Hello Ward 4 and friends--

I wish to announce the first of 4 or 5 Ward 4 Neighborhood Meetings  which will give you an opportunity to meet Bloomington's new City Manager, David Hales.

Cultural District Neighborhood Association and President Dick Fasig and I would like to invite everyone to meet our new City Manager at the Cultural District Neighborhood Association meeting, Tuesday, February 10th at Second Presbyterian Church, 7PM sharp, 313 N. East, enter at the Prairie Street Door and inquire for the room number.

This will allow Mr. Hales to speak briefly about issues facing the City and will be open for questions and answers.  I will guarantee a one hour meeting, although of course, those who wish to stay later are welcome.

Refreshments will be served.  Hope to see many of you!  
Judy Stearns, Alderwoman, Ward 4, 828-5443.

From: David White <dwhite@cityblm.org>  Public Affairs  Bloomington Police

Date: January 20, 2009

Subject: Possible scam  method used by Identity Thieves.

Please pass this on if you wish. It is spreading in other parts of the country so be prepared should you get this call. I have not had any calls at BPD about this being in our area at this time.

 Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.

The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo; your identity was just stolen. If you get a call like this, don't give any information, just hang up. If you are concerned that it could have been legit (it won't be) you can give a call to the McLean County States Attorney to check on it.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma , Illinois , and Colorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

Check it out here:  http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm