2/28/2011 eDebate
City Council 5th Ward
 | John Friend (D) | Brent Grafton (R) |  |
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Question #5: What local issue are you personally most passionate about? Do you have any specific goals that you would like to accomplish if elected to the City Council? |
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In my 33 years as a certified public accountant and business owner in Evansville, I have found fulfillment in assisting in the creation of hundreds of jobs though my knowledge and skills. Our youth, upon graduation, leave for better opportunities elsewhere. This trend must be reversed. How? We must develop and improve the elements that attract commerce: infrastructure, public safety, recreation, technologies, and government efficiencies. As mandated by the Federal Government, our sewer system will have to come into compliance with the Federal Law. This will be the largest undertaking the City will experience. As such, I have recommended that the City Council form the first ever Utility Committee to oversee the costs and contracts as they develop to assure accountability. The primary function of every community is providing the safety of the citizens. As a council member, I will focus on providing the funding to assure that those departments receive the best training, equipment, and adequate compensation in the protection of our neighborhoods. In regards to technologies, we are behind the curve relative to the needs of developers. Why is it necessary for contractors drive to the Civic Center in obtaining permits and other business, when the internet would allow for such business to be conducted and, perhaps, the inspection process could be performed by Skype as well? Our building code needs to be codified, eliminating redundance and revising others to meet the 21st century demands. When investors decide to come to Evansville, they should be greeted with “Evansville is open for Business”! | In the last seven years, my wife and I have created a small business in Evansville that employees 25 people. There are many things that our local government could do to make the job of job creation much easier. Businesses thrive when they operate in a stable and predictable environment. It really does not matter what the rules are, just tell us what they are and then abide by what you say. Sometimes I think that the businessman in Communist China has a greater advantage than we have faced in Evansville because of the stability and predictability of their government structure. I believe that the most destabilizing—least predictable change– in doing business with our City government has been caused by the misbalance of power. Over the years, the power of the Legislative branch of City government (City Council), and the Citizen Boards (Board of Public Safety, Board of Public Works, etc.) have become subservient to the agenda of the Mayor. When the practice of “patronage†left City jobs in the late 70’s, it became more difficult to raise the money and provide the workers necessary to mount a winning mayoral campaign. The contracts, licensee’s, variances, traffic lights, billboards, services and etc… that the City controlled became the new patronage carrot. When our government focuses’ favor on a limited number of political supporters and lays down barriers through a smoke and mirror approach to all others, we as a community pay a very dear price….. our potential development opportunities go to Warrick, Spencer, Gipson, and Posey Counties and our Jobs go to Mexico. As a new City Councilman representing the Fifth Ward, I will work to reestablish the balance of power between the City Council, Citizen Boards and the Mayor. | ||
This concludes our eDebate for City Council 5th Ward on community-observer.com. We highly appreciate the cooperation of both of our candidates. We hope that through this website, each candidate was better able to convey their hopes and intentions or the city of Evansville and the 5th Ward. Please keep all comments civil and constructive.
As a 5th Ward resident and voter, I have followed this particular campaign more closely than the other district races. Both candidates have a strong background in business which I think is critical when selecting a mayor and council members. Grafton seems sincere in his rather extreme rightwing beliefs which may appeal to some voters, but for me the edge goes to John Friend who has accumulated working knowledge as an incumbent councilman.
Whoever wins this 5th Ward race should concentrate on repairing Lloyd Pool, and revitalizing the North Park commercial district, and I’m not saying that just because I live in the Meadows. North Park is dying a slow death, and the city needs to help bolster it up again.
interesting comment, how would you characterize my “extreme rightwing beliefs” ?
I get the impression from many of your previous statements that you hold “Tea Party” political beliefs. If I have gotten the wrong impression, then I’m sorry. John Friend is pretty conservative for a Democrat, but not quite what I would call a Tea Party Democrat.
apology accepted, I do believe that it is dangerous to have the same answer to every question, liberal or conservative, there are times when the conservative view works best and other times when the liberal view works best. The answer is to have a more balanced system that allows both voices to be heard and a full and lively debate to be had and then an answer given that actually fits the problem. Not an answer that reflects an ideology or an agenda detached from the problem at hand. My professional training and experience is to focus on the task and let the task dictate the answer. It does not matter what I want to manufacture, if the market will not buy it I am out of business.
