By: Diane Benjamin His REAL dog! While the new mayor was reading a proclamation his dog tried to steal the show. 13 second clip: As predicted the meeting was pretty boring, nothing was pulled from the Consent Agenda. Mboka laid out a new Public Comment policy at 9:30, he threatened to cut off comments that […]
By: Diane Benjamin The City of Bloomington has been struggling with balancing the solid waste enterprise fund for many years. Don’t forget, until 2005 the taxes you already paid covered the service. The enterprise fund was established only to tax you more until the fund balances. Yearly 3% increases haven’t kept the fund in balance, […]
By: Diane Benjamin I stumbled onto this page weeks ago: https://keywiki.org/Democratic_Socialists_of_America_Bloomington-Normal It proves you should be worried about sending your kids to college at ISU or Heartland. One of the members of the local Democratic Socialists of America was just elected to the Heartland Board: https://www.heartland.edu/about/trustees.html Supporting Bernie Sanders is all you need to understand […]
By: Diane Benjamin Citizens will see the three new Council members for the first time tonight: Sheila Montney, Nick Becker, and Tom Crumpler. Bills and Payroll: Bloomington has been trying to avoid hiring consultants to find candidates, evidently whatever they are looking for hasn’t been found because they are back to paying to find employees: […]
By: Diane Benjamin Warriner St – Home of Public Works Building Reports are these have been parked on Town of Normal property for months. Let’s guess who approved this: The mayor who owns a bike shop? The mayor who constantly bills citizens for more bike trails? City Manager? Public Works Director? More questions: Are they […]
By: Diane Benjamin I’ve never gone to County Board member Josh Barnett’s Twitter page until today. He has me blocked! Isn’t that special! Is it because this Republican hangs out with the Democrats on Twitter? You might have forgotten Jeff Crabill is on the Bloomington City Council only because Barnett claimed he was leaving the […]
By: Diane Benjamin After finding out their plan for 20 County Board districts with one representative each was impossible, the local Democrats now want the entire board to weigh in. “Other business” on the agenda isn’t allowed if they are planning votes. Since their plan was defeated, they now want the number of districts kept […]
By: Diane Benjamin Below are the latest stats from the McLean County Health Department: https://health.mcleancountyil.gov/708/CORONAVIRUS-COVID-19 To understand what is really happening a better chart is required: What does this say? Unless you are over 80 your chances of dying from COVID are miniscule. Why would anyone under 80 get an experimental vaccine? Florida Governor Ron […]
By: Diane Benjamin Connect must be having a difficult time hiring a new General Manager. They are meeting again today in Executive Session to discuss “personnel matters”. Remember the corner by Portillos the buses can’t navigate? A reader received the email below from MARCH stating CT had contacted the Town of Normal for solutions: Nothing […]
By: Diane Benjamin h/t a reader I wonder if Kathleen Lorenz thinks this makes the “professional staff” that can’t be questioned look good? That “professional staff” creates the budget, did they skip funding pensions? I wonder what will happen if Stan Nord mentions this at a meeting! I can predict: Link to the Bloomington data: […]
By: Diane Benjamin h/t a reader Stay tuned, Normal is next. Wirepoints.org analyzed the pensions funding for 175 Illinois communities. Lots of other information is also included. Bloomington received a “D” rating. The results prove how much government has grown in 19 years and how the increased revenue wasn’t used for essential items like funding […]
By: Diane Benjamin The video below is Stan Nord making comments at the end of Monday’s meeting. He is followed by Kathleen Lorenz who is distraught about the tone of this meeting. In other words: Shut up Stan. Animosity on the Council is caused by Lorenz’s lecturing Stan while the rest of the Council snickers. […]
