By: Diane Benjamin The candidates below have refused or ignored invitations to appear on Cities 92.9 radio. That means they don’t want to discuss issues with those who lean right and aren’t interested in earning your vote. Maybe they know their policies can’t be defended. Chris Koos – Normal Mayor Jackie Gunderson – Bloomington Mayor […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chris Koos and has band of merry fleecers will continue to increase funding to Connect Transit. They adore empty buses and the $1,000,000 a month the feds and state poor into McLean County to keep it running. They love electric buses and solar panels. They love transfer stations that give their union […]
By: Diane Benjamin I’ve written almost 7600 stories since 2012. Most I can not remember, luckily readers do remember. The story below is one readers remembered that I didn’t. Chris Koos is infamous for his insider deals that benefit friends and a compliant Council that allow the fleecing of taxpayers. I can’t possibly remember all […]
By: Diane Benjamin WGLT did another hit piece on Stan Nord, but as usual they MISSED the story and left out details: https://www.wglt.org/post/normal-council-member-stan-nord-alleges-discrimination-independent-lawyer-disagrees First, just like the lawyer Normal hired to conduct the assault on Joes Stationhouse Pizza, the results were completely predictable. Second, WGLT claims they obtained a copy of the 7 page page […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chris Koos knows he has nothing to run on. Instead of discussing issues he clipped and chopped comments made by Marc Tiritilli before Rivian incentives were approved by the Normal Town Council. Koos wants you to believe Tiritilli was against Rivian buying the plant when Marc was actually against taking money from […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chris Koos had rulings against him before for violating the Open Meetings Act, but never 2 very close together. This was the first violation: https://wordpress.com/stats/post/90250/blnnews.com The Attorney General’s office finally found time to rule on a second (OBVIOUS) violation. This one was filed in 2019 by Karyn Smith. WEEK has the story: […]
By: Diane Benjamin If a website changes over time and something isn’t there anymore you need, it can still be seen. Type Way Back Machine in your browser and it will access a web archive site. It will also expose liars, like Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy isn’t a psychologist, but he was playing one on the […]
By: Diane Benjamin Yesterday’s story: https://blnnews.com/2021/03/11/campaign-signs/ Just to prove these signs are on Town of Normal owned land, below is the GIS showing the Town owns the land along Beech Street: Chris Koos, Kevin McCarthy, and Chemberly Cummings must not care about the law. Of course those who have watched Council meetings . . . […]
Update: https://blnnews.com/2021/03/12/campaign-signs-still-there/ For those running for office: It is ILLEGAL to put campaign signs on government property. I will give Koos, McCarthy, and Cummings until the end of today to remove theirs before posting pics. Citizens can remove illegal signs. Take a picture first so you have proof they are illegal.
By: Diane Benjamin This map isn’t as crazy as it first appears: When the Town of Normal runs new sewer lines they assess fees to the new area to recover those costs. All those shaded areas have been mapped to recover those costs. The fee per acre is printed for each. This is the map […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal has two water problems: The first is spending over $5 million to run water lines on top of Bloomington’s out West College The second is brown water or worse at various locations around the Town. Chris Koos keeps trying to claim discolored water doesn’t exist. Just hit play to hear him […]
By: Diane Benjamin Proving yet again the priorities of staff have nothing to do with what citizens expect: The Town is going to fix West College, it needs it! The problem is they aren’t just going to fix it. So far just DESIGN is budgeted at $1.45 MILLION. DESIGN Nothing is going to be built […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night’s Normal Town Council meeting was slightly over 4 hours. It started with a presentation by County Board Chair John McIntyre and County Administrator Camille Rodriguez pertaining to sales tax increase to fund mental health. That presentation took close to an hour. Was that on purpose to deflect from the budget […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chemberly Cummings is the perfect Trustee for the establishment in Normal. She believes her job is to rubberstamp staff recommendations. Listen to her Saturday interview – start at 38:30 – https://www.cities929.com/steve-suess-podcast/ She, and all the other Trustees except Stan Nord, think they hire “professional staff” who are experts in their fields, so […]
By: Diane Benjamin Both the Bloomington City Council and Normal Town Council members meet with staff before meetings. It would take way too long to hash out issues in public, so they do it in private small groups instead. Items the majority of the Council will reject at meetings never make it to the public. […]
By: Diane Benjamin More on Normal’s Monday meeting: Nobody cared that Pam Reece did not follow her current contract. This didn’t happen: Chris Koos stated he and Pam cooked up the new contract. Poor Pam won’t get the 9 months of severance her old contract called for, the new one limits her to 20 weeks. […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night during Trustee comments at the end of the meeting Chris Koos claimed Council agreed to limit each to 5 minutes. Evidently that was done in secret. I doubt Stan Nord got 5 minutes because he was constantly interrupted. Nord showed a map of where Normal plans to run water lines […]
By: Diane Benjamin https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1468-0416.00029 Fitch does have Normal at AAA, did Normal pay to get that rating? Moody’s doesn’t have Normal at AAA: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/normal-town-il-moodys-assigns-230707753.html This story is based on the $2 million debt Normal recently refinanced instead of paying it off. QUOTE: RATING OUTLOOK The stable outlook incorporates our expectation that the town’s financial position […]
