By: Diane Benjamin
Keep in mind many of Normal’s professional staff don’t live in Normal: https://blnnews.com/2020/12/14/guess-where-town-of-normal-employees-dont-live/
They have no reason to keep taxes low, make the roads drivable, or the water drinkable.
The Council will be meeting at 5:15 to hear the status of the underpass project. Public opinion is immaterial. The fanciest properties will be owned by government. Of course that means the elitists have their own agenda and don’t deserve the title “public servant”. The only people being served are their fellow utopians who consider themselves visionaries.
5:15 Agenda: https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3989
The regular meeting is at 7:00, why the professional staff need so much time for an underpass update will only be revealed during the 5:15 meeting. I wonder if they “found” the rest of the money and construction is imminent! Planning is likely already happening for a new police station and library, the current buildings aren’t shiny enough for Uptown.
You can see the 7:00 agenda here: https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3988
From now on I am not going to comment on the agenda before the meeting. The next day I will reveal how your pockets got picked yet again.
I will only tell you about other items the Council can’t discuss as ruled by his royal highness Koos:
104 North is where Dan Brady and Rodney Davis have an office for $1 per year. Taxpayers are losing $8126.44 in 2021.
The Town is renting 102 North to Dan Brady for his campaign office and should be paying taxes on that property. Once again they aren’t.
100-104 E Beaufort is part of Trail East, evidently building isn’t proceeding yet.
305 Pine is Sprague’s gas station that the Town rents for $120 a year. The lessee should be paying the taxes but Koos buddies aren’t required to follow the law. Add another $4116.06 to the citizens loss.
Of course the Council demand to end the 1 Uptown Circle lease has been ignored. Close to $36,000 a month has been thrown away for an entire floor on because Koos wanted a hole filled. Citizens get the bill for the fancy digs. Add another $432,000. The first floor is still not generating a dime.
Charging citizens for Uptown entertainment is back as well as staff travel. Covid restrictions? Only for the Council who is still on Zoom:
Fireworks will be back, hopefully not on Zoom:
The semi annual interest payment are included. Open door – toss money – utopia is so close:
Only $1.5 million+.
No big deal since Uptown is generating so much money. (grants, government buildings, subsidized construction, etc).
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When will taxpayers and voters wake-up and realize they are being continually fleeced by these self serving individuals who consider themselves “elitists” and smarter than the taxpayers. My taxes are not their piggy bank to do as they wish. Add Unit 5 to this and tell me what an educational mess last year was for students although no rebate was given for students not receiving an education. The money keeps flowing to these government entities with no accountability. Please wake-up.
Here, there, and pretty much everywhere, we have been programmed and bullied into just ponying up whatever they demand, and if we don’t they punish us. They like to say “You like having public schools don’t you?” or other nonsense, and truthfully, I really don’t care to have the kind of public schools we have now and I resent that a large portion of my limited income goes to support schools these days because it’s become far more important for them to have opulent buildings and all sorts of the latest technology and far less important to turn out kids who can actually read, write, do some basic math, know enough science to be at least semi literate and God knows nearly none of them actually know and understand actual history or what geography actually is, and yes, please wake up, they take far more than they actually give back to the AVERAGE person. I just wish I had a quick and easy solution, but they have run wild for too long and have grown so immense I truly don’t know how to deal with what “they” have become.
People continue to buy into the illusion that Uptown is successful. It’s getting harder for Koos to sell this illusion as more and more spaces are vacated. Without subsidies what do you think the true vacancy rate would be? 80%? It is and remains a colossal boondoggle. Of course, the puppet masters don’t want the market to decide what goes where because that would mean no wine bar or other boutique or sheek stores or experiences to feed their wants and egos.
They continue to buy into it because the ones who tout it make it sound so lovely, so chic, so “exciting”, and the ones who buy it don’t do any digging past the surface. – And also:
“Of course, the puppet masters don’t want the market to decide what goes where because that would mean no wine bar or other boutique or sheek stores or experiences to feed their wants and egos.”
Bingo!
Want proof, my business has been in downtown, oops uptown normal since 1922 and every day is a struggle to keep it going, Why you ask? normal has eliminated more than 70% of on street parking over the years I have lost a lot of business because customers just don’t want to deal with parking in wonderful uptown, you think the city would be concerned hell no, that is why there are now picnic tables taking up more on street parking, big deal you might say 4 parking spaces taken away right in front of my business, for what?. Normal could care less about the small business owners in their city. What do you think the mayor would say if we moved all the picnic tables to his parking lot me thinks he would have a fit. Oh well the citizens of Normal have spoken they love their 100 million dollar in debt pretty uptown!
A lot of that is part of their “walk or bike or take the bus” agenda, they don’t like the peasants having cars, they REALLY don’t. It’s ok for them to have cars though, they are important people and they need their cars for the important things that they do and the important places they go.
I am willing to $600 / yr for 305 Pine/Sprauges.