By: Diane Benjamin Nashville Tn. is a lot bigger than Bloomington-Normal and growing rapidly. Their transit system serves around 1.9 million people, including areas outside of the City. Their system is publicly owned but managed by a private company. I have a friend who escaped Illinois to Nashville. He sent this pic: Nashville’s bus system […]
By: Diane Benjamin Original story: https://blnnews.com/2019/05/23/the-lake-bloomington-fire/ I filed this FOIA request for additional information on the Lake Bloomington fire: Below are answers to two of the three questions: Four months after the fire the City has received zero from insurance. I believe they have bought everything they plan to replace except the building. I have […]
The Dateline report was a puff piece. It dealt mostly with family members and the children. There was very little information on the trial, no interviews with jurors. So – no – we didn’t learn a thing. By: Diane Benjamin Dateline on NBC is reporting on the Pam Zimmerman murder case Monday night at 9:00 […]
By: Diane Benjamin A reader told me the paper has an article about a new musical at Heartland Community College: Gypsy. Will the self-appointed head of the speech police, Jenn Carrillo, attack them the way she attacked a fledgling downtown business when they had Gypsy in their name? Bills and Payroll from the first meeting […]
By: Diane Benjamin Before I get to Billy, did you know Robert Brady Sr filed bankruptcy? This discharge report lists everyone who got taken by Brady: Brady Discharge – with creditor list What’s Billy up to? Every wonder how politicians earn a paycheck and somehow end up rich after they have been in office awhile? […]
By: Diane Benjamin I still haven’t seen any media coverage of the fire at Lake Bloomington. That would make sense if the loss was inconsequential, but it wasn’t: Source: Fire Inventory by Category Note: The above document contains $6,300 for personal items. The worksheet does not include replacing the building. The City paid $11,500 to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Step back to last Friday – Tari Renner’s Open House. Both WJBC and the Pantagraph had reporters there, they failed to do a story on what happened or Tari’s racist comment. They have now allowed time for Tari to formulate a response. Lost in this conversation are the people who attended to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Tari Renner and his supporters are trying to claim the video I posted of him was taken out of context. Actually, with more context it is worse. Watch the video and listen to the reaction of those present. Tari was smiling, nobody else was.
By: Diane Benjamin I had the unfortunate experience of needing to drive around Bloomington today. I decided to actually look for the Connect Transit flags signifying a stop. Head west on Lincoln from Veterans Parkway. There are so many flags a bus could probably idle between them! The only one I saw that might be […]
Meeting is rescheduled to June 4th. By: Diane Benjamin From the Connect Transit website – they have a monthly meeting scheduled for tomorrow: https://www.connect-transit.com/about/trustees/packet.asp The agenda MUST be posted 48 hours in advance to comply with the Open Meetings Act. It isn’t posted, therefore they must cancel the meeting: Did they fail to post it […]
By: Diane Benjamin Two members of the media were at Tari’s open house last Friday, Maria Nagle from the Pantagraph and Howard Packowitz from WJBC. If the media fails to report news, everyone can pretend nothing happened. Are they protecting Tari? I know every alderman is aware of Tari’s comments. If the public doesn’t demand […]
By: Diane Benjamin Tari did show up at his Open House last night. He was surrounded by people who wanted their voices heard on the Connect Transit Board. The conversation turned to “diversity”. Diversity in Tari’s world is people of all skin colors who agree with everything he thinks. Diversity of thought isn’t allowed. Tari’s […]
Headline in today’s Pantagraph: https://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/bloomington-labor-day-parade-steps-off-monday-morning-downtown/article_06813e3c-2f73-5f44-891c-f2a239b7b35b.html#tracking-source=home-the-latest Still get your news there? (I don’t know when, but they finally fixed it)
By: Diane Benjamin The fire at a City owed building at Lake Bloomington was on March 10th. Below is one of the emails I received by FOIA: Another email identified Mr. Penn as John Penn. I wonder if he is still waiting for the Pantagraph to report the fire? Just so you have a small […]
By: Diane Benjamin Unlike Bloomington, the swearing in of the two new members and one returning to the Council in Normal was on video. All three took an oath to uphold both the Federal Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Illinois. The State in the Illinois version contains this statement which should be […]
