By: Diane Benjamin Just a reminder: Chemberly Cummings wants to make laws in Springfield to control you, but she refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. She put the red sign over her camera. She hates America and is unfit for ANY office. She did not get her internet connection fixed, the quality is still […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last Wednesday Normal passed ordinances limiting gatherings to 10 or fewer people within the ISU campus area and additional bar and restaurant social distancing restrictions. This was in response to the skyrocketing infection rate of COVID in the campus and Uptown area. Town hall is located near the epicenter of the outbreak […]
By: Diane Benjamin Start with One Normal Plaza. STAFF convinced the Council to instigate zoning changes. The area residents only want ONE THING – alcohol sales banned in the park. Drive through – it’s a park like setting with narrow roads and family atmosphere. They want it to stay a tranquil place. STAFF refused to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Other items from Monday’s meeting could be covered, but I won’t! Links to all previous stories are here: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/08/story-6-normal-monday/ Isaac Thorne and Julie Hile made a presentation. Start with this screen shot: Thorne proved Pritzker’s budget is a joke by relying on a $5 billion bailout from the Feds AND the citizens […]
I just received another FOIA from Normal. Supporting the brewery was the building owner, Rob Morger. The Baby fold supported the zoning changes. By: Diane Benjamin Last night the group of citizens opposed to establishments selling alcohol from a building in One Normal Plaza met with Town staff. Normal brought the big guns: City Manager […]
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 http://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3660 The Town of Normal is going together with the County, Bloomington, and BNWRD to fund hazardous waste collection days through the Ecology Action Center. PDF page 61: This is common sense since citizens expect nobody associated with the Town to profit off this contract. Too bad it didn’t apply to this: […]
By: Diane Benjamin Ever feel like government is conspiring behind your back to force their agenda on you? They are! Julie Hile is a progressive. She knows how you should live your life, your opinions are immaterial. All progressives want to reshape daily life to whatever their vision is. Hile has a long history of […]
By: Diane Benjamin Some people are more special than others. If Koos appoints you to a Board or Commission it’s because your ideology aligns with his. That is why one Normal seat on the Connect Transit Board is still empty. Koos must have run out of people who think like him. On the agenda for […]
By: Diane Benjamin The massive list of Normal’s spending for the last 3 years is a treasure trove of information. It’s pretty easy to search for questionable spending like the ones below. I search for all expenses marked sponsor, comment with what you think. I’m sure Normal thinks this is petty cash. I call it […]
By: Diane Benjamin The dates and locations seem to keep changing. Is Connect trying to keep the public from showing up? I hear the consultant won’t be there, did they get fired? I’m told Julie Hile will be leading, leading to where the Town of Normal and Connect Transit want the discussion to end up? […]
By: Diane Benjamin It could take a long time to report everything I received with a FOIA of emails between Stan Nord and Normal City Manager Pam Reece. One thing obvious is she doesn’t approve of Stan looking at what she and the “professional staff” do. Pam thinks Stan’s job is setting policy, not looking […]
By: Diane Benjamin The waste of valuable resources continued in March. The far right column is year-to-date, 3 months remain in their fiscal year. https://www.connect-transit.com/documents/April%20Connect%20Transit%20Board%20Packet%204-19.pdf Nobody should be surprised by Mike McCurdy’s comments in the article below. He is not listening to the people. He was appointed by Chris Koos who also doesn’t listen […]
By: Diane Benjamin The local environmental activists thought they had their plan to force EVERYONE to recycle in the bag. They spent two years meeting with people they call “stakeholders”. Even if you did hear about one of their public meetings or hearings, I bet you didn’t go. Details here: https://blnnews.com/2018/01/06/robustelli-wrong-scritchlow-right/ Their plans to use force […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night Trustees RC McBride and Kevin McCarthy went out of their way to thanks the 5 citizens who spoke at Public Comment. They needed to because 3 out of the 5 were plants. Normal illegally requires citizens who want to speak to sign up hours in advance. That gives Koos and […]
It might seem to some local citizens, and even to many of our local city officials and elected council members, that the focus of sustainable issues, and thus, Agenda 21 – related projects, are issues that only us here at CITYWATCH are concerned about. Such is not the case. But, unfortunately, our community and city officials […]
It comes to no surprise to those of us “in the shadows“, as we have been tagged. To those of us “in the know”. Those of us who have been involved in this Main Street/Form Based Code debate with local government from the beginning have known all along something was amiss. And those of us in the know have been well […]
