IS IT TRUE Of APRIL 13, 2017

12
 IS IT TRUE that the question was posed to someone known to the CCO that understands business concepts and predicting success with respect to semi-professional hockey in Ford Center?…the opinion examined both failed efforts thus far?…the Evansville Icemen were a higher level league with an NHL affiliation?…that 5 year experiment resulted in the team losing a substantial amount of money?  …we believe if VenueWorks would had offered a more reasonable home game rate structure to the Evansville IceMen it could have produced better financial results for both sides?
IS IT TRUE with the one year experiment with the Thunderbolts, Ford Center reduced the rental by over 90% and they still may have lost a bunch of money? …the final prognosis because of the current home game fee structure it looks like there may not be a situation where Ford Center can charge enough to break even and have a hockey team that makes a fair profit?…the only way for Evansville to continue this ruse is a redistribution scheme called subsidized hockey?…if the taxpayers put up with subsidizing a hockey team they will get what they deserve?…#wrong-city fits better than #strong-city on this worn out raid on taxpayer dollars?
IS IT TRUE that former minority (10%) owner of the Evansville Thunderbolts semi-pro hockey team Mike Hall came out of his shell the other night and granted an exclusive interview with Channel 44 News regarding the hockey debacle of 2016-17 at Ford Center?…among other nuances mentioned was an allegation that the Evansville Icemen’s attendance figures had been greatly exaggerated?…Mr. Hall did hit on something that has always been confusing and that is how can an official attendance count claim that half the arena was full when anyone with decent vision knew that was not the case?…it has long been stated by fans that both the Icemen’s and Thunderbolts gave away lots of tickets and counted the number of tickets given away as attending even when they didn’t show up?…that the Channel 44 interviewer mentioned that attendance is down by over 50% from last year and the body language of Mr. Hall made it clear that attendance and ticket prices were a pain to him?

IS IT TRUE that Mr. Hall did make an investment to become a 10% owner and it was recently reported that he “gave” his shares to VenueWorks/VW Sports LLC?…at some point we may learn what the sales pitch to Mr. Hall was to convince him that this was a worthwhile investment?…it could be possible that a business pro forma was constructed enough to make him think he would be a minority owner in a team that draws 4,000 paying fans per game?…anyone who has ever been to the games would have seen through such a ruse?…the taxpayers of Evansville were bamboozled by the best consultant that former Mayor Weinzapfel could hire to think that Ford Center would pay for itself?…the taxpayers are now stuck with a $9 Million dollar plus per year bill to pay because that business pro forma was garbage?

IS IT TRUE in his exclusive Channel 44 TV interview that Mr. Hall did not offer an opinion about the future of Ice Hockey in Evansville?…he probably can’t if he got so much as a hot meal for his 10% ownership because such deals between private entities always come with a non-disclosure agreement?…his posture was however that of a person who was ticked off over the possibility of being bamboozled?

IS IT TRUE that tomorrow we shall examine the claim of “explosive growth” made by Mayor Winnecke in the state of the city address with references from the United States census?…we will start by visiting just what explosive growth is?

FOOTNOTE:  Todays “READERS POLL” question is: Do you feel that the taxpayers of Evansville should spend another dollar to subside Ice Hockey at the Ford Center?

We urge you to take time and click the section we have reserved for the daily recaps of the activities of our local Law Enforcement professionals. This section is located on the upper right side of our publication.

If you would like to advertise or submit and article in the CCO please contact us City-County Observer@live.com.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

12 COMMENTS

  1. I for one would certainly love to hear where the “explosive growth” is occurring in Evansville. I see houses being snapped up in eastern Posey county as quickly as they come on sale and houses being built in the more upscale developments around St. Philip. I would guess the new schools being built in northern Vanderburgh county and the rumor of Darmstadt expanding it’s city limits are not in response to growth within Evansville. McCutchanville would be wise to look further into incorporating as a precautionary move against the Evansville politicians need for an increasing tax base to feed their appetite for wasteful spending.

  2. Sounds more like “Explosive BS” to me. Has anyone else driven around the Jimtown area? It makes East St. Louis look nice. Nuff said.

  3. Weinzapfel “pulled out all the stops” to build the Fraud Center. The stops were there for a reason.
    Now we pay for an embarrassing, runaway trainload of debt and dysfunction.
    Worst mayor ever. …

  4. Special Meeting of the Economic Development Committee:

    http://www.evansvillegov.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=16005

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    STATE OF THE CITY: Economic Development Bonds

    http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/accountable-development/property-tax-abatements

    Click the “subsidy tracker” field at the top left of this article and choose Indiana as the state to be searched. On the list you will find a 2013 subsidy to Berry Plastics worth $20. Million. With that sort of public largess, it makes it much easier to build a couple of million and a half dollar homes.

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    I am still trying to get my head around this deal. Berry was wanting to expand their facilities. I assume they could have gone to the open market for the financing, but they didn’t. Instead they asked the city of Evansville to issue $22. Million in economic development bonds, and then Berry Plastics bought the entire bond issue. One would assume that Berry receives the INTEREST on the bonds too. Big question here: If Berry had enough capital to purchase the bonds in the first place, why did Berry need the City of Evansville to issue the debt?

    I am sure I am missing something here.

    • Thanks to old Yeller & Company, the repeal of the separation of funds ordinance, practically all the various funds including bond proceeds are in only ONE bank account which allows Winnecke to kite the bond money in order to make payroll and payments for medical bills ..as such, he needs to continue to do more and more bonded projects .In essence, we have a Berner Maydorf on our hands. Good luck suckers ..

      • Yes, the mayor and the city controller jumped the shark quite a while back and they do not know how to get off without serious repercussions. The taxpayers should have filed suit long ago, like when they instituted the local option income tax, which is just a euphemism for SLAVERY. The sad part is that this has all shown the taxpayers that no one is watching the bank, certainly not the Indiana State Board of Accounts. They are sort of like that television ad that goes: Oh, I’m not a security guard. I am a security monitor. I tell people when the bank is being robbed. The bank is being robbed!

  6. Funny that Hall talks about ticket giveaways. I had heard that the Thunderbolts gave a huge stack of tickets to sponsors all over the city, but still couldn’t get over 400-500 per game.

    All teams report “Tickets Sold” as attendance, not “Butts-in-seats”. The difference is that the IceMen had given away around 1000 per game to local non-profits (and even the Visitor’s Bureau who never handed them out to hotels for guests in our city) and still managed a season average of 4000 per game, in the last season. Despite the Mayor’s moves to get everyone to stop going.

    The red carpet was rolled out for the Thunderbolts, they gave away hundreds if not thousands of tickets, but they still couldn’t get over 1500 “butts-in-seats” per game. All the while reporting average attendance over 2000.

    If was was a bond investor for the Ford Center, I would be demanding answers from Winnecke. I hope that campaign contribution from VenuWorks was worth it.

  7. Seems that the Ford Center has more worries than how many tickets were given away and that no shows were counted as attendance. Maybe VenueWorks needs a good seeing eye service dog to help with their count.

  8. High ticket prices for sub par entertainment, not to mention, overpriced concession and beverage prices are what is hurting attendance. But guess you have to have that money to pay the high salaries at Venuworks.

    Hopefully, the history books will list the names of those individuals who sold this bill of goods to Evansville. Our local politicians are really a bunch of amateurs, but that’s what you get when you elect a bunch of realtors and bankers to office!

Comments are closed.