By: Diane Benjamin
The Attorney General finally got around to ruling on a slam dunk Request for Reviews filed by Marc Tiritilli in November 2019. Even though the law gives them 90 days to rule, the Attorney General doesn’t comply.
While Chris Koos flagrantly violated Marc’s 1st Amendment rights, the rest of the Council sat around and said nothing. All incumbents need to be replaced for allowing Koos’ abuse. No one currently on the Council believes they are doing the People’s business. Chris Koos is the worst offender, he has been told before by the Attorney General his Public Comment policy was illegal. Each time he makes tiny tweaks and waits for the next ruling.
When Marc Tirititlli becomes mayor I’m positive the comment policy will be changed permanently to provide citizens their right to address their representatives. Koos doesn’t want to give citizens a platform that might crack his glass house by exposing brown water, potholes damaging vehicles, or resistance to his grand plans.
Of course 4 votes are needed to make any changes. If McCarthy, Cummings, and Preston aren’t replaced with citizens representatives instead of Koos representatives, nothing changes. Vote: Harsh, Blumenshine, Sila in addition to Marc. I don’t know Donna Toney, I’ve just listened to one interview with her. She is also an option that would shake up the Council trajectory.
Excerpt from the AG ruling:
See the ruling here:
Tiritilli issued a Press Release yesterday:
Excerpt:
Marc also states two other violations of the Open Meetings Act are still pending with the Attorney General. Give them a few more years to rule.
The video of Koos cutting Marc off is below. Just hit play. Marc covered some other items that are worth listening to now before getting to Connect Transit. Also on this video is Koos buddy Dave Shields attempting to marginalize Stan Nord (top vote recipient). Shields was still upset voters rejected him. He was before Marc, Marc did respond to his comment however.
April 6th: Marc Tiritilli for Mayor, and for Town Council Trustees:
Steve Harsh, David Paul Blumenshine, and Karl Sila.
Koos is campaigning that Rivian is the sole reason to keep him in office. Rivian will be here regardless of who is mayor. Koos is Rivian’s vocal yes man. OMG, Rivian is a $7+ Billion dollar company and Koos continues to shower them with local taxpayer giveaways. Koos is so free with the giveaways that he is either getting paid or he just does not care about the cost to local taxpayers.
$50 billion and doing an IPO soon
Rivian is not going to stop asking for taxpayer dollars just because they raised a lot of money and (presumably) will raise even more via IPO. Who could blame them? After all, Koos and “his” Council have a proven track record of saying “yes”. Koos has shifted gears to a position of since Rivian is building/investing in the plant, we need to reward that success (with taxpayer money). I’d like to see a tally of how much debt Normal has taken on to support Rivian, and what it will take to recoup that money via expansion of local economic activity. Anyone ever wonder what might happen if/when the Town finally says “no” to a Rivian request? I worry that they have the Town by the short hairs.
This made my day! No penalty due to later changing the rule is unfortunate.
I guess it means the following. If I steal a car and it is reported to the police by the person I stole it from. but I return the car to the owner before I am arrested I serve no time or penalty for my actions. Oh well, we can still penalize Koos and company by getting off our butts and voting against him and his group in April
For the longest time Brian Day has defended Koos and said he was not violating the OMA. Me thinks Normal should hire a more competent town attorney.
His job is to play CYA for Koos or he wouldn’t have a job. Normal needs a town lawyer who believes laws matter more than his job.
More a matter of a Mayor who doesn’t think they should be above the law. A bad Mayor would simply find a way to get rid of a good Town Counsel and install a CYA Man.
Yet another reason to elect Marc Tiritilli!
(And David, Steve, and Karl.
That list is purposeful, as we’re #1,3,4 on the ballot in that order.)
Maybe we can send Koos to Myanmar, make him leader, send him cash and gold and see what happens!!
He WANTS a MILITARY DICTATORSHIP, let’s give it to him..
I’ve got to say, Marc was a textbook example of grace under fire. He was classy from start to finish, didn’t let Koos’ deflections upset him. Compare that to the hyperbole and angst displayed by Shields’ earlier during public comment. Marc is a role model for how to handle yourself in public.