IS IT TRUE MARCH 18, 2019

19

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 in December 0f 2014 the City of Evansville DMD paid Warren Investments $535,000 for an empty CVS block building located on North Main Street?  …according to the audio of the December 18, 2018 meeting of the Evansville Redevelopment Commission the DMD originally bought this building for a “public parking lot?”  …that several years later Divita Dialysis leased this vacant building from the Evansville DMD for 10 years with the lease payment starting around $1,600 per month?   …the Director of the Evansville DMD stated that Divita Dialysis invested $1.5 million to renovate this building? …during the December 18, 2018 meeting the DMD Director also said “that two (2) appraisals have been done of the 800 North main street building and that were based on the income approach?  …he never mentioned what the two (2) appraised values of this newly renovated building were?  …we also find it interesting that the official minutes of this meeting is not available on the  Evansville Redevelopment Commission web page?

Video Link to December 18, 2018, Redevelopment Commission Meeting and Agendas are Posted Below.  We found it interesting that the audio went off and then back on during a couple of times during the meeting.

http://evansville.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=2649

IS IT TRUE it’s now been reported that the Evansville DMD now wants to sell this newly renovated (at the cost of $1.5 million dollars) building and an investor offered $178,000 for it? …we have attached a link from the Vanderburgh County Assessor office concerning the sales transactions and appraisal of this building?

IS IT TRUE Joe Wallace just posted a comment that we felt worth repeating in this section?  …Mr. Wallace said; “What is the cash flow value of $1,600 per month”?. “First, annualize it and it becomes $19,200”. “You multiply by roughly 10 in Evansville to yield a value of $192,000.”  “The investor is offering roughly what the cash flow value of the property is”. “The fact that someone or the City of Evansville paid way more than that is irrelevant.”

IS IT TRUE the last time the Evansville Redevelopment Commission’s officially approved meeting minutes were last posted online was on March 6, 2018?

IS IT TRUE we urge you go to the official site of the Evansville Redevelopment Commission and randomly replay the videos of several of their board meetings and you will quickly discover that the sound going on and off during the official board meetings was a common occurrence?

IS IT TRUE it been reported that Indiana Firebirds-Evansville hockey team season tickets at the Ford Center went on sale last week? …we urge the ticket buyers beware since the Ford Center hasn’t posted the official home game schedule of the Firebirds on their site yet?   …we urge anyone who buys advance season tickets for Evansville Firebird hockey games on National Gridiron League ticket site please make sure there is an iron clad refund statement posted on this site just in case the 2019 season is canceled?

IS IT TRUE when a CEO of a for-profit business hire someone to find and develop a new product line and this person spends two years on this project the CEO expects this venture to be successful? …when the CEO realizes that this venture isn’t going to happen he will immediately terminate the employment of his subordinate?  …but when this type of thing happens in local Government all we hear are “crickets”?

IS IT TRUE if your the CEO of a multi-million dollar for-profit corporation and you hire the services of a marketing and consulting firm to make one of your facilities profitable, you expect measurable results?  …if this doesn’t happen in a reasonable time the CEO will immediately terminate their contract for non-performance?  …when this type of thing happens in local Government all we hear are “crickets”?

IS IT TRUE if you are a Board member of a not-for-profit organization you are considered to be a “Steward Of The Public Trust” and you have the “Fiduciary Responsibility” to ensure that all financial transactions will meet the litmus test of an audit conducted by Federal and State governmental agencies? …we wonder if the financial decisions made by the officials of the City of Evansville, Evansville DMD, and Evansville Redevelopment Commission concerning the $535,000 purchase of the vacant CVS building would meet the litmus test of an audit conducted by Federal and State governmental agencies?

IS IT TRUE last week our good friend Chuck Knoll ends his outstanding career with the Evansville Police Department?  …he has earned an outstanding reputation as a caring, fair and hardworking law enforcement officer?  …if you see Chuck please congratulate him for his hard-earned retirement and thank him for a job well done?

