IS IT TRUE FOR OCTOBER 5, 2017

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We hope that today’s “IS IT TRUE” will provoke honest and open dialogue concerning issues that we as responsible citizens of this community need to address in a rational and responsible way?

IS IT TRUE we are told on Monday that the Evansville City Council will formally vote to raise the County Option Income Tax (COIT) without seeking any input or meeting directly with our elected county officials?.

IS IT TRUE its obvious that the Evansville City Council is not only practicing “taxation without representation” but also “taxation without explanation” attitude by the raising the County Option Income Tax without seeking county council members input?

IS IT TRUE we are also told that City Council will make a general statement that the $8 million dollars collected from COIT taxes will specifically be used for public safety?  …we wonder if this statement means that the majority of the COIT funds can be used to pay for city employee health insurance costs? … the devil is in the details?

IS IT TRUE don’t be surprised to hear that the county will decide to use their allocation” of COIT funds to build a new addition to the Vanderburgh County jail? … we feel compelled to warn our county officials that a new addition to the county jail will cost way more than the approx. $3 million dollars that they will receive from COIT taxes?

IS IT TRUE the taxpayers of Evansville still do not know where Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke stands on the proposed  COIT tax increase?  …we are hearing that many of the city taxpayers want to know if Mayor Winnecke is for or against the proposed County Option Income Tax increase for 2018?  …we hope that Mayor Winnecke will make a public statement if he’s for or against the COIT tax increase before City Council votes on this issue next Monday?

IS IT TRUE that our Civic Center “Moles” tell us that Mayor Winnecke has decided to not to mess with the “HOMESTEAD TAX CREDIT” in 2018?  …it looks like the Mayor made a smart political move concerning this issue?

IS IT TRUE we wonder why City Council Finance Chairman Dan McGinn (R) hasn’t informed members of City Council how much did it cost the taxpayers to subsidize the Evansville Thunderbolts operating expenses during the 2017 hockey season?

IS IT TRUE that it has been reported that the management group that is in charge of the McCurdy apartments in Downtown Evansville face a $750,000 water/sewer bill for a 5 month period starting April 1st and ending September 30th?…the bill happened as a result of The Kunkel Group’s installation of an open-loop geothermal system to heat and cool the recently embattled Riverfront building?… the City of Evansville estimates, the McCurdy sends 12 million gallons of water to the treatment plant per month, which amounts to 3 percent of the East Side treatment facility’s capacity?… This exorbitant cost has the potential to be the death knell of the McCurdy as it amounts to $150,000 per month which equates to over $1,500 per apartment per month?… The Kunkel Group is thought to have invested $10 million into redeveloping the historic building, which faces the Ohio River?…we are concerned for the future of renewable energy in Evansville, In as the rent for these apartments to sustain the operational cash flow will have to be between $2,500 and $3,000 per month for the operator to have any incentive to do anything but dump the McCurdy back onto the market at which time it will most likely sit there unoccupied for another 9 years or more?
IS IT TRUE this is the same McCurdy that former Mayor Weinzapfel consigned to a political supporter from Indianapolis right after sinking over $1.5 million taxpayer dollars into incentives and a free parking lot?…the former use was as an old folks home and the residents were forced to march up the street to another facility leaving the McCurdy to accelerate the degradation process?…we certainly hope that something can be done to correct this situation as between the electric rates, the coming oppressive water rates, and a maniacal distaste for clean renewable energy, much of Evansville’s housing stock could be rendered valueless by excessive operational costs?
 FOOTNOTES: We hope that today’s “IS IT TRUE” will provoke honest and open dialogue concerning issues that we as responsible citizens of this community need to address in a rational and responsible way?
Todays READERS POLL question is: Do feel that Mayor Winnecke should sit down with the Vanderburgh County elected officials to discuss the COIT taxes issue?
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EDITOR’S FOOTNOTE:  Any comments posted in this column do not represent the views or opinions of the City-County Observer or our advertisers

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9 COMMENTS

  1. City of Evansville estimates, the McCurdy sends 12 million gallons of water to the treatment plant per month. This story does not add up for me. I have some experience in these installations. When a customer is using a well a meter is usually put on the discharge line to tell how much water you are dumping down the drain. There were no estimates. Also the owners should have been aware of this aspect of their system when it was purchased. That these systems discharge a lot of water is well known. Sewer fees are always higher than water because of the treatment issues. Sounds like someone was hoping no one would notice they were doing this. This is not a unusual situation several other businesses in our town have wells and they all have meters on their discharge lines.

