By: Diane Benjamin
It’s always nice when the clueless show up and claim they elected the new members of the Bloomington City Council. Unfortunately they are right. The new members plus Mboka and Tom Crumpler knelt before them.
I love this visual – the first communist who spoke surrounded by police:
The police weren’t there for the numerous communists who spoke, an officer was certified later in the meeting.
The communists were there to protest the housing development being considered on E Washington. They want “affordable housing” while ignoring affordable for a minimum wage earner doesn’t exist and never has. Affordable housing has always meant substandard which is the perfect motivator to work harder to make more money to get out of it.
Don’t forget Bloomington screwed many landlords by billing them for unpaid water bills of their tenants and legalizing squatting during COVID for those who didn’t want to pay rent.
The communists also don’t realize that every new housing project in Bloomington lowers rent for everyone. Rents are high now because of a housing shortage. Landlords can demand higher rents to get higher quality renters. If the E Washington development is completed people who can afford higher end housing will move there which makes cheaper housing available for others.
The communists also want the City to mandate union labor must be used to build it. Sailing right over their heads is the fact that union labor increases the costs which makes the housing even more unaffordable. This is a private development and government can’t write that in the contract if they really want the project.
Also completely over the heads of these people is Bloomington isn’t writing them a check for $4,508,960. That money doesn’t presently exist. The church on the property now doesn’t pay property taxes and since the City of Bloomington owns the rest they don’t pay property taxes either. This large property near downtown is currently returning NO MONEY to City coffers.
The rebate will only be paid when the development does generate tax revenue. Eventually they will pay property taxes and short term rental taxes. Only then will the City of Bloomington be writing checks.
The show last night proved Bloomington is anti-business.
Tom Crumpler made a motion to table the vote until next month. Molly Ward was absent. Cody Hendricks, Jenna Kearns, and John Danenberger joined him in voting yes. Nick Becker, Sheila Montney, Kent Lee, and Donna Boelen voted no which meant the vote was tied. Mboka Mwilambwe then broke to tie by voting with the new communist members, Crumpler swings with the wind.
Pritzker chose Mboka as a Board member for his new Illinois Workforce Innovation. A couple of local guys want to invest $18,500,000 in Bloomington, expand available housing that is in extreme short supply, and the leftist council slaps them down because THEY want to control the project. Future developers will now avoid Bloomington because they are not going to kneel before a bunch of clueless wonders. Elections have consequences, the voters of Wards 4 and 6 screwed themselves by electing morons. Communism doesn’t work unless you want to live in a totalitarian society. Pritzker and Mboka proved they agree with the far left. The economic decline for Bloomington began last night.
Just hit play to hear Public Comment. It includes a lady who wants more Section 8 housing. Bloomington is on a race to the bottom. Both developers also spoke. The project is at best now delayed. Of course they could decide not to go forward where they aren’t wanted.
Is the City Manager going to chastise the council and mayor for not pushing this through? His expectations were clearly not met. Is Jeff going to get admonished for losing control of this vote?
He was too sick with Covid to attend. He’s probably livid
Bloomington/Normal– South Chicago – Population 130,000I left something important out
Bloomington/Normal– South Chicago – Population – 130,000Voting Members – 13,000
It makes me sick. You’re 100% correct FROMHERE. South Chicago. I bet we start seeing flash mobs too.
We have a lot more CCW holders than Chicago. Pull that “stuff” here and the herd of thugs & hooligans will get thinned through righteous self-defense in short order. Might even make the national news.
An armed society is a polite society. A disarmed society is an impolite cesspool.
Everyone in BN is clueless. You were already “South Chicago” when the universities and organized labor were able to shove their candidates down your throats. It started with Koos’ first term followed by Renner and the takeover of the County Board by the out-of-town nutjobs. The “housing shortage” is a concept created by the local realtor community trying to up the average price per home. If you really had one, the local home builders would be moving dirt like crazy because they already had the available land. Get back to me when existing home prices and values start increasing to at least one third to one half more of their true market value. At that point, BN will have a real housing shortage. Rivian ain’t doing shit for you and SF and Country Financial are a shell of what they used to be. Quit lying to yourselves about the fact BN is a shithole where no one with a brain wants to work or live in anymore.
There is a ton of unaffordable construction happening. EAV was up way up! Ask any local who got a property tax bill.
Well in that case, I stand corrected. Tell me, how many new houses are going up? Building totally new subdivisions? An assessor can basically assign any value to your home they want. Your streets remain an embarrassment, no new business to speak of except that generated by government. The local economy is a house of cards and unsustainable long term. Get some guts and put your property up for sale and get the hell out of loser McLean County or keep on bitching where nothing ever changes. You’re all being played.
Lots and f subdivisions!