Todays“Readers Poll” question is: Do you feel that it made any business sense for the Evansville DMD to originally spend $535,000 to purchase the vacant CVS building on North Main Street for a public parking lot?

Please go to our link of our media partner Channel 44 News located in the upper right-hand corner of the City-County Observer so you can get the up-to-date news, weather, and sports. We are pleased to provide obituaries from several area funeral homes at no costs.  Over the next several weeks we shall be adding additional obituaries from other local funeral homes.  Please scroll down the paper and you shall see a listing of them.

If you would like to advertise on the CCO please contact us at City-County Observer@live.com

FOOTNOTE:  Any comments posted in this column do not represent the views or opinions of the City-County Observer or our advertisers.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

19 COMMENTS

  1. Trump Blasted For Refusing To Say The Term ‘White Supremacist Terrorism’ After Latest Attack By A Trump Supporter

    Trump is getting slammed for refusing to use the term “white supremacist terrorism” following the attacks on Mosques in New Zealand that left fifty people dead, considering terrorism by white nationalists is on the rise in America and around the world

    “Trump is about what helps him personally. Politically he needs white supremacists. It’s worse than him not condemning it, he has ginned it up in this country” as pointed out by political analyst Dean Obeidallah. “I would like him to say clearly that he stands with Muslims and I despise white supremacist terrorism. That’s because during his campaign, he said we must say radical Islamic terrorism, because if you don’t say it, you can’t solve it. Trump has not said the words white supremacist terrorism”

    CNN anchor Ana Cabrera asked national correspondent Sara Sidner what white nationalists hear in Trump’s words, and she accurately pointed out that it’s pretty clear that what they hear is support from Trump

    “Even though, every now and then, Trump will condemn the actions of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, there’s always a hesitation there. Like when he talked about both sides during the Charlottesville argument. The right-wing white supremacist people saw that as “We know he can’t overtly support us, but we feel supported by the things he says, the people he retweets, the word choice he uses that are similar or the same” as the rest of the right-wing white nationalists. They hear Trump comment like the way they put things and talking white genocide

    “White nationalists, neo-Nazis, KK members are all looking for signs. They know that being overt about it, you will get condemned. Being covert about it and trying to send signals, that’s how they feel, they have been sent a signal from Trump, who talks in terms of invaders when talking inference and immigration”

    “He used the word invaders. What we see in this so-called manifesto from the New Zealand right-wing white supremacist is that 67 times the word invade or invaders or invasion was used. You can see the words used. People are reacting to what the president of the United States is saying”

    Trump watches the news all day, and he should man-up and tweet: I denounce white supremacist terrorism

    But he won’t

      • Trump’s Vile And Unhinged Weekend Performance Demands A Response From Congress

        Lies, distortions, rudeness, crudeness, and just plain meanness are all things that the country has come to expect from Donald Trump. But this weekend was special

        Over the weekend, Trump delivered 52 tweets. 52 tweets! In them, he managed to hit every note from petty, as when he declared that he had “let” Republicans vote to release the Mueller report because “It makes us all look good and doesn’t matter” to ultra-vile, as when he repeatedly attacked John McCain, including blaming the deceased senator for starting the Russia investigation. And then followed up with a slap to McCain’s daughter

        There was the tweet in which Trump threatened to take away an American factory and give it to a foreign competitor. The one in which he made fun of France, lied about the cause of rioting in the country, and topped it by claiming that “the United States has gone to the top of all lists on the Environment” Which could be true if those lists are most-wanted lists.

        There was the tweet in which he threatened “consequences” against Saturday Night Live (where he apparently could not figure out it was a re-run) for making jokes about him. And the incredible follow-up in which Trump declared that the late night shows were in “collusion” with Democrats “and, of course, Russia!”

        And there was the Tweet that…..No, sorry, this one is too nuts to explain

        “Google is helping China and their military, but not the U.S. Terrible! The good news is that they helped Crooked Hillary Clinton, and not Trump….and how did that turn out?”

