By: Diane Benjamin There is a war between the old guard and the newly elected members of the Council in Normal. Koos and company are not happy! Chris: Stan and Karyn were elected because the taxpayers are sick of your $35,000+ a month rent in Uptown Circle, the $2.75 million you handed the developer to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night’s Normal Town Council meeting was an hour long. The longest debate was over changing the name of a major road again. It used to be Diamond Star Parkway, now Mitsubishi Motorway, it will be getting it’s third name. Stan Nord questioned the impact to not only the businesses in the […]
By: Diane Benjamin Connect Transit appeared at both City Council meetings last night. Isaac Thorne, General Manager, didn’t hang around the Bloomington meeting for long. He rushed off needlessly to Normal since he wasn’t on the agenda until after public comment and regular business. He could have answered more questions from the Bloomington Council. The […]
By: Diane Benjamin The citizens vote for people to represent them. Those representatives then don’t attend meetings. The ones that do pretend it’s perfectly normal for members to be absent. Do they still get paid? Citizens don’t have a right to know why their elected official is MIA? Last night it was Chris Koos. Was […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chris Koos buddy Dave Shields is livid he got beat in the last election. See 12:50. He decided to tear into Stan Nord for “lying” at Public Comment. Hey Dave – you said New York leads the states in out migration. According to this link New York is 4th, New Jersey is […]
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 See the story here: Democrats Local Candidates – Cheri Bustos Some stories have too many lies to ignore. This is one of them. Excerpts: A public relations consultant? Why does the City of Bloomington call her an Employment Coordinator? The truth is too embarrassing? State Officials (Democrats of course) are supporting her? I […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal passed the “Welcoming Ordinance” last night that does nothing. Scott Preston and Jeff Fritzen voted against it. The supporters declared victory anyway, they got the Town to kneel before them even if only for one night. The radical pep rally lasted for over 3 hours so everyone who wanted to speak […]
By: Diane Benjamin During public comment many first time speakers almost begged the Council to save the historic buildings at 104, 106, and 108 Beaufort Street. From the Council discussion, that is not going to happen. City Manager Peterson claimed all they were doing was picking a developer. Oh they will see what they can […]
I’m changing my statements as it pertains to Jamie Mathy and Kim Bray. The statements they filed this year apply to last year, so alderman would not be on it. The real problem is the County does not post the Statements of Economic Interest filed with petitions. That means voters have no way of knowing […]
By: Diane Benjamin SOURCE Seems pretty clear that every elected official MUST file. Diana Hauman has not filed as a Bloomington Alderman. She did file as a Township Trustee, a position she wasn’t elected to. This is what she filed in May of 2017: http://seionline.mcleancountyil.gov/public/PublicSEI.aspx Kimberly Bray does not have a statement on file Mboka […]
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 Before Tari took a “medical related” leave, he publicly announced his support for Daniel Biss – Democrat candidate for governor: Recently Biss announced his running mate: Chicago Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa If Chicago Alderman isn’t bad enough, Rosa is a member of the Democrats Socialists of America: http://chicagoist.com/2017/08/07/chicago_dsa_convention_helps_build.php Maybe Tari’s support of Biss explains […]
By: Diane Benjamin Just weeks ago City Manager Mark Peterson declared everybody racist – but he is determined to fix it: https://blnnews.com/2017/08/23/we-are-all-racist/ Normal is so racist in April they elected a black council member – Chemberly Cummings. According to a Pantagraph story, she thinks rural white teachers have never seen black kids before. I wonder what […]
By: Diane Benjamin I would have loved to post comments from the forums held for the Council of both Bloomington and Normal, but there wasn’t any insight gained. Spending an hour listening the questions and answers doesn’t give the candidates much time to reveal themselves. Some are purposely hiding their agenda to get elected. The […]
