutional values that made America great. It isn’t about individual responsibility. It is about destroying capitalism. It is Bernie Sander’s ground game for a socialist America. https://ourrevolution.com/press/ Carrillo […]
By: Diane Benjamin The local Democrats shared this on Facebook: Of course they had to pretend the Republicans are the party of the rich, facts don’t matter when talking points to keep the minions uniformed work better. Since democrats don’t bother with history before legislating, Pritzker and crew think the rich will hang around and […]
By: Diane Benjamin Before I answer that question, local democrats and independents need to know the local democrat party is following the same course as the national party – moving so far left it’s difficult to see them as anything but socialists veering straight toward communism Keep in mind, Illinois People’s Action was the group […]
By: Diane Benjamin On the agenda for Monday night is a public hearing on next years budget. PDF page 163 has a brief summary that says next to nothing: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=21243 If you want to see details, go here: http://www.cityblm.org/government/departments/finance/annual-budget Also on the Agenda: PDF page 166: Allowing exceptions to the moratorium on video gaming! The […]
By: Diane Benjamin WGLT, League of Women Voters, and the Pantagraph held a debate last night for 8 of the candidates running for 3 Trustee seats. Write-In candidate, Karl Sila, was not allowed to participate. The audio frequently “blinked” making it a little difficult to listen to, I haven’t listened to the audio at the […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bills and payroll for Monday night: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=21241 6 more employees will be spiking their pensions: This is the penalty for the last group who spiked theirs: The legal budget must be running out of money, this is less than a normal month. I filed a FOIA request for the […]
By: Diane Benjamin I’ve been writing about the Coliseum and the lies media repeats for years! CIAM and VenuWorks created their own financial statements. Every local media uses their numbers and repeats them like gospel. Both can say anything they want in those statements – they create them. Numbers reported by both are not accurate, […]
Part 3 Previous stories: https://blnnews.com/2019/03/04/atlanta-what-you-need-to-know-before-voting/ https://blnnews.com/2019/03/05/more-atlanta-needs-to-know-before-voting/ Did you know… In the “FAQ’s” the Library Trustees claim “…because of objections to our bookkeeping system, the board engaged a professional accounting firm…”. In 2017, the accounting firm charged the Library $1575 to “clean up Quick Books file” and $1600 to “recap Palm’s Grill activity” so that they […]
By: Diane Benjamin A question is on the ballot for Allin Township: This was passed at the December meeting. Read the minutes, does this sound like they NEED the money or just WANT it? See the minutes here: Allin Township Meeting Before you vote, know what the current rate you pay is, […]
By: Diane Benjamin I hear David Shields has lots of nice signs around Normal. The citizens of Normal need to know he will support the Koos agenda: https://illinoissunshine.org/committees/friends-of-chris-koos-32789/ If you want to stop the Uptown agenda that is ignoring the rest of Normal, Shields is not the guy who will do that. I […]
By: Diane Benjamin These people were in downtown Normal yesterday to confront Rodney Davis: This event was put together by Sonny Garcia (Illinois People’s Action) with very little notice, they claim a total of two dozen eventually showed up. Illinois People’s Action, Democrat Socialists of America, and the group below are all tied together by […]
Downtown Bloomington:
By: Diane Benjamin The WGLT story about last night’s Normal Town Council meeting doesn’t mention RC McBride voted for the water rate increase: http://www.wglt.org/post/water-fee-increase-solar-group-buy-making-repeat-appearances-normal Readers are left to surmise he did. This one is worse: I reported this story back on February 28: https://blnnews.com/2019/02/28/ag-investigating-town-of-normal-again/ WJBC reported it on March 4: http://www.wjbc.com/2019/03/04/normal-mayor-probed-for-alleged-open-meetings-act-violations/?fbclid=IwAR0mVvQsAVBRPrRVSWllpx_YPGc2YvMk0iHXYXWS0AWvxrBG0FXLxYbmvCg The […]
By: Diane Benjamin Follow up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2019/02/02/bcpa-reports-mirror-coliseum/ Facts: The BCPA belongs to the citizens of Bloomington – not the City The BCPA is a WANT, not a need The BCPA has zero transparency unless I FOIA reports The BCPA doesn’t come close to breaking even NONE of the February event reports have been […]
By: Diane Benjamin Did you know… The Library Trustees have stated numerous times they have never done anything wrong. The IL Dept of Revenue would disagree. While under the management of the Library Trustees, the IDOR found that Palm’s Grill filed multiple understated sales tax reports. What does that mean? The Palm’s Grill was caught […]
By: Diane Benjamin Even if you believe in man-made climate change, the facts presented in the story below should make it clear Illinois is not using any logic in their goal of all renewable energy by 2050: https://www.bnd.com/news/politics-government/article227067919.html All they will accomplish is making electricity un-affordable. Full disclosure: I believe this is a hoax to […]
By: Diane Benjamin (I’m not having a good day and tomorrow won’t be any better!) Water Rate documentation for tonight: PDF page 72: http://www.normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3230 Back when Normal wasn’t afraid of transparency, they posted the history of rates citizens pay for essential services. Luckily, I copied them: https://blnnews.com/2012/05/30/normal-il-what-is-up-with-the-debt/ Water rates in 2009 were: $4.95 per 1000 […]
By: Diane Benjamin Did you know… In the Library Trustee’s “FAQ’s”, they state the liquor commission “…confirmed that the district does not violate any state liquor law by offering complimentary wine.” Will they provide documentation to that effect? Probably not. A FOIA sent to the Illinois Liquor Commission requesting all documents and findings pertaining to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Ward 8 has 2 candidates to pick from: Crabill has extreme leftists ideas which will lead to you paying more taxes. He believes in the collective – as long as he gets to define what that means. Crabill thinks corporations should pay higher taxes. He doesn’t understand the taxes paid by corporations […]
The democrats had threatened to cancel hearings on these two bills. Evidently they didn’t. The Witness Slips are overwhelmingly opposed. Will the Democrats listen? The rag has a story on these bills in the paper today. The print edition article is titled: Illinois Abortion Bill Likely To Pass. The on-line story has a […]
By: Diane Benjamin Jim Karch has posted a list of the streets that are going to be resurfaced in the new budget. You can see a map and the list here: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=21169 Get ready for a shock – Hershey isn’t on list. Neither is Prospect which is getting as bad as Hershey. Most of […]
