IS IT TRUE JULY 14, 2015

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IS IT TRUE in todays issue we have repeated some questions that “Pastor Steve” and others ask members of the Winnecke Administration to address at last nights City Council meeting?  ..the Administration feel that the CCO had something to do with the styling of these questions?  …the answer is no but we wish we did?

IS IT TRUE we predicted that the Mayors Chief of Staff would not publicly answer “Pastor Steve’s” 16 questions about governmental issues?  …members of Mayor Winnecke’s administration gave “Pastor Steve’s” written answers to his 16 questions?  …all we can say is we told you so?

IS IT TRUE we wonder why we are paying  $217 K per room when the median cost of  to construct a Double Tree Hotel per room cost is 189K?

IS IT TRUE we wonder why the new turnkey costs for the new Downtown Convention Hotel is now $28.5 million instead of the original $20 million cost?

IS IT TRUE that the DMD Director purchased nearly $1 million dollars (to date)  for property on North Main with full approval from his puppet Economic Redevelopment Board?  …we hear that the money to purchase this property came from the North Main TIF fund?  …we wonder how much money is remaining in this fund?  …we wonder if City Council will approve the $15 million dollar loan request to finish this “Pork Barrel” project?

IS IT TRUE did they city pay for a couple of Evansville Fire Fighters to go on two city sponsored business trips in the New Orleans area during MARDI GRAS?  …could these alleged business trips be classified as “junkets”?

IS IT TRUE when will the public hear the status of the EPA Consent Decree in regards to the CSO issue?  . . the last we heard from the EPA was when they told us it would cost around $540,000,000 to correct our Water and Sewer issues?   …rumors has it that the Water and Sewer project has increased to nearly $700,00,000?

IS IT TRUE that a couple of Utility Board members were replaced at the beginning of the year? … the Business Manager for Local 561 Laborers was one of those members replaced?  …Barry Russell replacement was the Business Agent for Local 561 Laborers Union? . . has anything changed concerning a possible conflict of interest?

IS IT TRUE we wonder why the Evansville Courier and Press has never looked into any connections between DMD and Economics Redevelopment Commission purchases of building/land and political donations?

IS IT TRUE we wonder if any individuals that received Facade Grants,  Economic Redevelopment Loans and Grants,  Brownfields Corp. surplus property,  apartment buildings owned by the City and sold to developers for a small sum of money ever donated to Mayor Winnecke re-election campaign?

IS IT TRUE the US Attorney for the Southern District now has a “Political Corruption Division.”?

Please take time and vote in today’s “Readers Poll”. Don’t miss reading today’s Feature article because it’s always an interesting read. New addition to the CCO is the Cause of Death reports generated by the Vanderburgh County Health Department.

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28 COMMENTS

    • Because in their eyes, you are a peasant, and you don’t need to know what they’re doing. You are beneath them.

      • Bob is right. The current administration thinks we are too stupid to follow the convoluted logic behind their “thinking.” It is time for a group if peasants to seek an injunction against public money being spent on the “hotel” until THIS plan, not the original, is approved by City Council.

    • I suppose “Pastor Steve” can’t make a copy of the administration’s answers to the 16 questions available to the CCO or whomever wishes to see them? Isn’t giving the answers to the questions in written form to the questioner making it available to the public? How exactly would the CCO have liked the questions’ answers to have been supplied if not to the questioner directly?

      • disaffected

        We are working on get the Administration answers to Pastor Steve’s questions. When we do we shall make them public soon as we get a copy.

        Thanks for reading the CCO.
        EDITOR

  3. WIDE MOTEL DOWNTOWN (WMD):

    I am very disappointed with City Council. They sit there and lob grenade after grenade about how we’re getting less hotel for our fixed commitment; the $ 20 Million includes the $ 3.5 Million county portion; it looks like a Fairfield Inn on I-164, etc.

    Yet, they turn around and vote it in, 9-0. I believe it was John Friend, who got on this board yesterday under an alias, and opined that because additional money had been spent for drawings, THAT was the reason why the hotel should go forward. Wow, spend $ 23.5 Million in public money to rationalize $ 1 Million in architect fees ???

