IS IT TRUE that a YMCA bus full of children arrived at Howell Park today hoping to spend the day swimming only to be disappointed to learn that the pool is closed for the season?…Mayor Winnecke’s office asserts that this early closing of the public pools had been communicated both verbally and by signs for the last several weeks?…the Mayor’s Office stated that the decision was made based upon the required financial obligation to remain open (approx.. $72,000) along with the decrease in attendance at public pools?…according to the Mayor’s Office the average daily attendance in 2011 and 2012 was only 100 at either Rochelle Pool or Mosby Pool after the regular season closing?
IS IT TRUE the City of Evansville claims to have tried several different ways to reach out and draw in adult lifeguards over the last year and no one applied or even called to get information?…the City also asserts that they are barely able to hire enough staff to man all the pools thru a regular season?… most employees are either teachers or students who have to go back to school?… last year the City offered a bonus to staff who would continue working past the regular season but that is an additional expense over and above our regular season budget?
IS IT TRUE the City’s answer to why we do not have longer hours of operation is one which is both financial and also needed for our swim teams?…this whole exercise of crying poor when it comes to spending $72,000 to keep the public pools open until school starts is coming from the same Mayor’s Office that is making deals to give away $37.5 Million to an out of town developer to build a hotel in downtown Evansville?…we hope the Mayor and his staff have a serious discussion about how such bi-polar actions affect the way the children of Evansville feel about where they are on the priority list of local government?…the next time a gifted young person who was born and raised in Evansville heads out of town as soon as they are educated we should all know why?
IS IT TRUE it is mind boggling to think that any serious entity would shut down public pools to save $72,000 in the same 24 hour period that they are boasting about making a deal to GIVE away $37.5 Million to a private business to establish a hotel downtown?…Evansville is becoming “The Twilight Zoneâ€?
Is it True?
Winnecke is without a doubt, the biggest, most embarrassing, Horse’s Patootie to ever hold political power in Evansville?
amen
My nephew went over to Mosby pool along with many friends and stood for an hour for it to open. No signs were posted announcing it was closed.
This is what happens when the Mayor appointed a campaign worker as his Parks Director. Its obvious that the lady who is the Director of Parks doesn’t have the skill set to run this multi million dollar city department.
This is political patronage at it’s best! Another reason why we shall work hard to see that he is not re-elected!
Denise Johnson was the Mayor’s chief campaign cook and bottle washer. She has no experience in parks making her a bad fit for the job as evidenced by her performance. Political hack if you will.
In fact, she lives in Newburgh, which also makes her a carpetbagger.
What idiots. I’m ashamed to tell people that our present Mayor is just like the last.
I also hear that the new Parks Director has no idea of what she is doing. Wonder what her college degree is in? In fact many of her staff laugh at her behind her back all the time.
Danny:
There is no new mayor. The former one is still running the show. Confirmation will be coming next Thursday.
___
Burdette is open through the week until the 9th and then is open on the weekends through Labor Day weekend.
So the county can find life guards but the city can’t?
Pitiful and shameful leadership.
Probably all true – but way off in the weeds. This is small potatoes. How about focusing some time on the real problems that our local government seems incapable of even noticing. Sewers in poor shape, water lines rotten all over town all of the time, destroying perfectly good assets just to build more expensive, less profitable ones (I.e. Stadium). How about trying to go steal more taxes from county residents in order to pay for it all. These are the issues that everyone should be focused on.
David, the CCO focuses on these things consistently. In fact, it’s pretty much been a recurring theme since I’ve been coming here for news.
And the100 users of the pools will pale by the numbers of users of the 8 million dollar dog park?
Please remember that this is the same small group who is feverishly trying to plan the revamping of Wesselman Park and coordinate it with a large field of grass on Roberts ground called the great lawn. I am very concerned about this for money reasons and because some people like change for change’s sake. I have written an extensive suggestion list to the plan group made up of the mayor, Denise Johnson, Jeff Justice (Hafer) and a few others. These folks do not seem to get it. Winnecke, the TV and PR guy, will apply this flash and dance background to a nature park I am afraid. I would sent you a copy for publication in the CCO but you would need to also receive a scanned version of the map which has been numbered to correspond to the points on the list and I don’t have the capacity to scan. Then again, let me revamp it and I will send it less map as soon as I can.
You would be better served to talk to a dog in the dog park that to Johnson, Justice, and Winnecke. There are not 80 IQ points between the three of them.
Yoda–
You need to relief yourself. You are full of crap.
Wayne,
Leave Yoda alone . . . the Force is strong in him.
Also, Wayne: when 900 you are, look this good you will not !
So, how many of y’all have volunteered to help out at Howell Park, at the pool, or in any of the parks facilities in general. Howell Park Boosters is an aging organization that will gladly accept all the new members who are willing to volunteer a little time to make Howell Park a better place for the kids. Contact them.
In fact, the Westside Improvement Association’s parks committee is trying to organize a Howell Park workday soon. Want to chip in with a little elbow grease and sweat equity? Contact us.
Were any of y’all out at Wesselman Park this evening with your neighborhood organizations for National Night Out? Or did you spend your evening carping on this blog?
That’s not the point Bill. The City has a contract with the Teamsters that they rely on to say that volunteer efforts are difficult to coordinate but won’t use any of their bargaining power during negotiations to make a change. Denise Johnson was asked along with all the other department heads whether their budget for 2013 was enough. No one said they were going to have to close pools early. And I shouldn’t have to go out and weed the flowerbeds in my local park. I pay taxes for the upkeep of the park system, and I’m willing to pay more if it makes the difference in our community as to access to amenities. It bothers me that the Parks Department is broke yet had the opportunity to develop any budget it wanted. We didn’t cut their budget. Either they didn’t ask for enough money or they don’t know how to manage it. And the kids of this community are paying the price. This isn’t about people getting involved in their community, it’s about getting value out of the tax dollars we’re putting in.
