By: Diane Benjamin Bloomington and Normal used to have an understanding both cities needed to have the same tax rates (except property tax). Bloomington Budget – Book 1 PDF page 90: I blacked out the other cities so you only see Bloomington and Normal: This chart is already updated for the Normal increases going into […]
By: Diane Benjamin One public comment at 11:05 was by a guy calling for the City to quit burning the brush in parks every spring. He claimed it destroys wildlife habitat. It probably does but it is also the opposite of “being green” because it pollutes. Citizens aren’t allowed to burn brush inside the city, […]
By: Diane Benjamin Committee of the Whole was switched to special meeting because one item needs a vote: Remember when BNWRD tried to buy 3 properties and one showed it was owned by the City of Bloomington and not the guy BNWRD thought they were buying it from? https://blnnews.com/2025/12/31/bnwrd-story-6/ Tonight: https://bloomingtonil.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4376/files/attachment/8566 Bloomington is Quit Claiming […]
By: Diane Benjamin 1) City of Bloomington has been doing a lot of surveys. The results are dependents on who completes the survey. In the past, surveys had low participation and therefore did not reflect real citizen values. Remember Bring It On Bloomington? https://blnnews.com/2016/10/13/bloomingtons-award-good/ If you live in Bloomington, this is the link: https://engage.thinkconfluence.com/miller-park-plan 2) […]
By: Diane Benjamin This payment was approved at last Monday’s Bloomington City Council meeting: If you still don’t understand what Accelerated IMRF Payments are: SOME Bloomington employees are still allowed to SPIKE their pensions. Sick Days (possibly others too) are accumulated and then the employee is compensated for unused days when they retire. That compensation […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Proclamation – https://bloomingtonil.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4101/files/attachment/8470 – was postponed to sometime in the future – See 12:25. How about ending ALL proclamations? The department heads talking about their budgets was delayed until next Monday. Instead of a Committee of the Whole, it will be a Special meeting because they have something they need to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Separation of Church and State is immaterial tonight. Do Christians ever get a Proclamation? The Islamic faith will: https://bloomingtonil.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4101/files/attachment/8470 I dare you to name any Islamic country where Freedom and Liberty prevail and women aren’t second class citizens. Don’t even ask about LGBTQ rights, they don’t exist. Nice job Administration Department. Is […]
By: Diane Benjamin If you live in Bloomington and haven’t reviewed the proposed budget, now would be a good time: https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/32355/639074561303430000 PDF page 21: . Every chart in the budget would be more informative with a ten year history instead of just a comparison with the previous budget. First note: The population isn’t changing. What […]
By: Diane Benjamin A 97 year old lady asked the Council to pass an ethics ordinance. She didn’t mention any specific reason other than it will install TRUST in government. Novel idea! Of course City Code is meaningless, an ethics ordinance would be ignored too. Trust is lost when there are penalties for peons and […]
By: Diane Benjamin Agenda: https://bloomingtonil.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4113/files/agenda/12437 From the Consent Agenda: . Bloomington will approve hiring this firm to make the Sign Code make sense. Meanwhile, the first item on the Regular Agenda makes a change to the Sign Code: . The only other item is a first look at the budget. . Historic Total! . Of […]
By: Diane Benjamin The video below was played at Monday’s Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting. It shows what the priorities were in 2025: Downtown. That priority hasn’t changed in decades. The video is a little over 3 minutes long. Downtown got a about half of it. The slide at 3:00 say 28 lane miles […]
By: Diane Benjamin I don’t know the guy who wrote this, but I do know Jeanne Ives – former State representative: . Bloomington staff has complained about this one forever. The Illinois Municipal League has a good explanation of FGDF on their website: https://www.iml.org/file.cfm?key=15419 Bloomington used to receive 10% of all income taxes the State […]
By: Diane Benjamin Matt Burgess, Home Sweet Home Ministries, gave a presentation on how the first month operating The Bridge is going. He gave an honest report that is worth listening to. 4 people have already been kicked out. 2 others left voluntarily. Others had difficulty adjusting to living indoors. Matt has also seen people […]
