By: Diane Benjamin
Stan Nord was on Cities 92.9 this morning talking about Mayor Chris Koos attempting to silence him Monday night. Listen at the top of the 8:00 hour: https://www.cities929.com/scott-robbins/
It wouldn’t be possible to locate all of the taxpayer fleeces I’ve written about under Chris Koos, but here’s a few:
Normal lost $330,000 on purpose: https://blnnews.com/2020/02/26/why-normal-needs-fundamental-transformation/
Normal’s tax and fee history – from 2019: https://blnnews.com/2019/11/04/normals-tax-and-fee-history-comprehensive/
Koos became mayor in 2003, below are updated numbers.
Water rate was: $3.09/1000 gallons
Water rate now: $6.11 PLUS $6.70/1000 gallons
Sewer rate was: $.89/1000 gallons
Sewer rate now: $3.75 PLUS $2.65/1000 gallons
Storm water – hasn’t changed since 2009, data before them isn’t available.
Garbage in 2011 was $10 a month, data before then isn’t available
Garbage now: $30 a month
Property tax rate – Town of Normal 2003: 0.839870
Property tax rate – Normal Library 2003: .347620
Property tax rate – Town 2019: 1.032630
Property tax rate – Library 2019: 0.436480
Property taxes just from Normal have increases 23.5% in 16 years. Growth should have prevented a lot of these increases as more properties pay property taxes. Meanwhile, pension funding was below 50% for police and fire as of 3/31/2020 . (Police 43.1%, Fire 47.2%)
Who can forget the debt!
Normal can’t afford 4 more years of Koos, McCarthy, Preston, and Cummings.
Vote Marc Tiritilli for mayor
Trustees: Harsh, Blumenshine, and Sila
I’ve never talked to Donna Toney, but she is also an option.
I don’t live in Normal, but if I did this would infuriate me even more. If ever there was a trigger to overturn voter apathy this could be it. It’s crazy important to get this message out to the citizens/voters, and engage them to understand. I look at this mess and think about projecting the future financial impact on citizens based on entrenched political culture. Project the trend based on these datapoints 3 to 5 years. If your income and wealth isn’t consistently exceeding these increases, then you can’t afford to allow these behaviors to continue. And if you can’t afford it now, the projection for what it will look like in 3 to 5 years will absolutely scare the heck out of you. Or at least it should. VOTE !
Never mind the outrageous SALES and GAS taxes this “mayor” has imposed, while driving OUR EV!
Arrogance OR Hypocrite?
Got my campaign letter from Responsible Cities PAC this morning. Here are their endorsements:. Bloomington: Straza, Mathy, Montney, Ward, and Fruin. In Normal: Koos, Cummings, McCarthy and Zimmerman. The same tired BN Clique members are still listed as PAC supporters.
At least they aren’t supporting the hard left socialists
Not that it matters long term to me since I am exiting here by the fall but none of the above could be considered remotely conservative. Montney if elected, will turn out to be a Fruin- type, Straza much more liberal than he is letting on, Koos is far left in actions and thinking as well as Cummings and Zimmerman, Ward is extreme left wing but Cumpston makes her look reasonable, Mathy and McCarthy both libs with Mathy exhibiting occasional reason. Nord is only person in either community that will continually fight for common sense.
And his allies when they win
Funny how Koos picked his three Council picks, isn’t it. McCarthy is no surprise, neither is Zimmerman who was a Koos pick assuming the Royal Fortress wasn’t running. So, what about Scott Preston? Looks like Koos has thrown him under the bus. Scottie stepped out of line and pretended to be “conservative” once or twice and now there’s hell to pay. What a slap in the face. Koos identifies with the Royal Fortress more than his 8 year incumbent.
Chemberly (The Royal Fortress) is black and as far as I know still identifies as a woman. Koos doesn’t want to alienate the BLM and Me Too crowd, so Preston is toast. Maybe Koos will give Scott a blaque and a dozen roses for his service. Either that or forgive the hotel bill.
Chemberly (The Royal Fortress) is black and as far as I know still identifies as a woman. Koos doesn’t want to alienate the BLM and Me Too crowd, so Preston is toast. Maybe Koos will give him a plaque and a dozen roses. Or, maybe Dave Shields can give him a bottle of wine. Or, is it whine?
The latest Koos attack is that Marc was wrong about Rivian. Of course, he’s using political shorthand. No one is betting/rooting against Rivian. Marc (like many of us) did not believe in providing taxpayer-funded incentives to a risky venture. Now, bear in mind, as Koos and his useful idiots attack Marc for this opinion, Koos has helped ram through millions in tax dollar spending for pipes to the Rivian plant with little discussion or input. And, this despite Rivian sitting on billions in private investor capital. Rivian is so successful (in the eyes of Koos) they now need more taxpayer money. Wonder what their next request of the Town will be?
A west side airport?