By: Diane Benjamin
If Normal passes an ordinance tonight to punish small businesses just trying not to close permanently here is what they are doing:
Ignoring where COVID does kill people
There is no proof bars and restaurants spread the virus but there is lots of proof nursing and group homes do. We know what age groups die at higher rates. Nobody is forced to go to local establishments but some are forced to live where they can die – without any family and friends even able to visit.
What is the Town staff doing to stop the spread there?
Nothing!
Proof the proposed ordinance is a partisan issue directed by the Democrat governor. Real problems, like 28 veterans dying at the VA home in LaSalle and locals dying from exposure in nursing homes, are ignored when bars and restaurants can be fleeced much easier.
The Community Investment Plan is on the agenda. This is where staff decides what projects will be funded in each of the next 5 years.
Jumping right on the water quality problems in the Oakland-Ruston-Grove area, replacing the Water Main won’t happen until fiscal year 2022-2023. The “fixes” the Town is doing now is making the water worse according to the residents I talked to. Complaints go back to at least January 2019. No, you don’t get what you pay for in Normal.
See PDF page 58: https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3840
Also on PDF page 58 is $560,000 from the Water Fund to extend water to Rivian when they already get water from Bloomington. This expense is listed as CRITIAL for FY 2020-2021. Around half was spent this year on engineering.
Trails:
Constitution Trail gets $25,000 a year for repaving.
Eagles Landing got $375,000 this year for a trail extension
Route 66 got $514,965 this year for the Kelly basin trail connection
Route 66 Bike Trail gets $539,635 over 6 years
There is another $1,585,000 in trail wish lists that won’t be funded yet.
Road Resurfacing:
See PDF page 55. Road resurfacing one gets $1,700,000 a year from Motor Fuel Tax.
PDF page 65 has another $1,132,500 next year from the Roadway Fund, less in the following years.
Don’t expect good roads anytime soon from your doubled State and Local Motor Fuel taxes.
The report is difficult to read because it is many pages long with segregated pools of money. Citizens should listen to the conversation. You will hear wants over needs guised in Quality of Life. Lots of money is allocated to West College, I believe they expect grants to fund a lot of it but grant requests aren’t listed.
Having drinkable water and being able to do laundry in water that doesn’t destroy your clothes doesn’t qualify as Quality of Life.
Since the list of complaints I received by FOIA is missing ones from people I know have complained about the water quality, I asked the Town to look again for complaints. https://blnnews.com/2020/12/17/proof-kathleen-lorenz-was-wrong/
The Great Barrington Declaration –
“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection. “
This is real science. Not political science.
https://youtu.be/rz_Z7Gf1aRE
If you didn’t know better, you would think that the town’s government had been captured by a bunch of bike Nazis led by a Bike Shop Owner Fuhrer who wants to see the majority of the population either riding bikes or buses around the area. You know the kind of leadership that spends tax dollars to replace infrastructure (water mains) in the hopes of 1) Screwing Bloomington out of water sales 2) Providing water to his start-up love child (Rivian).
And to all you CAR drivers out there in Normal….. Get a bike…. or get on one of our beautiful (ROOMY) buses.
Fuhrer Koos would also like to sell you a new bike at this bike shop.
Yes, you make the plan and then you work the plan…
This comment right here connects a lot of dots of why our local governments act the way they do.
The Community Investment Plan is none of those words. It’s a giveaway for special interest, friend of Koos, friends of Town Government, and their ideologically-drive followers. This so-called “plan” likely doesn’t take into account the changing nature of the economy, business, and other substantive variables. The timing – during a pandemic in a holiday week within striking distance of election day – says to me that Koos believes he’s going to lose. Expect strong lanaguage in this plan that would make it difficult for the next mayor (cough, cough…Marc) to reverse it.
Everything can be changed if the incumbents are ditched along with Koos
Many levels of our government today are not concerned with addressing reality. They are solely focused on creating it.
Where is the money for this wish list coming from? Certainly not normal businesses since the majority are shuttered. Not from the citizens of normal because they have lost their jobs because koos has shuttered the businesses. You can’t have one without the other. Time for the citizens of normal to get rid of king koos. Maybe his bicycle shop will fund the wish list…NOT a chance. Raise taxes on citizens and you, koos will find yourself in unemployment line.