        The level of depravity, the sheer brutish, ugly, sleazy abandon of Trump’s weekend performance puts it beyond any pale. This was not even political theater. This was a man declaring that he could say anything, and no one (certainly no Republican) would object. And they didn’t

        But it’s not fair to say that through all this Trump had nothing to say about the shooting in New Zealand and the threat of white nationalism. Because he had a lot to say about it. It was that everything he said was in support of white supremacy

        Trump went on multiple rants about Fox News, specifically defending Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro for their racist, misogynistic, and Islamophobic statements. If that wasn’t clear enough, he retweeted a white supremacist, delivered a whole swatch of tweets about how blocking immigration at the southern border was a national emergency, and tossed on a gory tweet about a girl stabbed “100 times” by a member of MS-13. If none of that was good enough, he retweeted a false story about Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar being “removed from Congress”

        If Trump wanted to drive home the point that he’s not concerned about white nationalism because he’s all for it, say, where did W leave that “Mission Accomplished” banner?

        There’s not a lot of point in asking why Trump spent the weekend being a weasel. It’s because he’s a weasel. Maybe it was kicked off by the little-noticed court filing on Thursday in which the New York attorney general fined Trump another $5.6 million for crimes related to the misuse of his “charity” that might have put him in a “mood” even if it’s another excellent example of how stealing small amounts of money puts people behind bars for ages, while stealing large amounts brings fines

        But it also seems likely that Trump might have an idea that something is on the way. Something he doesn’t like. Out of those 52 tweets, a full third went after the Russia investigation in one way or another, including claims that there “never should have been a Mueller report”

        Maybe, hopefully, Trump went on this tear in part because he expects a wad of paper to land on his desk full of really bad news. But it shouldn’t take that to remove him from office. Because this weekend Trump proved, again, he’s not fit to be touring the White House, much less sitting there

        http://bit.ly/2HJmH9n

  2. Scathing WaPo Editorial Slams Trump’s Horrifying ‘Wrong’ Response To The New Zealand Massacre

    On Friday, The Washington Post editorial board issued a stark rebuke against Trump’s handling of the New Zealand massacre

    A mass shooting at two New Zealand mosques left 49 people dead, and several injured. The shooter released a manifesto that was filled with hateful ideologies towards immigrants and Muslim

    “The alleged gunman’s garden-variety racism, his rantings about the peril posed to whites faced with ‘replacement’ by Muslims, is of a piece with other hatreds espoused by other racist killers in other places and times” the editorial said

    The editorial explained called Trump out for his poor example of condemning hate

    “Trump should go further than he has. For starters, by condemning the alleged killer, whose nativist rhetoric (the shooter called immigrants “invaders” and attacked “mass immigration” and wrote that he hoped to “directly reduce immigration rates”) overlaps with the president’s own language” the editorial said

    The editorial listed multiple examples of when Trump failed to speak out against the rise of white nationalism, which he believes is not actually on the rise

    “Trump, who could not bring himself to criticize the white nationalists in Charlottesville who chanted that minorities (Jews, in that case) would “not replace us” on Friday said he doesn’t regard white nationalism as a problem. That’s the wrong message. Instead, he ought to state unambiguously that the New Zealand suspect’s “replacement” ideology is an unacceptable trope in civilized discourse”

    https://wapo.st/2HsqGHQ

    • Beyond The War On Science: Why The Right Embraces Ignorance As A Virtue

      Spouting off about stuff you know nothing about is traditionally considered unwise. But as the Republican war on science intensifies, ignorance has started to become not only less of a handicap, but a point of pride. In the face of expertise and facts, being belligerently ignorant and offended that anyone dares suggest ignorance is less desirable than knowledge has become the go-to position for many conservative politicians and pundits

      But for modern Republicans, being downright proud of their ignorance has become a badge of honor, a way to demonstrate loyalty to the right-wing cause while also sticking it to those liberal pinheads who think there’s some kind of value in knowing what they’re talking about before offering an opinion

