By: Diane Benjamin
1)
Pantagraph article on the Normal Town Council meeting:
Excerpt:
Did the reporter watch the meeting? A “number of people” were disrupting the meeting. Was the reporter told not to mention the only reason Public Comment was moved is because Stan Nord made a motion to let them speak? It wasn’t moved because “of the number of people interested in speaking”.
2)
The below was sent by email, I don’t know to who or how many people. See all jobs available here: https://www.cityblm.org/government/departments/human-resources/job-board
Click the link to see how bad the Bloomington website is, besides a really bad picture – Nikita isn’t in Human Resources anymore.
3)
I acquired a list of Executive Session Minutes the City of Bloomington refuses to release. The Council could vote to release some ancient minutes, they haven’t for many years. The Council is employed by you taxpayers, they supposedly work for you. The Council has one employee – the City Manager. Taxpayers aren’t allowed to know what was said by the people you elect to justify starting salaries, salary increases, or performance reviews.
The list I have has evaluations of former City Manager Tom Hamilton going all the way back to 1995.
26 years ago
I don’t care about the Collective Bargaining Agreements, they are being held so unions can’t gain any negotiating power. Listed are other really old discussions of Sale or Lease of Real Estate. Those should NOT be withheld. Taxpayers deserve to know why some properties were purchased and why the price taxpayers were stuck with seemed excessive. Think the North Main property Renner wanted to control and nobody wants to buy now. What about the Sugar Creek Packing property? Why was that so high? The location was never ideal for development except by the City. How about the Bus Barn from Connect Transit? There is a lot more you deserve to see!
4)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ekg_wi1bJc63qK6WyKASYTAh1FYEpFjg/view
In July Connect Transit managed to lose $1,123,180
In August they managed to lose $1,022,671.
Ridership is a little above last year. Moral of the story: The more bus riders the bigger the loss.
Rep Darin Lahood was in town to tour Rivian. He didn’t announce his visit and he didn’t invite any of the people he represents to meet with him (that I know of). Somebody needs to tell him to his face to quit wasting our money on empty buses. Emails don’t work which is probably why he didn’t hold a Town Hall to actually speak directly to his constituents.
5)
The Assistant City Manager is asking Uptown businesses to participate in a parking study. I wonder when “people” will be asked their opinion, Normal doesn’t want to hear from those who refuse to go to Uptown because of the parking?
Uptown Businesses –
As you may be aware, the Town of Normal recently engaged Desman Design Management to conduct a comprehensive parking study of the Uptown area. Desman was chosen in part based on their prior experience in working with and conducting studies in university communities. The team from Desman Design will be in Normal at the end of next week to initiate field work, meet with various groups and stakeholders and observe parking during the Sugar Creek Arts Festival.
The Town and team from Desman seek your participation via a focus group discussion of Uptown businesses from 8-9:30 a.m., Friday, Oct. 8 on the 3rd Floor of Uptown Station in the Ron Hill Room. Your participation is part of our effort to identify and engage business owners and managers operating in Uptown to provide guidance and feedback for the study that can be used to improve parking utilization and availability in Uptown. Please let us know if you plan to attend and/or if you have any questions. For those unable to attend, but wishing to provide feedback, we can arrange a phone conference with the consultants at a later date.
They have no chance with this facility. I know the former director of the coliseum from VenueWorks and others in the company. She was a seasoned professional – the best they had to offer. So now we are going to have a bunch of amateurs give it a go? This is just another way to give jobs to people who are connected to the establishment.
They should give the coliseum away. It costs more for taxpayers to own and upkeep it then what it is worth. If they gave it away at least they could start collecting property taxes.
Exactly correct. Unqualified people to collect a paycheck, and maybe or maybe not actually work.
Regarding the Slantagraph article, note the byline: Sierra Henry. Her bio on Muck Rack says she’s a “Johns Hopkins AAP grad student.” Really? The same Johns Hopkins that hosted “Event 201” in Oct 2019? The suspiciously prescient Event 201 that precisely gamed the “surprise” coronavirus pandemic the very month — or the month before — it happened? There are no coincidences in this world. She might be a So. Illinois native but she’s a plant. I’m willing to bet on it.
Talk to the average grazing animal and they don’t even know what Event 201 was or who was involved in it. If they have at least heard the phrase they might tell you that it’s just some made up conspiracy theory though and maybe laugh a bit.
As to the other stuff on the failing Colosseum, yes, jobs for “certain people” of a certain mindset, who are the right fit would be my guess as to who gets the jobs, and those big old empty buses are gonna keep lumbering around here forever and losing money month after month, it’s one thing we can always count on.