By: Diane Benjamin Tuesday Chris Koos had to run to his favorite taxpayer funded media – WGLT – to complain about Stan Nord. The issue: Stan won’t rubber stamp my appointees! https://www.wglt.org/normal-mayor-pushes-back-appointment-opposition The article eventually got to Karyn Smith who also spoke about not having time to research who Koos’ Connect Transit Board appointee is. […]
By: Diane Benjamin I tried to wrap up most of what happened Monday night in this story and failed. One more story coming and some things still won’t be covered. Link to all previous stories: https://blnnews.com/2020/07/08/jumping-around-normals-meeting/ This one is number SIX. This was on the agenda: EVERY person on the Council, except Stan Nord, voted […]
By: Diane Benjamin At the Normal Town Council meeting last night many on the Council were appalled at Stan Nord’s comments concerning an email Pam Reece sent: https://blnnews.com/2020/06/16/normal-the-lets-marginalize-stan-show/ Stan obviously stands alone in representing the people who voted for him. The rest campaign as representing citizens and then fall in line with whatever the “professional […]
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 Another email exchange between Stan Nord and Pam Reece, I don’t think it needs my comments. All of these were written on the same day. Received by FOIA.
By: Diane Benjamin Watch a Normal Council meeting. Kathleen Lorenz will attempt at least one to convey that Stan Nord has no idea what he’s doing. In emails she is even worse. Below are a few choice picks – from FOIA: Response from Kathleen: This issue isn’t dead, I’m just waiting for more information. How […]
By: Diane Benjamin Background: If you’ve ever watched a Normal Town Council meeting you know Chris Koos, Pam Reece, and most of the Council don’t appreciate Stan Nord representing citizens. The formerly 10 minute meetings with your elected officials never questioning anything are over. The emails below reveal how City Manager Pam Reece feels. She […]
I redacted the name of the writer because this could have been written by any small business owner. Note the dates as you read each email. Large corporations allowed to stay open profited at the expense of your neighbors. Received by FOIA: Response from Stan Nord: Pam sent this to the Mayor and Council. The […]
By: Diane Benjamin June 1st, Normal Town Council meeting: Hit play – it should start at 1:14:23 with Brian Day, Town attorney. The topic is the sale of the property at 1404 Ft. Jesse. Brian Day is responding to questions from Stan Nord. Day attempts to claim selling the property for far less than appraised […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal Mayor Chris Koos was nominated by Sen Dick Durbin to the Amtrak Board of Directors. Amtrak and Koos are a perfect fit. It does mean that Koos can no longer participate in discussions about building an underpass since all decisions involve Amtrak. See PDF page 5: http://www.normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/12829/2017-Purchasing-Policy-Manual-x?bidId= Amtrak will be paying […]
By: Diane Benjamin I hope you haven’t forgotten the Town of Normal billed Stan Nord for fees they “forgot” to charge 3 or 4 owners previous for tapping into the sewer system. The Town had no liens on the property, he was told to pay when he started publicly speaking against Town policies – like […]
Two emails have been added to the bottom. I’m all the way to page 314 of 924! By: Diane Benjamin I’m paging through 924 pages received by FOIA, I’m up to page 187. When I see something citizens need to know I do a story. What I received belongs to citizens, you paid for them […]
By: Diane Benjamin From this story: https://blnnews.com/2020/04/14/koos-caught-in-another-lie/ Besides the typo, see anything else? Anybody? . . The Council only has SEVEN members. Koos claims he talked to SIX! http://normal.org/1135/Meet-the-Council If Koos hadn’t wasted time talking to himself he would of had time to call Stan! (I was waiting for somebody to notice)
I found more emails you need to see. So far I haven’t found any responses from the Mayor to Stan. (At bottom) By: Diane Benjamin See this WGLT story: https://www.wglt.org/post/normal-cracks-down-large-gatherings#stream/0 Excerpt: Koos claimed he could not reach one council member! He didn’t try: Koos didn’t have time At least he apologized, I wonder if […]