      The thing is, shameless lying and ignorance work surprisingly well as a debate tactic. It’s hard to argue with someone who not only has signaled that he doesn’t care what the truth is but is downright proud of how little he actually knows. Such a person is not amenable to being educated. Once the pretense of really caring one way or another about what is right and what is wrong has been abandoned, all avenue of discourse is shut down

      The problem here is that someone who is not only so catastrophically wrong but downright proud of being an ignoramus is not going to actually bother to listen to an explanation. That’s why the wall of ignorance is such a powerful rhetorical tool. When you have nothing but contempt for the facts, attempts to educate you will only make your pride in your own ignorance grow stronger. The more you try to educate the proudly ignorant, the dumber they get

      At the end of the day, the problem is one of identity. The conservative identity is one of being opposed to everything liberal, to the point of despising anything even associated with liberalism. As liberalism has increasingly been aligned with the values of empiricism and reason, the incentives for conservatives to reject empiricism and reason multiply. To be a “conservative” increasingly means taking a contemptuous view of reality. And so the proudly ignorant grow more belligerent, day after day

      http://bit.ly/2HEjibB

  4. Power packed IIT! Everyone must watch the ERC meeting videos on this property.

    The Kelley Coures led DMD (nuff said) buys the old CVS at 800 N Main for $535,000, the lessee Divida then invests $1.5 million in remodeling per the ERC meeting tapes when audio is on, and the DMD gets 1 bid to purchase for $178,000 which includes minimum 10 year lessee. Inquiring minds want to know if the 1 bidder is related to the original seller?? The DMD must reject this 1 low ball bid and rebid the sale.

    Great reporting by the CCO. Hopefully the CCO can get copies if the 2 DMD appraisals and the 1 bid for purchase.

    $535,000 purchase price + $1.5 remodeling = $2+ million to be sold for $178,000??????????

    • This 800 N Main proposed sale really stinks. When and where is the next Redevelopment Commission meeting?

  5. What is the cash flow value of $1,600 per month. First annualize it and it becomes $19,200. The you multiply by roughly 10 in Evansville to yield a value of $192,000. The investor is offering roughly what the cash flow value of the property is. The fact that someone or the City of Evansville paid way more than that is irrelevant.

    • I would like to see Mr. Course’s reasoning behind the DMD purchase of this property at such an extraordinary price. I think it would be an interesting tale.

  6. While the EVSC is busy putting up more “E is for everyone” stickers, the school corp. in Jay County is proactively protecting its students and faculty”
    ……………………………………………….

    “PORTLAND, Ind. — Most of the teachers in Jay Schools don’t know where each building’s handgun is kept. They also don’t know which of their co-workers are trained to use it.

    Neither do the students nor their parents.

    Here’s what they do know: There’s a gun in a biometric safe under camera surveillance somewhere in each of the district’s eight schools. It’s not in a classroom. In a life-threatening emergency, more than one trained employee in each of the schools is authorized to pull the trigger.

    The details, school officials said, are purposefully kept confidential, the uncertainty serving as a deterrent.

    Proponents of arming teachers say the approach could save lives. Detractors say they would rather see more firearms regulation than guns in classrooms.”

    https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/03/17/gun-school-what-jay-schools-new-policy-means-teachers-families/2953257002/

  7. Did Davita Dialysis really lease the building for 10 years ? If DMD bought it in 2014 ? And this is, like, 2019 ?

    Help me Rhonda . . . .

