By: Diane Benjamin

Unlike Chris Koos in the Town of Normal, Mboka Mwilambwe asked the Council if they wanted to extend time for Public Comment. They all said yes so they could hear from two final citizens. Recently Koos used his tyrannical powers to end Public Comment, nobody on that Council objected: https://blnnews.com/2023/05/03/one-guy-stood-up-to-koos/

The actual business didn’t start for close to an hour after the meeting was called to order. Public Comment was around 35 minutes of that, the rest was roll call, pledge, recognitions and appointments. Kent Lee was absent, instead of calling his name during roll call the clerk just skipped him. Seems ridiculous to take roll when all the names aren’t called.

Much of Public Comment pertained to the redevelopment agreement of the Coachman property. The labor unions and communists wanted mandates added to the agreement forcing the developers to pay prevailing wages. Tom Crumbler tried to add that to the agreement, he failed to get Council support. That would have killed the project, maybe that was why he did it – he later voted against it.

The unions and communists would rather have seen an $18.5 million project go up in smoke than approved as presented (and tabled) at the last meeting. It is tragic developers know they can get incentives now because it has become the standard way of doing business.

Other commenters were there to demand Phases 4 and 5 of Locust-Colton be fully funded as promised. The City only received 1 bid, it was close to $3.9 million more than expected. The City wanted to delay parts of the project until further phases were bid. The Council rejected that and fully funded the bid instead. Since the City is flush with cash they can afford it. Inflation continues so the project would have been even more expensive in the future.

The video below starts at Public Comment. Gentrification is the new buzz word. Don’t miss communist Matthew Toczko followed by Patrick Hoban – 33:17. Hoban claims the area is now short at least 7100 housing units. He’s upset 45% of Rivian employees don’t live in Bloomington-Normal. At 41:35 Gary Lambert speaks, he exposes union hypocrisy. Surena Fish was good at 51:46. One of the female communist spoke before her and couldn’t resist using foul language. If you want to see how many communists were present, see how many applauded after she spoke. Were the guests from India still present? Maybe the communists can tell us where communism has worked, they must be forgetting how many people it has killed.

More in Part 2.