The Evansville Redevelopment Commission 2012 report to the Evansville City Council shows that revenues were $6.9 Million while expenditures were $8.3 Million in 2012 for an annual deficit of $1.4 Million. The report also shows an obligation of $260 Million for the Ford Center lease which only became payable on February 1, 2013. This report is available to CCO readers on the following link.
2012_ERC_filing_with_City_Council
The official annual report of the ERC is on the following link. 72% of all revenue went to Ford Center costs and the $260 Million was not mentioned.
Now you know why the relationship between the Evansville Regional Business Committee and the Evansville Redevelopment Commission has been kept on the down low. It amounts to a shadow government and it is all about greed.
The amount of public debt contained in this report is obscene. The fact that this debt was intentionally contrived to be the sole responsibility of taxpayers by the members of the ERBC and the ERC beyond obscene.
These two groups of elitists think only they know what is best for Evansville and they have garnered, with the help of organized labor, the power to secure their wishes. The taxpayers themselves, who are statutorily bound to this debt, never had a voice in the proceedings. In fact, in most cases, these were done deals before the taxpayers ever found out what had taken place. It helps in that agenda if the publisher of the local newspaper is on your committee.
The whole scenario makes me sick to my stomach!
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Press,
Gosh, this sounds like the familiar ‘stick it to the MIddle Class’ gambit. Here you get the elites teamed up with the organized labor/get out the vote crowd to reel us in.
Wow, yes, also sickens me.
Harold
The $ 260 Million for the Arena is bad, but at least I KNEW about that one.
$ 22 Million freakin-dollars of greenmail paid to Berry Plastics to stay in Evansville ???
O-M-G
You may have known about the arena, pretty hard to keep that one under wraps, but the committee was way out in front of you on this one.
They knew that if they placed it in a TIF District there could be no remonstrance or referendum initiated against the project. So again, you had no voice $260 million debt that you are responsible for paying!
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Educated Crooks have been Evansville’s undoing over the years, and nothing here will ever change.–The only way to Protect yourself, and your family from the Snegal Gang?—-RUN!
The smart and mobile have been leaving in droves for years even if just across the county line. This leaves the dumb and listless for the Mayors to pillage at will.
The good mayors in his presentation says the downtown TIF will generate $14M in revenue, currently it earns $8M. This means the addition of the hotel will add $6M in additional TIF revenues?
Somebody tell me I’m wrong.
You are wrong. In 2012 the downtown TIF earned $6.9 Million making the Mayor’s task a little bit harder. The TIF needs to raise an additional $7.1 Million from the hotel to get to $14 Million. So, if the Ford Center is gonna add $10 Million a year in spending and the hotel will add $2.6 Million to be sustainable the TIF really needs to collect $21 Million per year to break even. What the Mayor should have said is that the TIF needs to raise $14 Million more as opposed to claiming that it will. There is no freaking way that hotel will add $14 Million per year to the tax collections. If it will then the $37.5 Million gift is a bargain. That damn hotel will probably not even raise the $1 Million per year that the CCO says it will. These guys are less transparent than the Wizard of Oz.
A 26 year debt of $260. million and you were not allowed the opportunity of a remonstrance or a referendum. Is this really the United States of America that was envisioned by our founders?
Would our founders ever have condoned gifting millions of public dollars to privately held businesses?
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