Damn right!
Thanks Stephanie. Will the city council have any say on what is done and how much is spent on the Wesselman/Roberts “redo”?
All good points, Steph. But it’s more than just about weeding flower beds. Howell Park needs repairs, maintenance attention, and upgrades far beyond a few of us going out an picking up trash or manicuring vegetation. And if that is all that was needed, maybe the City Council shouldn’t have pared the Parks Maintenance crews down to a half dozen Teamster employees over the years, while beefing up middle and upper management positions!
By the way, Westside Improvement is looking toward assisting with efforts for which Teamster grounds and facility maintenance forces typically are not assigned to accomplish. Howell Park provides recreational services for a huge number of Evansvillian youth and their parents, and we hope to help prevent the park from falling further into disrepair.
I’m just asking folks to pitch-in in a positive way, rather than continually ramping up the negativity, and piling one negative issue atop the next, which I hope you agree never accomplishes a daggone thing.
City Council doesn’t pare down workers. I don’t think there is historically a City Council budget cut at the root of the problem. Mayors cut down employees in budgets that get passed for all sorts of reasons. I’m just tired of us not putting our money where our mouth is. Private partnerships and volunteer organizations are great but can’t pick up all of the slack. The Parks Department needs to be completely restructured and real numbers put to paper for not just maintenance but growth. The Parks Department has historically been led by a political appointee. The problems have compounded over years. We really need to hire a professional and determine the intersection between more money and change. How many more structures and how much more park equipment is going to decay beyond use before we step up and either spend more money or consolidate facilities and properties.
Are you saying that hiring freezes have not been imposed by city councils in the past, or that budget committee chairmen have not influenced the parks maintenance work force numbers over time?
As far as volunteers taking up slack, I think the initial issue was closing of Howell Park’s Mosby Pool due to the lack of lifeguard staffing, because the seasonal employees went back to college. Something like that. (Of course now the argument has morphed into the need for a larger budget).
But initially, my question was along the lines of why concerned individuals have not volunteered to staff the pools for the rest of the season … rather than sitting in front of a computer screen and contributing negative comments. I don’t think volunteer lifeguards would be a problem with the union, and the City Maintenance Dept. is staffed sufficiently to service the pools, right? I mean even if such an arrangement might extend the use of the pools only during peak use hours …
… and Steph, I’m not even pointing a finger at the current administration or current city council. I’ve worked for both the parks department (during Lloyd, Sr.) and the city maintenance dept. (during Vandeveer), and the hiring freezes and paring down of parks maintenance work force goes way, way back in time. All the while, park land holdings have expanded — Moutoux, Price Park, Sunset’s new addition, etc., etc., etc.
$10 to $15 million for Roberts. Could some of that money be used to keep pools open?
This appears to fit the Evansville pattern of neglecting existing assets. When you do that, they eventually deteriorate and have to be replaced. Then the replacement assets follow the same path.
This is humiliating. I feel like i would make a better Mayor than whoever is right now. That is saying something since my actions can tend to be…questionable. Regardless, how can anyone that truly cares about the well being of Evansville and the future of its citizens have such little discretion towards such large sums of money when the funds could be used to, oh i don’t know, revitalize main street for much cheaper, inject a little culture into the area, or devote the funds towards solving our dysfunctional sewage situation. Evansville is my home town and i will always love it for that but i do not expect to call it home within the next five years. I can honestly say that 90% of the people i know have left this town for greener pastures. I know for fact that it is either because of me, or because of the fact that Evansville is void of any and all types of culture necessary to attract the future of tomorrow; College students and recent grads. Sorry for the rant, but I am getting fed up and am to the point of throwing in the towel on the city that i love. The city that continues to cut its own throat.
I am afraid the mayor has embarked upon a second term project with Roberts Park during his first term. With all the ridiculous faux pas(s) of the past several months — including his endorsement of city-county unification — culminating with the resignation of Sherman Greer, he is looking like a one term mayor. Of course, heaven forbid anybody would actually admit that in public. It does not seem to matter whether we elect Republicans or Democrats around here, they all act like this is Havana, Cuba during the reign of Fulgencio Batista. None of them have a strategic vision, or any significant goals or objectives about where they want to take this community. They have abandoned real, basic industrial manufacturing and think you can revitalize a city with baseball diamonds, overpriced convention hotels and assorted insanity. Part of the problem is that the real power is controlled by a small group of predominantly white men who control the legacy corporations around here through interlocking directorates, boards and commissions. These people literally have their hands around the neck of this community, suffocating it of any cultural or industrial vitality that they do not control. One could literally write a book about what has happened to this place but guess what, it would never be published because in the grand scheme of things, this city simply does not matter. We have become the laughing stock of this entire country and no amount of colored tee shirts printed with I Am Evansville will do anything to change that. I ask you in all sincerity, were the girls who attacked the policemen a part of the I Am Evansville crowd? How about the punks who vandalized Garvin Park pool?
It’s no wonder people are leaving this place in droves — it is hard to blame them. We have lost the vocabulary to actually solve problems around here and nobody really seems to care. It’s pretty disgusting.
School doesn’t start for most till next week, why not at least stay open till this weekend? Mt. Vernon’s city pool is open till Sunday. They too have seen less attending this year. We again are driving our kids to stay inside in front of the TV.
Burdette Park (a county facility)is open all week and every weekend through Labor Day.
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