By: Diane Benjamin
1)
The Down Village Board failed to get a motion to take a vote: https://blnnews.com/2025/03/13/downs-tonight-flooding-shaddyville/
The issue isn’t totally dead, the people affected need to stay vigilant.
2)
Barry Reilly’s Vote Yes for McLean County Schools received some donations they couldn’t hide until after the vote:
Since the Unit 5 Teacher’s Union doesn’t have to spend money getting anyone elected to the school board, they threw dues to making you think paying more sales tax is good. Of course a building trades organization would support higher taxes that will benefit them. Isn’t transparency great?
We won’t know who else gave money until after the vote.
Since this new wealth the schools want can’t be used for operations, that part of your property taxes can’t be decreased. Are they telling you that? Isn’t that the largest part schools?
3)
Did you get a card in the mail from Responsible Cities telling you who they support? We now have 2 local PACs telling you who to vote for. This is not the same organization as Common Sense McLean County,
Responsible Cities has a website: https://responsiblecities.com/
They list who is running the PAC:
I see a ton of progressives. They support the 1% Sales Tax increase, at least they don’t support far left Abby Scott.
Know who is telling you who to vote for before you believe them!
I can only find a Facebook page for Common Sense McLean County. It has nothing but their logo on it.
The only person we know involved is Randy Butts. Responsible Cities at least has transparency, Common Sense McLean County doesn’t appear to believe in that.
Common Sense contributors: https://www.illinoissunshine.org/committees/36159/
Responsible Cities contributors: https://www.illinoissunshine.org/committees/35984/
4)
Read this story: https://www.smilepolitely.com/splog/illinois-art-station-foundation-donated-to-the-town-of-normal/
Keep reading:
Normal invested in this property way back in 2020. Can we all agree this Foundation wasn’t profitable and the solution was to let Normal taxpayer fund it instead?
Taxpayers will be billed $175,000. PDF page 52: https://www.normalil.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/5217
Funny how the Town of Normal documents don’t mention their previous investments. Keep reading the pages following PDF page 52.
This project was “fishy” from the start. Read this: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/31/normal-could-have-a-10-minute-meeting-monday/
See some tax returns, they’ve lost money in 2021, 2022, & 2023. It’s more fun to have taxpayers lose money instead. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/850611871
Normal has nobody on the April 1st ballot who wouldn’t do this all over again. Congrats.
5)
Thursday I was at my Bloomington church cleaning up flower beds and cutting dead branches from bushes.
I took a bottle of ice water with me, but when it was gone I filled it up from the inside water cooler.
My reaction resembled this:
It’s ok that you don’t know where IPACE dollars come from, but maybe you should actually do research before posting things
Maybe you need reading lessons
I’m not the one claiming that IPACE money comes from dues dollars 🤷🏻♀️
What are the 4 letters in front of it!
Where do IPACE funds come from? Because it’s not dues dollars. Yes, the contribution came on behalf of UFEA from IEA, but it is not from dues dollars, but from optional political action contributions. You should be concerned about accuracy in reporting.
Arin Rader? That was a surprise!
Lots of unions throw money behind politicians/agendas that will benefit them. It is not just a local problem.