By: Diane Benjamin
Committee of the Whole meeting tonight: http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1092&Inline=True
Only two items are on the agenda:
- Creation of a Public Arts Commission
- Making Juneteenth a City holiday
Obviously Bloomington doesn’t believe government is a necessary evil and therefore should only do what is necessary.
Every other essential government service like roads, sewers, and water must now be in great shape. Pension funding must be at 100% too since an entire meeting focusing on two irrelevant items to the lives of most people get the attention of an entire meeting!
Who is being pandered to?
The Council will discuss public money (your tax dollars) being used for public art:
Out of more than 75,000 residents, exactly what is significant support? 5 people? 10? 100? (as in less than .0013% of the population)
How many of these people put art work for sale in Tari’s office? Remember that one?
More info:
Juneteenth:
Celebrating Juneteenth is classic progressivism. Abe Lincoln worked in McLean County, one would think the day he signed the Emancipation Proclamation or the day the Civil War ended would be more important.
Instead the Council will consider making Juneteenth a City holiday to commemorate the day slaves found out in Texas they were free.
Quote from Mboka Mwilambwe in the documentation:
“celebrating the triumph of our nation over slavery in this manner will help us understand each other better and is one of several fitting ways to use the recent events as inspiration to lead our community towards a brighter future.”
Triumph over slavery? How is Juneteenth a triumph over slavery? Around 600,000 northern Americans, including people from Illinois and mostly WHITE were killed, wounded, captured, or went missing during the Civil War.
Sorry, but celebrating a Texas holiday diminishes the sacrifice of the north because the south thought they had the right to own people.
We defeated them! Northerners fought and died to free blacks, obviously systemically racist!
Documented cost for some options:
Other options:
The budget keeps growing because bleeding heart liberals want to celebrate while most people will only see a day off.
Your tax dollars and elected officials at work!
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So as Bloomington swirls down the economic drain, our leadership only cares about public art and a holiday to appease/pander to the racists disguised as regular people?
It would be hard to make up a scenario this insane and get people to believe this is for real.
Businesses continue to close
Businesses continue to leave
Our economic drivers are being disrupted
Layoffs from our large employers are beginning
But we will have some stupid art from some local flake and a holiday that no one cares about?
Speaking of pensions… State Farm and Country have eliminated defined benefit pensions for new employees as of January 1, 2021. Country has also pushed back the full retirement age. This is not a rumor.
Being born and raised in the Congo, Mboka or his family would have no stake in anything that had to do with slavery emancipation in this country. Being a very educated man who has a master of several languages his statement comes off as trite. He would have a better understanding of knowing what foreign dictators are capable of doing to their own citizens, especially the savagery of other blacks towards blacks in the land of his birth. It is also likely that Mboka sees himself as a kindred spirit in making such a statement so other blacks can see he supports the them and is not an “Uncle Tom.” Working at ISU, he would also be roundly rejected by the university community for not buying into groupthink which is so important nowadays for keeping your job on academia. I have no problem if anyone wants to celebrate the “holiday” but it does not need “official” recognition anywhere to be celebrated. Some people just want another day off and an excuse to party. BN has many, many higher priority items to worry about. Mboka is just going along to get along. This is another Renner, Crabill, and Carrillo political statement.
Let us not forget that native Congolese rulers were very co-operative helping to capture some of their own people to sell to Portuguese slave traders back in the day. Also a worthwhile history lesson.
In the mean time we have roads like Hershey (especially between Oakland and Washington) needing repair so badly it seems like bombs went off on them! Local government is negligent!
Work was suppose to start in October. Maybe they forgot.
Here we go again. Wasting taxpayer money for useless projects…art??? when we are doing down a drain in debt. And the most ridiculous one is the Juneteenth holiday. Who every heard of it till 2020? Can they come up with any more stupid ideas? Yup. On a daily basis.
These TWO items are about as important to the city as Penguins pissing in Miller Park lake!
Is THIS the best they can come up with. THis is just plain dumb as**D stuoopidity!
What next, what to do about people throwing cigarette butts in the streets? Maybe THAT would fix the potholes??
I’ve sometimes wondered if we shouldn’t make a public service appeal.
Ever notice how chewing gum flattened onto sidewalks or pavement will stay there for months or seemingly years? We just need to ask all local gum chewers to always spit their gum out into the nearest pothole, and Voilà! Problem solved!
Political pandering. You can’t convince me that this new “Public Arts Commission” is going to be apolitical. Of course, it will be anything but public. The only thing public about it will be the tax dollars doled out to fund it. By the way, did anyone catch the unveiling of the George Floyd mural in Bloomington? Naturally, anyone opposed to the mural is labeled a racist. (See comments section on the Slantagraph article.)