“It does not matter what I want to manufacture, if the market will not buy it I am out of business.”
That is shows good business sense, and is directly applicable to successful marketing. However, when it is applied to politics, what results is a politician who will say whatever it takes to draw votes from the audience to whom he is marketing himself. In other words: retail politics.
I think both you and John Friend are doing this, so now I have to decide my vote based on which one of you I think will represent my interests four years at a time rather than just the duration of the campaign.
Teapartyfriend
At the present time my opponent is “in business” politically and if you are happy with the way he has represented your interest for this last term then by all means vote for him, if you are looking for a different product then consider voting for me. I do appreciate your effort to make a good decision, our forefathers would be proud.
Why not ask these gentlemen to do a round 2 ? Since they are both business owners (and I don’t think any of the other races can say that), how about Q’s like these ?
1) What transparency issues will you be recommending going forward re: regular financial information of the City ? re: Public Works projects ?
2) What ideas do you have re: job creation in the 5th Ward ? Beyond 5th Ward ?
3) What efficiencies can you bring to the employees at the Civic Center,to enable them to truly be “servants of the public” ? What physical changes would you make at the Civic Center to improve the service experience of the public ?
4) In what manner should the City take the numerous studies which have indicated infrastructure deficiencies (e.g., no high speed internet, no jetways, no venture capital funds, no move-in ready large scale office space, etc.)and develop plans/obtain funding to solve these limitation ?
5) What steps will you take to streamline the actual City Council meetings ? For example, watching them on TV is a sure cure for insomnia. How can the nebulous, minor zoning variances and racing pigeons matters be handled “off camera”, and allow the main portion of the meeting to deal with the weighty issues facing this City ? In other words, the really good stuff (questions about Arena, Hotel) get stuck at the end of the meeting (“Miscellaneous”) after the Councilmen are already tired and want to go home. How can that be reversed such that Arena/Hotel gets “prime time” and the pigeons come home to roost in the wee hours ?
Although I find some of the issues of the meetings boring I do think that WNIN could do a better job, I’m not looking for editing out the dull stuff it gives views a chance to pay attention to the council-folk’s mannerisms and attention to the small stuff, but the audio levels sux they need either a sound engineer on site or go through the process of balancing the audio level before broadcasting the meetings.
And while I’m on the subject I think the meetings should be shown more often and expanded to public meetings of important boards like ERC, it’s is a publicly supported (tax dollars) TV station and all the questions about quilts and home improvements have already been answered.
JMHO
Do you know how much it cost the city or the county to broadcast each half hour portion of those meetings? I bet you and others would be squeeling like stuck pigs if every board meeting were broadcast.
I have no idea…enlighten me on the costs to the county and city to have WNIN tape and broadcast each meeting, WNIN is publicly funded (our tax dollars and federal monies) and it is part of their charter (PBS) as a broadcaster to provide this type of programming.
To fix the mic problem….just remove the red button, they should always be recorder while in session, they do work for the public and are on the public’s dime while at the meetings unless they are now working for free? While we are at it they should remove all cell phones from the meetings also.
JMHO
I’ll answer the second issue first. If all the mics were on at the same time, there would be mumbling, feedback, paper rustling, and other background noises interfering with the transcriber’s ability to accurately transcribe the minutes from the tape.
It costs $200 per half hour to broadcast meetings live on WNIN. So, how many hours of board meetings do you wish broadcasts?
$200 per half hour….that’s cheap by today’s standards, given the thousands of dollars wasted every day I say air every min of every meeting every day. Since a very small percent of the public actually has the ability to make the meetings and the news media slants reports whichever way the political wind is blowing, it gives the public insight into just what is going on where they can draw their own conclusions based on the facts not someone’s opinion.
Maybe the sound system needs a upgrade? ambient noise picked up by the mics is common, feedback can be controlled by using more then one audio channel and adjusting the gain on each channel, sound boards are cheap and every garage band has one, there’s little excuse in 2011 for a broadcast TV station to produce such a poorly engineered presentation. It’s almost like it is by design or on purpose that the audio is of such poor quality to discourage people from watching…or maybe no one there really cares and would rather the mics and cameras where not there at all?
