By: Diane Benjamin

Follow-up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2026/10/01/unit-5-and-their-5-electric-buses/

The Town of Normal is notorious for funding wants with grants. They can’t afford the underpass or all the trails, so they get other taxpayers to fund things for them. Grants aren’t free money, it was either stolen from other taxpayers or printed money that created the massive federal debt.

Since the Unit 5 District office is in Normal, why should they be any different?

This is the first mention of electric buses – it happened at a Finance Committee meeting on 12/15/23: https://meetings.boardbook.org/Documents/CustomMinutesForMeeting/1482?meeting=614653

There is no mention in the minutes of Connect Transit’s fiasco with electric buses.

This is the agenda item where the buses were actually bought: https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Agenda/1482?meeting=660148

.

Note: The documentation states the “lowest responsible bidder”. They didn’t go for the lowest bid. According to the Finance Committee Minutes of 11/15/24, the 3 bids ranged from: https://meetings.boardbook.org/Documents/CustomMinutesForMeeting/1482?meeting=663756

Now note: the Board approved spending more than the highest bid so they could have extra chargers.

If your kids ride one of these, when it gets really cold this winter ask them if the bus has heat. According to this story, using heat drains the battery: https://blnnews.com/2023/09/28/more-on-proterra-buses-oops/