By: Diane Benjamin
At last night’s Bloomington Committee of the Whole meeting Tari lost his ability to appoint anyone he wants to Boards and Commissions without review by the Council before a name is put on the agenda. The Council didn’t vote, but the consensus was the Council needs to know names before notice is sent to the appointee. Jenn Carrillo was also clipped since the rumor is a “friend” of hers caused the kerfuffle in the first place.
Tari continues to claim he has to appoint 300 people to Boards and Commissions. See this link: http://www.cityblm.org/government/boards-commissions
I count 129. Several have a link that has been disabled, that might add a few. The Downtown Task Force is out of business. Tari: Where do you get 300?
Side note: Changing the titles of alderman causes most members, especially Tari, to stumble when trying to interact with the others. How about everybody acts like real people and use first names instead of a meaningless title?
The Council spent the next hour and 20 minutes trying to decide the direction for video gaming. Living dangerously since making decisions is difficult, the council was given three options:
The current moratorium on new machines expires in September. Things people might know or might not:
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- If you buy a business with a liquor license it doesn’t mean it will pass to you
- Ditto for video gaming
- Joni Painter is the morality police
- Gay Pride month is over but Jenn still has her flag.
Donna Boelen thinks laws should apply to everyone. She isn’t in favor of a moratorium on new businesses while allowing older ones to have the machines See 1:33;00
It was really hard to say what they agreed on except they didn’t agree. A 3-person group will be formed to hash out details and bring them back to Council. It appeared most members were in favor of the first option with lots of strings attached.
Kim Bray attended the meeting by phone. I couldn’t understand a lot of what she said which isn’t good because usually she can coalesce council thoughts into something resembling consensuses.
Marijuana was barely mentioned.
Joni Painter wants to extend the moratorium. Just hit play to hear her read her statement: (1:15:34)
WHAT? Tari with NOTHING to say?? That would be a KODAK moment! I hope Tari and Jen BOTH get their wings clipped so far back . that they NEVER think about flying over peoples heads AGAIN!
NOT surprising that the mayor and council CANNOT or WILL NOT get things done, as they have NO DIRECTION, and they seem to be HAPPY lost in the forrest..
Watch closely.Some interesting interaction between the mayor and a new council person.
Yes Koos got burned badly so now he is striking out with a new set of BS to deflect. Koos lied about the lack of Connect Transit board member interest, so I believe his attack on Nord is nothing more than another lie, The actions of a desperate man on the Titanic. Of course the Pantygraph bought in 100% and to prove their bias Captain B(l)eigh the writer did not allow comment to the story. What a douche,.
This may or may not be off topic, but this Country has ONE FLAG and it has Fifty Stars and Thirteen Stripes. Now I see what appears to be another Country’s flag or might be a Flag for another civic organization, on a Councilman’s desk. I guess I could understand a one time statement of support, but you are an elected United States Citizen to a position of Leadership and what you are showing is not Leadership but insults to this Country’s flag that has gallons of American Blood on it. I suggest you have a discussion to make and you need to look yourself in the eye in a mirror and decide which Country you wish to represent. If it is not this one, you need to resign, TODAY!
It’s interesting when Painter talks about people getting benefits that others don’t and how that is unfair. Yet she routinely votes to do so for city employees , Tari’s friends/associates getting special deals, etc. It seems like picking winners and losers is only an issue if Painter doesn’t like it.
Her hypocrisy continues as she is against VGTs but then wants to give them to Parkview because they expect them and built a nice place. She and others only seem to hold their values when it doesn’t hurt someone that is in their preferred group. So if they relied on these, so did other businesses who expected to transfer the licenses, right?
Painter also says the VGTs are regressive. What about other regressive taxes and fees she has voted for and supported? She has no problem raising taxes and fees and then raising them more when they redirect the money elsewhere.
It goes further a