by: Diane Benjamin Usually the public doesn’t get to know how the Council evaluates City Manager David Hales. These discussions take place in Executive Sessions – secret meetings – then the Council votes NOT to release the minutes to the public. Evidently they don’t want anybody to know what they think. Surprise – now you […]
by: Diane Benjamin This morning I had a conversation with John Shank, owner of the Chocolatier. His business has moved out of downtown Bloomington, but he still lives there. John has been asking the City to control the weekend drinking for many years, his business has been vandalized and his car was a victim of […]
by: Diane Benjamin You can read the minutes of the 2 day retreat here: http://cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=6221 Start on page 105 Culture change and more taxes were hot topics at the 2 day retreat of the Bloomington City Council last November. The minutes don’t say what culture change is except the Council is supposed to “have […]
by: Diane Benjamin Last night the Bloomington City Council held a Committee of the Whole meeting. The hot topic was using a program by the International City Mangers Association to rate City services. Nobody could say what the cost would be. Nobody could say why comparing Bloomington to cities in California or Georgia was a […]
by: Diane Benjamin Evidently the local press lacks curiosity. Maybe they aren’t allowed to do investigative reporting. Maybe reporters can’t investigate the local “insiders”. Maybe they can’t investigate their advertisers. Maybe Illinois wouldn’t be so corrupt if REAL media existed. Below are some questions I’d be asking: How about some investigation of the unemployment […]
by: Diane Benjamin I hear Rob Fazzini already has people going door-to-door getting petitions signed to steal the City Council. He wants a modified Ward system where some members are elected at large, the remaining Wards would be huge. The effect is to take away your alderman, the one person who represents your section of […]
by: Diane Benjamin Obviously when around 20% of voters actually vote in local elections, what City government does to you isn’t a priority. This is what happens in Bloomington when you don’t care who represents you: An estimated $139,000,000 needs to be spent on sewers in the next 20 years It will cost an estimated […]
By: Diane Benjamin EDC is the Bloomington Normal Economic Development Council. They get your tax money but are not subject to FOIA. Bloomington cut their subsidy because of accountability. The President/CEO, Patrick Hoban, spoke at the joint the meeting of Bloomington, Normal, and McLean County held September 30, 2019. On this video at 5:40 Patrick […]
WGLT is reporting the sale fell through so State Farm is going to demolish the building. https://www.wglt.org/post/state-farm-demolish-downtown-building-after-sale-falls-through?fbclid=IwAR2BOK_3V4EJPy45fon0FcQ0xNezwaPwmPlKJHOKwlCiDAm38ozCOBYExEY#stream/0 By: Diane Benjamin According to this story from May, the 7th, 8th, and 9th floors were pre-leased: https://blnnews.com/2019/05/22/state-farm-bldg-3-floors-leased/ Guth and Associates of Champaign no longer shows this listing on their website. In early March, when the pending sale […]
By: Diane Benjamin The former Normal City Manager isn’t sitting back enjoying retirement on his fat pension, he has a new job: https://www.govhrusa.com/associates/mark-peterson/ Mark is a Vice President for GovHR! Click the link above to see his glowing resume. Quotes: Mark doesn’t mention the still empty first floor of 1 Uptown Circle. He also doesn’t […]
By: Diane Benjamin Everybody occasionally gets sucked in by things they see on the internet. Everybody should do more research before they post anything. (including me!) Two days ago the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council posted this on Facebook: . Ever heard of Pheabs? It didn’t take much research to find out who they are, the […]
By: Diane Benjamin Yes folks, the Bloomington Council meeting was 4 hours last night. I heard a radio person say something astounding yesterday: We have never been a nation of laws, we are a nation of wills. That explains why some people get away with crimes the rest of us would get life sentences or […]
By: Diane Benjamin The BN Economic Development Council should be using their own tools to improve Bloomington-Normal instead of supporting taxpayer subsidized housing in Normal. A calculator to compare the Cost of Living is right on their website: https://www.bnbiz.org/coli Did you know the Cost of Living is higher in Bloomington-Normal than other cities? Both Bloomington […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bloomington Planning Commission packet from April 6th: https://www.cityblm.org/home/showpublisheddocument/27751/637846706526470000 This meeting was not on video because it was held in the Osbourne room of the Police Station. If all new vehicles will soon be required to be electric, why would anyone build this: This was on the agenda, it will be around Market […]
