BREAKING NEWS: Affidavit Filed By James L. Fischer Concerning A Vacant Lot Owned By Evansville Brownfield Corporation

1. I was at the goose town neighborhood association meeting last night and DMD Director Coures Who is also the Suposed president of this suposed brownfields corp was bragging up the brownfields and telling the crowd that the brownfields had done this and the brownfields had done that. Being constantly politically incorrect I spoke up and said I thought our tax dollars and HUD Community Development Block Grants did all that. Coures tried to set me straight but: Is it true the Brownfields was started with public grant funds, the brownfields has no staff, the DMD employees do all the Brownfields work, the brownfields do not have bake sales to raise money, the brownfields exist on city DMD resources, community development block grant funding, and profits they can scam off of housing developments and property sales like this one, the funds they accumulate are spent on?

   • MR Lumley

     The CCO who like to personally thank you for the outstanding work you are doing on behalf of the taxpayers of this Community. We are getting tired of hearing DMD Director Kelley Coures bragging about what wonderful job he and the Mayor are doing for the taxpayers. You’re totally correct when you stated that the taxpayers advanced the money to fund Brownfield Corp.

     We also have strong concerns that DMD Director Kelley Coures might have a conflict of interest problem serving as President of Brownfield Corp. since he is a full time paid employee of a City controlled Department?

     CCO EDITOR

     • The Brownfields is the city. It was started with city funds, it has always been funded with city and taxpayer grants. Its employees are the city employees on the city clock. Its office is the DMD office. The city cares for their properties. I think its time to tell Coures to return the city assets back to the city of Evansville and eliminate this city coke fund club that has grown larger than some city departments themselves.

       Brownfields is no more private than if the parks department employees got together and started charging an extra dollar at the pools and then started funneling in all the city grants into their club and adding on to the pools until one day they said – OH we are the “brownpool corp” and we now own these pools. It is time to recognize the Brownfields Corp for what it is. It is time for it’s president, DMD Director Kelly Coures to return the assets to the city and start operating DMD as city government and leave private enterprise and non profit charities to do their job.

       • Bravo! Mr. George Lumley, Bravo! You are,– a Stand -Up and Be Counted Hero by any definition!
         Sincerely, Terry L. Rickard

       • Well said, George, and I’d like to echo the CCO Editor’s above post.
         Sounds to me like Brownfields is nothing more than a “shell”(shill?) company established for the purpose of avoiding oversight, especially in their financial dealings.

       • Thank you Mr Lumley!
         Your hard work, perseverance and subject knowledge have been of great service to this reader and indeed the community as a whole.
         Now that we have identified the culprits and their methodologies –
         Let’s fix that!
         (standing ovation)

   • By – Associated Press – Saturday, August 2, 2014

     EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) – Federal officials have warned Evansville that it can’t keep holding on to properties that it purchased with federal funds that were intended to redevelop brownfields.

     Brownfields are properties whose redevelopment is hindered by industrial pollution or other environmental issues. But officials say the problem is that the city has been acquiring increasing amounts of property without doing either one, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has warned the city about keeping the properties, the Evansville Courier & Press reported (http://bit.ly/1nflP6N ).

     Over the years, the Ohio River city has acquired 122 parcels of property using funds from HUD’s community development block grant program, said Kelley Coures, interim director at the Evansville Department of Metropolitan Development.

     The problem has been compounded as properties have been turned over to a public-private nonprofit entity called the Brownfields Corporation, according to the newspaper. Some of the properties are owned by the city department, while others are owned by the corporation, many of whose board members are city officials.

     Evansville’s goal was to use block grant money to acquire property in and near center city neighborhoods to remove urban blight, and building new housing for low- to moderate-income residents, Coures said.

     Coures said HUD told the city in 2012 to divest itself of the parcels acquired with block grant funds and do something with them rather than banking them indefinitely with no specific plan for their use.

     Most of the parcels are vacant lots where dilapidated structures came to the Brownfields Corporation after failing to sell at tax action or due to other problems. Many of those structures have been demolished.

     “You can’t land-bank with CDBG funds. The purpose is to improve the economic life of lower-income people,” Coures said, adding that HUD has been “very cooperative with me.”

     The city now can transfer the properties at no cost to nonprofit organizations to develop low-income housing or to neighboring landowners, but HUD’s income requirements must be met.

     Buyers who don’t meet that income threshold must purchase the property at current market value.

     The city’s plan is to talk with adjacent owner-occupied neighbors whose incomes may meet HUD’s requirements of less than 80 percent of the area median income, turn over some properties to Habitat for Humanity and other organizations or agencies for redevelopment, and convert some of the property to green space.

     ___

     Information from: Evansville Courier & Press, http://www.courierpress.com

2. I’d like to see a sworn affidavit trying to clarify their position from some of the people that were inferring that the Musgraves put Mr. Fischer up to trying to buy that property. Mr. Fischer has declared his view of the matter in no uncertain terms, those that tried to sully his and the Musgrave’s reputation should do the same. They are probably scampering like sprayed roaches now, hoping this goes no further. It is way past time for some of these people to be held to account for their statements and actions in a court of law, they are out of control. Something like this could be the thin wedge that opens up legal inquiries into Earthscam, HotelGate, and the myriad other misdeeds of this accidental administration. If you squeeze some of the underlings hard enough they’ll give up the big kahuna.

   Evansville is currently in the grip of a cheap little bunch of politicos. They have apparently decided that slander, libel and spending money we don’t have is the way to re-election. Haul a few of them into the dock and listen as their little voices squeak out, a good 2 octaves above their normal range.

3. Kelley Coures is a drama queen and has found a suitable dancing partner in Carolyn Rusk. Both would claim they facilitate an adult existence, but nothing could be further from the truth. They are a couple of conspiracy theorists wherein they are always the victim, and they played no part in whatever drama is unfolding around them. They lack self reflection and actually believe their statements that they were always just standing there minding their own business when someone opted to go on the attack. They both are in serious need of a mental health practitioner.

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