By: Diane Benjamin

All previous BNWRD stories linked here: https://blnnews.com/2025/12/20/bnwrd-property-purchase-update/

Just to review, BNWRD is buying these 3 properties: (Bloomington Normal Water Reclamation District)

.

The first property should have been 21-06 instead of 21-08. It was severely under assessed for property taxes at $27,082 x 3 = $81,246 total value vrs a sales price of $503,393. The assessor, Glenn Milton hasn’t answered why. Part of the problem is likely caused by 2 properties being combined into this one. Records are sketchy from there.

The second property was listed in the County records as owned by the City of Bloomington. They don’t own it. No taxes paid on the property since 2011 – which is as far back as the record goes. I received this response yesterday from the McLean County Assessor:

In case that text is too small to read:

As I understand it, this lot is one part of a multi-parcel transaction that the parties are attempting to verify ownership of before completing the sale. If it were to turn out that the City did not own the piece in question and it was receiving the exemption in error, there are situations where the law allows for limited collection of back taxes, if appropriate. TAJ

So far I haven’t spent any time on the third property – until now.

I’d love to show you where this property is, but the McLean County GIS can’t find the parcel number. This is the legal description:

BEG 200′ E OF INTERSECTION E LN PEGGY LN & S LN MARKET ST: S32 DEGREES 23’57” W TO A POINT ON N LN LOT 14 EXT W, E ON SAID LN TO SUGAR CREEK, NELY ALG CREEK TO MARKET ST, W TO POB PT LOT 10 N 1/2 5-23-2E

All I know is it’s on the west side. The BNWRD docs may have a map but I don’t care enough to look.

The property is .3 acres. The County records shows it being in a TIF district with a TIF value of $975. I can find no trace of a TIF on the west side of Bloomington. The TIF amount appeared in 2004. 🤔

The County records show Carl Thomas buying this PIN on 9/1/2011 from Stephen Thompson for $119,040. Makes perfect sense Thomas would sell it to BNWRD for $26,572. 🤔

I think the County records have a bunch of wires crossed!

The County records also show no property taxes were charged or paid on this property from 2007-2014. It was listed as taxable with no tax. 🤔

I haven’t received the property titles for the 3 properties BNWRD expected to have by last week:

Email from December 12th:

Yesterday I received a denial for the titles because the sale isn’t closed yet:

.

Remember, I stumbled into this mess just by reading the BNWRD meeting packet.

There will be a story #7 at some point.

How many other County property records are wrong? I can say this is the first time since I started looking at them in 2012 that I’ve found problems like this.