Part 2: https://blnnews.com/2019/06/04/normal-part-2/
By: Diane Benjamin
Before Stan Nord and Karyn Smith were elected, Normal’s Council meeting last night would have lasted 3 minutes. There was no business on the agenda to be discussed. A Trustee would have motioned to pass the Omnibus Agenda the others would have fought over who could “second” it the fastest. A vote would have been taken without questions on any items. A couple comments later a motion to adjourn would have been made, seconded, and passed.
Everybody would have patted themselves on the back for “performing”.
Those days are over!
The three minute meeting went on for and hour and 44 minutes. Various members, including Koos, tried to stifle the conversation. Kathleen Lorenz was particularly detestable. She tried to tell the “new” members to sit back and watch for awhile until they see how things are done.
Hint: How things are done got Smith and Nord elected!
Karyn Smith started the discussion by pulling 5 items for the Omnibus Vote Agenda. One of the items was approval of Expenditures. Connect Transit would not have been discussed if she hadn’t even though Public Comment continued to convey the problems. Both cities have an intergovernmental agreement with Connect giving them authority over the transit budget. To date it hasn’t been discusses even though the CT year starts July 1st. Both Karyn and Stan want Issac Thorne at the next meeting – the last one before the new budget goes into effect. Normal’s attorney doesn’t think eliminating a route and raising fees is a major change requiring approval by both towns.
Bloomington and Normal will need to be forced into changing the Connect Transit mission before the needs of riders who must use the bus are met. Anybody want to bet on whether Thorne will be unavailable? It was again pointed out to Chris Koos that Normal is short one representative on the CT Board.
At 40:30 City Manager Pam Reece claims the Olive route CT wants to eliminate only had 8 boardings per hour. She claims the decision to eliminate it is data driven. The April CT report shows boardings per hour for the ENTIRE bus system was 26.31. How is 8 an insignificant number? Did she mean boardings per day? See PDF page 11: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CbmR9DiMsXr6XQ1U_8AaLtGKH9yGbh_x/view
Stan continued the conversation with questions on other expenditures. He mentioned the property tax bills and conveyed Pam Reece found a bill Normal should NOT be paying. She has now forwarded information to get that property marked as exempt. See 51:20. He also pointed out that taxpayer assets are being rented for less than it costs the Town to maintain them. (Remember that $100 a month lease for property on Linden that hasn’t come back to Council?) Stan wants all future rent agreements to cover the Town’s costs.
This would not have happened under the previous Council who rubber-stamped everything!
So many things happened during this meeting it will take 2 stories. Stay tuned for Part 2.
Meanwhile, the video is cued to Public Comment, more on that in the next story too.
I LOVE THIS
How are they going to handle this? Their corrupt rubber stamp got soaked in oil. The “old guard” having to justify expenses and ideas in a manner that doesn’t throw money away; the HORROR. Sounds like the Normal “Friends and Family” package is closed for business.
Normal is lucky that they now have 2 whole council members representing taxpayers. Bloomington only has 1 currently. Pretty soon taxpayers will all be gone and the big spending town councils will only have the poor to lord over.
Then they will have to find new ways to squeeze money from the poor, which I am sure they are already researching. I know one way they have been working on is managing to find enough code violations on older homes owned by people who are already struggling and thus can not afford the repairs to be done by the overpriced people the city approves of so they can get those houses and turn them into city controlled and subsidized apartments. They will also continue to add more and more local taxes on items many people need to buy. I wonder if the dream of the BloNo rulers is to rule over rubble populated by the poor and illegals and simply get all the money they need from the feds/state? Could that be the eventual goal? Of course a few of “them” would remain so that they can have their little get togethers in the “right fit” restaurants and they can also prey upon people passing through or nes having to be here for a couple of days by way of locally added restaurant/entertainment taxes and outrageous hotel rates.
Storming to Conforming to Performing. Is that what was said? Are you kidding me? Wow!!
Diane:
Decided to watch the town meeting. Wow, the push back from the status quo mayor and board members was priceless!
Kevin
From: BlnNews
Reply-To: BlnNews
Date: Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 10:11 AM
To: Kevin May
Subject: [New post] A three minute meeting takes almost 2 hours
Diane Benjamin – editor posted: ” By: Diane Benjamin Before Stan Nord and Karyn Smith were elected, Normal’s Council meeting last night would have lasted 3 minutes. There was no business on the agenda to be discussed. A Trustee would have motioned to pass the Omnibus Agenda th”
The Council literally hates discussing what it’s spending taxpayer money on and is trying to convince Stan and Karyn not to mention it to the public. That in and of itself should be a huge cause for alarm! It’s clear that Koos, Lorenz, & Co. cannot defend their own positions and actions. They’re also terrible at formulating a cogent argument as a result of not being questioned for years. This is fun to watch! They’re both confirming to voters what voters knew to be true last election cycle that is that spending is out of control, priorities are misplaced, and the leadership is taking care of its cronies at the expense of hardworking taxpayers.
The one who is really funny to watch is Preston. He’s so busy flip flopping, you’d think he was running for chair of the McLean County Republicans. On the one hand he votes to allow a 1 minute sign up before the meeting. In part, because he got called out on showing up late to Council meetings. Then in the next vote he votes to limit speakers to only agenda items. Priceless.
Is roll call on the agenda?
Think that’s just part of every meeting.
Fair warning to Nord & Smith: King Koos will only tolerate so much honesty and dissention and he will strike out at you. I can guarantee that ! This idea of questioning expenses will have to stop! By hook or by crook Koos and the gang will stop them.