By: Diane Benjamin
You are expected to forget this story: https://blnnews.com/2026/10/24/little-birdie-update-why-she-was-fired/
Have you?
Start with this pic of the crowd and Board Pledging allegiance to the almost invisible flag. The screen has never been in front of it before.
.
The video below is of the Township Assessor. His office currently has 416 assessment protests. They have to make a case for each one.
416!
He did say they can spot patterns – like an entire neighborhood being assessed too high based on where the protests are coming from. Later in the meeting Krystle stated Kent DePew is going to want another 1 1/2 people on is staff.
.
Want to know what’s crazy? The state thinks our local assessors are assessing too low! That is why the Equalized assessed values are higher than the assessor’s own value assessment. Every township in McLean county this year was “weighted” higher by 3.5-11%, according to the states equalization factor laws. Median sales data shows higher prices than the assessors are giving.
Why do we have assessors again? If the median market sales price changes the assessors given value? Seems like we could just eliminate the office of assessor, save that taxpayer salary, and just let median market sales make the determination for us, since the equalization factor just overrides the assessors valuation anyways.
Tax and spend politicians and school districts take notice. Time for them to look inward to conserve rather than looking outward to tax payers to fund their misspending and misuse.