By: Diane Benjamin
All the elected officials in McLean County will never tell those of you who don’t bother to vote thanks, so I will.
The schools boards love people who don’t care enough to make sure the teacher’s unions don’t get the candidates elected they want. Negotiations are so much easier when those paying high property taxes don’t bother with things as silly as casting votes or even running for office.
The local city officials feel the same. Raising taxes is easy when small government types don’t get votes. Vanity project are so fun! Those are easy to pass too. Congrats to those paying the bills.
Federal elections don’t affect much in your life – thanks for voting in those elections though.
Continue to believe the locals in office do what’s best for you. Don’t bother voting.
From the grateful elites – many thanks.
Since readers here most likely do vote, find some people who didn’t and send this to them. It shouldn’t be difficult. Or maybe celebrating all the tax increases July 1st is easier.
So let’s talk about a stupid waste of your tax dollars:
I went through the Bloomington downtown area the other day. This is something I rarely do. I noticed the fancy new signs they have everywhere. Wow… signs that look like they belong on some fancy Ivy League campus. My immediate reaction as I bumped along the horrible streets was: Maybe fixing and resurfacing the streets would at least provide a pleasurable driving experience. But no…. a couple more years of patching and neglect and you will need a dune buggy to drive on the streets. The idiom “lipstick on a pig” came to my mind immediately. But I quickly transformed this idiom into something more appropriate: No it is actually “lipstick on a dinosaur”. A dinosaur that will never walk the earth again. All attempts to “revitalize” the downtown area are doomed to failure. Our world has changed and how people shop has made almost everything that requires humans to “physically go somewhere” are OVER. Unless it is entertainment or food, humans today are not going to move off their rear ends to go anywhere. Why should they? You can have almost anything you want delivered to your door. And you don’t need to pay an inflated “retail price”. I think tearing most of the old buildings down would make a lot of sense. And replacing them with a huge casino, strip clubs, free deck parking and high end restaurants and bars would “actually attract” our overweight and lazy citizens to venture out of their homes. I am thinking of a “Las Vegas” like atmosphere with lots of green space and trees surrounding it.
But what do I know? I am just an old guy who used to go do to downtown Bloomington because it had things I wanted or needed and could not get anywhere else.
Trouble2
I could not have said it better we are surrounded by a bunch worthless pieces sh&$ that could care less about our town
Just pay your outrageous taxes and kiss the asses of those that these dumb residents continue to vote into power
It will never happen but our forefathers had the only fix rebel and destroy through force those that continue to force us to follow their stupid edicts!!
Yes we have governments that have legalized theft “for themselves”. All so they can spend it on silly shit and pet projects. With the property taxes we pay here, ALL of the roads should be 1st class. And we wonder why people are exiting Illinois? One of my friends worked her butt off to pay off her house. Her property tax bill amounts now to $750 a month. $750 a month to live in a house YOU own? WTF?
Just a couple notes. At ISU in the mid-70’s Sociology 101 noted the migration of cities from downtown areas to the east or west, north or south, then the other directions, drainng the downtown experience and it never coming back as the population center is no longer the center. Education from history, 50 years ago. That Renner upon election noted that he was going to do away with the good ‘ole boys club, not mentioning that a new club would be started of his ilk. That the people who claim asylum to escape communism stilll clamor for communist ways to somehow serve them. Still a bumpy road ahead it seems more people across the nation (with B-N still 10yrs behind) are waking up which will hopefully include good people running for office and getting out to vote for those good people. Like a debilitating addiction I doubt B-N will wake up enough until rock bottom is finally achieved. Get out of Illinois if you can.