By: Diane Benjamin Anybody remember BN Advantage? It was a huge collaboration of the unelected who got your money to operate. This story explains who: https://blnnews.com/2015/10/29/round-2-bn-advantage/ It would take a lot of research to figure out how much of your money was thrown to this group. This story shows $423,867 just from Bloomington: https://blnnews.com/2019/04/29/bn-advantage-magazine/ Where […]
By: Diane Benjamin Do you want a mayor of Bloomington with an agenda or one that listens to citizens? Mike Straza was on Cities 92.9 last night with Steve Suess. Listen to the beginning of the podcast: Straza worked on Chris Koos’ re-lection campaign 4 years ago. Much worse, Straza was on Dave Shields team […]
By: Diane Benjamin Remember the $5 million water project Normal has in the budget? Stan Nord asked many times why this project is in the budget. Normal is running water lines on top of Bloomington’s. The only answer he ever got from Pam Reece was: 1) Nobody has requested water service 2) It is for […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chemberly Cummings is the perfect Trustee for the establishment in Normal. She believes her job is to rubberstamp staff recommendations. Listen to her Saturday interview – start at 38:30 – https://www.cities929.com/steve-suess-podcast/ She, and all the other Trustees except Stan Nord, think they hire “professional staff” who are experts in their fields, so […]
By: Diane Benjamin h/t a reader Raise your hand if you’ve always wanted to be just like Decatur! According to this article, Decatur lost 1000 jobs in two years: 2016 and 2017. This recent article says Decatur is annexing property to increase the population – whether people want annexed or not: https://herald-review.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/after-years-of-population-decline-decatur-is-annexing-hundreds-of/article_4064481d-2f15-532a-acea-6f9191ea1b39.html Tons of articles […]
By: Diane Benjamin In Bloomington and Normal government believes they are required to spend your money to create economic development. Peoria evidently doesn’t. Maybe it’s because Peoria is too broke – they have made significant budget cuts. Maybe broke government is the key to allowing the private sector to flourish. See this story: https://www.pjstar.com/news/20191210/kim-blickenstaff-purchases-stake-in-peoria-armory-plans-renovation Excerpts: […]
By: Diane Benjamin I don’t see video on either Normal or Bloomington’s website this morning. A sports complex wasn’t mentioned, the meeting was more of a “what we do” presentation by the Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Council, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau. The most noteworthy thing I heard was the EDC calling […]
By: Diane Benjamin According to Renner’s interview this morning on WJBC he has been plotting since December to appoint Amelia Buragas and Justin Boyd to the Connect Transit Board. He wants two people who know economic development and have experience spending millions of dollars. (his words) Keep in mind, Amelia wanted to tear down a […]
By: Diane Benjamin It should be more than obvious that Connect Transit is not meeting the needs of people who MUST have public transportation. Proof: Buses that are too big to run in places formerly served – mobile home parks, neighborhoods with narrow streets cutting routes and increasing fares political appointments to the Connect Transit […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chris Koos must have taken his defeat Tuesday harder than he’s publicly saying. Two new Trustees that have called out the “Plan” to buy people to move Uptown will be seated May 1. Chris claimed he doesn’t take it as a rebuke of Town policies. It was of course, but dictator types […]
The first public comment speaker was Karyn Smith (not Karen) – also a candidate for Normal Town Council. Other than her comments last night I don’t know anything else about her – yet. By: Diane Benjamin When Chris Koos began public comment he made clear he would time limit the speakers so they could get […]
A reporter who wishes to remain anonymous filed this report, see yesterday’s story: https://blnnews.com/2018/07/26/things-that-dont-fit-anywhere-else-2/ Mayoral Presentations Koos spent his time praising ISU and the excellent relationship with the Univ. Then a little about historic preservation. (Short and concise) Reporter Comments: Although the first 3 historic building east of the NE corner of the circle (In Normal […]
The Town of Normal still does not have this meeting properly posted. They do have the 7:00 pm meeting posted. Their lawyer needs to re-read the Open Meetings Act. By: Diane Benjamin The notice below is not posted on the Town of Normal website under agendas or anywhere else I looked. This was sent to […]
