http://www.truenorthreports.com/Anthropologist-Says-Christopher-Columbus-Critics-Have-Their-History-Wrong It isn’t unusual for the Cancel Culture to get their facts wrong, Columbus just might be one of them. Of course, Jenn won’t care – canceling history is popular in her circles. She mentioned at the last Council meeting she will make changing Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s day a Council initiative. Excerpts: Read […]
By: Diane Benjamin See all previous stories: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/23/in-support-of-art-and-camille-taylor/ and here: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/24/breaking-in-support-of-art-and-camille-taylor-2-0-the-un-redacted-truth/ This incident had NOTHING to do with race – Art and Camille Taylor made it about race. Not In Our Town jumped at the chance to accuse Trump supporters of racism. The entire video proves race played no part except to the Taylor’s. See […]
By: Diane Benjamin See both previous stories at this link: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/23/in-support-of-art-and-camille-taylor/ . Art Taylor, in his four-page screed complaining of his treatment during the incident closes with this: Not being accorded the respect of the “benefit of the doubt” is what hurts the most, and that is why citizens of color feel like there are […]
Just a warning – something HUGE is coming later today. No idea what time, a lot depends on how fast my internet decides to be today.
By: Diane Benjamin At last Monday’s Bloomington Council meeting Ryan Whitehouse, Connect Transit Board Chair, declared transportation to the Veterans Clinic isn’t a problem. https://blnnews.com/2020/07/21/bloomington-met-too-last-night/ Veterans do not agree. No one coordinated construction of the facility with Connect Transit, Bloomington should have made sure transportation would be adequate. Economic Development must only matter downtown. As […]
By: Diane Benjamin Executive Orders used to at least be signed by Chris Koos. No longer! Now the Town of Normal is issuing edicts from on high as press releases. Your elected Council Trustees had NO input and were not asked to agree or disagree. This is the latest: https://www.normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/16779/Outdoor-Dining-Press-Release—extension-announced-through-November-1 Businesses affected by actions […]
By: Diane Benjamin Follow-up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/17/racism-claimed-where-non-existed/ In spite of the title – this story is not “In Support of Art and Camille Taylor”. Below is the heavily redacted video released by the City of Bloomington of the incident described in the previous story. Why is it vital to know what really happened? Art […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bloomington is going to hold community meetings concerning police reforms or as two Council members want – defunding the police. The video below was shot by a citizen who at times sounds reasonable. The crowd around her is vulgar and abusive to the officers. 30 second before the end a male voice […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bloomington Committee of the Whole tonight: http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1080&Inline=True It looks like Mboka Mwilambwe doesn’t know the city is spending money taxpayers had to work for so the City can steal way too much of it. He wants to give employees another paid vacation day! I looked at 2 of the latest union contracts […]
By: Diane Benjamin Back in December I did a story about veterans inability to get to the VA Clinic if they must use a bus to get there: https://blnnews.com/2019/12/17/the-va-clinic-and-connect-transit/ Nothing has changed. Normal Trustee Stan Nord posted this video to Facebook explaining the problem. He even measured the path disabled veterans have to traverse to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Other than all Bloomington Police Officers, guess what these 23 have in common: https://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=21565 The link above is to the Total Compensation report for last year. See the column labeled “misc”. Below is […]
By: Diane Benjamin Part 1: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/14/bloomington-last-night-3/ Tari wanted the Council to reappoint Ryan Whitehouse to the Connect Transit Board. Jenn Carrillo and Jeff Crabill were opposed because that wanted someone more closely aligned with their ideology. They lost. Whitehouse has now replaced Mike McCurdy as chair. The budget process this year is going to be […]
By: Diane Benjamin Part 2: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/14/part-2-bloomington-last-night/ This almost 2 hour meeting is going to take more than one story. Start with the Pledge of Allegiance. The City solved their Jenn and Jeff signs problem by just not having them on video during the pledge, both appeared right after it ended: A guy named Zac something […]
By: Diane Benjamin Every notice if a court rules in favor of leftists they and the media jump all over it celebrating, but if it goes against their narrative they ignore it? Bloomington will be meeting on-line again regardless of the ruling voiding Pritzker’s executive orders. Rulings that don’t fit the agenda can be discarded. […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bills and payroll 7-13-2020 A total of $12,599,344.25 will be approved tonight. Unlike Normal, payroll is actually listed. $5,216,642.14 of that amount is employees. $1,633,607.61 is Wire transfers listed at the end, not enough details is available to know what most of them are. I don’t remember the last time somebody asked about […]
