By: Diane Benjamin The County is FINALLY live streaming County Board meetings. The chairs have been rearranged and two cameras are being used so almost all members are on the video. The problem now is most of the work is done in Committees. If any controversy occurs, it is most likely going to happen in […]
By: Diane Benjamin Jamie Mathy urged citizens to look at the upcoming shows at the BCPA during Aldermen comments at last night’s Council meeting. He claimed a show that costs $100 in Chicago could be only $30 here. See upcoming events: https://www.artsblooming.org/events/calendar Meanwhile, the last event report posted for the BCPA was a show held […]
By: Diane Benjamin Short meeting last night, there was nothing worth writing about in advance. Off course the meeting was.more interesting than the agenda predicted. One public comment speaker couldn’t understand why time wasn’t extended for cannabis comments when it had been extended previously for other items. That’s too easy: Nobody had anything new to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Readers: I’m proud of you! Most of people who read yesterday’s story watched the short video: https://blnnews.com/2020/01/12/i-need-1-minute-and-17-seconds/ Next we need to talk about “Right Fit”. Without any qualifications or authority, both Bloomington and Normal use “Right Fit” because they want to control the means of production. Businesses need the ability to succeed […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bloomington Alderman Donna Boelen posted this video on Facebook yesterday. She is a advocate the Strong Towns philosophy. Keep in mind I can see how many people read a story. I can also see how many people CLICK on something I post. PLEASE watch this really short video, it sums up everything […]
By: Diane Benjamin Planning Commission: https://www.cityblm.org/government/advanced-components/documents/-folder-1682 According to the website, the Planning commission met on: December 11, 2019 November 13, 2019 October 9, 2019 One member missed all three meetings: Eric Penn Two members missed two out three: Kevin Suess and Megan McCann More meetings: September 11, 2019 – Joint meeting with the Zoning Board […]
By: Diane Benjamin No bills were approved at the last council meeting since it was held off-schedule for the holidays. Monday night $14,244,476.43 is up for approval. https://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=23691 As always, there was extensive travel. A lot of it is in the PCard spending, see PDF page 271 and following. 2020 starts where previous years […]
Caption this: Downtown Bloomington yesterday in front of the vacant Commerce Bank.
By: Diane Benjamin See this story first: https://blnnews.com/2020/01/09/fake-republican-dan-brady/ Billie voted NO on 2 of the 3 bills. He voted Yes on the BIG one! Thank Billie when you fill up your gas tank. Thank Billie when your plate sticker costs $50 bucks more this year. Remember just a few years ago when it was $48? […]
By: Diane Benjamin 43 Illinois House members claim to be Republican. http://www.ilhousegop.org/members Obviously few Illinois Republicans are also Conservative. The votes below prove why the Republicans are in the minority in Illinois and probably always will be. Many Republicans voted with Democrats to steal more money from you. Living within your means and pensions reform […]
By: Diane Benjamin Yesterday I received one more document from Unit 5. This one calls the program Standards Based Learning and Grading. PDF page 5 shows the courses for implementation. SBG Task Force 2019-2020 I have to refrain from commenting on the content, I’d rather hear from parents and teachers. Please let me know […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has decided to hold off paying the consultant to update the report on the $43 million multi-sports complex. You might be interested to see who is on the CVB Board: https://www.visitbn.org/contact-us/staff-board/ Lots of familiar name there! Let’s go back to when this nonsense started. The FAA told […]
By: Diane Benjamin Standards Based Grading is causing an upheaval within Unit 5. Previous stories: https://blnnews.com/2019/12/24/unit-5-forced-my-hand/ https://blnnews.com/2020/01/07/unit-5-does-comedy/ I found this article, please take time to read it. It attempts to promote Standards Based Grading, but read the whole thing. The writer likely doesn’t realize it, but eventually it will make you wonder why any sane […]
By: Diane Benjamin Is Normal pretending to listen to citizens? January 16th – Budget Review Work Session at 9:00. The Citizen Summit was held on December 5th. The Council held a Work Session the next day. Lyle Sumek was hired to facilitate both. He has had plenty of time to compile a priorities list based […]
By: Diane Benjamin I did not attend last night’s meeting but I received a report from people who did attend. The good news is the meeting was again held in the larger room where citizens could attend. The bad news is some citizens could not hear everything because microphones were still not used. I hear […]
By: Diane Benjamin On December 5th I FOIA’d Unit 5 for emails referring to Standards Based Grading. I was told it was way to many emails and they requested I narrow the request. I did narrow the request to emails between Dan Lamboley and the consultant Unit 5 hired – Garnet Hillman. I also requested […]
By: Diane Benjamin For the second time in recent months Normal was incapable of live streaming with good audio. The posted video still has the same problem, luckily it was fixed almost 13 minutes into the meeting. About every 20 seconds the prior audio was replayed over the first. In another 20 seconds a third […]
By: Diane Benjamin Does this look familiar?
By: Diane Benjamin The chart below was compiled from these 3 links listed. This is strictly my opinion, but I lumped General Fund spending and Enterprise Fund spending together because things like garbage used to be in the General Fund but now it isn’t.. The Enterprise Funds are: PDF page 50: https://www.cityblm.org/home/showdocument?id=22149 All of these […]
By: Diane Benjamin The charts below are from the current Town of Normal budget unless otherwise stated: https://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/14883/2019-2024 PDF page 64 – Revenue projections for Children’s Discovery Museum and the Normal Theater PDF page 121 – CDM Expense projections PDF page 123 – Theater Expensive projections Projected Revenue: Children’s Discovery Museum $1,003,050 Normal Theater $259,700 […]
By: Diane Benjamin I think there is consensus now on what is happening at the corner of Oakland and Veterans Parkway – where Hardies used to be. It sounds like a car wash wants to locate there. The Public Hearing is Wednesday: My thoughts: I’m happy somebody wants to do something with the property I […]
By: Diane Benjamin I found this old WGLT story while looking for something else. It’s always fun to see what taxpayers were told before a project and compare it to reality. This article is from March of 2016. Source: wglt.org Estimating Taxpayer Support Uptown Construction Project WGLT and the Town of Normal disagreed on the […]
By: Diane Benjamin https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3510 Only 3 items are on the agenda for Monday night: Payments that aren’t supposed to be discussed: Maybe this is why the Chamber tells voters who to elect: This is in addition to the $23,920 in gift cards Normal gave their employees: https://blnnews.com/2019/12/23/normal-giving-away-your-money-2/ If there was a “public purpose” for […]
By: Diane Benjamin This information is from the budget: https://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/14883/2019-2024 I don’t know why the budgeted revenue was decreased for this year, but Normal still plans to collect a lot of money for licenses, fines, fees, and permits. Maybe it’s down because little development is happening creating a need for permits. PDF page 27. This […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last week the Redbirds played a home game. Fans park on the street when the games are played on the weekends. This game was during the week. The street signs say no parking on weekdays, but lots of fans parked there anyway. I’m sure they assumed it was okay since school was […]
By: Diane Benjamin Below are the same charts I used in the Bloomington Debt story: https://blnnews.com/2019/12/31/bloomington-debt-2/ Liabilities – Government Activities – Due beyond one year: Source 3/31/19 – $183,410,936 3/31/18 – $171,607,747 3/31/17 – 173,618,828 As of March 31, 2019 Source IMRF pension liability : $ 20,832,186 Police pension liability; $ 35,840,310 Fire pension […]
