By: Diane Benjamin
Jenn Carrillo didn’t bother to attend. Other council members have forgotten how to talk INTO a microphone, at times voices were difficult to hear.
A long line of people appeared again disappointed at the City’s reaction to the raw sewage in their basements. One thing is obvious: The City isn’t capable of a rapid response. The sewer and storm water systems can not be separated quickly no matter how much money is thrown at the problem. The entire Committee of the Whole meeting next week will be devoted to this topic.
The longest conversation was about paying cash for large purchases instead of capital leases. The City of Bloomington is FLUSH with cash, there is no reason both paying cash and fixing the sewers can’t be done. Since IEPA provides low interest loans the City would likely get money from them anyway.
Jeff Crabill, Julie Imig, and Mollie Ward didn’t want to pass this. Some discussion happened on tabling it, that also failed.
This was the agenda item:
Just so you understand how disastrous capital leases have been, the items below were on the Bills report. Keep in mind this is just one meeting. Note the amount of interest paid too. You know carrying a balance on credit cards is bad for your fiscal health, the same applies to the City. We don’t know how much the City has outstanding, when the financial statements are eventually released we will know how much as of April 30th.
https://www.cityblm.org/home/showpublisheddocument/26779
Just hit play to hear the discussion:
I cant bare stand to watch the meetings since they moved to the government building. The audio is to low, most times you cant hear public comments and the camera doesnt show everyone in one screen like it did at city hall building. They would be better off going back to zoom meetings.
I agree, the County Board meets in the same space without spacing out members. They can all be seen at once if the camera wants to. Zoom was better because faces could be seen and heard.
Any reasonable person can see that paying cash out of pocket saves money over taking out a loan and that taking out an unnecessary loan when you have the appropriate cash on hand is just plain stupid. While it’s tempting to call members of the City Council “stupid,” they are not. I believe they want to keep the cash on hand for pet projects and other spending sprees for which they know residents would not otherwise support. They can more easily justify wasting this money because they can say “look at all the surplus money we have,” as opposed to justifying taking out a loan for said wasteful spending. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’d prepare for a so-called catalyst project.
O’Neil water park is the latest. Once it doesn’t produce prosperity it will be on to another.
YEAH! Just like Tari was going to “re-invent” Eastland mall. Wonder what the “BUZZ WORD” will be at this years mayors conference? “Borrow don’t cause Sorrow”?
The SJW want to spend the reserves for direct aid. First it was COVID relief now it is for flood relief. The majority of the previous Council, including Mollie Ward, gleefully voted to spend (borrow) $13M for a water park as a west side “investment” without considering longterm costs. That project is most likely to go over budget due to the current increased cost of materials and labor. As a reminder…those who didn’t want to pay off the debt also voted against funding for the Locust/Colton CSO remediation.
It is hard for me to comprehend how people view paying off debt as foolishly spending money.