Normal proved Monday night they are not a business friendly community, of course we knew that. Their “Right Fit” policies mean only those businesses they approve of or kneel before them are welcome. If you missed this story: https://blnnews.com/2021/02/02/normals-reputation-after-last-night/ A GoFundMe has been set up by Curt Nord to help with the fines levied by […]
By: Diane Benjamin Of course Stan Nord knows taxpayers got fleeced to rent the second floor of 1 Uptown Circle only to fill a hole in Uptown. The Council that approved paying $35000-$36000 a month simply did as they were told. Chris Koos wanted the hole gone and obviously the private sector wasn’t going to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Since Chris Koos, Kevin McCarthy, Scott Preston, and Chemberly Cummings want your vote April 6th, does this look like something they would do to get it? The Normal Council held a 9 hour budget session yesterday. Surprise! They aren’t going to raise property taxes this year. Instead they are rearranging money they […]
By: Diane Benjamin I’ve questioned for YEARS why CIRBN employees are considered Town of Normal employees entitled to all the benefits every other employee has. CIRBN is a direct competitor to other internet providers who don’t have that luxury. The Town of Normal has subsidized CIRBN by using their service and paying them to run […]
Flying around McLean County Administration I overheard they aren’t on board with divvying up the cost of Normal’s recycling drop boxes 3 ways. Of course Trustee Kevin McCarthy believed the utterings of the City Manager saying an agreement was close. It isn’t. Maybe Pam Reece can explain herself. It will be similar to her claiming […]
By: Diane Benjamin Part 1: https://blnnews.com/2020/12/29/normal-vengeance-part-1/ This snip is from the minutes of the September 8. 2020 minutes: https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3759 Obviously Lorenz and McCarthy missed the graphic in Part 1 stating Normal’s priority is to run Water to Rivian. The minutes go on to state this $5,000,000 project would promote economic development, there is no mention […]
By: Diane Benjamin This meme popped up on Facebook about the same time The Normal Town Council proved it to be true: Start with the Work Session Normal had on December 7th to decide whether to create an ordinance to enforce Pritzker’s non-enforceable Restore Illinois waste of paper. See the video in this story: https://blnnews.com/2020/12/08/normal-isnt-shutting-down-businesses-for-violations/ […]
By: Diane Benjamin Something else happened last Monday at the Normal Town Council meeting that unless you watched it you don’t know. See 46:45. McCarthy pulled approving the minutes from the Omnibus agenda in an attempt to make them say something Stan Nord didn’t say. The minutes in question pertained to Stan’s Trustee comment about […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal managed to have an almost 2 1/2 hour meeting. Much of it was spent trying to straighten out YOUR thoughts about the Town government. Kathleen Lorenz reiterated again payments can not be discussed because they were already approved in the budget. Pam Reece gave a long diatribe about a payment to […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal has gone from 10 minute meetings with no discussion before spending millions of dollars to bloviating just to hear themselves talk. I can’t possibly recap everything that happened, so I will pick what I think is important. The other media can fill you in on what the Town thinks happened. Last […]
By: Diane Benjamin Of course the media won’t ask questions and officials in Normal won’t publicly say anything about it. But, instead of suing Bloomington when they dissolved the west side sales tax sharing agreement (Metrozone), Normal appears to be plotting. Of course they are using your money for payback. A pattern is developing, even […]
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 At the last meeting (September 8th) Kevin McCarthy pulled approving the bills from the Omnibus Agenda just so he could state “it is just a report”, everything spent was already approved in the budget. Last night Kathleen Lorenz pulled the same item so she could give the same speech. Who’s turn will […]
By: Diane Benjamin Much of the meeting was spent talking about the 3/31/2020 financial statements and the financial trends report. Neither are on-line yet, so they aren’t worth discussing much here. Many accolades were thrown at staff for doing a good job preparing for the audit. I agree, but isn’t that what they get paid […]
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 9:00 – Stan pulled the bills for further discussion – particularly paying property taxes. Pam Reece and attorney Brian Day didn’t have good answers for not filing paperwork to make them exempt. 14:45 Koos ends the conversation. Next was the contract with the McLean County Regional Planning Commission. Stan wanted the same […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal Trustee Kevin McCarthy is President of: This information is from the Illinois Secretary of State’s website Kevin had a local triathlon scheduled for June 6, it was finally rescheduled to September within the last day or two. Kevin must have hoped he had special powers to change reality by waiting so […]
By: Diane Benjamin The Town of Normal has a LONG history of over-paying for properties and then selling them for much less. (or just giving them away!) I’ve done numerous stories since 2012 detailing some of them. Here are 3 blatant examples: https://normal.org/archivecenter/viewfile/item/2115 In 2015 Normal bought 513 N School for $170,000. 509 N School […]
By: Diane Benjamin For the second time in recent months Normal was incapable of live streaming with good audio. The posted video still has the same problem, luckily it was fixed almost 13 minutes into the meeting. About every 20 seconds the prior audio was replayed over the first. In another 20 seconds a third […]
By: Diane Benjamin Received by FOIA: Below is part of an email City Manager Pam Reece sent to the Normal Town Council on November 21st: Yes, they are spending your money with consultants. Below is Stan Nord’s response on November 22nd, I’m not posting the entire email because it covers 4 other things too. Once […]
By: Diane Benjamin If Illinois had a competent Attorney General a ruling against Normal for their public comment policy would have been written many months ago. (the law requires them to rule within 90 days) We don’t, so Normal continues to stifle citizen speech only because they can. A complaint was filed with the AG […]
