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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
By: Diane Benjamin Your property taxes were raised last night with the consent of the two Republicans on the Normal Town Council. The rate was kept the same (for now) but with rising property values the Town will collect over $300,000 more than last year. The vote last night was sold as “statutory”, another vote […]
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 […]
By: Diane Benjamin The worst part of the Council raising your property taxes last night is they did it for no good reason. They might need the money in the future, so 3% it is. You lucked out, it could have been an increase of 5%. I attended the Danvers Council meeting last night with […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
By: Diane Benjamin It looks like Bloomington has to be destroyed by government spending before people realize local elections matter. Or, maybe only the people who can’t move will be left paying the bills which are about to get much bigger. Monday night the Bloomington will see the results of doing “Wants” before Needs. MANY […]
By: Diane Benjamin White Oak Township met to raise taxes last night. They voted by referendum because the Township needs more money. The Agenda lists the increase “not to exceed” .167%: The reason given for the tax increase is: Wind farm revenue is decreasing! The State is also late paying Motor Fuel Tax. Not surprising, […]
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