By: Diane Benjamin
During the recent 2 day Normal Council meeting with Lyle Sumek they used a workbook. I FOIA’d this year’s and last years. So far I haven’t made it past page 12 of the current one. (It’s 334 pages long!)
Section 1 Normal – A Championship Team
(Lyle’s name, not mine)
This section attempts to explain how a “champion team” is created, as opposed to losers, competitive, and mere winners.
It is obvious Sumek believes government can create prosperity with the right plan and everybody believing in the plan. In his world “limited government” doesn’t exist.
Limited government is how the American system was originally designed. We were founded to govern ourselves, not be told how to live by bureaucrats who change with the wind and elections. Massive government debt wouldn’t exist if limited government kept whoever is in power from gambling with your money. They also couldn’t constantly take more of it whenever they felt the need.
Who told Normal they could buy properties, tear them down, and give them away to developers? Nobody did and nobody stopped them. Uptown wouldn’t exist if left to the free markets, Koos and company had to buy developers – and they used your money to do it,
That brings me to page 12:
The Normal Town Council “planned the Plan”. They continue to plan with the underpass grant. They don’t care what you think, they have a plan.
If that isn’t enough – consider the Public comment policy.
Normal knows limiting it to items on the agenda is illegal, it shows pure arrogance to not change it. “Technical difficulties” filming public comment at the last meeting further prove arrogance. Several people present at the meeting believe it was on purpose. When signing up used to be hours in advance, magically people would show up to support the Town’s viewpoint. Again, not an accident, Maybe Koos didn’t want his buddy Dave Shields on video supporting raising the property tax rate.
More arrogance is exhibited via Connect Transit. Koos refused to appoint any of the many people who applied for the long vacant seat on their Board. His world is all about “control”. None of those people were his “right fit”. Add the “fixed” task force and huge empty buses will continue to roam the streets not serving the people that need served.
Next add the Blackstone Trails fire station. Residents submitted a petition asking the Town to move it. They were ignored.
$4000 artwork, carriage rides, extensive travel – need I say more?
This list is endless, I wonder if the Council saw themselves as arrogant or are just too arrogant to realize it?
I heard from a guy present last Monday Stan Nord was the only Council person looking at and listening to the 7 speakers.
Pretty obvious why Stan is on the Council and Dave Shield isn’t.
Calling one’s “town” UPTOWN, isn’t ARROGANT either..
The name change to Uptown speaks volumes about not only their arrogance but their perverted vision of what they thought downtown Normal needed to become. Gone is the real downtown Normal which has been replaced by a hip Upscale (Uptown) Normal designed to appeal to and attract rich Chicago students and their parents. These jokers borrowed 100 million dollars to destroy downtown Normal and build an ISU marketing destination in an attempt to keep enrollment numbers high. Downtown Normal is no longer a place for the citizens of Normal or Bloomington. It is a tourist location designed to separate students and their parents from their money.
This morning on Pantagraph.com there was an article titled “Normal wants to hear from you as it updates its bicycle, pedestrian master plan”. The public comments to the article were turned off. Pretty convenient to have local media in bed with your agenda too.
The people and the taxpayers of Normal are the big losers here.
This is so true, “We were founded to govern ourselves, not be told how to live by bureaucrats who change with the wind and elections” Bush II did a bunch, then Obama came along with his corrections and new ideas, then Trump tried to kill anything Trump thought Obama might get credit for. We need to get back to having three branches of Government, and only use Presidential directive for an emergence and it should then get both Houses to passed it in no more than 14 days or it goes away.
National is immaterial if the locals get away with it, Can’t fix anything until local is fixed.