By: Diane Benjamin
The Districts referendum challenge will be heard TODAY at 3:00 pm in the Town of Normal Council Chambers. It will be held before Chris Koos, Kevin McCarthy, and Town Clerk Angie Huonker.
Steve Suess laid out why the challenge isn’t valid on his show yesterday – start listening at 34:00 https://www.cities929.com/2022/06/05/the-steve-suess-show/
Would Chris Koos appreciate voters reporting him to the Department of Justice for violating the Voting Rights Act instead?
One of these will happen:
- Voters discard At-Large representation
- DOJ discards At-Large representation and Normal is labeled a racist town
https://www.justice.gov/crt/cases-raising-claims-under-section-2-voting-rights-act-0
In case Koos thinks violating the law is fine:
You and Nord are using a game right out of the leftist playbook. If they don’t think the petition is valid they are racist? You are doing exactly what you claim to despise. Today’s hearing is solely on the validity of the petition- not its merits; not its effect on community; nor on the actual opinion of the council on district voting. You have not offered one iota of evidence that at large voting has been discriminatory here in Normal. Have you even researched minority populations here? Do you have prima facie evidence of actual discrimination? You can call Normal Trustees a lot of things but racists isn’t one of them. In fact, we can speculate just like you- you want district voting to stuff the Council with extreme right wingers. It’s basically gerrymandering. Nord and you don’t like Connect Transit funding- are you racist because of it? You cite studies and law without understanding context or procedure. Your approach and that of Nord is divisive, slanderous, and not at all solution oriented—-thereby you isolate yourself from a whole swath of conservatives. Do real research for this gossip column instead of writing in half-truths and baseless accusations. You make a mockery of conservative principles. Aim Higher. And to be clear, I’m not against districting.
Thanks for seeing only what you wanted to see. Is this area represented? No. https://blnnews.com/2022/08/19/is-normal-racist-patrick-dullard/
Do you and Nord just run around honking each others big red noses? Because y’all are clowns thinking districts are a good idea. The only angle you’re going for here is so that you and Nord can hand pick people from each ward to run. You both don’t actually see the big picture here. You really want 1-2 districts that are ISU students only? Why would anyone think you or Nord could pick students to run. If there’s not representation from the East or west sides of town currently, what makes you think folks will run when districts are brought in? If someone from those areas wanted to get on council, they would run now. Stan is just upset he’s getting bodied every time he opens his mouth. He deserves it. Districts are such a pathetic and short sided view of the situation, it’s no wonder your candidates got smoked during the last election. Districts won’t happened not because Koos and Co. will kill it today, it’ll die because voters are smart enough to know it’s a disaster. If Stan wants Normal to be more like Bloomington, then he should just pack and move there.
DOJ and NAACP think at-large are discriminatory, you don’t believe them? ISU students are a third of the town, they don’t deserve representation?
You can report online to the DOJ a civics rights violation for Normal having at-large elections at https://civilrights.justice.gov/
It was painless and I did mine anonymously so Koos and Pammy can’t target me or my business for reporting them. Everyone needs to file a report now!
When people argue against this, I hear them say
– they want to keep ageism
– they want to keep racism
It’s great to see the Koos supporters show their true colors.
These posts should be required reading for students when the register to vote in Normal
Just think if you had districts the town of Normal may not have been able to approve and build a $30 million dollar walk and bike way under the railroad tracks. Just thinking!
Koos doesn’t care about a lawsuit. Taxpayers will pay for it and he gets to stay in power while it drags out in the courts.