By: Diane Benjamin
At the Bloomington City Council meeting last night Jeanne Hamilton announced the State had given them a grant of over $5.6 million for the expansion. Of course, they won’t be using all of it to decrease the property tax increase. See 4:15.
I might have lost track, but I counted 13 comments at the Public Hearing. Most were all in on the library expansion and tax increase. Even a single mother who claimed to live pay check to pay check and stated she can’t afford an increase but supported it anyway. She must not realize her property taxes likely already went up without the library because of rising property values.
Listen for the screams in May-June 2022 when the property tax bills come out which will lead to higher rents. Council members who claim to want affordable housing but still vote to raise property taxes are clueless.
One voice from the past spoke against the expansion and property tax increase: Judy Stearns. You can hear her comment by just hitting play below.
Meanwhile, now is a good time to revisit a story I did in 2014 about liberal progressive Austin Texas: https://blnnews.com/2014/07/07/clueless-fazzini-and-other-liberals/
Excerpt:
“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.
“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”
Bloomington is headed down the same path. At least the citizens of Austin voted to destroy themselves, Bloomington citizens don’t get that luxury!
(Thank Tari Renner when you get the bill. He stacked the library board with people who wanted this)
I’m confused why are you going on about Austin Texas? You have repeatedly bashed Illinois suggesting people move away from Illinois. Where exactly do want people to move to? Besides Texas can’t even keep its lights on during a winter storm. How many people died because they literally froze to death in Texas?
So now you want to bash a library’s expansion. How many of those mothers use the library for their children? I bet many do, checking out not only books, but videos and other materials for their kids. What if they had to buy those books or videos? That would be hard for someone living paycheck to paycheck. How many kids use available computers at the library or its Wifi in the parking lot to complete their homework? You’d be surprised.
It is obvious you are clueless. Not only do you believe a lot of mothers bring their kids to the library, you don’t understand what being taxed out of a home means. I wish landlords would use the following formula to inform renters how much of their rent goes to pay real estate taxes. Building real estate tax divided by building square footage. This value multiplied by renter’s square footage. Result equals the renter’s cost. Maybe then dim lights like mom of roblox player might understand why this type of waste needs to end.
Excuse me but Diane was not bashing Texas she was just relating a story about a lady in Austin that was being taxed out of her home. The exact same thing that is going on here in Bloomington. I am retired on a fixed income and I am reaching a point where I can no longer afford to stay in my house. The prices of everything are skyrocketing with no end in sight.now is not the time to tax me more to fund a library where it has been proven that usage is dropping. You may be in a comfortable position to pay more in taxes but I as well as many other seniors are not in the position to do that. From where I stand it is nice to have a person like Diane tell it like it is without sugar coating everything.
MOM OF ROBLOX PLAYER, everytime you use a different name we know who you are. I suppose you played hide-and-go-seek by yourself as a kid for a good time and are still stuck on that childhood.