By: Diane Benjamin Citizens were spared from a long line of people wanting the City to fork over your money. Most of public comment was emailed, those were forwarded to the Aldermen but not read out loud. One of the comments was called in, the form aid would take is never mentioned. Stan Nord also […]
By: Diane Benjamin Watch the discussion of Stan Nord’s plat beginning with a speech by Mayor (hypocrite) Koos at 1:06:43. The entire discussion is lenthy, get a cup of coffee and get comfortable. Kathleen Lorenz, Kevin McCarthy, Chemberly Cummings and the mayor all wanted Nord to pay a price for ignoring Town orders. Attn Frauds: […]
By: Diane Benjamin In case you forgot, see this story: https://blnnews.com/2020/02/01/fake-news-wglt-2/ WGLT did a story attacking Stan Nord using a letter City Manager Pam Reece sent to Stan Nord. WGLT couldn’t possibly have obtained it by FOIA. That letter was leaked to them, yes folks your government is either anti-business or willing to destroy anyone […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night’s Normal Town Council meeting will take more than one story. It’s becoming really easy to tell the political leanings of people just through one thing: Do they put people in boxes? People who lean left, even if they claim to be Republican, segregate people by all possible means: gender, race, […]
By: Diane Benjamin On January 14, 2020 I received a tip that WGLT sent a FOIA to the Town of Normal for all communication regarding Stan Nord’s W. College property. I then FOIA’d WGLT’s FOIA. On January 22, 2020 WGLT did this story: The letter WGLT used in their second story on January 31, 2020 […]
By: Diane Benjamin WGLT’s Eric Stock wrote this story yesterday: https://www.wglt.org/post/town-normal-turns-heat-nord-development-0#stream/0 Yesterday was January 31, 2020 – in case you forgot. The article has a link to a letter Pam Reece wrote to Stan Nord on January 27, 2020. It eerily looks like it was mailed, not emailed. Add another day or two before Stan […]
By: Diane Benjamin Pam Reece claims Stan Nord’s W. College property is near housing, therefore the Town has a right to tell him what he can do with it. Actually Pam, it’s across a FOUR lane interstate: The property around it isn’t developed. Does the Town want at $1.75 billion corporation coming to town or […]
By: Diane Benjamin City Manager Pam Reece sends emails to the Council advising them on various issues. The Trustees can not respond to Pam and the entire Council without violating the Open Meetings Act. All deliberations and discussions are required to be in public. Pam does hold 2 on 1 meetings with Trustees to get […]
By: Diane Benjamin All emails received by FOIA. This comment appeared in a December 4th article – Mayor Koos: https://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/in-step-or-out-of-line-normal-council-wants-to/article_deebde5c-33be-5c08-bd94-828984d434bf.html The Mayor was talking about the Citizens Summitt. He wanted only “invitees” to participate. Stan Nord invited the Town from his Facebook page. Koos and Pam Reece were annoyed at the December 2nd council meeting: […]
By: Diane Benjamin When a candidate for office declares what they plan to do if you vote them into office they should actually do it. Some members of the Normal Town Council have openly criticized Stan Nord for doing just that. He is accused of playing politics because he isn’t rubber-stamping “the plan”. He is […]
By: Diane Benjamin When government schedules ‘off” night meetings, most people never know about them until it’s too late to attend. These two you need to know about in advance. The first meeting is December 2nd. This is a joint meeting of the Bloomington and Normal Councils to discuss a sports complex. It will take place […]
By: Diane Benjamin Below is another page from the workbook compiled by Lyle Sumek for the Normal Town Council: Start with: Integrity The Normal Town Council can’t come up with 4 votes to force changes to the illegal public comment policy? That’s integrity? How about the years of 5-10 minute meetings that used to happen […]
By: Diane Benjamin During the recent 2 day Normal Council meeting with Lyle Sumek they used a workbook. I FOIA’d this year’s and last years. So far I haven’t made it past page 12 of the current one. (It’s 334 pages long!) Section 1 Normal – A Championship Team (Lyle’s name, not mine) This section […]
