Unit 5 meeting tomorrow – they are raising property taxes

By: Diane Benjamin https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Agenda/1482?meeting=559216 The Unit 5 School Board will be raising your taxes over 5%, how much over isn’t in the tax documentation. A Public Hearing is being held before the vote, of course very few of you will show up and tell them what you think. You voted down the referendum so they […]

Bloomington recap

By: Diane Benjamin Julie Emig was absent again. Proving Covid is now no big deal, Tim Gleason attended by zoom from the other side of the wall. He stated he had direct exposure to Covid and didn’t want to sit next to other council members and possibly expose them. Remember when people were required to […]

Bloomington raised your property taxes last night

By: Diane Benjamin I looked at the City website last night and no agenda was posted for the “special meeting”. It did announce the Committee of the Whole meeting was cancelled. No wonder nobody showed up for Public Comment! The “Special Meeting” agenda is posted now. Meetings that just happened are erased only to reappear […]

Fly on the Wall: Unit 5

Next Wednesday Unit 5 will vote to put a referendum on the November ballot to raise property taxes. Taxes on a home valued at $180,000 will increase $500 a year. Nothing in the WOKE curriculum is being cut. Next April voters can elect non-teachers union backed School Board members. If this doesn’t pass in November, […]

Just say NO to Unit 5

By: Diane Benjamin Unit 5 has a superintendent that uses PRONOUNS! Proof: https://blnnews.com/2021/08/27/the-winning-email/ If that doesn’t tell you your kids are going to a leftist indoctrination camp, maybe this will help. Unit 5 is all in on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Stop and read this article: https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/10/500-school-districts-publicly-declare-only-woke-teachers-need-apply/ Is “woke” Weikle only hiring woke teachers? Would […]

Unit 5 half truths

By: Diane Benjamin Unit 5 didn’t have many attend their 2nd round of Community Engagement sessions last night. They really want to put a property tax increase on the ballot in November. They need attendees to get yes votes. From a person who did attend, video is not available: Kristen Weikle lamented unfunded mandates. They […]

Unit 5 Spending History

By: Diane Benjamin See this story for MORE information: https://blnnews.com/2022/03/04/unit-5-enrollment-is-decreasing/ Without Open The Books this data would be very difficult to find! Salary information comes from data reported to pension funds. Checkbook data came from Unit 5. If you haven’t heard, Unit 5 wants you to pay more. Unit 5 needs to toss their Diversity, […]

Library: $5,600,000 grant

By: Diane Benjamin At the Bloomington City Council meeting last night Jeanne Hamilton announced the State had given them a grant of over $5.6 million for the expansion. Of course, they won’t be using all of it to decrease the property tax increase. See 4:15. I might have lost track, but I counted 13 comments […]

A Water Park was shoved through, Is the Library next?

By: Diane Benjamin Last week I was at the Tri-Valley High School. They recently finished a renovation that included a new library. I was shocked to see what was missing: BOOKS. The library had some books but not shelf-covered walls normally associated with a library. My tour guide told me the kids don’t read books […]

Normal’s Property Tax History

By:  Diane Benjamin This WGLT article is pretty accurate in describing the contentious all day Council meeting Friday. https://www.wglt.org/Normal-Town-Council-Works-Through-Trust-Issues-Contentious-Retreat The bottom line is the elites on the Council don’t appreciate Stan Nord and Karyn Smith actually doing what they campaigned to do! (sound familiar?) Isn’t that what voters expect politicians to do? (How many actually […]

Normal: Yes, increasing your property taxes is on the agenda

By:  Diane Benjamin PDF page 50:  https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3446 Normal under this Council is not capable of living within their means. I bet you didn’t know about this two day meeting of the council with Lyle Sumek: Sumek is the guy really running Normal.  I bet this meeting isn’t going as well as last year’s!  Celebrate they […]

No major cuts!

By:  Diane Benjamin Questions for the Council:  Last November you held a retreat.  EVERY program the City is forcing people to pay for was presented. See PDF page 34 and following:   http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=14932 There are 15 pages of programs ranked from HIGH priority to Low priority. It looks like cutting programs died the day they were […]

Cries from the unaccountable

By:  Diane Benjamin The citizens of Normal need to understand they do not have accountable representatives on the Town Council.  Since Normal does not have a WARD system, all trustees are elected “at-large” and therefore do not have to represent you.  Trustees McCarthy, Cummings, and Preston were elected with between 3012 and 3668 votes last […]