By: Diane Benjamin
http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1133&Inline=True
Committee of the Whole is meeting tonight. Expanding the Library is the main focus.
Like true Progressives, all facts don’t matter. The population is immaterial because the Internet didn’t exist in 1976. People do not need to go a library to do research anymore. People don’t need to go a library to get books to read anymore. The library is the place to go for “leisure and recreational opportunities”?
Bloomington has been trying to create a demand for downtown with your money for decades. This is just the latest attempt.
See the Library Board agenda from the September 2021 meeting. Circulation and the number of Active Uses have been decreasing since 2013: PDF page 13 https://www.bloomingtonlibrary.org/sites/default/files/content/minutes/packet%20for%20website_0.pdf
Tonight’s presentation was not included in the packet, evidently taxpayers don’t need to know in advance what they will be billed for. The expansion has little to do with books, I suggest you watch starting at 6:00 tonight. Scroll down at cityblm.org for a link to the Live Stream.
Mollie Ward’s Council initiative to make direct payments to flood victims will also be discussed.
We will see who was paying attention at the last meeting when attorney Jeff Jurgens detailed why benefiting a few individuals is hard to identify as a Public Purpose according to the Illinois Constitution.
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If they want a bigger library, there’s a giant Macy’s store sitting empty…
If it was downtown they would take it! They aren’t allowed to go where the people would go.
Bars and coffee shops…and I suppose law offices. That’s all that will thrive downtown. Embrace it and use the tax income elsewhere.
Ve must do this for the smart cities dumkoff! See? The smart cities!!! Everything that we decide you will need must be within fifteen minutes walking. No cars for the serfs. You vil live in a box and own nothing and be happy.
No one goes to downtown except to the bars or to a lawyer’s office. Bloomington City Council wake up!! I work downtown and with the exception of a few bars, don’t eat downtown. Downtown is dirty. There is no shopping. One women’s store that caters to small women only. There is zero to do down there. Look around at all the empty buildings. This is not rocket science. Do better city council.
They have been doing this for decades, they aren’t going to stop now. They are copying the free entertainment push Normal does.
Agenda 21.
I worked full time at BPL until recently. Trust me, the director even tells employees that the library bldg needs to expand to keep up with the population growth. If you ask her or management about the DECLINE in items checked out, bookmobile patronage, summer reading, etc watch out! All BPL needs is program SPACE which could be taken care of by using any of the empty bldgs nearby. But they won’t even consider this option. Good luck Bloomington citizens. You’re paying for BARE rooms for PROGRAMS and lavish new offices for management.
Like most people in positions of authority in BN, most are in denial about the community’s future. Instead of addressing the sad state of the local economy, increasing crime due to the Chicago invasion, and many people moving into the area from local rural locations without proper training or skill sets to obtain gainful employment, the weak and mostly unqualified leadership Clique chooses to bury their collective heads in the sand. BN will never realize years of population increases that remain sustainable. No company or organization that really has its eyes on the future is going to leverage twenty years or more in Illinois. Rivian is in the state only to take full advantage of the government largesse while it lasts and the entire operation is a crap shoot but you can’t convince community leadership otherwise just like your old boss at the library. Same difference, different day. Imagine Decatur as BN’s future reality.
BPL moving into the event space industry. Just in time because there’s so much demand for event space in Bloomington. Haha. Wonder if you and your program have to be the “right fit” to use library space. Hmm…
Underpasses and Libraries-WELCOM to Stupidtowns!
The homeless should be happy. They’re making the library bigger and better place to live!