By: Diane Benjamin Please share this story! I’ve been asking for this discussion for years, the next local election will FORCE it to happen. Why does local government exist and what powers should it have and NOT have? Obviously Bloomington screwed up big time when the Coliseum was built against the wishes of the citizens. […]
By: Diane Benjamin At least the walk will be shorter for Pantagraph reporters if Bloomington City Hall moves some of their offices to the Government Center. Of course we had to find out from the paper: https://www.pantagraph.com//govt-and-politics/bloomington-city-hall-council-meetings-to-move-to-county-government-center You have to read down to find out Connect Transit may chose the old City Hall building for […]
By: Diane Benjamin h/t a reader Follow-up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/02/bloomington-5-years-and-no-news/ According to the reader: I was working around 807 N Main that you had in an article yesterday. There is no for sale sign on the property. The parking lot in the rear is being used for parking the vacuum trucks for the sewer […]
By: Diane Benjamin The only reason units of government have been allowed to meet on-line instead of in person is because of Gov. Pritzker’s Executive orders: https://www2.illinois.gov/Pages/government/execorders/executive-orders.aspx#y2020 Everything on that page was ruled illegal last Thursday! Pritzker’s authority to act like a dictator expired 30 days after his first proclamation. He made NO attempt to […]
The Clay County judge ruled today that any orders issued by Pritzker past the 30 days given to him by law are invalid! There are now no limitations on ANYONE in the State of Illinois. You are open, open, open. This applies to schools too – Illinois can not require masks. This also voids any […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bloomington bought this property almost 5 years ago just to control who built on it: The address is 807 N Main, the site of the old Mennonite hospital. In May of 2019 the Council voted to list it for sale with Coldwell Banker after they tried to sell it on a national […]
Ask Angela Fyans what she is hiding from her time with Sorling Northrop. She is now a City of Bloomington lawyer. The Bloomington police did an amazing job stopping your looters, unlike Normal. That doesn’t mean problems don’t exist in the department. You will find out soon, with or without what is still hidden. It […]
By: Diane Benjamin The local elections next year could give the radicals complete control of Bloomington. Right now they have 2 out of 9 seats, 5 and the mayor up for election next April. The radicals will be running candidates, all they need is 3 more seats to turn the Bloomington into their Marxist utopia. […]
By: Diane Benjamin The City of Bloomington Council meeting will reconvene Wednesday at 7:30. Technical difficulties were experienced with the Live Stream. Instead of having the meeting anyway and posting video today, the meeting was rescheduled. That was a good thing because it allowed Jenn Carrillo and Jeff Crabill to comment on a Live event […]
By: Diane Benjamin http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1079&Inline=True The McLean County Regional Planning Commission is getting paid by Bloomington: Look at where most of their funding comes from. Who do you think they are really working for? Does the below apply to Vision Zero? Not when the contract says information is confidential! https://blnnews.com/2020/06/20/julie-hiles-contract/ End of an era for the […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal paid the McLean County Regional Planning Commission $54,000 as their last meeting: https://blnnews.com/2020/06/13/normals-asininity/ I previously wrote about Julie Hile’s involvement with the MCRPC here: https://blnnews.com/2020/05/21/progressive-julie-hile/ I received a copy of the contract Hile signed with the MCRPC. See it here: Vision_Zero_Contract-HG-20190619_(Final_Executed)_redacted Excerpts: The contract was sign in July of 2019, so […]
By: Diane Benjamin Indiana is open. I know locals who have driven to the Beef House right across the border to sit down for a good meal. Iowa is open for full capacity in-restaurant dining. Wisconsin is open after their Supreme Court ruled the governor’s actions illegal. Illinois has Pritzker’s boot on everybody’s neck, he […]
By: Diane Benjamin https://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=24638 The meeting is going to be out of order (pun intended) tonight. Meetings usually end with Mayor and Council comments, there must be a reason for this change: I’m sure other items will be interesting, but severing ties with VenuWorks piqued my interest. I don’t know why but the City wrote […]
Below are the rules for restaurants and bars planning to open in Bloomington. They are REQUIRED to REGISTER with the City. Of course it includes threats too. At Monday’s meeting this wasn’t going to be rushed, evidently they changed their mind.
