By: Diane Benjamin
Surprise surprise!
Normal had an agreement with IDOT to build an overhead passenger walkway at their expense:
The source for the above is the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by former City Manager Mark Peterson and officials from the State of Illinois and Union Pacific Railroad: 12.6.16_MOU
Your elected officials decided a free overpass wasn’t good enough for Uptown!
The proposed underpass costing at least $22,000,000 now has little to do with getting train passengers from the south side of the track to the north side. The underpass actually makes the distance farther for train passengers than the overpass IDOT had agreed to build.
The underpass is the latest luxury item Normal wants taxpayers to fund. They already fleeced $13,000,000 from the Federal government, they hope to get more tax money from other sources to help close the gap.
See PDF page 7 of the MOU:
In order to build the underpass Normal wants, the tracks will need to be temporarily re-routed. Union Pacific Railroad isn’t going to pay for it.
See PDF pages 4 and 5:
What are the dates?
According to the MOU, Normal has THREE MONTHS to award a contract for construction!
At Monday’s meeting Chris Koos claimed the re-vote on raising property taxes was “to correct an error”. In other words, Kathleen Lorenz was temporarily insane when she voted with Scott Preston, Karyn Smith and Stan Nord to not raise property taxes. That problem has been remedied so a re-vote needs to happen.
The paper quoted Koos pertaining to the Citizens Summit tonight: “It’s a public meeting,” Koos said. “People can show up. They can go through the exercise if they wish. The idea is they can participate. But the ones invited is whose information will be taken by the council.”
The comments by this supposed public servant prove why the Town wants to a hire a propaganda manager. Making sewage not stink needs a professional.
Revolutions have been started over less,
Everyone needs to go to this event.
Here is a novel idea. Build the overpass now. When and IF uptown 2.0 gets going explore an underpass. I would much rather have another underpass for cars than people.
Common sense isn’t allowed Mike.
The ones that appear to be stupid are probably crooked.
Crooked+Greedy=Koos & Cronies
It’s like the charrettes they put on back in the form based code days. Everything is set up in advance, the deck is stacked against the advise of the citizens, facilitators are hired to manipulate, the local lamestream media is called on to report the preconceived (fleecing of the taxpayers) plan. it’s just another dog and pony show,,,no offense meant towards dogs and ponies.
Unreal! Essentially, Uptown is a vanity project for Koos and his pals. They don’t want to have to look at an elevated overpass structure from the City castle, er…hall. Either project would have delivered the union jobs, so to me, it likely came down to aesthetics. Sad, though it makes sense in Koosville. Uptown is basically a Hollywood movie set: ornate and fashionable to eye on the outside but with nothing on the inside. $13 million (and likely more) to be spent on an underpass to save people from walking 200 feet. There are far better things the Town can spend money on, but they are adult things like keeping up roads, infrastructure, and funding pensions, not the childish wants and wishes of government and its cronies. So sad.
You have to be one cocky smart assed sob to go against free and add not only more big debt , but some real expensive wasteful engineered bs so bike riders can wizz along . You can not be that ignorant or self endulged .. or can you .. The mayor is a real test of endurance , how someone that self loving with no regard for tax payers , tax monies , or easy approaches to an issue can remain as mayor is beyound me . He should be tarred , feaTHERED AND HIM AND HIS YES POSSE TAKEN TO THE EDGE OF TOWN AND TOLD ..GET . Leave now before we reciprocate and skin you alive .
Violence is never the answer! They won’t be in control much longer.
But by then they will have made such a mess of Normal finances we may never recover.
Chris Koos
Mayor since 2003
Current term: 2017- 2021
That is 18 years as Mayor of Normal
https://www.normal.org/89/Mayor-Chris-Koos
Am I the only one who thinks there is a conflict of interest for the mayor to also own the bike shop in Normal? Does it seem as though many of his projects promote bicycling? Does he use tax dollars to promote bicycling whether there is a demand/need?