What’s “alot?” Who is building them and where? Average price per new construction? Come visit a place with a real diversified economy in central Indiana. That’s real economic success and property taxes are half what you are paying for getting less community services. Last time I passed through (Unfortunately had no choice) still looked like a shithole. Again, you’ re all being played by loser Rivian.
Likely! Most of them are e vitamins n north and west Normal. Barickman is doing 1 or 2
Doesn’t tell me a thing. Numbers please versus real metro and county population. Two houses per 1,000 in population? Ten per 1,000? What is it?
I’m not looking up news for you!
It doesn’t sound like you’ve any concrete connection to BloNo any longer. The direction its going is terrible yes, but it must be what the voters want….just like Chicago going from really bad to WORSE! But please don’t bust Diane’s chops, she’s one of the few that tries everyday to keep BloNo from the brink.
She inferred BN housing was taking off like gangbusters. Not busting anyone’s chops. If it is, then prove it. I know it’s not based on past activity years ago. Calm yourself. Yes, she does attempt to shed light on the graft. I can say anything I want. You have no idea who I was and what I was involved with in BN. I did something about it and moved after I had it with the shit. Most of you just talk. Typical BN.
Yes, you can say anything you want. And yes, I have no idea “who YOU were”. But you have no idea who I was either. I’ll give you a hint…..behind the old College Hills Mall I was the second largest sales tax generator in Normal for a few years, but that’s been a long while ago. i paid my way. I legally moved too, but have family here and still maintain a house and pay BloNo tax. So I figure I’m STILL paying for the right to voice my opinions. As I said, Diane is the last voice we have I know of…..look up your own facts.
SO….you all want the newest but you don’t want to work? And to the MAYOR…you are done.
The Mayor isn’t done. He is doing exactly what JB wants him to do. He is trying to move up in the political world. Expect him to be part of a JB team when JB runs for President.
These imbeciles need to put their money where their mouth is, like communism then give up your USA citizenship and go live where you can be a commie, but they wont because they are cowards
The Communist Party has a rich history in the US, and is a large part of why we have what labor laws and protections we take for granted (including the right to unionize), as well as othe programs like Social Security, Medicare, veteran’s programs, etc. of course, all of that has been constantly under attack from BOTH capitalist parties ever since.
Unions, SS, Medicare, all bankrupt. Veterans get substandard care, many homeless. Communism has never worked anywhere, it has killed millions though. Thanks for playing
I agree please get the hell out of my country and move to Russia. I will even buy you a one way ticket just give up your citizen here! But you won’t because you and all your ilk are a bunch scumbags who want to suck the life out of us that are working.
What does that sound like? Fascism. We in this state and this
country have huge homeless population who are elderly, disabled
and can’t work because of disabilities. How exactly are these people
who are part of our society to live? No other country in the world
treats its elderly and disabled along with the truly poor like you want them treated, throw them out.
Unions build this country. My father was a blue collar worker who was able to make a living, buy a home and have children. Those making minimum wage can’t do any of those things and sometimes end up on the street. So if cutting the safety net is the aim more people will in poverty. You’ll be real proud of denying an 80-year-old
woman her meals on wheels and a woman with three children who works her SNAP benefits. Now you go to another country.
Gee, those union guys who built the country took care of their own. Their jobs got shipped overseas by government policies. You want socialism, hint: it fails every time.
Jon Swaine and others…..he reason we have so many homeless and the reason working people resent them is not because we want to hurt them. We’re up set because the left/democrats/ progressives have tirelessly destroyed the social safety nets and now expect taxpayers/working people to foot the bill. People used to take car of there own. Churches were HUGE contributors to helping the needy. Family’s had value…..they helped 80 year old grandma. Thanks to the left families are destroyed… many openly demonize the ” nucleus family” as racist!! You can’t pray in public….secular leftists are destroying religious values. And drugs…..I won’t waste time talking about liberals and drugs other than to say its never been worse.
So don’t blame people that work for being fed up paying for those that don’t!! Put the blame where it belongs ….. in the hands of those that have destroyed the family, especially in the black community. And in the hands of those destroying the Judeo-Christian values we were founded with and those destroying churches as bedrocks of our communities. Don’t blame squeezed dry taxpayers!!
Russia has not been communist since the undemocratic dismantling of the USSR in late 1991. I hear Russia is making space for US conservative refugees, though. https://www.newsweek.com/russia-may-build-village-american-conservatives-1799809?amp=1
Unless oppose government, you will die quickly
Hi Diane, I’m kinda worried about what you said along the lines of “the police weren’t even there for the communists.” We can’t say we are all for freedom and freedom from government intimidation but then suggest political opponents need to have police around then. If I got the sentiment wrong please tell me, but that just feels very un-American, even if the ey are communists.
It was a funny visual, nothing more.