By: Diane Benjamin That date in 2012 is when I published the first story on BlnNews. I ONLY started writing because of the despicable reporting I saw in the local media. Organizations they liked had inflated numbers of event attendees, if they didn’t approve – the numbers reported could be less than half of actual. […]
By: Diane Benjamin Below are the Quarterly losses VenuWorks has previously reported for this fiscal year: 5/1/2018 – 7/31/2018 -130,634.54 PDF page 5 http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=20022 8/1/2018 – 10/31/2018 -96,333.02 PDF page 5 http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=20795 11/1/2018 – 1/31/19 -68,108.47 PDF page 5 http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=21235 Year to date for THREE quarters shows a loss of $295,076.03. The 4th […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Pantagraph did this story about a flight from Columbia Mo. to Chicago made an emergency landing in Bloomington last night: https://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/public_safety/chicago-bound-regional-jet-makes-emergency-landing-in-bloomington/article_390f574d-ce47-5824-874c-ce4d6f1731f6.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1 That story might make you think it was no big deal. Other media has a different story. Evidently the Pantagraph didn’t send a reporter to the airport to talk to […]
By: Diane Benjamin The paper did a story about the Community Health Care Clinic: https://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/years-later-community-health-care-clinic-still-responding-to-community/article_09100674-ae9e-5719-8808-176424142626.html Excepts: Illegal aliens can’t legally work, what infrastructure work are they doing? Slave labor? Bloomington changed the JM Scott Healthcare Trust because they didn’t have many people needing help. At the time they blamed the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid […]
By: Diane Benjamin It looks like Kroger won’t be building on East College. There is a sign on the property now advertising Commercial property for sale,. The Pantagraph ran the story below using 10 years of data, not the data from last year showing the Bloomington-Normal Metro area lost population. https://blnnews.com/2019/04/18/yep-people-are-leaving/ Say it together: #FakeNews. […]
By: Diane Benjamin The movie Unplanned will be coming to Galaxy 14 Cine, the date has not been posted yet. It is rated “R” only because it has a 20 second sonogram video of a baby fighting for it’s life. Take your teenage kids, we can end the slaughter of children with facts. […]
By: Diane Benjamin The new Bloomington City Manager seems to be launching a campaign to make citizens trust their government. No Tim, spending money on signs when a few roads get fixed isn’t going to cut it. The people paying more for gas will see that as just another waste of their dollars. Since Tim […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Agenda for Monday’s City Council meeting was posted at 4:39. The Pantagraph could at least pretend they read the agenda and then asked Tim Gleason for comments. They didn’t. The Pantagraph posted a story at least 20 minutes before the City bother to fill in the public. Obviously the Pantagraph colluded with […]
I’ve wanted to print obituaries for a long time, funeral homes have ignored requests to refer grieving families here. People who lose a loved one shouldn’t get fleeced to get a noticed printed. The only obituaries I will print are ones that people request. These notices will create a digital story that can be shared […]
By: Diane Benjamin WGLT, League of Women Voters, and the Pantagraph held a debate last night for 8 of the candidates running for 3 Trustee seats. Write-In candidate, Karl Sila, was not allowed to participate. The audio frequently “blinked” making it a little difficult to listen to, I haven’t listened to the audio at the […]
By: Diane Benjamin I’ve been writing about the Coliseum and the lies media repeats for years! CIAM and VenuWorks created their own financial statements. Every local media uses their numbers and repeats them like gospel. Both can say anything they want in those statements – they create them. Numbers reported by both are not accurate, […]
By: Diane Benjamin The WGLT story about last night’s Normal Town Council meeting doesn’t mention RC McBride voted for the water rate increase: http://www.wglt.org/post/water-fee-increase-solar-group-buy-making-repeat-appearances-normal Readers are left to surmise he did. This one is worse: I reported this story back on February 28: https://blnnews.com/2019/02/28/ag-investigating-town-of-normal-again/ WJBC reported it on March 4: http://www.wjbc.com/2019/03/04/normal-mayor-probed-for-alleged-open-meetings-act-violations/?fbclid=IwAR0mVvQsAVBRPrRVSWllpx_YPGc2YvMk0iHXYXWS0AWvxrBG0FXLxYbmvCg The […]
