By: Diane Benjamin
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-SgGF0uzhIlXeWqdYlJ0blXEhDPLrrfh/view
I could write the same story as every other month. Expenses for October were over $1,1 MILLION, Income was a little less than $59,000, meaning a loss for ONE MONTH of $973,317.
No big deal since government keeps throwing them millions of dollars to them to run empty buses.
Of course ridership is down and the cost for ride is astronomical. Read the reports yourself.
Jump to PDF page 32:
Interim General Manager Mark Peterson (formally Normal City Manager) recommended the Board hire a Project Manager to spearhead building the Bloomington downtown transfer station.
The Board complied by hiring locally: TLR Associates. TLR is really one guy with pretty good credentials according to the documentation: Terry Reid. He will be in charge of picking the final location, planning, construction, and everything it will take to get it done.
This statement is on PDF page 35:
The documentation doesn’t say whether Connect has the local money or if they will be expecting citizens that never ride the bus to pay for it.
This statement is on PDF page 36 – they have $18 million in grants now:
Now jump to PDF page 44. Mr. Reid will receive $160 per hour for his services.
There is NO maximum and NO estimated total. This is an open ended agreement with no parameters. There is a statement saying it could be converted to a fixed fee at any time.
Summary:
We still don’t know where Connect wants to build this transfer station. Evidently Bloomington City Hall is still on the table even though previous documentation claims a majority of riders visit the Law and Justice Center, then the library.
(I can see people dodging cars crossing four lanes of traffic in the middle of East St instead of going to the stop light at Front)
We don’t know if Connect will expect even more local money to fund Mr. Reid.
We don’t know if Mr. Reid will cost $300,000 or $5,000,000.
Between Connect Transit building a transfer station and the Bloomington library wanting to spend even more than Connect – the local fleecing of citizens continues.
Wait until Bloomington wants a new City Hall, parking garage, and water park.
Progress!
This is about building a new city hall. There are many bus transfer centers which cost nowhere near 1M. Springfield, St. Louis, etc.
Peterson has selected to do the same thing he did in Normal. Build bloated government structures on the backs of the taxpayers.
We do not have a congestion problem like Chicago or DC. Plus mass transit is a dinosaur. Ride share has been shown to be the future in many other cities. Even Rivian touts about rideshare as the future.
It started years ago with the same quality leadership
Peterson was selected…
Can’t wait for Tiritilli to haul Peterson and the DisConnect “leadership” before the City Council and call them into account in full view of taxpayers. Open the books and share the minutes now, Peterson! Better to self-disclose your missteps versus having them exposed.