By: Diane Benjamin When you vote for progressives your taxes will go up. Utopia takes cold hard cash – YOURS. During the Work Session at 6:00 pm last night the only topic was increasing the gas tax. The theme at this meeting and the 7:00 meeting was “pots” of money. Think about how you handle […]
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 Normal Mayor Chris Koos was nominated by Sen Dick Durbin to the Amtrak Board of Directors. Amtrak and Koos are a perfect fit. It does mean that Koos can no longer participate in discussions about building an underpass since all decisions involve Amtrak. See PDF page 5: http://www.normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/12829/2017-Purchasing-Policy-Manual-x?bidId= Amtrak will be paying […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night’s Normal Town Council meeting will take more than one story. It’s becoming really easy to tell the political leanings of people just through one thing: Do they put people in boxes? People who lean left, even if they claim to be Republican, segregate people by all possible means: gender, race, […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chemberly Cummings didn’t bother to attend, of course nobody said why. That led to some problems later with only 6 voting members. A tie vote would have meant an item failed. Numerous items were pulled from the Omnibus agenda – all these things used to sail through and were never questioned before […]
By: Diane Benjamin Part 1: https://blnnews.com/2019/10/08/the-normal-circus-last-night-part-1/ Part 2: https://blnnews.com/2019/10/08/the-normal-circus-last-night-part-2/ Most of the Connect Transit discussion will be in Part 4. (likely tomorrow!) Two points needs clarifying first: 3:07:00 – Karyn Smith stated at the last meeting Kevin McCarthy said if there was a choice between a full fare rider and one that is subsidized of […]
By: Diane Benjamin Citizens of Normal can expect more backroom deals and handouts to friends because most of the Normal Trustees didn’t get the message from the last two elections. Voters can permanently get a representative government in 2021. Meanwhile Stan Nord and Karyn Smith are by themselves expecting fiscal sanity. The excessive spending trying […]
By: Diane Benjamin Kathleen Lorenz claims to be a Republican, so does Scott Preston. It is Republicans like these that made me leave the Republican Party years ago. The days of voting for party are long gone. Base your vote on the CHARACTER of the candidate, not the party. Both Lorenz and Preston know Normal’s […]
By: Diane Benjamin One more thing happened at Monday’s Normal Town Council meeting that you need to see. First, some background. Both Bloomington and Normal have decided in recent years to write minutes that don’t reflect exactly what happens at meetings. If citizens want to research something that happened a year ago and don’t know […]
By: Diane Benjamin This statement is on the Town of Normal website – even though Chris Koos and company try to tell Stan Nord and Karyn Smith talking to citizens about locating in Normal isn’t their job: http://normal.org/97/Contacting-the-Council It looks like citizens would rather contact Stan and Karyn: Once again, Karyn speaks for many of […]
I have been informed Stan Nord sent the two pics below to Pam Reece. She responded with what the Town lawyer sent to the Attorney General in response to Karyn Smith Request for Review. The Town claims they read the law – the Attorney General Open Meetings Act training is immaterial. See the response here: Town […]
By: Diane Benjamin Monday night the Omnibus Agenda, that would have sailed through the Council without discussion before Stan Nord and Karyn Smith were elected, was moved to the end of the meeting. Chris Koos didn’t stick around for the discussion, he claimed he had to get up early to travel somewhere to see his […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night’s Normal Town Council meeting lasted close to 4 hours. It started with a conga line of Uptown supporters, most (if not all) connected to government. 2 objectors to the Fiala payoff were conveniently placed at the end of Public Comment. It started at 8:00 if you want to watch. On […]
By: Diane Benjamin At least they are in Normal! Remember how Mayor Koos shut down Stan Nord over expenses because bills listed have already been paid? Auditors make sure the numbers are in the right columns and the required footnotes and disclosures are included in financial statements. The don’t look for fraud and they certainly […]
By: Diane Benjamin Karyn Smith is still waiting for a ruling from the Attorney General from when she was denied the right to speak to the Normal Council about the mural – because it wan’t on the agenda. See this story: https://blnnews.com/2019/02/28/ag-investigating-town-of-normal-again/ The Attorney General is supposed to rule within 90 days, but this is […]
By: Diane Benjamin I wonder if Chris Koos will try to blame Stan Nord for this: This is yet another company who contacted Stan. They can turn the mural into a digital picture and save taxpayers a lot of money. Stan forwarded the information to City Manager Pam Reece: Have you noticed how Stan continually protects people […]
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 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 Remember the $100 a month lease for the property at 305 S. Linden? Remember Normal was going to pay $5000 to have internet installed? Normal would be forced to pay property taxes on that property too, the rent likely would not have covered both the taxes and internet. (See original story: https://blnnews.com/2019/04/14/is-normal-handing-out-a-cheap-lease/) […]
Part 2: https://blnnews.com/2019/06/04/normal-part-2/ By: Diane Benjamin Before Stan Nord and Karyn Smith were elected, Normal’s Council meeting last night would have lasted 3 minutes. There was no business on the agenda to be discussed. A Trustee would have motioned to pass the Omnibus Agenda the others would have fought over who could “second” it the […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chris Koos didn’t get the lesson from two years ago when he only defeated Marc Tiritilli by 11 votes. Last night the voters in Normal sent a baseball bat to the head message: We demand a new direction! Two of the top three winners took on the Koos and company agenda, Stan […]
I asked WGLT to include me on their candidate page and got zero response. No big surprise there. WGLT Voter Guide 2019 . But in looking over the other Normal Town Council candidates’ responses I found something very interesting… . If you start at the top and click on RC, it contains his answers to a […]
By: Diane Benjamin Is WGLT attempting to deceive voters? Is their General Manager, who is on the ballot, behind it? It’s corrupt enough WGLT controlled the debate with the Normal candidates, since RC McBride works for them, they should have recused themselves. It gets worse! Karl Sila was not allowed to participate in the debate […]
By: Diane Benjamin The WGLT story about last night’s Normal Town Council meeting doesn’t mention RC McBride voted for the water rate increase: http://www.wglt.org/post/water-fee-increase-solar-group-buy-making-repeat-appearances-normal Readers are left to surmise he did. This one is worse: I reported this story back on February 28: https://blnnews.com/2019/02/28/ag-investigating-town-of-normal-again/ WJBC reported it on March 4: http://www.wjbc.com/2019/03/04/normal-mayor-probed-for-alleged-open-meetings-act-violations/?fbclid=IwAR0mVvQsAVBRPrRVSWllpx_YPGc2YvMk0iHXYXWS0AWvxrBG0FXLxYbmvCg The […]
BY;; Diane Benjamin The Town of Normal continues to have an illegal public comment policy. Normal was forced to change the policy in 2017 when the Attorney General told them they can not have a policy that allows a citizen to only speak every 45 days. Instead of slapping the Town’s entire policy into oblivion, […]
