6 things

By: Diane Benjamin 1) The smoke from Canada is back: 2) The company Bloomington hired to do the $750,000 downtown study is all in on DEI. https://www.cmtengr.com/dei/ The report is due in August. The City keeps using recommendations from old outdated reports like Bring It On Bloomington and the Downtown Bloomington Task Force. How many […]

Fly on the Wall: YMCA

Why is the pool 75 degress? Why did the steam room close for mold? Why is the unisex sauna at least 10 degrees cooler than it should be? Why is the pool water sometimes green? Why are the main hall lights out in the unisex bathroom? Why are many of the locker locks already broken? […]

Is the Sports Complex finally dead?

By:  Diane Benjamin The Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has decided to hold off paying the consultant to update the report on the $43 million multi-sports complex.  You might be interested to see who is on the CVB Board:  https://www.visitbn.org/contact-us/staff-board/ Lots of familiar name there! Let’s go back to when this nonsense started.  The FAA told […]

Another one bites the dust

By:  Diane Benjamin YMCA, State Farm, and now Specs Around Town are just some businesses who have or will be leaving downtown Bloomington. City of Bloomington:  Whatever you are doing is causing flight from downtown. Downtown is for bars, restaurants, lawyers, and government.  Until Bloomington quits trying to make downtown something it isn’t, the few businesses […]

What’s wrong with Bloomington?

By:  Diane Benjamin Everybody knows the streets aren’t being fixed.  Bloomington can’t even find money in the budget (that has skyrocketed under Tari Renner) to invest in infrastructure.   https://blnnews.com/2018/03/26/nice-pantagraph/ They will happily raise your taxes though to pay for a couple of roads.  Yesterday we learned there was a “disconnect” ordering tickets for the One […]

Bloomington Library facts

By:  Diane Benjamin The City Manager has issued a report for February.  The library stats posted for 2018 are not the same stats used in 2017, so I took the ones that can be compared and turned them into a chart. 2018 Library facts:   http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=16111 2017 Library facts:   http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=12434 The library wasn’t included in the […]

How did this happen?

By:  Diane Benjamin Remember in 2014 when a new soccer complex was proposed? That plan involved relocating the YMCA to south Main where the Great Escape used to be.  The new building would be a community center.  All the planners needed was a tax increase to fund it.  State Farm Bank was owed money on […]