    • At White Oak Manor on St. Joseph Ave they installed geothermal also. They drilled 54 wells to 400 ft. But I believe they used a closed loop system because they were putting 2 pipes in each well. To me that would be the way to go. It may be a little more expensive initially but would pay off long term. At the McCurdy they probably had to drill maybe 50-60 ft. to get to the river bed and produce all the water they would need.

    • StoneD, the “hoping no one would notice they were doing this” seems to be a fair inference based on the C&P article. Wonder who installed the geothermal unit to the sewer line??

  3. Cedar Hall Elementary and North High School have ground water source heat pump HVAC systems. I wonder if they’re open loop systems too? If so, is the EVSC paying for waste,water treatment?

    • Why wouldn’t they have just pumped the heated or cooled water back into the ground?? It makes no sense whatsoever to put the water into the sewers given the exorbitant sewer charges we now have. Something is very, very fishy here.
      …………………………

      Open Loop System

      The primary difference between open and closed looped systems is the use of ground water. An open loop system is less common, you need to have an ample source of ground water. An open loop system is connected directly to a ground water source such as a well or pond and directly pumps the water into a building to the heat pump unit where it is used for heating and cooling.

      Where does the used water go?

      There are several ways that open loop geothermal heat systems can dispose of water. One is through surface drainage, where the water is deposited to a low area, such as a pond or river. Another method of ridding of water is re-injection. In this process, water is pumped back into the water source through a separate discharge well. In returning the water back to the earth, it is important to note that there is no pollution generated. The only difference in the water once processed through the geothermal heat pump is a slight change in temperature.

      Before installing an open loop system, it is critical to know whether the well contains enough water to power your geothermal heat pump. Although a well may contain the necessary amount of water for your geothermal heat pump, it could also deplete a neighbor’s well source. Make sure to check with your local contractor on whether there is enough water to install an open loop geothermal heating system. Other concerns about open wells are expressed in the post below.

      http://www.geothermalgenius.org/blog/are-you-in-the-loop-open-vs-closed-loop-systems-in-geothermal

  4. $ 750,000 for 5 months of usage ?

    Vectren will be rolling out their geothermal plan in 10 minutes !

  5. Joe Biden – I know the difference between “open loop” and “closed loop”, I just don’ t know what the Architectural/Engineering firm of VPS designed for Cedar Hall and the new North HS/MS.
    And, yes, several buildings and homes in Evansville use well water for heat rejection for their cooling systems and yiu arexseeing more utilizing ground water hear pumps fir cooling and heating.
    The Civic Center Complex had wells to reject heat from their chillers until they wells were replaced by a cooling tower structure in the coyrtyard.
    The last I heard, the former Stewart’s building in Washington Square Mall is still connected to a well system to reject heat from it’s chiller. It’s also rumored it’s so clogged from build up and corrosion it’s almost unusable (supposedly one of the reasons no one wants to occupy that building – $$$$ to replace the system).
    And there are many homes on the east side of Evansville that utilize a well to reject heat from their A/C condensing unit instead of an outdoor air cooled unit. Many of these homes were on well water for drinking water and when they converted to City water they just left the well hooked up to the A/C unit and the waste water goes directly to the sanitary sewer and not the storm water system. I doubt these homes have their waste water metered and all they pay forvis the electric to run their well pump.

    • OMM, appreciate and thank you for your expertise. The McCurdy sitting maybe 500 max yards from the Ohio River has to have a very low water table. How hard would it have been to have drilled the return lines into that water table?

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