By: Diane Benjamin Anyone who ever watched Bewitched will remember Gladys. She was Samantha and Darrin’s noisy neighbor who thought it was her duty to report the odd happenings she witnessed peering out her window. Normal has Kathleen Lorenz. Unlike Gladys who couldn’t convince her husband witches lived next door, Kathleen has no problem convincing […]
By: Diane Benjamin The McLean County Executive Committee held another meeting last night to discuss redistricting, or as they call it reapportionment. After many public comments, Assistant States Attorney’s Christopher Spanos explained the Democrats 20 single member district plan is unconstitutional. McLean County has an ordinance declaring Board Districts are multi-representative, changing to 20 districts […]
By: Diane Benjamin Make sure you reads to the bottom! https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3962 PDF page 31-39: 104 West North has been leased to Dan Brady and Rodney Davis for many years – same price $1 a year. They are responsible for utilities and insurance. Then there’s this: PDF page 36: So, the Town gets $1 in revenue, […]
By: Diane Benjamin https://bit.ly/3xBrfpA The above link is to a Business Insider story about China monitoring its citizens in order to control them. A Social Credit score is assigned based on your activities, a low score means you are a threat to the regime. The story lists 10 ways China gathers data, I picked 4: […]
By: Diane Benjamin Before Bloomington attempts to regulate what citizens can say at public comment they need to read what the Attorney General’s office wrote: This is a condensed version: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/pac-rejects-public-body-s-limitation-on-4628106/?fbclid=IwAR1IBUY570-nAqltZZP3sNWFh243BbKvVTrK6m7e47vswXUzoMabFqz-l0E Excerpts: The PAC found that because there was no evidence that the comments actually disrupted the meeting, the council could not restrain the speech. In this case, the city council muted two speakers during public meetings. The first speaker criticized a […]
A police report was filed! By: Diane Benjamin I’m not sure why anyone would ever hire Justin Barr, but an area guy did. According to his plea bargain Justin Barr should be in jail for violating his probation. https://blnnews.com/2020/02/27/justin-barr-woodford-and-will-counties/ The victim sent me a copy of a lawsuit filed in April 2021. I don’t know […]
By: Diane Benjamin See this story: https://blnnews.com/2021/04/30/parents-have-your-kids-read-this-book/ The Undefeated isn’t a bad book, but it was written for 6-9 year olds according to the Amazon listing. A District 87 class of 11 year olds read it, they weren’t allowed to take a copy home. The dust jacket claims the book is for: The unforgettable, the […]
POW/MIA Flag raising at the Mclean County Museum of History. New Normal Township Trustee Art Rodriguez led the event. Rep Dan Brady and County Board member Jim Soeldner attended. The bugler from Leroy Axillary Unit 79 was superb. Flags have been at half staff for quite awhile, nobody remembers why. It may have started under […]
By: Diane Benjamin WGLT reported yesterday Bloomington was found guilty of violating the Open Meetings Act in 2017 for discussing ending the Metro Zone agreement with Normal in secret. The Attorney General had previously ruled it illegal, according to the article the current ruling reversed a lower court ruling. https://www.wglt.org/post/appeals-court-bloomington-violated-open-meetings-act Besides the fact Justice Delayed […]
By: Diane Benjamin I do know at least one classroom at a local school had the kids read this book: Ask your kids if their class read it. I’m more interested in where the discussion went after reading it. Also, what age was the class? More later . . . .
Amvets Post 270 and the Marine League will raise the POW / MIA flag Friday April 30th at 11:00 am, McLean County Museum of History in downtown Bloomington. This is an informal event, all the McLean County names will be read.
