By: Diane Benjamin
If you like listening to Biden and Harris explain the economy, this video is for you. I’m only posting it in case Karyn decides to run for re-election next year. This is from last Monday’s Normal Town Council meeting. It’s fingernails-on-a-chalkboard folks:
That was actually painful to listen to. She should work in HR for when someone comes in with a complaint. They will leave her office not knowing why they don’t have the complaint anymore and also extremely confused and wanting to get directly back to work . We are all dumber now for having listened to this.
I believe she teaches accounting/finances at ISU.
Scary!
For those who didn’t take the time to listen, she just explained the how/why Stan is right about the two simultaneous price tags being put forth for the Mayor’s Office Landscaping That Happens To Include An Underpass. The estimated price doesn’t depend on the details of the project, just the grant money available. That pretty much sums up the integrity of most of the council.
Well all of that happens to be true. Inflation and high gas prices would have been a huge problem for Trump’s second administration. The war in the Ukraine has had a huge impact on gas prices and food prices. Prices for raw materials have gone up for wood and all housing materials. Computer chip shortage has affected automobile availability. Also because of the pandemic supply chain issues. To expect a infrastructure project in today’s economy to cost the exact same as a something done several year ago is unrealistic. Her explanation was coherent and true.
Trump wouldn’t have set it off with a war on fossil fuels! Since you want to play games with facts, don’t come back
Rather than looking at whose to blame for this mess (Trump vs. Biden, war in Ukraine, Covid, etc.,) let’s not miss the elephant in the room in Normal, Il. What i’ve heard ad infinitum from Council for years is, “In Normal we plan our work and work our plan.” What Council has failed to see for years is the plan is not working. With Covid we’ve finally come to the tipping point where not only is the plan no longer working, societal changes from Covid will forever invalidated whatever plan they had. With just about everyone working remotely, how does Normal ever expect to occupy vacant buildings in Uptown, let alone build more of them? If remote workers can work anywhere in the world why would they stay in Normal and pay the taxes Illinois demands? Why go to a restaurant in Uptown when there’s Grub Hub? This is not a rosy outlook for the future of Illinois or Normal in particular. The problem with Karyn Smith and the rest of Council is they want to resurrect old, outdated plans when they need to start all over. Without some major belt tightening, they’re setting Normal up for a worse future than our current present situation.