We are re-posting this eDebate because our traffic has more than doubled since the original publishing, and we wanted to give our new readers a chance to view this exchange between our Mayoral candidates.
Welcome to the first of a new series – the 2011 Evansville Mayoral eDebate.
“eDebate” is a platform which we have engineered to allow candidates of an election to voice their goals of the future for the city of Evansville and allow readers to compare their answers to their electoral opponent.
-Each candidate is given the same 5 questions, and the same amount of time to prepare their answers.
-Neither candidate may read their opponents’ response, and all responses are kept hidden until the scheduled release date.
-It is important to remember that we are still in the primary elections. This eDebate is between the two front-runners (and as of today, the only signed candidates) for the current mayoral election for Evansville. The purpose of this eDebate is to educate, and to inform our readers about the major dividing issues facing our city today.
-Comments are currently enabled to encourage discussion. Please be civil and constructive.
2/7/2011 eDebate
Evansville Mayoral Election
 | Rick Davis (D) | Lloyd Winnecke (R) |  |
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Question #1: Given the recent snow accumulation – what is your opinion of our current snow removal responsibilities on Main St.? Is the status quo sufficient, or do you think changes should be made? |
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According to City Code, removal of snow and ice on city sidewalks is the responsibility of the homeowner/business owner. As a former neighborhood association president, I can tell you that neighborhoods throughout the City Limits are growing tired of City Administrations and their continued focus on Downtown while seemingly ignoring other issues important to neighborhoods throughout the rest of the City. If I am fortunate enough to be elected mayor, I want to put the entire community as a continued focus, not just the Downtown area. That having been said, as Mayor, I do not feel it would be out of line to contact Downtown merchants who may or may not be properly removing snow and ice in a timely manner and encourage them to do a better job of making the sidewalks safe for pedestrian traffic. If that doesn’t work, I would also recommend the business owners create a Downtown Merchants Association, if one is not already in existence, or some other program similar to that, where the merchants or property owners would voluntarily pay a monthly fee to a private company or two who would be responsible for snow/ice removal from sidewalks during the winter months. To reiterate, snow/ice removal on sidewalks is the responsibility of homeowners and business owners, whether the domicile is located in Downtown or elsewhere, and showing favoritism toward the Downtown merchants by spending taxpayer revenues and time on Downtown sidewalks would be unfair to other homeowners/merchants in the city, including businesses on North Main, Franklin Street, Green River Road, First Avenue, etc. Obviously, the better the Downtown merchants clean their sidewalks of snow and ice, the more inviting their businesses will be to the public, so it’s in their best interest to promptly remove snow and ice from the sidewalks to begin with. | As president of the county commission, I share responsibility of snow removal on county roads outside of the city limits. Through the county highway garage, we have a dedicated group of employees who battle the elements every time we are bombarded with snow, ice or freezing rain. County snow management also includes pre-treatment of roads before a snow event, as long as it isn’t raining. I am pleased with the performance of county personnel handling snow removal, and we continue to look for ways to improve our processes. As mayor I hope to bring that same level of excellence, management and innovation to snow removal on city roads, including Main Street. This will include a re-evaluation of the city’s current snow routes as well as the probable implementation of a street pre-treatment process. | ||
Some people are easily impressed with a few big words strung together in such a way that they mean nothing.
There was a website error that caused us to lose the comments on this post from yesterday and this morning. I am trying to retrieve them.
I would like to apologize for all who were involved in the discussion yesterday. The ~17 comments from the last 24 hours are gone, and irretrievable. I will be taking measures to assure that this loss of data does not happen again.
No problem, my thoughts are only worth a penny anyway.
Instructed and baptized 22 Chinese people at Easter time. Help them with first Confessions in the past few wezBk.saptieed another 10 people at Pentecost. Still giving instructions to a number of non-Catholic Chinese. Will start my new assignment in July, and will start celebrating Chinese Mass in Coquitlam on July 17.Have been praying for you, Fr. Z, since I read your request for prayers. May God bless you!
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