By: Diane Benjamin
Ryburn is the lady who got the sweet Koos deal to live at the old Sprague’s Gas Station on Pine Street in Normal. See this story for more details: https://blnnews.com/2018/01/07/sweet-deal-for-koos-buddy/
This email was included in the latest FOIA – this building will continue to cost taxpayers money:
Another email referenced a visitor report Ryburn submits to the Town. Instead of obtaining information to justify the taxpayer investment, like sales generated, only the visitor count is included.
I FOIA’d past reports and received the below. The shop isn’t open in January and February. Since people usually travel in groups, it doesn’t look like parking will ever be a problem.
At one time Uptown Girl, Cheryl Gaines was going to drive a trolley between this place and Uptown. Not sure whatever happened to those plans, but that would certainly alleviate the parking problems.
If there’s any bright spot to any of this, at least Terri recognizes that $19,000 is a lot of money. Glad she noticed that, but it still doesn’t stop her from bilking the town of Normal for it. She and Her Majesty Queen Pamela will get it all worked out when Terri has her audience with the Queen on a Monday or Tuesday. Maybe the taxpayers will recover the funds through Terri’s rent payments to the town of Normal. That will be year 2177 if anybody’s paying attention. I think she’ll be dead by then.
Of all the things Normal’s done, this one infuriates me the most. And look at this pathetic letter. “Please help me fix my garage, I want it to be an event space for the 18 people who come here a day.” I’d never think to as the govt for money…let alone begging like this.
This ongoing situation is preposterous. What is so very sad is the fact that most people just don’t care.
Normalites are a flock of sheep who are constantly being fleeced.
An old song from the 60’s “I’m in with the in crowd” is being sung, whistled, and hummed by a choir of politicos and bureaucrats from Chicago to Springfield, and we are right in the middle, and the taxpayers just listen and tap their feet.
Yup. As an outsider and now expatriate of BN who has lived in many places across this great country, I can say with little reservation that the community (God love it) is full of lemmings with no real convictions who ultimately appeal to authority in government and other institutions for permission and validation. The Ryburn and other deals in BN tried anywhere else would be dead on arrival or more likely never dare attempted at all.
Ryburn is just another BN poster girl and/or boy that figured that being a professional “layabout” was about as good as it gets. Several current and former “business owners” that populate and have populated old business district locations figured this out too. Really 1960’s revolutionary bums that spent time on local campuses causing trouble they later decided to “start a business” with limited hours that allowed them to sleep late and knock off early so they could still live like they were 21. Both towns are still full of them. They gain their legitimacy in the community by volunteering for oversight boards, become part-time community activists or get a part-time gig at a bike shop or elsewhere that is run by someone with a recognizable name I bet that BN has more phonies per square mile than a lot of communities its size.
This is nothing short of a disaster. Either Koos is incredibly stupid or he knew this was never going to work. Wonder if he runs his bike shop with the same metrics i.e. success is based on the number of people merely entering the store. Of course not! Retailers know that while foot traffic is good, what really counts is ringing the register and guarding those narrow profit margins so common to the retail sector. It’s highly likely that daily sales figures are in the $100s if that. So, the powers that be use visitor count to avoid talking dollars and cents (and “sense,” as in common).
Just part and parcel of the unwritten agreement between ISU and Koos taking care of each other. Think “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.”
For March 2018, I highly doubt there were 24 international citizens from 24 different countries. It would be great if a new council came in and said “No more.” She gets what Koos and Co. took away from worthwhile taxpayer items but no more! Too bad roads, infrastructure, and worthwhile business ventures are not in the ‘Friends of Koos’ bucket.
If you think Terri Ryburn is bad when she retired years back from Illinois State University as their Deputy Director she made sure her little brother Benny got that position and the unethical things he got by with thanks to Chuck Scott the Executive Director who ALWAYS covered up for him makes this look small!