I’ve watched public meetings on TV at a lot of cities while traveling and I have to say they don’t have the issues, they are far from a professional presentation but miles ahead of Evansville in producing something that is watchable without the sound jacked up to the max and still straining to hear the person talking.
JMHO
And it’s not always the audio system’s fault, or the audio engineer’s fault, that speakers cannot be heard. There’s little red buttons on the microphone base in front of each council member, and each council member has to remember to turn the mic on before speaking. However, that does not always happen, and it seems always to be the same couple of dumb bunnies (who ironically think of themselves as the council intelligencia) who forget to turn their mics on before speaking.
Those boring issues each are rezoning applications or other pertinent issues required by statute or local code to have a place on the regular agenda of the meeting. All those real juicy items that get you all hot and bothered are usually found way down low on the “other business” or “public comment” portion of the agenda because they’ve had their timely hearing higher up on a previous agenda, and are just returing for a rehash or beat down because someone cannot let the issue rest, kind of like it is here.
Soon2B:
1) As the earlier poster stated, what we need are Councilmen/women who are willing to “overhaul” the way business is done. If it’s required by statute or local code, then change them. I have watched several recent City Council meetings, both live and some on WNIN. From memory, I watched a lengthy Haney’s Corner zoning debate with numerous citizens involved; a zoning issue involving one guy who wanted an easement switched on either Illinois or Indiana Avenue–it was never clear to me; and I had the good fortune to watch the racing pigeons live and in person at the last meeting ! This is no way to run a city. The nine City Councilmen sit there and try to seem important, only most of them don’t have any clue where the property on which they are voting for a zoning change is even located ! Why not just involve the Councilman whose Ward contains the subject property, and that Councilman, the property owner, any people who object and the City Attorney just work it out before the meeting. The 9 Councilmen are treated like robots or puppets, however you like to say it, but they’ve really need to work on the important matters, not this bullshit; and
2) I also don’t agree with your comment re: ” just returning for a rehash or beat down because someone cannot let the issue rest”. If the Council has not voted on a specific issue, and it involves City business, then it’s fair game to give someone the floor. We need more debate and pondering of the really important matters. I support changes to make the City Council a more relevant Board (and not try to limit the big ticket items which they can debate). Here’s the proof-in-the-pudding: are we, as a City, better off or worse off if our City Council publicly debates the merits and negatives of various large-scale directions the City might take in the future ?
Yusef, your abbreviated idea for government, beside being about the most naive and brain dead idea I have ever heard, is also dangerously simplistic. If you let the rezoning petitioner and a single council member “work out” the rezoning request, even with the assistance of the municiple lawyer, you are asking for graft and corruption of a monumental proportion. Think about it.
Every rezoning application deserves a full hearing in front of the entire council, and all areas and constituencies within the jurisdiction deserve a voice in the decision. Think about it. It’s a matter of fairness and transparency. I cannot believe that anyone would want rezonings decided by one councilman, one lawyer, the petitioner (especially not a well-healed petitioner) out of sight of the public and full council.
I’m sorry that government is such a burden to your and other’s ADD mentalities.
I don’t think its naive at all. Who better to know the “turf” than that Ward’s councilman? As it is today, 2/3 of the council folks don’t know anything about the matter, so a lot of time is wasted. If you don’t have a better idea for recapturing that wasted time, then please don’t criticize. We need solutions, not someone shooting down fresh ideas. You must not watch very many of these meetings, these rezoning deals are not rocket science !
Soon2B: how would one get less graft and corruption by having a zoning request go before the full council vs. just one member ? The petitioner can still bribe the member who will “carry the torch”, and the others will fall in line unless they want a variance to sell meth to children. “Every rezoning application deserves a full hearing in front of the entire council . . .” ? Can’t wait to see your post with the ‘value add’ of this being done. Do you think the City Council of Los Angeles hears each and every zoning request, or perhaps have they found a way to liberate their city leaders from this tedium so they can get down to the serious business of the City ?
There is no use in arguing with the politically ignorant.
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