IS IT TRUE JULY 13, 2015

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IS IT TRUE when Mayor Winnecke took office the Downtown TIF account had $7.7 million dollars?  …the Downtown TIF account now has about $900,000?

IS IT TRUE public record states that public funding for the Downtown Hotel is increased because the City agreed to be responsible for all the infrastructure improvements along Walnut Street between 6th and 7th streets?

IS IT TRUE Mayor Winnecke is now saying that Deaconess Clinic will have access to the parking garage but he failed to mention who will be paying for those parking privileges?

IS IT TRUE DMD DIRECTOR Kelly Coures made a statement that this is the first time we have had construction drawings to bid is simply not true? …so far the Mayor has spent will over $2 million dollars to find out we could not afford a plush 10 story Downtown Convention Hotel with an indoor swimming pool and luxury apartments?  …we wonder where the $2 million dollars to pay for these drawings came from?

IS IT TRUE that a well known pizza establishment located on North Main had already purchased the old Integra Bank branch located right across from them for additional parking? …DMD Director Kelley Coures then stepped in and purchased the property from them at inflated price? …the initial reason why Course wanted the property was to use it for additional opportunity for parking on North Main street? …we now hear that Coures now wants to use this property to re-locate the not-for-profit ECHO HOUSING CORP.  business offices there?  …what was the real reason Course bought the property?

IS IT TRUE we hear from extremely reliable sources the original plans for DMD were to re-locate ECHO Housing Corp. administrative offices to the vacant and dilapidated CVS Pharmacy building on North Main and Columbia? …the DMD purchased the CVS land and the vacant dilapidated building for a whooping $535,000? …the Director of ECHO decided at the last minute she didn’t want to move her Corporate office there because the operating cost would be too high? …can you tell us would any for profit tax paying business buy a $535,000 vacant and dilapidated building without solid plans how to use it? …this transaction alone should be consider a major “FLEECING” of the local taxpayers dollars? …why did Coures pay over a half million dollars for an abandoned building (valued at less than $150,000) with no plans for it’s use?  …It now has a “For Rent” sign on it?

IS IT TRUE we now hear that DMD Director Coures may have his sights on making an offer to purchase the vacant DAVCO building located just across from the the CVS building? …God only know what Courses has up his sleeves to use this building for?

IS IT TRUE  City Council hasn’t approved the $15 million dollar North Main project as of yet?….we also wonder if the Economic Redevelopment Commission approved all the building and land purchases located on North Main?

IS IT TRUE we wonder if any past owners of the North Main street buildings or land made any political donations to Winnecke re-election campaign? …we wonder why the Evansville Courier and Press has never looked into any possible connections between these purchases and political donations?

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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21 COMMENTS

  1. Who are the realtors on these boondoggle over value purchases? Assuming fees are based on price somebody is making a lot of extra money off the public trough.

  2. Not much left to say here, the “brutalization” of the Citizenry in the guise of “revitalization” and faux “progress” is laid before the Voters by the CCO and it’s contributers all the time,–
    yet the People who live and work here continue to “let” it continue unabated.
    Where is the moxie exampled by those who stood up for their convictions during the 1960s?
    “Where have all the the flowers gone?” (Pete Seeger)
    Apparently gone to graveyards every one,–and a sad passing of the kind of people who cared– enough– it is!

  4. They want to be like Franklin Street but since that market won’t support it on its own the local government is going to intervene. That’s never right or good with any level of government.

    • Franklin street works because it’s private investment, public money will never succeed in business.

      • Agreed. We need to get the government of the City of Evansville out of the banking business. If the commercial banks wont make the loans, they must have good reasons.

      • Franklin Street works because it is not a blighted area like North Main. Take the side streets off North Main and it is very depressing to see the abandoned and falling down homes.

  5. ECHO HOUSING

    http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/351/351831922/351831922_201312_990.pdf?_ga=1.251147584.753070335.1436794646

    I would be mindful, if I were the Echo administration, of the costs involved in distributing what amounts to an approximately $1. million a year HUD grant to low income seekers of housing. Part IX: Salaries and wages seem to be a little high to me for a not-for-profit that has an annual revenue of the amount stated in this form 990.

    • Search the James Bethel Gresham house on the Courier site. The house was donated to Echo Housing in the fall of 2012. The Parks Director was quoted that there could be veterans living in the house by December. There’s another story from last fall where volunteers spent a day working on the property. That article has a quote from an Echo employee that veterans should be living in the house by this summer. Almost three years after the property goes to Echo, it is still empty. Tenbarge, the director, wants to be a mover and shaker in Jacobsville regarding the North Main project but can’t seem to accomplish the basic mission of her organization. She was recently quoted that it would be unconscionable for City Council to vote no on the project. What is unconscionable is the continued vacancy of the James Bethel Gresham house from her incompetence in completing a basic housing project. She had a large fundraiser last November for veteran housing but continues to ignore available housing that is already in the possession of Echo Housing.

      • Part IX of this form 990 on [line 5]. shows $56,771.00 for “officer compensation”, and on [line 7.] it shows an amount of $431,646.00 for “other salaries and wages”. That is a total of $431,646.00 in salaries and wages that year (2013).

        If your total support for 2013 was $922,938.00, and you spent $431,646.00 of it on exec. comp. and other salaries & wages, the 46.76% of your annual support went for salaries and wages.

  6. Local Personality wasted no time showing his colors, doing what his boss man expects of him. It is sickening to watch these lightweights blow public money, often outright gifts to favored people, on projects of little or no public merit. They pop off when questioned, showing consciousness of guilt. After a while you just simply can’t attribute it all to stupidity. That CVS building is a monstrosity, suitable for nothing. That is why it sits empty. The North Main area is what it is and an election year influx of your tax dollars isn’t going to make an appreciable change.

    Cashier Winnecke and his weak crew in November. Perhaps in the meantime Gail will even mount a campaign and give people another good reason to get rid of these arrogant spendergasms. I do not understand her silence but I do understand that Winnecke needs to go. If he is re-installed it will be with a City Council packed to his liking. Your City Council, handpicked by Winnecke, that should scare people into voting in self defense.

    The CCO has pulled the curtain back on these folks, it is now up to us to vote.

  7. C&P would have done detailed reporting in the 60s….now nothing….where did REPORTERS go?

  8. You all sound like a bunch of idiots. Or maybe it’s just one idiot writing a bunch of di9fferent comments and signing different names. Yeah, that’s probably it. North Main and Jacobsville host three of the city’s major corporations. What’s happened to the residential part is it’s been turned over to 2-legged rats. When you start pumping funds into other blighted urban areas and fail to do it in other areas., the blight gets shifted. When you burn the rats out, they have to go somewhere. When vectren, deaconess and berry plastic employees start inhabiting the neighborhood it will come back. Question is, where do the rats go from here? Maybe your neighborhood.
    Abdul

    • IS IT TRUE that gail riecken is all for Evansville becoming a sanctuary city………………………………………..

  10. There is reckless spending that will be the undoing of this Winnecke administration. These folks are completely out of control.

    • Mayor Winnecke, like the mayor before him has a gift. They both had the ability to spend ten dollars of every five dollars they took in.

Comments are closed.