DECENCYFORALL…… I get what you’re saying, not about Diane’s post but rather the freedom for all part. If we want an America it’s time we step back and renew the vision for America many of us believe in. The vision the founders coined, both literally and figuratively. Does E Publius Unum ring a bell? The leftist Marxist (communists) and democrats are doing everything possible to erase that most fundamental tenant for a sovereign nation. If we want an America we best stop treating diversity like a religion , we better start demanding individual responsibility, we better start enforcing our laws, and we better enforce “decency for all” ……and stop the celebration of perversity. We better stop tolerating the urban violence that is destroying our cities. And we better quit blaming guns, the problem is the values we aren’t any longer teaching, the laws we aren’t enforcing, and victim hood that the left has weaponised.
If people keep thinking they are god nothing changes. The original GOD this country used to honor can change everything and restore sanity.
Absolutely. Without God evil wins. With God all things are possible.
Diane, so true. Listening to Tim Keller (he is resting in peace) podcast this morning. He said -, Our culture assigns everyone a value. The only way to not be a victim or controlled of your culture is through the Gospel.
Think about what Equity, Communism, Socialism, Marxism is trying to do. Assigning value or devaluing everyone. The Gospel is the only thing that says we all have the exact same value. Not just any value but value assigned by God. It’s a value more important than anything mankind can falsely assign.
Deep shame will someday come upon anyone that attempts to assign their own value to God’s creation. That goes for everyone. Me included.
Just a theory.
America is divided like this.
1. People who hate America. Relatively small in number.
2. People who love their home. A larger group of America.
3. People and corporations who love their home but also love the drug called “virtue signaling”. A large group.
Group 3 is turning to Group 2 because group 1 is self-destructive, and Group 3 can’t achieve virtue by supporting them.
The end result will be a collapse of the Wako-Woke ideology, and this will go down in history as America’s temporary insanity.
Repeating German history, they voted for Hitler to fix it.
I hope you’re right FROMHERE! I pray you are. ‘Cause if you’re not we’re all screwed!!
“they voted for Hitler to fix it.” Exactly. Back when the left was decrying parallels between Trump and Hitler, my response was that Trump is no Hitler, but if he were, Hitler was elected as a response to horribly corrupt government. If the left doesn’t want ‘a new Hitler’, they need to clean up Their Own house, and quickly, or we *will* end up with a new Hitler, whether that’s Trump or somebody else.
Or a new Stalin, which sadly most people don’t know history well enough to know is Worse. So the right needs to clean up Their house as well.
Interesting comments. After thinking about where we are it appears that –
1. We are at a critical point in time in America. Cultural stresses have built up to an explosive level.
2. The left/Democrats are prepared to use whatever means necessary to overthrow tradition, law, the constitution, social norms, democracy, to achieve unchallengeable power in a new society.
3. This new American society hasn’t been defined yet but it appears that Neo-Marxism, Socialism and even Communism are their cultural alternatives to Capitalism and historical American culture. They are actively laying the groundwork. We see it here in local politics and education.
The parallel’s to our current situation in America seems more in alignment with the Chinese and Soviet cultural revolutions. The cultural revolution in America has ramped up recently. Trump more or less forced it into the open.
The difference is that people in America *that know some history*, realize that communism or socialism don’t work and know Marxism when they see it. The left/democrats seem to be starting to blush or are they willing to take it up a notch?
So what will happen next if this scenario is valid? The Leftist’s ideologies are not the majority in America. But minorities have taken over nations before. It requires atrocities. Are American Marxist’s serious enough to repeat the murderous past of Russia and China? It looks like they have an American political party willing enough to do just about anything for power.
The coming American socio/political inflection will be world changing given the wolves at our doors ready to take advantage.
FROMHERE You left out the western revolution of revolutions …. the French revolution. That’s very close. Then Chinese style of government, a blend of communism and capitalism. But only after traditional Christian Americans are gone, and I mean literally gone. Look at South Vietnam for a recent example of how it will go. Reeducation camps. Prison. And disappearances..
I hope to be able to take a few with me when I go.
“repeating German history…”
Beautiful self own.
hitler was never voted for or elected to anything.
He was ELECTED! History doesn’t change, only those telling it
“Repeating German history”….
hitter was never voted for or elected to anything.
kinda like Gleason
Try reading a history book
Since search engines.must be beyond your abilities: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/adolf-hitler-becomes-president-of-germany
Agree w the commies on this one. but not for the reasons they espouse. This is a bs deal to make a couple of developers rich using incentives/taxpayer money – nothing more.
Incentives for manufacturing etc have their place as they create long term jobs – this project is to enrich a couple of developers that don’t see a way for themselves to hit the jackpot personally without YOUR money.
Providing homes is useless then
This deal providing homes is not useless. Neither is providing jobs to people and providing inexpensive travel to work, groceries, and medical care to those that cannot afford cars, but you frequently and very rightly complain that Connect Transit wastes millions of dollars every year. Both are examples of “There is a difference between a good idea and a good law.”