By: Diane Benjamin WGLT is not allowed to sell advertising. What did The Town of Normal pay WGLT to do? (2025 data isn’t available yet) https://www.openthebooks.com/search-results/details/?n=Wglt-Normal&e=73583&t=c&burl=%2Fsearch-results%2F%3Ft%3Dc%26F_Name_S%3DWGLT%26F_State%3DIllinois%26F_Year%3D0 . Has WGLT applied for State of Illinois money? If you don’t know about the plan Springfield passed to subsidize media, read up on it: https://dceo.illinois.gov/expandrelocate/incentives/taxassistance/new-journalism-tax-incentive-program.html Yes, non-profit media […]
I wrote the story in 2018: https://blnnews.com/2018/07/07/bloomington-is-at-war-thanks-to-tari/ It got a LOT of reads in 2018, but it has been read to varying degrees every year since. A month and a half into 2026 and it already has more reads than it had in 2018. Nothing in that article should be a surprise if you were […]
By: Diane Benjamin The City calls this meeting COW themselves. Since that amuses me, I use it whenever it fits. The Bloomington Committee of the Whole won’t meet until tomorrow night since today is a Federal Holiday. Even though Columbus Day is also a Federal Holiday but they met anyway, some are Federal Holidays are […]
By: Diane Benjamin I write and research stories based on: This story was spurred by a reader. They wanted to know how much water Rivian used since we are in a drought. My first thought was Rivian uses Normal’s water since the plant is in Normal. I decided to ask Bloomington anyway since the reader […]
By: Diane Benjamin City Manager Jeff Jurgens STRONGLY urged residents to conserve even more water. Of course the below isn’t all that happened last night, just what I thought was notable. Last night’s Bloomington City Council meeting was tortuously long. Two items were pulled from the Consent Agenda. Both serve as a lesson in government […]
By: Diane Benjamin 1) If you are white, don’t apply for a teaching job at District 87. Superintendent Dr. Mouser’s will openly discriminate against you: ‘”Operationally and organizationally, the district remains stable and progressing forward. We have successfully negotiated three collective bargaining agreements and continue to maintain excellent relationships with all of our bargaining units. […]
By: Diane Benjamin This item is one Monday’s Bloomington City Council agenda: . Bloomington must be desperate for new businesses! Right fit? See that part about payment in full to McLean County? This is a screen shot of Aaron Francis’ record: , See all those *Cs? They are there because the County sent all the […]
By: Diane Benjamin There was a long list of emailed Public Comments, a FOIA would be needed to find out what position they were taking. There was also a long line of in-person and phone Public Comments. A few people spoke about IDOT’s plan to add a sidewalk to the north side of Route 9 […]
By: Diane Benjamin Agenda: https://bloomingtonil.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4112/files/agenda/9284 Up to $50,000 for an audit of your sales tax mental health spending? Since the money has been stockpiling instead of being spent, $50,000? Money is meaningless to government because they aren’t spending their own. Why doesn’t this include 2025? . The only item on the regular agenda is: . […]
By: Diane Benjamin One more thing happened at last Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting. City Manager Jeff Jurgens called again for water conservation. If you are letting faucets drip so your pipes don’t freeze, make sure nobody knows. This is part of slide Jurgens showed, the rest is fuzzy: . In 131 years Bloomington […]
By: Diane Benjamin Since some Federal Holidays are more important than others, the Bloomington City Council is delaying the Committee of the Whole meeting until tomorrow night. Remember when they met on Columbus day? https://bloomingtonil.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4125/files/agenda/9240 The Council held a retreat in November to set priorities. Of course there is no video since it wasn’t held […]
By: Diane Benjamin City Manager Jeff Jurgen wants citizens to conserve water because we are still in a drought: Screenshot from the meeting video: . Meanwhile, BNWRD is buying properties because increased precipitation is increasing flooding: https://blnnews.com/2026/01/10/werent-we-told-there-is-a-drought-and-water-needs-conserved/ . Makes perfect sense in Illinois 🤦♀️
By: Diane Benjamin The meeting was short! Nothing was even slightly controversial until comments by aldermen. More on that in a minute. The only agenda item concerned swinging doors downtown hitting pedestrians. This downtown picture is from the slide show presentation: Businesses like Windy City Wieners want more indoor floor space, so they want the […]
By: Diane Benjamin https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/32213 Some city employees are still spiking pensions. They rack up leave/sick days, cash out a lump sum at retirement, and use it to substantially boost their pensions. State law changed in 2012 to let IMRF (Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund) bill local governments for those spiked pensions—ones the governments never funded extra […]
