By: Diane Benjamin
See the previous story: https://blnnews.com/2020/09/28/see-if-you-can-spot-anything-strange/
That story shows the largest purchasers of Bloomington water. I see three locations in Normal that are getting water from the City of Bloomington: Rivian, Bromenn, and Firestone.
All three have been buying water from Bloomington for a LONG time, Mitsubishi before Rivian. So why does Normal suddenly want it’s citizens to pay to run water to Rivian? They do not have plans to run water to the other two.
The below is from a Normal document I received by FOIA called:
STRATEGIC PLAN
2020 – 2025 – 2035
See it here:
PDF page 17:
Rivian is not lacking water – it is provided by Bloomington.
Just a few weeks ago Normal started the process with this agenda item:
That documentation claims the study is required to promote economic development around the Rivian Plant. Since the Master Plan calls for providing water service to Rivian, this has nothing to do with economic development.
So why does Normal want to run water to Rivian when they already have water from Bloomington?
Metrozone
If you forgot how mad Normal was when Bloomington terminated that agreement, see this story: https://blnnews.com/2019/08/16/fun-stuff-normal-suing-bloomington/
How is this not taxpayer abuse?
Normal has written plans to replace Bloomington water with Normal water at the Rivian plant.
This has already cost you $250,000, I received no emails from either Bloomington or Normal discussing this. I received no emails from Rivian asking Normal to provide water.
This is Normal’s “professional staff” and Chris Koos attempting pay-back because of the plan Bloomington terminated. Normal is using money the citizens had stolen from them for retribution.
It took 10 days to receive the FOIA that only had 5 documents. Bloomington also took 10 days, I received 12 documents from them. Maybe both wanted this to remain a secret.
Elections next April. You have a lot of housecleaning to do!
Maybe Normal’s new propaganda minister can explain. Maybe their documents don’t really say “Water service to the Rvian plant”.
(I have others if necessary)
When I took Bloomington 101, we were told that Bloomington always supplies the city of Normal water during peek times.
Where are those charges?
I have Normal Normal doesn’t have the capacity to supply Rivian. Maybe they will want taxpayers to fund a new well.
The peak times were when colleges students were in town.
If Normal has this much $$$ for the study, Bloomington should either discontinue supplying any of them or double their prices. See how the big hitters like that!!
Koos did not think his campaign strategy out too well. I don’t think it is a good idea to alienate both Bloomimgton and Normal voters right before his election. His PAC has Straza running to be a mole in Bloomington.
A little Normal Water history from the 1970’s, There was a bank that managed lots of one person’s farms west of Blm-Nrml. It was in a trust and “couldn’t be divided or sold”, supposedly. A certain well known Mr Anderson worked a deal with them after test wells were drilled in the public right away in Allen and Danvers Twp.Normal bought about three or more 1 acre plots and drilled the new Normal wells without telling anyone in those townships what was going on. Normal drilled their wells hundreds of feet deeper than any surrounding wells and shortly those wells went dry. Normal refused any assistance to those folks and lawsuits were filed and Normal finally agreed to compensate them. Now years later and all new people that can only see to the end of their noses probably either do not know what the history is or even cares.
I totaled up the gallons for the three Normal companies getting water from Bloomington,at,
9,445,400 gallons for a year. I suspect Rivan will increase gallons rapidly when they get up to speed.
I suggest that they leave well enough alone before they have to resupply the folks west of town too.
Interesting. Now that Rivian is building out the plant and has more investor billion$ in the bank, the public heat is off. Perfect time for Koos and Co. to spend more taxpayer dollars on them, says the cynical side in me. However, to play devil’s advocate, Rivian did refuse the $1 million taxpayer-funded check they were contractually entitled to receive. The larger is question is why would Normal not want to continue its current arrangement (through Bloomington). In my opinion, it’s likely a matter of control. The Town of Normal wants the control and to avoid any political headaches that come along with Tari and whoever his successors are in future years. Also, it’s unclear how aged the Bloomington infrastructure is and how sustainable this patchwork arrangement would be over the long-term. Koos might (stress, might) actually be in the right here, but once again he manages to avoid transparency and making his case to taxpayers. Given his past history of large capital spending blunders, this inherently looks suspicious (perhaps more so than is warranted).
Possibly millions later well water won’t work without additional treatment, after a new well is drilled.
Yes Rivian refused one payment. But road work was promised right after that. How many goodies should they get?
Porcupine.
– new college ave road
– positive press about giving back $1M to community
– Constitution trail segment for Rivian exclusive use
– Additional water service
– other stuff Koos has hidden