By: Diane Benjamin
Kathy Michael got the referendum court date moved to this Friday because early voting starts September 29th. (before any debates happen!) It will happen over Zoom so we can’t pack the court.
Morning Giggles from League of Women Voters:
The LWV decided as expected. When they picked Normal’s former City Manager as presenter the outcome was obvious. Their statement posted to Facebook last night (see below) makes no sense and doesn’t include any of the issues. Their “study” was gathering reasons to oppose it from people opposed to it. They obviously didn’t look at the documentation on https://betternormal-il.com/
I wonder if minorities in Normal realize they don’t exist? Largely homogenous? The LWV missed the two minorities who testified before the Normal Election Commission, a pastor and an Asian American. Both want representation in their neighborhood because they don’t have it now. Transparency does exist – it was easy to see in advance LWV would take the side of the local elites.
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The League of Women voters has been used as a weapon by progressives against the American people since its very conception starting with pushing the failed League of Nations. Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Exactly true
Very true. Also on the Soros backed and funded list (LWV.) “I’m here to help society and you”. They coordinate lotsa agenda driven stuff. A shame folks don’t see the theatrics and trust the systems they are all putting in place. Republicans, city employees and heads and Dems. A shame
What is the zoom link?
It should be a public meeting but they might have capacity limits. Let me find out if I can share it
It doesn’t look like a decision will be made at this hearing, it isn’t expected to last long.
I watched the presentating and was shocked to watch an issue that is driven mainly by Democrats eleswhere get desecrated by what I thought was a largely Democrat orginization. The League based their opposing position solely on the input of people who profit from the “good old boys network” (town staff) or they received power from it (elected and appointed officials). The League even called their opinions “fact”. The list of who the League surveyed were all members of, or donors to, the Responsible Cities Pac. Their decision to maintain at-large elections ignored people who have no council representation for miles and may want someone living near them, on their side of town, or in their neighborhoods elected. They said having deliberations of diverse minds is bad while having a homogenous council makeup is good. Did they miss the boat on the diversity and inclusion push? I’m struggling to understand the purpose of the League of Women Voters after this presentation.
Mayor Koos won with only 52% of the vote last election. The LWV are essentially saying the other 48% of the people in Normal do not deserve a seat at the table. The root of the problem with at-large elections is that the winner takes all-the mayor and the entire council. I expect their position is purely to help the politically connected members of their local organization and not the average citizen of Normal.
Few years ago but revealing article on agenda and funding of LWV and agenda local, states and higher
https://capitalresearch.org/article/lwv/
Good read. Like so many other things the leftist progressive marxist democrats have taken over and ruined, this is another one.
The LWV should not come as a surprise to anyone. Years ago Rob Fazinni actually got a petition drive on the ballot to do away with districts in Bloomington. The LWV supported that effort, largely because Fazinni controlled the organization. I also remember a story Diane did on it at the time showing an FOIA’d email exchange between Fazinni and Mark Petersen talking about how an at large Council allows people like Petersen to railroad through big government projects like Uptown.
Diane, you might want to pull that story from archive. It would say a lot about what’s going on in Normal right now.
I don’t know if this is the one you are talking about, but it made me laugh! https://blnnews.com/2013/12/27/proof-bloomington-has-no-transparency/
That’s it. Funny because it’s so true. We’re seeing it in Normal right now with all of this.
This is NOT your mother’s (or Grandmothers) League of Women Voters.
The powers that be love the Appearance of input from the people, they just don’t like actually Getting it, or Following it when they do. Normal’s *Invitation Only* ‘public summit’, the 4000+ signature to save the mural ‘not valid input’, easy passage of allowing alcohol at One Normal Plaza after 60-to-1 public input against, and the list goes on. So the LWV ‘ruling’ makes sense. But be prepared for a propaganda campaign and/or get-out-the-uninformed-vote campaign like Normal has never seen before.
And they based their ruling in part on a map that includes data back to the 80s? I expect that’s because they had to go that far back to find the data points to support the narrative they want to push. The left likes to play the race or other similar cards – I bet if you map out time-lapse council member addresses and overlap it with time-lapse minority residency and neighborhood income, you’ll see a clear pattern that at-large representation comes almost exclusively from the whitest-upper-income areas, just like it does now. We apparently had west side representation decades ago, but back then there were very few minorities there.
Very well stated