    • Offices Of Trump Fundraiser Raided By Federal Authorities In Conspiracy, Money Laundering Probe

      It’s a Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen raid situation all over again, only this time it’s a top fundraiser for Trump and the Republican National Committee, Elliott Broidy. ProPublica obtained a sealed search warrant that allowed federal investigators to raid Broidy’s offices in pursuit of documents related to his work with foreign officials and Trump associates

      Agents were authorized to use the megadonor’s hands and face to unlock any phones that required a fingerprint or facial scans

      In 2009, Broidy pleaded guilty in a massive bribery scandal involving New York state public officials. Last year the former RNC national deputy finance chair made headlines when he resigned his position after reports surfaced that he was making payments in a $1.6 million hush money deal with a former Playboy model with whom he had an affair

      The search warrant centered on three areas of grift: conspiracy, money laundering, and illegal lobbying for foreign officials. The warrant also connected Broidy to Trump’s former deputy campaign manager and transition team official and placed Broidy amid a web of people involved in illicit activity

      They planned to seize any evidence related to a list of dozens of people, countries and corporate entities, according to the warrant. Among the names on the list are Rick Gates (the former Trump campaign official who has pleaded guilty in the Mueller probe) and Colfax Law Office (the firm founded by Robin Rosenzweig, Broidy’s wife) and numerous foreign countries

      The search warrant also connects Broidy to a Malaysian financier who has been federally indicted and is accused of attempting to bilk billions from a state fund known as 1Malaysia Development (1MDB), and federal prosecutors are reportedly examining whether Low made an illegal donation through intermediaries to the 2020 fund-raising committee Trump Victory, because it’s never too soon to inject some illegality into the next election

      Broidy is also suspected of being in another filing last year in which that person was compensated for allegedly trying to get Trump administration officials to back off an inquiry into Low. But it doesn’t end there, because federal authorities were also seeking records in Broidy’s office related to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and any travel to the Middle East

      Remember that George Nader, the unofficial UAE conduit who took part in the secret Seychelles meeting and was detained for questioning by federal officials last year at Dulles International Airport? Nader reportedly tried to lure Broidy with a lucrative deal for his private security firm if he lobbied Trump officials on behalf of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Nader has reportedly been cooperating with federal officials in the probe

      Sounds like Broidy’s in a massive heap of trouble, and Trump may be right there with him

      http://bit.ly/2HqI3sB

      • Half of the American electorate now agree with President Trump about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion investigation.

        The results from a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll released Monday show 50 percent of registered voters agree with Trump’s claim that he is the target of a “witch hunt” and that he has been subject to more investigations than his predecessors due to politics.

        https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/half-of-americans-say-muellers-investigation-is-a-witch-hunt-poll

        • Overwhelming Majority Wants Final Mueller Report Released

          The Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll found that about 62 percent of voters said they think it is very important that the report be made public, while another 20 percent said they think it is somewhat important

          “Finally, the voting public and Congress agree on something. With the investigation in its third year, people want to know what the investigation uncovered and whether President Trump colluded with the Russians or directed others to collude with the Russians,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston

          The survey shows a nation that remains skeptical of Trump’s honesty and deeply divided by his leadership. A 52% majority say they have little or no trust in Trump’s denials that his 2016 campaign colluded with Moscow in the election that put him in the Oval Office. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 43% rate Trump’s performance as poor

          The responses were sharply divided along partisan lines, with 86 percent of Republican respondents siding with Trump, and just 14 percent of Democrats doing the same. The survey additionally showed more people still trust the special counsel than trust Trump

          The poll found 55 percent of respondents have a little or a lot of trust in Mueller to conduct a fair and accurate investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election

          Monmouth University Poll for March 1-4, 2019 has 43% think Trump should be impeached and compelled to leave the presidency (the highest in his term)

          Quinnipiac University Poll. March 1-4, 2019

          65% would NOT say Trump is honest
          58% would NOT say Trump has leadership skills
          58% do not think Trump cares about average Americans
          58% disapprove of Trump and foreign policy
          58% disapprove of Trump and immigration policy
          64% think Trump should release his tax returns
          66% disapprove of Trump declaring a national emergency
          54% think the Mueller investigation is fair
          50% believe Michael Cohen to 35% for Trump
          73% think it’s a crime to pay campaign funds to cover things up
          71% think Trump is NOT a good role model for children
          64% think Trump committed crimes before he was elected

          http://bit.ly/2HFoE6G

Comments are closed.