Do you like Joe Biden? You will love Karen Schmidt. She is the Joe Biden of local politics. When Ms Carillo moved out of her Ward I ventured out on a limb and said to someone you all know, “Schmidt will get that seat.” Of course we had to be drug through the silly charade […]
By: Diane Benjamin Evidently the leftists on the Council want to use media to get their choice for Ward 6 alderman. WGLT has now done two stories, the latest after Jeff Crabill posted to Facebook over the weekend: Jenn couldn’t find a single place in her Ward to live! Not buying it. It is much […]
By: Diane Benjamin John Butler and his lawyers have been telling media John didn’t know his employees were stealing concession money. Evidently he’s such a great guy he agreed to a misdemeanor and paid $450,000 in restitution just because. That of course was after spending who knows how many thousands (hundreds of thousands?) on attorneys […]
Self proclaimed socialist and social justice warrior Jenn Carrillo posted this yesterday: She must have no idea what alt-right means. She has no idea what it means to be American either. It proves why voting for her is like voting for Maduro in Venezuela. It also proves she is unfit for office. As a former […]
By: Diane Benjamin Maybe the voters in Ward 8 are wondering why the Council needs another State Farm lawyer on the Council when Bloomington already has a State Farm lawyer Kimberly Bray. That’s diversity? Maybe the Ward 8 voters can’t figure out why Crabill hangs out with the radicals in Dwight. https://blnnews.com/2019/03/13/guess-who-else-was-in-dwight/ Maybe they can’t figure […]
By: Diane Benjamin Elections for Wards 2, 4, 6, and 8 are on the ballot. Note: Ward 8 does have two candidates even though Travis Wilson was disqualified. Crabill can’t get any farther left, so you could vote for Wilson. Tari would then have to appoint his replacement. If he appoints the loser Crabill, it […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last Saturday the McLean County Republican Party held a debate for the candidates running for Bloomington City Council. The only candidate to decline the invitation was Jenn Carrillo who is running to replace Karen Schmidt. The debate was filmed by the GOP and linked here in 4 parts, each around 15 minutes. […]
By: Diane Benjamin Jenn Carrillo announced she is running for Karen Schmidt’s City Council seat. She even moved to the Ward just so she can take on Schmidt. Jenn runs on “Loving everybody” and “When We Fight We Win”. She’s really running against Karen because of the Welcoming Ordinance and the Council’s failure to pass […]
A reader was concerned about these properties and how they are devaluing the area around them. Are maintenance codes enforced? The captions were written by the reader. Recently closed Heartland Printing on IAA drive. Should owner of commercial property be allowed to walk away and leave ugly property. Owner should be required to at least […]
By: Diane Benjamin Tari Renner is desperate to score political points that have nothing to do with welcoming immigrants. He is pandering to his base and Karen Schmidt is standing in his way. Illegal immigrants are just pawns in this game. Radicals think they can “progress” their fundamental transformation of America and use illegals to beat […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Bloomington City Council didn’t care when Tari attacked Judy Stearns over and over. They barely cared when Tari attacked numerous citizens, including me. It’s a different story when Tari attacks the Council! At the end of last night’s meeting Tari commented he was upset the five alderman sent their demand to […]
By: Diane Benjamin It’s David Hales fault! That is John Butler’s claim to justify the missing bucks. I blame David Hales too, and the Council, and the Mayor who all shut their eyes and pretended nothing nefarious was happening with taxpayer money. The joint was audited! Except concessions never were. Johnny Butler made sure of […]
By: Diane Benjamin The video below is from the cell phone video by Angela Scott of the Black-Sage-Schmidt Town hall held January 9, 2018 at the BCPA. I go to meetings to listen, but I ended up talking anyway. The City of Bloomington claims to be doing priority based budgeting, but their priorities aren’t the […]
By: Diane Benjamin I attended the Black-Sage-Schmidt Townhall meeting last night at the BCPA. At most 30 citizens attended and many staff members. The aldermen didn’t waste a lot of time going over what people already knew. Most of the time was questions and answers, mostly about budget issues. One citizen asked why a NO […]
By: Diane Benjamin Coliseum history: The below was printed in the Pantagraph on September 3, 2003. It is available on microfiche at the Bloomington Public Library. Tom Hamilton, former City Manager now collecting $11,350 a month in retirement, is quoted in the same edition saying the city’s risk is very low because of the numbers […]
By: Diane Benjamin I could have predicted what would happen last night with sharing expenses to redesign the Towanda-Barnes/Ireland Grove intersection. $900,000 is a lot of money, but I bet this Council won’t even approve spending far less. The proposal was for the County to pay half and the City half. That intersection is: Not […]
Guest Editorial Hey Pravdagraph, News flash! Skip Crawford and Mike Matejka have been off the Council for more than a decade! The people voted them off after multiple terms because they were the ultimate insiders voting for a union agenda (Matejka, union official) and Crawford (pretend Republican) who loved dem Karen Schmidt (see campaign letter) […]
By: Diane Benjamin Real journalism isn’t dead yet! The Joliet Herald News just proved it with this story: http://www.theherald-news.com/lists/2017/09/29/da82d31d3ccc4697970889c2a58349a5/index.xml?page=1 This paper isn’t done writing because my interview is not in this story! See this story for context if you missed it this morning: https://blnnews.com/2017/09/29/hales-if-a-perfect-fit-for-joliet/ Some tasty bits: “That’s the guy you want,” Regis said. “If somebody commits […]
By: Diane Benjamin Attn: Council If your information on ANY topic, especially the Coliseum, is from David Hales or Tari Renner you are getting “Fake News”. Jamie Mathy is quoted in today’s paper saying the Management Agreement with CIAM “literally forbid the city from having access to the raw numbers”. SOURCE Jamie, why did the City […]
