By: Diane Benjamin
The meeting wasn’t 1 hour and 13 minutes long as the video shows. Almost 17 minutes is pre-meeting commercials.
Now that January is more than halfway over, the City declared the month Human Trafficking Awareness month.
There was also 28 minutes of Public Comments. All but one was by people representing Care For Victims. One guy spoke about the conditions of local streets.
WGLT did a story last August on this group: https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2025-08-05/new-b-n-group-hopes-to-improve-justice-system-experience-for-crime-victims
If you want to hear public comment, it starts at 26:35. I suggest jumping to the City Manager Jeff Jurgens comment first however. Just hit Play below. The City has met with this group to discuss ways the Bloomington police can improve their response to victims of crime. You wouldn’t know that listening to the speakers.
Care for Victims advocates read anonymous statements from crime victims. Jurgens pointed out that incidents can’t be investigated if victims stay anonymous. Many changes this group wants fall under County jurisdiction—the City has no control over them.
Instead, the group could create simple data sheets for local police and the County to give victims, listing helpful contacts like the Rape Crisis Hotline.
Alderman Kent Lee had the comment of the night – see 1:00:15. The “Council Priorities” statement includes the words: Quality of Life. Lee asked for a definition by citizens because the answers will vary greatly. I guarantee it isn’t tripling water rates, raising property taxes, and reimposing the 1% grocery tax.
I’ve been asking for a definition of Quality of Life since 2012. Spending downtown is how staff and the most of the council see it. If a survey of citizens was done they wouldn’t agree. Many of the Council members want more control during budgeting. We know City Code is immaterial to many aldermen who decided local elections are now partisan and faced no consequences, now they want to ignore the City Manager form of government described in the Code.
The only input Council has is the priorities list and a demand to not raise taxes. Obviously this Council doesn’t believe in the second part and evidently not the first either.
Yes quality of life, add that now if you go out to eat you are paying a %12 tax on your bill for the food you eat to sustain your life.
But obviously the residents of Bloomington Normal could care less about quality of life, they either don’t vote out the tax and spend leftists or they just don’t bother to vote.
So sad but true!!!
Go to the supermarket and look at prices. No one needs to go to restaurants to sustain life. High prices in supermarkets are making families less food secure. It’s Trump’s tariffs that is driving up food prices. Trump has not fulfilled his campaign promises to bring down food prices. High prices are increasing making it
so people find hard pay for basic food that does sustain life.
Eggs are down over 90%. Other prices will continue to drop because transportation costs keep dropping. Shop sales, my weekly bill is down
Let’s insert some facts: The price of eggs was because of Bird flu. Inflation was at 9 percent at the end of Trump’s administration because of COVID. Biden’s inflation rate was at 3 percent at the end of his administration.
The price of food has not gone down, we import produce and many foods from Mexico and South America. Tariffs will still affect the price of food. Transportation isn’t getting cheaper, the prices of cars have risen because of tariffs. Car manufacturers are paying more for their imported parts. The price of new and used vehicles have increased. Gas prices may be artificially down, but that doesn’t make transportation cheaper if you can’t afford a car to drive.
So many MSNow facts that are lies. Let Jennifer experience truth readers. Egg prices do go down when healthy birds aren’t mass destroyed. Duh
Avian flu HPAI killed millions of wild birds and domestic poultry. Nearly 15 million poultry birds including egg laying hens were sick and dying. Euthanasia of sick poultry and hens was the only way to stop the epidemic.
Avian flu is a zoonotic virus which can infected humans.
I don’t know why you think healthy birds were Euthanasized, they weren’t.
Goggle it, healthy birds were killed in case the might get infected
I did you a favor and Googled it. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-us-officials-walk-back-plans-to-stop-culling-poultry/
Jennifer, have you forgotten Biden’s 9% inflation? We are still paying for that and will be for years to come. Trump reducing it to 2.6% is pretty good for his first year.
I don’t think you want to fix Biden’s mess with double digit recession. Unless you don’t mind mass layoffs, bankruptcies, a stock market collapse along with banking failure and a housing market crisis.
Hey Bloomington City Council — here’s what would actually improve my quality of life: Stop siphoning my hard‑earned pay into monuments to your legacy.
Sometimes less is more and a lot of us would vote for representation like that. I’d even contribute to a monument that celebrated it. Long live the thrify politician!
You got to love it a typical leftist response paying 12% more in a tax just to eat gets ignored because you are paying more for groceries because of Trump
Wait a minute didn’t the city approve a 1% tax on groceries something you have to buy to eat to stay alive.
So continue to ignore what is being thrown at you locally because of what Trump is doing.
Not so sure prices were already high before he took office but as always when you are a leftist you have to differ and ignore the issue raised.
Oh well what do I know!
The price of cars went way up during the Biden inflation years. Actually a minimum average of $5000 per used car already stateside. Biden down to 3% at end of term. Too funny. Get your facts straight next time Jennifer. All those minuimum wage increases brought on by the demonrats big cause of price increase too. Food prices still high but stabilizing. I’m sorry but you gotta find a new drink beside kool-aid and skittles for every meal.
When you get an answer as to what is “Quality of Life” see if you can get one for “rich” people’s “Fair Share”.
You can spew whatever hogwash “data” you want, Jennifer. The bottom line is I’ve seen firsthand prices going down at grocery stores and elsewhere.
Off you go little fool. Shouldn’t you be protesting against the arrests of pedophiles and human traffickers?