Dunn Hospitality and all Associated Businesses Resign from Chamber of Commerce: Encourages others to Follow

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John Dunn
John Dunn

In a letter obtained by the City County Observer and on the link below, John Dunn of Dunn Hospitality advises the President and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana, Christy Gillenwater that Dunn Hospitality and all affiliated companies and properties are terminating their memberships immediately. Dunn furthermore advised the Chamber that he will encourage any other business that will suffer as a result of the gifting of $37.5 Million to a downtown hotel developer to terminate their memberships too.

The entire letter is on the following link.

Dunn Letter to Chamber

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14 COMMENTS

  1. Saw Mr. Dunn on TV last night.

    He totally slam dunked the political elite of this community when it came to the reasons why he was not supporting the hotel. Unfortunately, he’s tied in with the political elite of this community. Wondering what this is going to do to his ability to get a tee time at the Country Club.

    Chamber of commerce is bad for Evansville. Glad to see it slowly get dismantled.

  2. I also agree that Mr, Dunn did extremely well.

    Why don’t Brad B have both the Mayor and Mr. Dunn on his program at the same time and let them talk this out. I got it, Brad knows his buddy Lloyd isn’t equipped to take Mr. Dunn one on one.

    Thanks CCO for great coverage on this issue.

  3. Mr. Dunn I would like to thank you for standing up for good public policy. “Government shouldn’t do for what they should do for themselves”.

    You did an outstanding job last night and I’m glad someone has finally stood up against our self serving Mayor. The Mayor is proving he knows very little about business and should not be re-elected to a second term.

  5. I appreciate that the City-County Observer is the only one covering this. I find it strange that this (Chamber Letter) has not been shared through other media, or at least not that I have seen? I agree with the above comments that the two should be in an interview at the same time. I respect Mr. Dunn for agreeing to a live interview. Not so much with the Mayors written reply. Simply submitting a written reply that is vague and doesn’t address the facts presented by Mr. Dunn unsettling and is raising a red flag.

    • Please realize that most of the media are members of the chamber and have this letter. It is their choice not to follow up.

      • Let’s be fair and truthful about this. When John Dunn, Ms. Gillenwater, or any other person or organization sends out a press release or letter, it’s quite easy to simply post up a headline with a link to the document.

        That does not constitute “scooping” the Courier and Press or other news media outlets, since the other media outlets do a bit more than simply post up a link to the news release or letter, right?

        In fact several other news media outlets have followed up on the Dunn media release with much more in-depth reporting. The Courier and Press, for example, has a couple of well written follow-ups that go a bit farther than simply posting links or asking “is it true.”

        But then I understand the CCO’s commenters appreciation for the opportunity to be the first to cheerlead with negative follow-up comments here, while they sadly have to wait on pins and needles another day or two to repeat those comments under a Courier and Press online article.

        • The sad truth is that most people who have been paying any attention the C&P can tell you what they are going to print before they print it.

          Everyone is familiar with the C&P’s various biases. The C&P is an establishment newspaper. Especially so concerning the local establishment.

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  7. It is government that needs to get the hell out of the market place. The Chamber members need to quit courting government, and its mythical never ending stream of tax revenue, in support of Chamber projects.

    Any time the local government uses tax dollars in an attempt to create a market where no market exists it is nothing short of abuse, and the ole’ boy network is always behind the effort. If you follow the money at election time you can always tie it all together. That is the disgusting reality that is holding this city back. Get rid of the cronyism and the city will flourish.

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  8. What in the hell going on with the Evansville Courier and Press Editorial staff. Why in the hell aren’t they reporting this important news to the public.

    Oh, I get it, The Publisher of the Courier and Press is a member of the secret Evansville Regional Business Committee offices located on the 7th floor of the Vectren building.

    No conflict of interest here, right.

    Oh, did i say that the President of the ERC and the President of the Evansville Regional Business Committee is non other then Ed Hafer. No conflict of interest here either, right.

    Does anybody have a complete list of the rich people that paid $10,000 a year to join this back room political group of movers and shakers?

  9. The Dunn Letter to the Chamber should be read by all. Special attention should be paid to the second paragraph. The developer is NOT a member of the chamber.

    A personal note: I joined the chamber several years ago and was sold on the idea of membership by the pitch “members do business with other members”. After attending meetings and functions of the chamber, I quickly found that was not the case. Needless to say, I never renewed membership and stopped attending functions after a few months.

    So while I must say Mrs. Gillenwater has the right to speak up, she also exposes the hypocrisy the CCSWIN really is.

Comments are closed.