    Are there any vertebrates on the City Council ? Not much backbone that I can see.

    • My econ prof taught us that sunk costs are not a good enough reason to throw “good money after bad”. But education and learning from past and others’ mistakes is for unconnected pussies, right?

  5. Kinda like going to a restaraunt and ordering a filet for $20 , but instead they bring you a hamburger with nothing on it and charging you $23.50 ,,,, come on people wake the hell up

    • Great analogy. The City Council then eats the hamburger, pays the tab with taxpayer dollars, and grumbles about getting hosed without doing anything about it. Why sit in a body with the power of the purse if one is afraid to confront bullying. Roll over and take it with a smile folks. Your leaders have forsaken your interests.

      • In Corvallis, Oregon the City Council considered a developer’s request for a Downtown Convention Hotel, and took these actions:

        1) Round 1–denied the request, because the developer wanted to use public funds to build a parking garage; and

        2) Round 2–after the developer included the parking garage in his cost, the city council is poised to deny the request a second time, because the developer wants to deviate from the city’s building standards re: windows in the hotel.

        Why can’t our City Council protect our public funds like this ?

    • And then you hear them snickering behind the kitchen door. And the waiter acts indignant when he is tipped accordingly. Then you see Schaefer, or was that Winnecke, slinking out the emergency exit, disguised under the mushroomish hat of a chef. It all becomes clearer, you’ve been had. The worst is yet to come. The nausea, vomiting, etc. from the poisoning doesn’t kick in until the faux chef and his crew are back in their lairs, counting your money.

      This city is being had by the Winnecke administration and exactly one person has publicly and meaningfully stood up to them — SBR. At least 3 of the current council won’t be back for sure, all Democrats if that means anything at all. If Winnecke is re-installed he will get his handpicked council candidates elected too, then the fun really begins. He will be able to complete his looting of Evansville.

      • @Bandana: The City Councilors in EVV have not figured out that one can SUPPORT a development project, but OBJECT to the use of Public Funds on the project. They seem to get that in Corvallis, but not here.

  6. That area of Evansville should be quarantined for “any construction” that applies additional loading to the already mandated and archaic failed sewer infrastructures. The combined sewers are flat out unacceptable by todays urban standards. That problem has been the issue since the early seventies of the last century. Its time that’s addressed, or the federal government should lay in some fines or some kind of sanctions or, construction halts until suitable progress is observed.

    quar·an·tine
    ˈkwôrənˌtēn/Submit
    verb
    past tense: quarantined; past participle: quarantined
    impose isolation on (a person, animal, or place); put in quarantine.

    • While we’re quarantining that area it’d be an appropriate time to wrap up some of the current administration in crime scene tape of the very brightest yellow and ship them up the road to the Political Corruption Division of the federal attorney’s office for further examination. Or beam them up to the mother ship for a good probing.

      • The mother ship has little room for plasticized politico type mummies, so the shipping point “up the road ” would be the best case alternative for your town there @Bandana.
        With that color splash of yellow and black stripes you could list them on the shipping bill as the “bungling bees.” and their product to date ….. “rumbling rooms”….(HVAC remote fan coils) A sure hit if put to lyric prose. Same note count as the Nat king Cole classic ” Rambling rose”……. only lead off with “bungling bees” as the written lead.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=15&v=hVPPe-xjVds

        plas·ti·cize
        ˈplastəˌsīz/Submit
        verb
        past tense: plasticized; past participle: plasticized
        make plastic or moldable, especially by the addition of a plasticizer.
        treat or make with plastic.
        “plasticized cotton”

  7. CITY COUNCIL
    Whom do you serve?
    If you work for me – my neighbors and friends – pull back our money and reconsider the changed proposal.
    If you work for someone else – don’t ever pretend to represent me again – by seating yourself as my representative. You embarrass yourself and those who elected you. …

  8. So $1,000,000 has been spent buying property on North Main, paid for by the “North Main TIF Fund.” Impossible, since TIF funds (largely a figment of some politician’s imagination) are monies generated by increased property assessments resulting from the completion of the TIF project, in this case the North Main Project.
    Mind you, the TIF monies consist only of the INCREASED property assessments, not the overall assessments. Extra property tax revenue generated by businesses expanding or new ones being built create TIF funds. Which begs the question: how has the downtown TIF generated any funds due to the Ford Center construction?