By: Diane Benjamin Yes! https://www.centralillinoisproud.com/news/local-news/watch-live-drought-causes-voluntary-water-conservation-in-bloomington/ BNWRD didn’t get the same message which is why they are buying land along Sugar Creek: See the January packet – https://blnnews.com/bnwrd-docs/ PDF page 37: . BNWRD will not be buying the third property now that I wrote about here: https://blnnews.com/2025/12/31/bnwrd-story-6/ The title to the third is still trying to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bloomington has alluded to State cuts before but they have never provided actual numbers (that I remember). Cities across Illinois used to receive 10% of the money the State collected in local income taxes. Lawmakers reduced that to 7% in 2012. This story allows people to see how much that has cost […]
By: Diane Benjamin Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is the opposite of meritocracy. Most people believe success has to be earned, not handed out to fill self-imposed quotas. Judging people on the color of their skin is evil. Most people used to know that. The YWCA doesn’t know that. https://www.ywcamclean.org/education-advocacy/ FREE DEI Education The YWCA does […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last Monday City Manager Jeff Jurgen announced there was plenty of parking downtown – Just hit Play: . Mayor Brady is quoted in this WGLT story stating the opposite: https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2025-12-16/bloomington-considers-downtown-trolley-service-during-parking-crunch Brady wants a trolley service when big events are going on because parking near the places holding events is limited. Which is […]
By: Diane Benjamin The 7-2 vote last Monday to massively raise property taxes made housing even more unaffordable. Numerous people running for office claim they will lower your taxes. Monday’s vote proved that lying is how you win elections. Bloomington aldermen aren’t the only taxing body grabbing for your wallet. Below is Dan Brady’s campaign […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Bloomington Council voted 7-2 to increase property taxes 13.4% last night. The library increased taxes by almost 2%. After a Who’s on First like re-enactment, discussions took place by the Council both during the Public Hearing and before the vote. 7 members swallowed whatever staff fed them, only Alderman Sheila Montney […]
By: Diane Benjamin The City of Bloomington voted in July to suspend payments to the County for the Behavioral Health Action Plan starting July 1, 2025: Shared Sales Tax suspended Why is this payment listed on Bills and Payroll if payments are suspended? Bills and Payroll 12-15-2025 I’d ask but getting an answer is evidently […]
By: Diane Benjamin Story on Bloomington’s water and contaminates: https://blnnews.com/2025/12/10/bloomington-water-quality-2024-report/ Don’t forget this fact: What is in Normal’s water? https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=IL1130900 . See more details at the EWG website which includes recommended filters to remove these chemicals. Did you notice how many cause cancer but have no legal limit? How much are you paying for water? […]
By: Diane Benjamin This is a link to the 2024 Water Quality report on Bloomington’s website: https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/24534/638878274396400000 It shows no violations for contaminants detected. This is a more comprehensive report from 2024 on Bloomington’s water quality. It was published by Environmental Working Group (EWG) in Washington DC. https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=IL1130200 That reports also shows no direct violations, […]
By: Diane Benjamin Everything passed last night. The Convenience Center will be closing. City Manager Jurgens stated it could be relocated but getting permits might be a problem. Hum, who issues permits for City owned property? Are residents dropping off hazardous waste? The CCC has to relocate because of the detention pond they are building […]
By: Diane Benjamin The City finally perfected picking up bulk waste twice a year, so staff needs it changed. Instead of preventing local contractors and landlords from dumping bulk waste at the convenience center, the City wants to close it. That means going back to picking up bulk every two weeks instead of twice a […]
By: Diane Benjamin This can easily turn authoritarian since Bloomington has their own Administrative Court. Of course aldermen who break City code aren’t dragged into court, just you peons. You are expected to forget Bloomington practices selective prosecution: https://blnnews.com/2025/03/25/cody-hendricks-chief-cheater/ Staff is going to drive around town looking for violators? Can anyone think of a better […]
By: Diane Benjamin Below is the playbook the far left uses to win elections. Show up everywhere, act like you are everybody’s best friend, pretend being elected isn’t about obtaining power, and saying whatever you have to for votes. See Abby Scott: https://blnnews.com/2025/11/25/bloomington-%f0%9f%a4%a6%e2%99%80%ef%b8%8f/ Of course Abby and her husband Corey Beirne are friends of Krystle’s. […]