By: Diane Benjamin According to Wikipedia: Back in 1967 virtually nothing existed where Eastland Mall is today. Locals tell me the City Council cheered the new mall without understanding moving anchor stores from downtown would result in today’s conditions. How many employees did the Pantagraph formerly have downtown? They recently created another empty large building […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Council thinks they can make downtown a destination. The Coliseum and the BCPA were supposed to do the same thing. Since the Council spent close to two hours last night discussing beautification and streets, it proves the MILLIONS already spent have failed. There were some tiny shreds of fiscal responsibility when […]
By: Diane Benjamin So yesterday Kyle Ham’s resignation from the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council was announced. Of course he went on the junket to DC, paid by taxpayers: https://blnnews.com/2018/03/09/your-tax-dollars-at-work/ It looks like him on the far left. The EDC gets their money from government, that would be your taxes. They are totally unaccountable to you for […]
By: Diane Benjamin Both Bloomington and Normal have been governed for many years by people who want to build monuments to themselves and call it Quality of Life. Roads are too boring to fund, so are pensions. Valuable tax dollars can’t be used for what isn’t their priority. Instead they raise taxes to fund them […]
By: Diane Benjamin Bloomington and Normal are the only cities doing their own garbage pickup in the area. According to the Pantagraph, Normal did their own investigation of rates. They declared NO money could be saved by privatizing garbage pickup. See the chart here: http://www.pantagraph.com/graphic-waste-collection-fees-services/pdf_a5d93a81-e7db-537c-b830-c5fafd8a34bc.html The Pantagraph must not have noticed some of those other cities […]
By: Diane Benjamin On January 19th I reported three payments of $1,600 to the Blooming-Normal Economic Development Council: https://blnnews.com/2018/01/19/mondays-bills-foias-filed/ The three payments are for Tari Renner, Scott Black, and Steve Rasmussen to go on the One Voice trip to Washington DC: https://www.bnbiz.org/programs/one-voice/ The County and the Town of Normal will probably also be […]
By: Diane Benjamin Pre Tari Renner the City of Bloomington didn’t have any staff doing economic development. See the 2012 job titles HERE For the year ended 4/30/12, the Economic Development Council received $65,610.04 http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=6242 BN Advantage didn’t exist. Was Bloomington better or worse? Post Tari Renner – 2017 The City now has a full time […]
By: Diane Benjamin WGLT interviewed an economist from the Economic Development Council. Mike Doherty is the one that reported Bloomington-Normal has lost 9000 jobs in the last 7 years. He claims government has shrunk. (Not Bloomington!) He also attributed the decline to State Farm ending consulting contracts and Mitsubishi closing. Then he blamed my personal favorite: […]
By: Diane Benjamin The citizens of Normal need to understand they do not have accountable representatives on the Town Council. Since Normal does not have a WARD system, all trustees are elected “at-large” and therefore do not have to represent you. Trustees McCarthy, Cummings, and Preston were elected with between 3012 and 3668 votes last […]
By: Diane Benjamin According to Kyle Ham (Economic Development Council) at last night’s Bloomington Council meeting: McLean County lost 2000 jobs between 2015 and 2016 K-12 schools are down 1100 students in the last 5 years which affects aid from the State New housing starts are down 56% from 2000 to today 8 out of […]
By: Diane Benjamin Years ago I attended a MoveOn rally outside the Bloomington Public Library. I only went to hear what they had to say. The speaker recognized me, made a few comments, I responded with if anyone wants to talk I’m available. Several people did. I found out they despise corporations: The owners or […]
By: Diane Benjamin What does the Economic Development Council do? Here’s their website: https://www.bnbiz.org/ They have dinners and lunches, organize the One Voice trips to DC to beg for federal funds, and soak up a lot of money from both Bloomington and Normal. Last year McLean County budgeted $100,000 for the EDC. For 2018 they dropped […]
By: Diane Benjamin BN Advantage was formed in 2015. Their mission is to get all the players together for collaboration on economic development strategy. The Bloomington Council approved the formation in October 2015, see this doc: BN Advantage I’m sure other area governments passed the same type resolution. Temporarily forget the fact that government doesn’t […]