By: Diane Benjamin Taxing Tari has mentioned more than once that Tim Gleason has some “creative financing” ideas. This morning I think I figured out their game – at least part of it. We know they want to double the gas tax. We also know the entire amount raised won’t be spent on roads – […]
by: Diane Benjamin According to the City mouthpiece, Bloomington will double the local gas tax to $.08 for every gallon: https://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/road-weary-city-officials-eye-doubling-local-motor-fuel-tax/article_258321e6-928b-57d7-a1c0-ad250fb8e18b.html#tracking-source=home-breaking Another prediction: Somebody will say it’s only a few bucks. Quote: Here is what the mouthpiece forgot to add to the story: The $.04 a gallon Motor Fuel Tax was passed […]
By: Diane Benjamin Some people in Bloomington admit they are democrat socialist. The “democrat” part is added to make it sound like its real people leading the movement. They are pure socialists, just like the ones who destroyed Venezuela. They want to take your money, attack wealth producers, and hand money to people who didn’t […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last Saturday the McLean County Republican Party held a debate for the candidates running for Bloomington City Council. The only candidate to decline the invitation was Jenn Carrillo who is running to replace Karen Schmidt. The debate was filmed by the GOP and linked here in 4 parts, each around 15 minutes. […]
By: Diane Benjamin I don’t know how many math classes a journalism major has to pass, but evidently it isn’t enough to see obvious problems with what they are told and then regurgitate. There is a perfect example in today’s Pantagraph. The story is about Airbnb and the new 6% City tax that starts April […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Council held a retreat on November 4, 2017. The minutes from the meeting show just how bad a City Manager David Hales was. See them here, rarely do the minutes reflect contentious discussions – you can see some of it here even if they don’t reflect how bad it was: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=16276 […]
By: Diane Benjamin Some local media have reported on the grand jury testimony which laid out the case against the 5 former Coliseum Managers. The City of Bloomington continues to claim they did not know about improprieties at the Coliseum until VenuWorks took over in July of 2016. The local media continues to let them […]
By: Diane Benjamin Clearly Emig is Tari’s pick for Ward 4, he’s holding an open house at his house for her. If you aren’t a left winger and want to attend, just show up. Responding on Facebook will get you blocked. Remember about a year ago when various Council people held “priority based budgeting” townhalls? […]
By: Diane Benjamin Yesterday the Pantagraph printed an editorial called: Commentary: Social media is hurting America, and 2019 is the year we need to do something about it It was supposedly from the Dallas Morning News with no names attached. Read it here if you missed it: https://www.pantagraph.com/opinion/columnists/commentary-social-media-is-hurting-america-and-is-the-year/article_10a43651-9261-5463-8009-d67ea18be67c.html Yes, they claim social media is hurting […]
by: Diane Benjamin Facts frequently don’t matter because too many people think with their heart instead of their brain. They twist facts to prove to themselves why conservative values are wrong. Any one who thinks government is their friend falls into this category. Government doesn’t exist to solve problem because: 1) it isn’t their money […]
By: Diane Benjamin When the Pantagraph didn’t need their huge building anymore they sold it. Anything happening there with the new buyers or is it just another empty downtown building? Since they realized they didn’t need that much space and probably couldn’t afford to keep what isn’t absolutely necessary, they moved to a small space. […]
By: Diane Benjamin The reason the courts move so slow is lawyers. The attorney for Kelly Klein filed a motion to dismiss yesterday, but he didn’t sound optimistic when he filed it. The State’s Attorney has 14 days to respond, then another 14 days for rebuttal by the defense, and 7 more for another reply […]
By: Diane Benjamin Municipal elections are by law nonpartisan. The theory is party doesn’t matter, everyone wants to do what’s best for the City. Ask those who voted against the wishes of voters if they did that when they voted for the Coliseum. Ask the recent council members if taking $40 million+ more a year […]
