By: Diane Benjamin Your tax dollars in Normal are paying for advertising on Connect Transit buses. Connect shows advertising revenue when this is merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Maybe we can get to a point where government funds other government instead of fleecing citizens! Just keep passing around the same bucks. Connect […]
By: Diane Benjamin Due to Christmas the Bloomington City Council is changing their meeting schedule. They will be meeting tonight. One item on the agenda: It should be riveting to hear discussion of data that is 8 months old. Congrats Bloomington, you aren’t supposed to know any facts in a timely manner. I wonder if […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Board is meeting today. They will see another month of losing more than $1 million! Connect spent a lot of money on consultants: The below pays the Working Group consultant who didn’t finish the job – original cost $53,000 (This is the group where Chris Koos is on the Board of […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Council managed to stretch a 10 minute meeting into 50 minutes. 2 members went on long diatribes. I will start with Karyn Smith. If you want to hear it – go to 16:20. The topic was One Normal Plaza. Karyn felt the need to correct what she thinks is misinformation. This […]
By: Diane Benjamin This plaque will be dedicated at 10:00 am Saturday on the Normal Plaza. When City Hall moved years ago they didn’t move the existing plaque with them. The American Legion decided to leave that one and install a new one: I hear Chris Koos and Dan Brady will be making comments. Commander […]
If course they didn’t say NO. Details tomorrow. By: Diane Benjamin http://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3633 The big item on the agenda tonight is this: Did you have flooding this weekend? There were videos on line showing nearly impassable streets in Normal, evidently that’s not unusual. Instead of essential services at a time when revenues are way down and […]
By: Diane Benjamin Part 1: https://blnnews.com/2020/05/01/rivian-back-for-property-tax-abatement/ Part 2: https://blnnews.com/2020/05/03/normal-monday-5-4-2020/ Part 3: https://blnnews.com/2020/05/03/normal-part-3-5-4-2020/ Payments that aren’t supposed to be discussed (per Chris Koos) start on PDF page 9: https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3621 This is the second meeting in a row where the Town has refunded money. At the last meeting over $12,000 was refunded including what appears to be […]
By: Diane Benjamin Budget – PDF page 56 https://www.cityblm.org/home/showdocument?id=24029 We have no idea when life will return to normal, but government needs to scale back now. The only receipts that may increase is the Utilities Tax since a lot of people are at home. All the X tax receipts will be effected, how many businesses will […]
By: Diane Benjamin What relationship should exist between government and media? We know WGLT employee RC McBride was on the Normal Town Council until he was defeated last April. We know WGLT employee Mike McCurdy is the chair of the Connect Transit Board and appointed by the Town of Normal. Does WGLT ever do any […]
By: Diane Benjamin https://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=23513 EAC is the employees – this time doing the chili cook off. I like how the expense is charged to Community Relations, the community wasn’t invited. Martin Luther King’s dream is now officially dead. Black Administrators need their own forum, the color of someone’s skin must somehow make them want things […]
By: Diane Benjamin After NOT posting the Agenda for today’s meeting 48 hours in advance as required by the Open Meetings Act (LAW!), yesterday Connect moved the meeting and thought people would magically know: https://www.connect-transit.com/about/trustees/cttf_working_group/agendas.asp No surprise, they didn’t have enough people for a quorum, some members of the public went to the wrong […]
Sent from a reader: Advertising on empty Connect Transit buses paid for by taxpayers: Evidently no local businesses want their name associated with this massive waste of money!
By: Diane Benjamin Follow-up to this story from two days ago: https://blnnews.com/2018/05/15/foia-fail-again-and-again/ I emailed both the City Clerk and Tari about the ridiculous .50 (fifty cents) charge and use of a disk since previous large FOIA requests have been delivered via Hightail. Yesterday afternoon I received the request digitally. Since the Clerk probably would have ignored […]
By: Diane Benjamin A reader told me at the end of April the Bloomington Public Library was running ads on a Peoria TV station. On April 30th I filed a FOIA request for the ad and what they are spending on advertising. Keep in mind the City of Bloomington spends a fortune on IT and […]
By: Diane Benjamin I filed this FOIA request on June 28th: It was due on July 5th, but I didn’t receive it. I keep a log of FOIA requests, this morning I had a minute to review them and noticed I hadn’t received this one. I sent a reminder to the City of Bloomington City […]
by: Diane Benjamin Tonight the City Council is expected to approve bills and payroll without any questions. Both are part of the consent agenda, meaning there is nothing to see here – just vote Yes. Before I get to the Pantagraph and WJBC, buried on page 123 is this: (h/t JS) http://www.cityblm.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=7009 346 CHICAGO CUBS […]