By: Diane Benjamin How about a luxury apartment subsidized by taxpayers? Is this Normal’s version of affordable housing? 1 Uptown Circle would never have been built without taxpayer money. Normal continues to rent an entire floor for close to $36,000 a month so around 20 employees can work there. Remember when the Council named it […]
Final clarification: Farm Bureau supports 4-7 Districts while maintaining at least 20 Board members. The alternate plan to the Democrats 20 districts is not 10, it should have been 5. That was a typo on my part. The Farm Bureau claims now they aren’t supporting any plan even though I was told they were. The […]
By: Diane Benjamin I posted this story on April 16: https://blnnews.com/2021/04/16/hey-normal/ Since Federal and State grants will be paying for most of Normal’s new FANCY bike trail under the railroad tracks in Uptown, even if you don’t live in Normal you have a right to comment. I wonder if Chris Koos is salivating yet? https://blnnews.com/2021/04/24/what-do-you-call-a-politician-who-votes-his-pocketbook/ […]
By: Diane Benjamin h/t a reader South Mitsubishi Parkway, now Rivian Motorway, was never completed. The anticipated development never happened which also made Bloomington’s #5 Fire Station a relic before it was ever used. Sometime in the last week it did become a dumping ground however. Maybe Bloomington is going to finish it in brick! […]
By: Diane Benjamin Below is an email I received as part of a FOIA from Normal. Note it is entirely redacted: I’m not sure why Normal had a copy since they aren’t listed. I noticed it was written to a City of Bloomington employee, so I FOIA’d Bloomington for this email. See if you notice […]
By: Diane Benjamin If you thought brick streets were ever going to get a little money you’d be wrong. Mollie Ward objected to diverting the unused grants balance of $82,784 to repairs. She wants curbs made ADA compliant first. See 1:04:15. I didn’t hear an explanation from Mollie, but she amended the motion to spending […]
By: Diane Benjamin Yes, I’m defending Tari. One very frequent guy showed up at Public Comment last night – Scott Stimeling. (Spelling may be wrong) I have to correct one thing he said, Tari did not pay back the City for his girlfriends ticket to Japan because he got caught. He paid it back somewhere […]
By: Diane Benjamin Two landlords appeared at Public Comment a few meetings ago complaining about being billed for City water because their tenants didn’t pay the bills. These landlords have also not been paid rent for at least a year. This information is for landlords. Proving yet again Stan Nord is capable of working with […]
By: Diane Benjamin In the latest example of FAKE NEWS, local media is still acting like Jenn Carrillo was censured at the special meeting last Monday. Evidently they didn’t watch the meeting or can’t read the agenda. “Possible action” was on the agenda, not actually doing anything. The vote was 6-3 to do something in […]
By: Diane Benjamin Story from 2018: https://www.adaptbn.com/home/2018/6/25/going-local-vitesse-cycle-shop Excerpt: “Constitution Trail has been a big benefit to biking and to bike sales,” said Chris Koos, owner of Vitesse Cycle Shop in Normal. I bet you thought all those Bike Trail extensions Normal keeps making their citizens pay for while the roads are less than adequate were […]
By: Diane Benjamin So, Bloomington was billing Normal’s customers for using the sewer system and not paying Normal. This story has links to all previous stories: https://blnnews.com/2021/04/23/nice-of-the-pantagraph-but/ Throw another twist into this story: Did the effected customer get charged more because Bloomington billed them or not enough because Normal’s rates are higher? I didn’t look […]
By: Diane Benjamin Somebody at the Pantagraph must read this site because they picked up and expanded the sewer billing fiasco between Bloomington and Normal. They even credited BlnNews for the story! You might want to read the comments: https://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/documents-bloomington-may-owe-normal-up-to-600-000-in-unremitted-sewer-charges/article_be624fb0-2c5f-50e4-8150-73c1f5824ac8.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1 Link to both stories I wrote: https://blnnews.com/2021/04/21/return-to-civility-by-normal/ What they didn’t cover is: Pam Reece and […]
By: Diane Benjamin http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1112&Inline=True Monday will be the final meeting for: All three will be recognized at the start of the meeting. Kim’s common sense will be missed. I wonder if Joni ever figure out she was lied to? https://blnnews.com/2015/10/26/problem-joni/ I have my own parting gifts for Tari! 1) Remember last February when Tari Renner […]
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