By: Diane Benjamin Last night’s Bloomington City Council meeting was over 3 hours, it included a Township meeting that started at 5:00. The longest discussion was about the Community Development Block Grant funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Stop for a second and think about this program. The Feds take your money […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bills and Payroll for tonight: https://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=24570 Coliseum expenses: The first entry is for bills Bloomington paid that VenuWorks needs to reimburse – all the rest are coming out of taxpayers pockets: I don’t remember ever seeing a check written for loan payments, usually they do wire transfers: $795,000 was paid in principal […]
By: Diane Benjamin http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1075&Inline=True Delayed because of Memorial Day, tonight’s meeting starts with a Proclamation against gun violence: See the whole document Renner will probably read on PDF page 11. Note the last 3 words above. Gun violence isn’t caused by guns, the person holding the gun is the problem. We don’t value unborn life […]
By: Diane Benjamin The City of Bloomington has been paying VenuWorks $4,999.98 sporadically since 2016, payments are marked loan principle. This story says why: https://blnnews.com/2016/10/06/so-bloomington-claims/ The short version: VenuWorks paid John Butler (CIAM) for equipment at the Coliseum. The City is reimbursing them for that purchase. The total was $299,999, no interest, payments over 5 […]
By: Diane Benjamin If only they had spent a little more on consulting and architects for bus stops, they could have made it to $1,000,000 lost in ONE MONTH: Cost per trip is now a whooping $9.26, last April it was $3.30. Cost for Connect Mobility is far worse: $117.13 per rider. Last year it […]
By: Diane Benjamin h/t a reader Bloomington taxpayers are forced to pay the City for hauling garbage, recycling, and brush. There is no competition so service can be whatever the City decides it is, and they got the Council to pass automatic increases to spare the embarrassment of taking votes. The situation below is not […]
h/t a reader – taken today:
By: Diane Benjamin Tim Gleason started the meeting with a COVID update: The City has used $2 million of $4 million in excess reserves. They won’t have a clear picture of the hit to the budget until June or July. Police respond to all calls of violation of shelter in place. They attempt to gain […]
By: Diane Benjamin Dictator Pritzker is playing politics while Illinois burns. It is obvious now the shutdown in Illinois was never about bending the curve. It is about trashing the economy in hopes of a huge bailout while crushing small businesses and people deemed non-essential. Congratulation democrats – you elected a dictator. Proof: Raising taxes […]
By: Diane Benjamin Committee of Whole meeting 5/18 http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1076&Inline=True Alderman Mathy doesn’t understand people don’t want to pay for parking. That is why strip malls and other shopping options are where people go – not downtown. Mathy has 3 Council initiatives for the Council. They will vote Yes they want to hear more or NO […]
By: Diane Benjamin With threats from Pritzker, Koos, and Renner to call out law enforcement to keep people and businesses from exercising their Constitutional Rights, it is time to remember your oath of office. It wasn’t to Pritzker, Koos, or Renner. The only power government has is from the Consent of the Governed. See the […]