A little of what Craig Stimpert and Ron Ulmer said at public comment is on this WHOI news report: https://hoiabc.com/news/town-of-normal-opts-to-keep-property-taxes-about-the-same-cutting-budget-instead By: Diane Benjamin Since there is no video of Public Comment from Monday’s Council meeting, there is no permanent record of what was said. Stan Nord left this comment this morning: In case the above […]
By: Diane Benjamin Chemberly Cummings didn’t bother to attend, of course nobody said why. That led to some problems later with only 6 voting members. A tie vote would have meant an item failed. Numerous items were pulled from the Omnibus agenda – all these things used to sail through and were never questioned before […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night Stan Nord proved again why he was elected. His comments weren’t until the end of the Council meeting: 1:49:05. The Town of Normal has leases that do not benefit taxpayers. One of these leases is set to automatically renew in December. I believe he was talking about Wild Country, they […]
By: Diane Benjamin Citizens of Normal can expect more backroom deals and handouts to friends because most of the Normal Trustees didn’t get the message from the last two elections. Voters can permanently get a representative government in 2021. Meanwhile Stan Nord and Karyn Smith are by themselves expecting fiscal sanity. The excessive spending trying […]
By: Diane Benjamin Veterans risk their lives to protect our freedom and liberty. Locally they have to fight just to not be ignored. 1) Remember the story of the disabled vet with a service dog who just wanted to teach? https://blnnews.com/2019/02/21/disabled-vet-ada-and-juvenile-detention/ He is able to teach now and he is assisting with the Veterans Court. […]
By: Diane Benjamin Pantagraph story: https://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/connect-transit-to-buy-at-least-electric-buses-over-four/article_63972e20-636a-52ea-81d2-a56849c9cef2.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-2 So many things are wrong with what happened at the Connect Transit meeting, but start with the fake reporting: Stan Nord wasn’t there! Bloomington Alderman Donna Boelen did and she did ask the Board to wait until the Working Group was finished. Did a reporter even attend? Was stating […]
By: Diane Benjamin Kathleen Lorenz claims to be a Republican, so does Scott Preston. It is Republicans like these that made me leave the Republican Party years ago. The days of voting for party are long gone. Base your vote on the CHARACTER of the candidate, not the party. Both Lorenz and Preston know Normal’s […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal Town Council last night: First to speak was Craig Stimpert. (4:27) The topic was pensions funding and the constant raising of property taxes to fund them. Craig called this Town practice unsustainable. The Town uses property taxes because they refuse to make pension funding part of the budget. He called out […]
By: Diane Benjamin Last night’s Normal Town Council meeting lasted over 2 1/2 hours, it will take more than one story. Chris Koos declared again last night that he was holding a “business meeting”. Since the Town of Normal produces nothing and only has money they steal from taxpayers, he isn’t holding a “business meeting”. […]
By: Diane Benjamin This statement is on the Town of Normal website – even though Chris Koos and company try to tell Stan Nord and Karyn Smith talking to citizens about locating in Normal isn’t their job: http://normal.org/97/Contacting-the-Council It looks like citizens would rather contact Stan and Karyn: Once again, Karyn speaks for many of […]
By: Diane Benjamin All of these emails were received by FOIA. Remember when the Trustees job was described by Chris Koos, Pam Reece, and others as “Policy Only”? Those comments were made to Stan Nord in regards to his questioning spending. He was told that wasn’t his job. Evidently the job of a Trustee is […]
I have been informed Stan Nord sent the two pics below to Pam Reece. She responded with what the Town lawyer sent to the Attorney General in response to Karyn Smith Request for Review. The Town claims they read the law – the Attorney General Open Meetings Act training is immaterial. See the response here: Town […]
By: Diane Benjamin Monday night the Omnibus Agenda, that would have sailed through the Council without discussion before Stan Nord and Karyn Smith were elected, was moved to the end of the meeting. Chris Koos didn’t stick around for the discussion, he claimed he had to get up early to travel somewhere to see his […]
