By: Diane Benjamin
Want to know why taxpayers have to pay $51,290 to make Uptown Circle ADA compliant? Somebody filed a complaint with the Illinois Attorney General who investigated and told Normal it doesn’t comply. Evidently that person did not approach the Town first. The biggest item is adding a handrail, but the ramp is around an inch out of compliance. See the video at 39:15.
Jump to 45:15 to hear the discussion about Ecology Action Center Energy Audits. The Town of Normal didn’t use EAC for their energy audit, but the Town is paying them to audit you. Michael Brown claimed commercial audits are above them. The numbers thrown around are ridiculous – 390 audits over 10 years. Also claimed was residents save over $200,000 a year on energy bills because of audits. Stan Nord brought up Ameren offers residents audit services for free and even changes light bulbs, Brown claimed EAC does more than Ameren. According to the documentation EAC collects $77,316 from Bloomington and Normal to do audits: https://www.normalil.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/4310
If you still don’t understand Limited Government, listen to Karyn Smith and Kevin McCarthy rave about this program you are forced to fund even if you never use it. Doing 30-40 audits a year combined for Bloomington and Normal doesn’t help many people. You get to fund it anyway. See above where most of the money ends up.
The problem isn’t this one agenda item, it’s small spending after small spending that amounts to a LOT of spending. Government would prefer to never leave anything to the private sector.
Improving energy efficiency is good. But the the Ecology Action government program conducted only 17 audits last year. The average cost to B/N taxpayers was $4,548 each. (77,316 / 17 = $4,537) The private sector does these for free.
Fiscally LIBERAL spending on government programs like this is why the roads suck and neighborhoods have brown water.
Scott needs to stop advertising himself as a “CONSERVATIVE fighter” if he is going to continue voting so LIBERALLY!!! Scott is following the Democrat playbook of just because he says it makes it true.
I am so sick of lying Republican politicians.
If you ask staff about saving money, their reply is “We have plenty of money in the budget for that” When I inquired about having the drainage ditch cleared of vegetation that was constricting flow, I was told town didn’t have equipment for that; this was after I paid more than $68,000.00 in “STORM WATER MAINTENCE FEES TO NORMAL