By: Diane Benjamin Wasn’t it only a few weeks ago Tari Renner was so overworked as mayor he wanted a full-time assistant? He must have been exaggerating since now he thinks he can take a leave of absence for some “medical related” reason for an indeterminate time. Since the Council did nothing when Tari Renner […]
By: Diane Benjamin I’m not celebrating the State Police investigating Tari Renner’s use of a City PCard for a personal purchase. Being investigated is not the same as being prosecuted. We will find out if laws still matter, sometimes it’s hard to tell. Illinois Constitution: Government officials and employees aren’t allowed to read the law […]
By: Diane Benjamin Renner didn’t ask to extend the time so everybody could speak, so everybody didn’t get to. Tari did make sure Mike McCurdy of Bike Blono, WGLT radio, and Connect Transit got to speak though. To hear all of the public comment – just hit play below. Then listen to the second Public […]
By: Diane Benjamin Only a tiny group of citizens want bike lanes. Tari Renner ran for office twice pledging to fix the roads. He obviously isn’t as serious as the people with damaged vehicles are. This is from 2015: http://www.cityblm.org/government/departments/public-works/streets-sidewalks/street-resurfacing The table shows how much money per year is required just to have TERRIBLE STREETS. […]
I had to add this tweet – this person lives in Bloomington! NIOT! By: Diane Benjamin These pics are from the NIOT Bloomington-Normal Facebook page. Obviously not all the attendees agreed with what was being said, both pics show numerous people sitting and not clapping while other are standing and cheering. Note the sign in […]
By: Diane Benjamin Most people who care enough about political candidates to put a sign in their yard want to make sure everybody sees the signs. Isn’t that the purpose of having signs? Maybe there is a sign thief in the neighborhood, so she doesn’t want them too obvious. I remember Kevin Lower’s signs disappeared […]
Don’t miss the two followup stories: http://blnnews.com/2016/02/15/dave-selzer-tax-deadbeat/ http://blnnews.com/2016/02/15/selzer-now-running-scared/ By: Diane Benjamin The post below appeared on Republican County Board member Dave Selzer’s Facebook page yesterday. The comments are even more revealing. Dave agrees with Democrat Tari Renner 75% of the time! The McLean County transparency rating by the Illinois Policy Institute is F. I knew […]
By: Diane Benjamin From the City of Bloomington website: http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=535_ Sidewalks: Property owners and tenants are dually responsible for clearing sidewalks, and by ordinance this should be completed by 10 a.m. Residents and businesses along school routes should consider getting it done earlier on school days. School students at times are trudging through blanketed sidewalks […]
By: Diane Benjamin State’s Attorney Jason Chambers doesn’t agree with the Attorney General’s email from yesterday: http://blnnews.com/2015/11/03/bloomington-holds-illegal-meeting/ Not surprising since he didn’t see a problem with Mayor Renner announcing at a Council meeting that art is for sale in his City office: http://blnnews.com/2014/05/05/pay-to-play-okay-if-nobody-prosecutes/ Chambers interprets the City Code that the Mayor is part of the […]
By: Diane Benjamin I have to try the bird-cage liner approach for a minute, only because all this stuff doesn’t fit together: Cheers To Alderman Hauman for offering to lead the next retreat instead of paying Lynn Montei huge bucks. The Council still has to make it official next Monday. Little jeers to some Council […]
By: Diane Benjamin I attended the Roundtable council meeting held today at the Police Station. Only 4 alderman attended: Black, Hauman, Painter, and Schmidt. Mayor Renner did not, but maybe 10-12 staff people were there. I don’t personally know many of the staff, so it’s difficult for me to determine who was there. Many citizens […]
Update: Memories Pizza is almost to $600,000. Religious liberty will NOT be attacked in America without consequences. See link below. By: Diane Benjamin This email was received via my lawsuit against the City of Bloomington. It is one of those I didn’t know existed, but the judge ruled it had been illegally redacted by the […]
By: Diane Benjamin Today I received a LARGE stack of emails from the City pursuant to the lawsuit I won against the City yesterday. I hadn’t received it earlier because the package was sent by mistake to an address in Cooksville. Maybe somebody had fun reading all the emails when they received them by mistake, […]
by: Diane Benjamin It was a dark Council that resumed open session last night after a much longer than scheduled Executive Session (Secret Meeting). The air was tense, it wasn’t hard to read between the tenacious exchanges what was really happening. David Hales lovers were playing CYA for him! I’ve reported before that employee morale […]
by: Diane Benjamin Government talks a lot about Sustainability. What is it? Government’s method to control the behavior of the citizens. They limit your rights on where to live, what to drive, and access to cheap energy because they claim your choices aren’t sustainable. Sustainability isn’t the issue. America is swimming in cheap energy sources, […]
by: Stanley Wonders (Where have you been hiding Stanley? Welcome back!) Since Bloomington is a proud “Not in Our Town” town, surely we can never go too far to prove it! Especially in our elected officials! But just to BE SURE, some of them have given you the apparent ultimate PROOF. In response to a […]
by Diane Benjamin First, I have two black relatives, but I had to think about it first. Non-racists don’t think about people’s skin color. They are relatives – not BLACK relatives. Judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Evidently, only people who want to see racism still do, […]
This site will end without your support. Click here to contribute: http://blnnews.blogspot.com/ All votes can be accessed at the City of Bloomington website http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=242&parent=128 John Hanson’s last meeting was 4/25/11. Below is a summary of votes from January 2009 until Hanson left the Council. A majority of all votes taken are unanimous, below are the votes […]
