By: Diane Benjamin
The latest tax return from CIRBN available is from 2017. They file as a non-profit. This is a summary: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/461304666
The Town of Normal Comprehensive Plan done by the McLean County Regional Planning Commission in 2017 mentions CIRBN 10 times. https://mcplan.org/file/227/Elements_Economic%20Vitality.pdf
PDF page 9 shows CIRBN as a “positive contributor” and a “partner”.
PDF page 28 has this:
PDF page 35 has this:
PDF page 37-38 has this:
1)
5G networks could make everything CIRBN is doing obsolete. I don’t see any mention of 5G on the CIRBN website: https://www.cirbn.org/
2)
Do you trust WI-FI in Public places? If yes, please explain why!
3)
The taxpayers of Normal have paid to run CIRBN to place like Destihl. Why?
4)
Why did Unit 5 drop CIRBN? See D & E https://v3.boardbook.org/Public/PublicAgenda.aspx?ak=1000890&mk=50279018
5)
Since Unit 5 switched to Metronet, CIRBN is now a competitor of a private sector business.
6)
Since 2013 CIRBN’s tax return shows $20,894,141 worth of grants and revenue. None of that money is taxable since CIRBN claims to be a non-profit. See Part III https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/461304666/201812419349300236/full
7)
Normal considers CIRBN’s 3 employees Town employees. If the market crashes adding 3 more pensions just makes the problem worse. Why can’t all non-profits be Town employees Normal?
Now use your brain. What has government ever made better?
Government doesn’t solve problems, they create them. CIRBN is a problem that needs to go away. Government should not compete with the private sector. The end product will not be the quality produced by companies using their own money.
I hate to bring this up but…. One of the main reasons why fascism in Nazi Germany was able to directly control businesses and the economy: Businesses willingly did what ever the government wanted them to do. The government and businesses worked together to do whatever Hitler wanted done.
One look at this post, told me that it really hard to tell where the Town of Normal ends and CIRBN begins. Yes, it appears that the employees ARE truly part of Normal’s fascist system and are rightfully (in Mayor Koos mind) employees of the town. CIRBN will continue to be part of Normal’s fascism system until Mayor Koos is gone and the corrupt city manager is fired.
Exactly correct. The actual citizens of Normal must get out and vote! Those of us who pay property taxes need to get out in droves on election day!
“NOW USE YOUR BRAIN. WHAT HAS GOVERNMENT EVER MADE BETTER?”
Automobiles, set fuel standards higher and increase them as we meet the older ones. Equal less gas burnt, Tires must meet speed standards of the car or trucks they are on, Equal safer to be around faster trucks and cars, plus fewer lives lost or injured. Seat belts every year save hundreds of lives and thousands of more sever injuries. This was to just name on area of our Government making just vehicles safer and better built to save more lives. And by the way, every one of these added to the cost of that same vehicle and today we have millions upon millions of safer vehicles on our roads. That was just vehicles.
Those more efficient vehicles mean more people die in crashes. I remember driving cars built like tanks with no seat belts. As a kid we had no seat belts in the back seat. Everybody survived, even once when we were broad-sided. Nobody even hurt.
Statistics of automobile fatal accidents aren’t in your favor. In 1969, there were 53,543 fatal car accidents. During the 1970’s they remain in the high 50,000 deaths per year
In 2018 there were 36,560 fatal accidents. The leading cause of death in a car accident is being thrown from the car. Seat belts, air bags and roll over prevention are all added accident prevention technology in cars that work. More efficient vehicles does not add up to more people dying, quite the opposite.
Diane, not everybody survived. Buzz Chancellor and Larry Lucas from Ellswortn, Ill Three students from Le Roy killed when car took curve too fast. They were tanks, yes, safe? about like a sleeping rattle snake.
Government, like private enterprise is made up of people. Sometimes people get things right, sometimes the get things wrong.
The problem is that government runs on egos and soundbites and other people’s money.
If private enterprise has a bad idea, they either doesn’t do it because they know they’ll lose money or they lose money ’til it goes away. When government has a bad idea, their ego often kicks in and they do it anyway. Oftentimes it’s based on soundbites rather than true analysis. And once it becomes obvious whatever was a bad idea, or maybe even Started as a good idea but no longer is, they don’t stop, they refuse to admit it and usually throw more money at it to ‘make it work’.
But no worries, there is a Lot of other people’s money available, and those responsible nearly always will be gone before that pool of money will be.
And Diane is correct about mpg requirements killing people, even if it was not so many that it overwhelmed other factors like societal disapproval of drunk driving, crumple-zone-based design, etc. And even without government-mandates many of the features you listed would still have been adopted eventually due to market demand, much like electric windows and automatic transmission, both of which add to the cost of vehicles but are pretty standard now anyway.
And in some instances, government mandates of ‘solution A’ prevents the market from adopting a better ‘solution B’ – oil spill cleanup is a wonderful example of this.
Government isn’t Always bad, but it’s much more likely to be bad than private enterprise is.
5G networks could make everything CIRBN is doing obsolete…..This is wrong….
CIRBN is already obsolete as evidenced in most areas others have faster and better internet service to homes
than what CIRBN can provide to schools in same area.. Technology marches on. Also note CIRBN has dome nothing to close this gap.
How can CIRBN file that they have no executive compensation?
If I understand this relationship correctly, taxpayers directly pay all CIRBN staff. In every workplace I have ever been that means the work product, including patents and profits, belong to the employer. So why aren’t the profits given back to the taxpayers for our investment?
The report it as payments to Normal. I believe it was around $364,000
This reeks of a fish market in Denmark! They are hired by the town, bu PAID by the taxpayers, yet they state that they have NO PLANS to “extend” their network to the tax paying public, but the COULD! WHAT kind of double babble is this?? NOT to mention a $2 million NON PROFIT?? Are there NOT limits as to what a non profit can have ??
Being a not for profit does not mean they cannot hoard cash. They can claim it is being stockpiled for some future expense. I would like to know how much cash they are hording. Since they are all paid town staff they should have disclose this info. BlnNews, please FOIA for it and let the public know!
I have a Foia pending