Zoom could be over

By: Diane Benjamin Chris Koos announced last night the next meeting could be back to in person. Zoom was way more fun except for public comments that couldn’t connect and the “Can you hear me?” chorus. Stan Nord pulled several items from the Omnibus agenda. One was the bills. Koos didn’t want to hear about […]

Proof of the Koos debt

By: Diane Benjamin I could write MANY stories about last night’s Bloomington Council meeting. I might write more, I might not. I didn’t want you to miss this graphic: Every citizen of Normal is in twice as much debt as those who live in Bloomington. That is why the end of the Uptown TIF is […]

Karyn Smith was a mistake, but . . .

By: Diane Benjamin The Good News is by electing Karyn – RC McBride is no longer on the council! The bad news is she must be a one term trustee if she continues to believe everything she is told instead of searching for truth herself. She was elected to represent the PEOPLE, not the Town. […]

Normal last night – Part 2

By:  Diane Benjamin The reason I love these remote meetings is it’s easy to catch your elected officials proving they don’t care: This is Kathleen Lorenz – 55:42.  The others have similar moments we would never see at a regular Council meeting.  Stan had pulled a water project that was going to be over $400,000 […]

Normal: 4-20-20

By:  Diane Benjamin The City of Peoria is facing a $31 million deficit because of COVID-19:  https://week.com/2020/04/14/peoria-city-council-facing-31-million-hole-cuts-likely-on-the-way/ Normal is missing close to half of their population because of college closures.  What is their deficit?  (crickets) http://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3608 Since bills were not included in the last packet, there are two lists in this one. Previously Normal paid […]

No money in it: Recycling

By:  Diane Benjamin If money could be made from recycling, Normal wouldn’t have stopping funding drop off locations.. Midwest Fiber wouldn’t let the drop off boxes get stuffed to capacity creating a mess when people just leave the junk outside the bins. I have been dropping of recycling for years behind Walmart in Normal.  These […]

Recycling: Government FAIL!

By:  Diane Benjamin McLean County, Bloomington, and Normal all passed a recycling ordinance that could lead to MANDATORY recycling, shortly after Normal decided they don’t have the money to pay for drop off sites:   https://blnnews.com/2018/03/02/normal-crashing/ Midwest Fiber supposedly agreed to operate these drop off sites: It looks like there is NO profit in recycling because […]