Bloomington: Water Rates
By: Diane Benjamin In case you forgot, May 1st your water rates are going up again. https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/departments/water/resident-community/water-rate-increase-and-capital-project-updates
Tag: water rates
Bloomington Ethics at Public Comment
By: Diane Benjamin A 97 year old lady asked the Council to pass an ethics ordinance. She didn’t mention any specific reason other than it will install TRUST in government. Novel idea! Of course City Code is meaningless, an ethics ordinance would be ignored too. Trust is lost when there are penalties for peons and […]
Bloomington priorities: 2025 accomplishments
By: Diane Benjamin The video below was played at Monday’s Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting. It shows what the priorities were in 2025: Downtown. That priority hasn’t changed in decades. The video is a little over 3 minutes long. Downtown got a about half of it. The slide at 3:00 say 28 lane miles […]
Was your last Ameren bill high?
By: Diane Benjamin I’m seeing lots of posts on social media like this one: Rent is becoming unaffordable: https://www.centralillinoisproud.com/news/local-news/rent-is-becoming-unaffordable-to-illinoisan-according-to-new-report/ Water rates in Bloomington have now increased 66% in less than 2 years. Next May 1st the 100% increase will be in effect to fund “generational investment”: https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/departments/water/resident-community/water-rate-increase-and-capital-project-updates Items on the same Bloomington bill, like garbage, […]
What’s Bloomington Up To Tonight?
By: Diane Benjamin Agenda: https://granicus_production_attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/cityblm/334d59458cb7051d070970f18fdb52b10.pdf A Public Hearing and vote are on the agenda to annex 74.5 acres on Lutz Road for a solar farm. Under state law the solar farm can’t be stopped, so opposition isn’t possible. Once built this farm will be using city water to clean the panels. Unless they buy trucked […]
What the Climate Change scam costs: 40% more
By: Diane Benjamin https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2025-04-16/some-electric-bills-in-bloomington-normal-are-about-to-go-up Excerpt: The new rate starting in June will be close to 40% higher than what energy customers are currently paying — with rates rising from $.07 to nearly $.11 per kilowatt hour. MUCH higher electric bills follow Bloomington raising water rates May 1st by another THIRD for what they deemed “generational” […]
The Buck Stops at Gleason
By: Diane Benjamin City Manager Tim Gleason really wanted your property taxes increased. The main reason Alderman Boelen was against it was the water rate increase the Council recently passed. If you forgot: 33% increase for 3 years because the City needs to spend around $300,000,000. Gleason stated again last night that water rates haven’t […]
Tax until nobody is left to tax
By: Diane Benjamin If you thought Unit 5 was bad, wait for the City of Bloomington! They are projecting ending the year with $51 million in reserves. Inflation has been devastating to citizens, credit card debt is record high. Government is fine, you aren’t. If Tim Gleason didn’t have the votes for this it wouldn’t […]
Bloomington 6/19/23 Part 2
By: Diane Benjamin Celebrate now Bloomington – your water bills will increase. The City did a study and you just aren’t paying enough as compared to other area municipalities. See 43:30 on the video below. Water rates haven’t increased since 2012, everything else the City charges on your bill goes up 3% automatically every year. […]
3 things Normal doesn’t understand but citizens MUST
By: Diane Benjamin At the Normal Town Council meeting last Monday the Sewer tap-on fee maps came up again. Stan Nord is not going to drop this issue until citizens understand it. The Town view is Council passes ordinances that put areas of the Town on the fee map which means developers pay much of […]
Why Citizens in Normal will be paying more for water
By: Diane Benjamin Water rates go up 2% every year without a Council vote. That isn’t enough money for the Town however. 1:08:15 – Chris Koos tells Stan Nord to quit bringing up past Council actions. This story is for you Mr. Mayor because past Council actions are why the Town wants to increase water […]
Normal meets anyway
By: Diane Benjamin Follow-up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2022/01/25/illegal-meeting-normal/ Introduction to the Open Meetings Act Law: (5 ILCS 120/1)(from Ch. 102, par. 41) Sec. 1. Policy. It is the public policy of this State that public bodies exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business and that the people have a right to be informed as to […]
Normal meets tonight
By: Diane Benjamin Meeting documentation: https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/4016 I hope the citizens who had sewage in their homes show up at public comment. I don’t see anything in the budget or community investment plan to keep it from happening again. Normal did nothing when it happened last year, it will happen again. Don’t be bullied into commenting […]
Normal: Why this election matters
By: Diane Benjamin Stan Nord was on Cities 92.9 this morning talking about Mayor Chris Koos attempting to silence him Monday night. Listen at the top of the 8:00 hour: https://www.cities929.com/scott-robbins/ It wouldn’t be possible to locate all of the taxpayer fleeces I’ve written about under Chris Koos, but here’s a few: Normal lost $330,000 […]
Normal – Monday 5/4/2020
By: Diane Benjamin Monday’s meeting is going to take more than one story! This is already #2. Previous: https://blnnews.com/2020/05/01/rivian-back-for-property-tax-abatement/ Normal will be holding multiple meetings Monday. At 5:30 two items will be discussed: http://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3619 If Normal claims the budget is fine when close to half of the population is missing they are either lying or […]
Re-elect McBride and Lorenz?
By: Diane Benjamin I might have to say this once a week until the election: Do Not Vote for 3 people even though the ballot says 3. You are handing people votes who you really don’t want on the Council. Voting for 1, maybe two, gives them a much better chance of winning since Normal […]
Normal’s Enterprise Fleece
By: Diane Benjamin The Town of Normal has done the same thing with Enterprise Funds that Bloomington did. Segregate funds, like water, and then insist the fund pays for itself. These essential services were formally funded by taxes you already paid. You continue to pay all the old taxes, but new taxes are levied for the […]