  9. Bad news comes by the gallons per minute these days. Just what river bottom agriculture doesn’t need right now. July mid season flooding, be careful tri state and don’t drive around the high water barricades.

    Vanderburgh County, Indiana
    Weather Updated: Jul 14 11:52AM
    Severe
    River Flood Warning THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PADUCAH, KENTUCKY HAS ISSUED A

    * FLOOD WARNING FOR
    THE OHIO RIVER AT NEWBURGH DAM.
    * FROM WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON TO WEDNESDAY JULY 22.
    * AT 11:00 AM TUESDAY THE STAGE WAS 35.0 FEET.
    * FLOOD STAGE IS 38.0 FEET.
    * MINOR FLOODING IS FORECAST.
    * FORECAST…RISE ABOVE FLOOD STAGE WEDNESDAY EVENING AND
    CONTINUE TO RISE TO 42.4 FEET BY FRIDAY EVENING.

  10. IS IT TRUE that today NASA brought a boatload of pride back to our dying nation?

    • Yep, and they do that everyday, every minute of elapsed time. The photo has not been shared with the media yet I suppose, its really a very sharp image compared to what is on the mainstream right now. Good stuff BP, I wish you would be as proud of the new climatology equipment they put in orbit as well. Science and observations will set America forward while preparations are made to adjust for the ever changing climate this blue world jewel the solar system has to offer for living species in its entirety.

      1 of 2,744

      This photo of Pluto is worth sharing:
      Inbox
      x

      Dr. John P. Holdren, The White House
      2:56 PM (55 minutes ago)

      to me

      The White House, Washington
      This morning, the United States became the first country to reach Pluto — and the first country to explore the entire classical solar system: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

      NASA’s New Horizons interplanetary probe has been making its way to Pluto since January 19, 2006, and has been providing the world with the sharpest photos ever seen of our Solar System’s most prominent “dwarf planet.” Today, it made its closest approach to Pluto yet — about 8,000 miles — at around 07:49:57 EDT.

      Here’s the photo they took — which, despite traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), took four and a half hours to reach us here on Earth as it crossed the 3 billion miles between here and Pluto:

      The closest photo we’ve taken of Pluto.

      That we were able to get so close to Pluto today is a feat whose probability scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson likened to “a hole-in-one on a two-mile golf shot.” He’s right.

      Every once in a while, a photo comes along that has the ability to shift not just how we see our place in the universe, but how we see ourselves — not just as Americans, but as citizens of Earth.

      This is one of those photos, and I hope you’ll share it with someone today.

      More soon —

      John

      Dr. John P. Holdren
      Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
      The White House

  11. These Comments, yours and my reply should have rightfully been posted in the Off Topic venue.

    Sorry Balloon, I don’t get the “Pride” connection you infer, I would rather the Boatload of Money spent on this folly,– with little benefit to be “seen”– in a few photos,– vs the food for the hungry of this Nation the money spent would have provided to our “brothers and sisters” in need.
    No Pride felt here!

  12. Balloonpilot,–I continue with an addendum to my response to your post,- in the Off Topic Forum.

  13. And in today’s on-line C&P what’s one of the lead stories? “Beloved artist, actor Jackson dies at 56”. Who? Never heard of him. Oh, wait a minute, it’s Repertory People of Evansville’s Jim Jackson’s kid and friend of Roger McBain.

    • Steve was a personal friend of mine. He was one of those people that most human beings like. Good sense of humor, kind and and creative. I do not know why and was rather surprised because Steve was not a “public person” that the C&P ran his obit in headline. But he was a good person who loved everybody. The world could use more people like Steve.

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