By: Diane Benjamin
Proving yet again the priorities of staff have nothing to do with what citizens expect:
The Town is going to fix West College, it needs it! The problem is they aren’t just going to fix it.
So far just DESIGN is budgeted at $1.45 MILLION.
DESIGN
Nothing is going to be built for that $1.45 million. The design is that expensive because it includes bike paths and maybe other amenities that will make it beautiful. Meanwhile many citizens of Normal will never use it since most destinations aren’t on the west side – unless you work at Rivian.
Contrast that with the budget the Town plans to spend resurfacing streets people do use:
$1.7 million to do 1.7 miles
At 3:10:00 Stan Nord asks how the roads to be resurfaced are chosen since the Council isn’t asked. The answer was the worst roads aren’t necessarily first. Roads are picked by which ones will cost much more in the future if they aren’t fixed now.
That does make sense, but only doing 1.7 miles next year means the other pothole filled roads won’t be fixed anytime soon. The Town of Normal needs representatives who know what priorities citizens expect and then get it done.
According to the Town website, Normal has 426 lane miles: https://www.normal.org/214/Pavement-Markings-Signs
How many are drivable?
Keep in mind all the incumbents have no problem spending $1.45 million on design: Chris Koos, Kevin McCarthy, Chemberly Cummings, and Scott Preston.
Voting April 6th?
The West College cost has ZERO to do with running water lines, that is even more money.
Just hit play:
Stan Nord is a genius. Just listen long enough and he will tell you.
Need fence work done? He’s on it. Just paint it LOL
Need a road built. He’s on it. Use plans from the 80,s. LOL
Water main. Yep.
Need IT/computer work. Done.
Need to make your business look like a junkyard? He can do that to.
If I was a resident of Normal I would really be questioning why Stan doesn’t want to represent Normal residents.
Normal needs better representation. Lets hope we get some concretive representatives elected this April!!
Stan is surely a practical guy and a bright light with a heart for service to others. Critters sure do scurry away when that light shines their way though. Imagine what just one more Stan could accomplish. From a leadership perspective that should be something to embrace, something to search for…… the kind of quality that leaders usually want to be associated with. That it is feared instead just illustrates the magnitude and source of the problem.
Need 3 more and a new mayor or nothing changes
You might not be a civil servant if:
You’re spending money to design something you can’t afford anyway.
You feel bad roads are OK as long as someone else lives on them.
Your water has a color-of -the-day.
You spike and fund pensions for your friends.
You’re afraid of discussing something because you might not like the answer.
Taxes are something you raise but never lower.
There’s your sign. Now what?
It’s always RIVIAN, isn’t it? A boondoggle suspiciously capitalized and managed with a highly dubious business model.
Koos and his extremely disrespectful, snarky, and vastly overpaid city grifter/manager just can’t throw enough money at Rivian for some reason known only to them.
Water line (for no explicable reason)…purchasing city vehicles (for no explicable reason)…and now a nice expensive luxury parkway (for no explicable reason). Oh, and the tax abatement. During a pandemic. (The drainage/turn lane excuse was ridiculous.)
But the trucks and SUVs that have been rolling off the assembly line there are truly… oh wait.
Three types of voters in the upcoming election: (1) those voting for Koos and the incumbents – Town employees; Town vendors; recipients, or potential future recipients of tax breaks and other sweetheart deals from government; and, Chamber sheeple that believe economic development should be led and controlled by government / (2) those voting against Koos and the incumbents – rational, common sense folks that ask nothing and want nothing from government, while recognizing the blatant mismanagement of the taxpayer money and Town resources / (3) stay-at-home voters – folks that are completely ambivalent to the local political process. Sadly type 3 is essentially type 1.
ONE of these days the citizens (the ones that are left, anyway) of Normal will wake up and wonder HOW they got $100 million into debt, and WHY their streets are like the Oregon trail and WONDER what the stuff is that gives their water such wonderful colors!
Until then, they will be “living the dream” because the council and mayor are on duty and they can’t do ANY WRONG!