By Aaron Halliday
Have you ever wondered where YOUR tax dollars go? Do you wonder why your rates for nearly everything are increased annually? Is YOUR money spent wisely?
Let me tell you about the last Bloomington City Council meeting which took place on Monday, September 11th.
At this meeting, the “Signage Committee” introduced their “Dream Big” campaign for Downtown Bloomington. At this meeting, citizens of Bloomington spoke both for and against the “Dream Big” idea during the Public Comment portion of the meeting.
Each speaker was given up to three minutes to address the City Council. Two citizens who do not live in downtown Bloomington spoke against the idea. One resident who not only lives in downtown Bloomington, but also owns a business and rents apartments in downtown Bloomington praised the idea of “Dream Big”. This of course was not a surprise to me, as he has everything to with every tax dollar that is spent in downtown Bloomington.
The “Signage Committee” bragged about their determination to spend our tax dollars, their budget for these signs. Yes, signs. These signs are made of metal with a reflective decal covering the metal that is then attached to a pole that is secured to the pavement. Apparently, signs are hard to handle because not only do we need a committee to work with the signs needed in town, but they also needed to hire an out of state consultant to help them with signs. The City paid this consultant from Pittsburgh $62,190 in 2016 for their help. By the time you read this column, they will have been given another $28,095 to find someone, likely a company to manufacture these signs.
For those of you who don’t know what a consultant does, here’s a hint, its definition is explained in the first three letters. C-O-N!
Hiring consultants is one of the biggest ways government wastes taxpayers’ money. And boy does the City of Bloomington love to waste money on consultants!
During the presentation of the results of these meetings, a Power Point presentation was given. Prior to the Power Point, Tricia Stiller, one of the most recent new hires on the City payroll mentioned that it took almost a year to get the universal parking symbol attached our parking structures. These universal parking signs are very tricky and elaborate. The signs are blue; they are rectangular and feature the capital letter P on them. That’s it! Yet they needed a year of meetings to get them done! Why did it take a year? They weren’t sure where they should go? I mean, we have parking garages; this would probably be a good place to start, right? After they figured this out, how many months did it take to figure out that they don’t belong on the front of Daddio’s? How about Mulligans? Rosie’s?
Also, Ms. Stiller mentions a survey that was given at a public meeting. The results of the survey by the attendees were that they wanted Downtown Bloomington to be thriving, sophisticated, growing, adaptive, and progressive. These same objectives are also results of the “Comprehensive Plan” (Agenda 21) that most liberal cities strive for.
The concept of the “Dream Big” campaign was a result of two years of meetings. They even bragged about having met forty-seven times in this two-year period. To be truthful, I never attended the meetings. I don’t know how long they met for each time, but I assume that each meeting was at least an hour.
A committee that is given a budget of $250,000 of taxpayer money spends two-years, forty-seven meetings and their idea is “Dream Big” with red, white and blue colors? How creative!
This stupidity truly amazes me. Do they serve lead based paint chips at these meetings? Do they drink Danvers water? Or, do the City of Bloomington and their committees truly think you the taxpayers have wealth that never ends? The answer could be all three, but I bet that they don’t care what you; the taxpayers will have to spend for their “Agenda”.
By the way, if I am correct and the Council will give KMA, the consultant company the additional $28,095 the Council would then reduce the budget of the “Signage Committee” to only $221, 905 to find a company to manufacture the signs. My Olympia math tells me that $62,190 plus $28,095 plus $221,905 is more than $250,000. More than a quarter of a million dollars for signs!
Ridiculous!
Aaron Halliday is the owner of Checker Cab and Yellow Cab of Bloomington. We are soon celebrating our 12th year in business. He’s been a lifelong resident of the Bloomington-Normal area with the exception of four years. He’s lived in Belize and Tijuana, Mexico. He’s married to Sheila Halliday, whom he met in the Philippines. Sheila is an administrative assistant in the home healthcare industry.
The opinions expressed within WJBC’s Voices are solely those of the author, and are not necessarily those of WJBC or Cumulus Media Inc.
