By: Diane Benjamin Follow-up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2023/03/07/normal-buy-local-is-immaterial/ At the March 6, 2023 Council meeting the Water Director, John Burkhart, wanted to start buying parts from a company in Washington Il instead of the local supplier they have used for decades. Here’s the problem: Normal doesn’t stock a lot of parts because they claim they […]
By: Diane Benjamin https://www.normalil.gov/bids.aspx?bidID=372 The Subway in the Amtrak Station closed in October. The Town of Normal now thinks they need a new tenant. Subway closed because they didn’t have enough foot traffic to sell food in the volume needed. FYI, I know one of the former owners. I was in the parking garage a […]
By: Diane Benjamin This payment was in the 8/1/2022 Normal Town Council packet: Note the $2000 was paid from Pam Reece’s discretionary funds. Since it was paid from her funds, she should know why it was paid. Watch this exchange that happened at the meeting. Pam can’t remember what the $2000 payment was for, she […]
By: Diane Benjamin Remember the Citizens Summit Normal held a few years ago and has ignored ever since? That Summit was supposed to be by invitation only, eventually the public was allowed to participate. The opinions of the uninvited were supposed to be ignored, the consultant that ran the event is no longer a Town […]
By: Diane Benjamin See this link: https://normal.org/bids.aspx?bidID=310 That link is the Town requesting bids. Remember when the “professional staff” picked an insurer because they liked the people – even though they were more expensive? https://blnnews.com/2021/05/12/normals-deception/ The “professional staff” threw that ol’ Buy Local philosophy out the window because they wanted to. Obviously that only applies […]
By: Diane Benjamin Every municipality is required by law to have an ethics ordinance, Normal doesn’t have one. Details in this story: https://blnnews.com/2017/01/31/ethics-law-everybody-ignores/ Of course, in Illinois laws are immaterial. Last night Normal held a Special Meeting to accuse Stan Nord of disrespecting Pam Reece because he stands up for citizens. Unfortunately Stan has no […]
By: Diane Benjamin Think back to April when the Normal Town Council approved Horton Group for Insurance Broker Services. One thing stood out as suspicious. The Town issued an RFP and received 5 responses with detailed proposals. The meeting documentation was pages of glowing staff praise for Horton but the bids from the other four […]
By: Diane Benjamin Remember this story? https://blnnews.com/2021/04/08/normals-professional-staff-comedy/ Normal City Manager Pam Reece wrote a letter to Bloomington’s City Manager claiming sewer fees had been collected by Bloomington for systems owned by Normal. It only took her 9 years to notice a problem existed. The letter was complete with a 2 page 11 point questionnaire she […]
By: Diane Benjamin This would not be an issue if the Town of Normal wasn’t constantly claiming their “professional staff” does a wonderful job and is above criticism or questioning. Nobody is perfect, Normal needs to stop claiming they are. I’m sure the below will be fixed soon, but this was what the link for […]
By: Diane Benjamin See the previous story: https://blnnews.com/2020/09/28/see-if-you-can-spot-anything-strange/ That story shows the largest purchasers of Bloomington water. I see three locations in Normal that are getting water from the City of Bloomington: Rivian, Bromenn, and Firestone. All three have been buying water from Bloomington for a LONG time, Mitsubishi before Rivian. So why does Normal […]
By: Diane Benjamin All the neighbors of One Normal Plaza want is the proposed zoning changed banning alcohol in the park-like setting. The “professional staff” wrote the proposal the “professional staff” can change it. Instead the Town and most of the elected representatives continue to flagrantly abuse citizens by demanding they appear before the Planning […]
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 I’m sure I missed writing about other great moments from last night, but it was a VERY long meeting! Only two citizens showed up to speak about the budget. The same two spoke at Public Comment in addition to one other citizen. Budget: Karl Sila spoke 6:45. He mentioned the full budget […]
By: Diane Benjamin Public comment: 6:15 Doug Fansler asks why the Town can find $25,000 off budget but couldn’t find the $96,000 to keep from raising property taxes – Pam answered it later. The $25,000 will be taken from stockpiled savings, the $96,000 is next year’s property taxes. 7:30: Karl Sila talked about Wild Country […]
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 […]
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