By: Diane Benjamin
I hope the next mayor eliminates most if not all proclamations. Tari wasted a lot of time last night reading 3. Two of them were to declare the month of October something important. He made these pronouncements 5 days before October will end. Guess they weren’t important enough to announce earlier.
Public Comment was the usual fiasco. “Are you these?” “Unmute yourself” “Can you hear me?”. Two people called in just to say they were there to answer questions about an agenda item. If the Council was meeting in person they would have simply been in the audience. Public Comment doesn’t allow questions and answers and if the item in question had been pulled from the Consent Agenda these callers would not have been able to respond.
Note: Pritzker’s Executive Orders are illegal, numerous judges around the state have verified that fact. The Council needs to meet in person!
A few far left agitators showed up again to demand a Welcoming Ordinance. They claimed ICE is committing atrocities because they read it on the Internet. Jon Reed read excerpts of speeches from Bill Clinton and Barack Obama concerning the need for legal immigration and stopping the illegal kind. Hear him at 43:20. (BAM)
The changes to the PSCRB turned out to be a mistake to put on the Consent Agenda. Renner was flustered during most of the conversation since no discussion time was allocated on the agenda! Note: the next mayor needs to quit pretending alderman don’t need time to discuss the people’s business!
The underlined section below is what did get added in a 5-4 vote:
Kim Bray attempted to first get this item removed permanently since she was involved with the creation of this group. That attempt failed. She also tried to move this discussion to a Committee of the Whole agenda which also failed. Aldermen Boelen, Painter, Mwilambwe, and Bray voted against the changes. As Bray pointed out, this board was created to bring the community together. PSCRB has had no cases where it found the police did anything wrong, in fact it has only heard a handful of cases since it’s inception in 2017. Allowing this Board to make recommendations to non-existent problems does nothing to further the intent.
Side note: Bloomington’s new Inclusion and Diversity officer needs to immediately balance the PSCRB Board. https://blnnews.com/2020/10/27/bloomington-crushes-mlks-vision/
Do these faces reflect the diversity of Bloomington?
Public Art Commission:
Joni Painter spoke at 1:46;30 followed by Donna Boelen and Kim Bray. All were concerned about funding, Painter because the City already has unfunded art initiatives like the Creativity Center. Boelen mentioned the commission has to have public buy-in or it will not work, she wants clear expectations. Jenn Carrillo wants your money, she followed Bray. The vote was 6-3 in favor of growing government for public art. Boelen, Bray, and Painter voted against it.
Juneteenth:
The Human Relations Commission will throw a “Think Big” event every year to educate the community. More growing government.
Finance Report:
See the latest budget to actual numbers at 2:11:00. The City will be applying for money under the CARES act to recover some of the losses caused by COVID. $3.16 million was allocated by the State from Federal money they received. Keep in mind, nobody at the City lost their job, unlike the private sector. The City delayed hiring, equipment purchases, and capital projects to compensate for shortfalls in revenue.
This was Scott Black’s last meeting. He moved to Jenn Carrillo’s Ward. Tari said he will announce today his pick to fill the remainder of Black’s term. He didn’t sound like the pick would be the only guy who has announced he is running: Kelby Cumpston.
Scott Black once again didn’t fulfill his term. Let’s remember that next time he runs for public office and I suspect that he will. Be glad when he moves out of the craphole he helped to create. Maybe the streets of San Francisco are calling his name. He’ll camoflage right in with the crap.
Out-of-town transcients like Black, Carlo, etc. hang around just long enough to start the political fires they get off on then eventually skip town laughing all the way to their next destination to do it all over again. Another example is Bikey Mikey, the IWU and Chicago- based rabble-rouser who was suppose to be running Wesleyan’s IT operation but suddenly skipped town. A normal person can spot these frauds within 10 minutes of them opening their mouths which they love to do often.
Unreal. Didn’t Jenn say the PSCRB doesn’t have any complaints since people are afraid to come forward? Or, Jenn, could it be that the police are professional and generally treat citizens fairly? She is just hoping that with more time, there will be some complaints that she can use to justify the Board and try to make headlines. Sad, isn’t it? Jenn is likely hoping for a bad event involving police, instead of saying something like ‘…gee, it’s good to see that police are respecting our citizens and adhering to their oath…’ The Board, it seems, is now being morphed into a quasi policy advisory wing of City Hall since it’s not having the desired outcome of the ideologues peddling their agenda. On to public art… Let’s call it “political art” since the public-at-large will have next to zero input; instead, those leading this taxpayer-funded project will be painting their ideology all over town. Let’s see how the NIMBYs in the Downtown respond to murals of George Flloyd, Che, and other woke depictions outside of their shops.
“Allowing this Board to make recommendations to non-existent problems does nothing to further the intent.”
I thought that was the Primary intent of the PSCRB?