By: Diane Benjamin
Thank you Nick Becker for asking why the Bloomington Election Commission exists and why this redundancy needs to continue. See 1:57:45.
Donna Boelen was acting mayor last night. She claimed she couldn’t vote, I remember other acting mayors voting in Bloomington. She is still an alderman so not voting meant her Ward wasn’t represented last night. It didn’t matter however, the only controversary was over an agreement with a developer. Even with her No vote it still would have passed. Jeff Crabill’s Ward wasn’t represented because he wasn’t there.
Molly Ward didn’t like the agreement with the developer of property somewhere around Ireland Grove Road and Hershey.
Two facts Molly:
- The Council wants “infill”. This property is “infill”.
- The Council knows there is a housing shortage, this agreement has both homes and multi-family
Molly wondered why public money was going to a developer when hundreds or more citizens had sewage flooding their basements and the determination was made that public money couldn’t be used for assistance even though decades of neglect caused the problem.
Well Molly, government does a lot of stupid things. (Coliseum, Water Park) The landlords who didn’t collect rent and were then billed for water bills their tenants were told was okay not to pay never received just compensation. Businesses government shut down, some of which never reopened, were never compensated for their losses. Did she notice Big Box stores made a fortune while mom-and-pop businesses couldn’t? Molly’s comments start at 1:20:57.
The City of Bloomington is lucky justice is now too expensive and therefore doesn’t exist. That almost $47,000,000 reserves the City shows ending this year with could disappear really fast. Of course that is MILLIONS the City can use to fight lawsuits.
PDF page 4: https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/29181/638155185801930000
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Here is a lesson for citizens: Break zoning laws to make a lot of money when you don’t live anywhere near Bloomington-Normal nothing is going to happen to you. Just hit Play below to hear the Public Comment from a doctor who lives in Hedgewood.
I was notified of this situation last week and talked to Nick Becker about it. He thought the City would do something quickly, evidently they aren’t.
A group called Oxford House bought this property in Hedgewood and plans to house up to 10 people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction:
Of course that violates the single family zoning. Of course Oxford House didn’t bother getting a permit before buying the property or adding it to their multi-state location list on their website. https://www.oxfordhouse.org/purpose_and_structure
If the City of Bloomington isn’t going to protect this neighborhood from an out of town not-for-profit putting a half-way house in this neighborhood, do you think they are going to protect your neighborhood? There are many children and a school across the street!
Zoning isn’t enforced?
Remember this when the City tells you can’t do something because zoning doesn’t allow it!
This story reminds of a situation where I used to live in the early 80’s at the time the one new nice subdivision called Rollingbrook in south east Bloomington a good Christian family decided to open their home to those getting out of prison. When the neighbors observed one of the new residents standing on the deck of the house urinating the open house was soon shut down by the city after neighbors complained. Moral of the story unless you are planning on policing these new residents 100% of the time, it only takes one bad apple in the house to ruin it for others trying to change their lives. And if problems arise those that have homes in the area will lose their home value.
Bottom line, residential areas are designed for single family homes not for multi residents use.
The city needs to shut this down immediately!
Oxford House website shows 4 houses in Bloomington. I wonder if zoning was ignored there.
Wow. Bloomington and Normal government are just alike. Doing whatever they want. Why not? They both have a group of enforcement who disobey, ignore, disregard, trample a citizens Civil Rights, a State government that’s doing the exact same thing, and a Federal Government showing them how. Soros is so proud that his $$$ is paying off.
Zoning laws? Haha. It’s called removal of Personal liberty. You never have complete control of your land ownership.
Sewage in basements? Well bring a bucket with you to the next council meeting. Farmers in France, Belgium did. Made an impact. A cities neglect on basic infrastructure causes backup and destruction of a citizens home, the city must provide recovery and recompense. Basic common sense, and if I’m not mistaken a “perfect defense” for the city doesn’t exist because it is easily show that they are the monopoly on maintenance of the infrastructure, have neglected it, budgets show the lack of funding, engineering supports this.
Using “Lawfare” against citizenry is not only shameful but fiducially irresponsible and corrupt.
Here is what I found interesting on the Development that was approved.
The City and the Developer had a deal on a RailRoad Crossing – the city didn’t deliver because the RailRoad didn’t play ball.
The City and the Developer had a deal on the bike path – The Developer couldn’t deliver because the power company wouldn’t play ball.
I’m not sure how the City can expect the Developer to work with a deal that is impossible to achieve. What was approved, sounded like a good compromise to a bad situation.