By: Diane Benjamin
At the end of Normal’s meeting last Monday Pam Reece and Brian Day weighed in on Stan Nord’s mention of the recent Illinois Supreme court ruling on use of gas taxes. Pam Reece is willing to sit down with anyone for details on how gas taxes are spent. (anybody willing?) Brian Day sounds just like what the Illinois Supreme Court shot down.
Nobody I know of said transportation expenses can’t be paid out of the General Fund, it is poor accounting to not segregate Local Motor Fuel Taxes, dollars the Township submits for Roads and Bridges, and Use Taxes from General Funds and then claim they are used for roads. The problem lies in putting all local transportation taxes in the General Fund and even labeling them on your website as funding general operations. General Operations doesn’t qualify as transportation related expenses. The Lockbox Amendment was established to prevent government from dreaming up ways to spend the additional revenue for purposes other than intended.
See this previous story: https://blnnews.com/2022/06/30/normals-unconstitutional-use-of-your-taxes/
Take a short trip back in time to the minutes of the Work Session held on September 8, 2020 where increasing the Local Motor Fuel Tax was discussed. “Could” doesn’t mean they are, actually it means staff did not ask for the $.04 increase to the already in effect $.04 to fix the roads. Courts would strike Normal down for that statement from the Finance Director. https://www.normalil.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3742
Just hit play to hear Reece and Day:
To somebody who knows what’s going on, the meeting could be considered a comedy. I don’t remember which question Pam answered with a long screed talking Around the answer, but I was So hoping Stan would then follow up with a concise “So then that’s a no.”
And then at the end, Pam and Brian blathering about paying for street repairs with general money, which was not the actual topic. I’m not sure it they honestly misunderstood the issue, but I expect they were just trying to throw out enough word salad to either distract from it or to give themselves a basis for upcoming lies that Stan misunderstood and they discussed the topic at length.
Nord is the exception, the rest of the council, mayor and staff keep raising taxes. As long as voters acquiesce things will never change.
I admire Councilman Nord, for standing for the citizens, while being verbally abused by the Koos mafia.