Evansville Redevelopment Commissioner Ed Hafer in an email to City Council Budget Chairman John Friend, CPA admits that the ERC voted unanimously in favor of the downtown hotel project without having current projections and pro-formas from the developer. An excerpt from the correspondence from Hafer to Friend is as follows
“With respect to the information you are seeking; I believe you are under the
impression that I have far more information than I actually have. All I have are
early projections as to the hotel operations and a one page pro-forma that was
completed in February that is very close to the final room count, but I do not
know if it conforms to their latest assumptions with regard to occupancy rates,
room rates, expenses etc.”
To Which Councilman Friend Responded as follows:
“Ed
Not sure if you received my email concerning confirmation that I can meet
with Rick Huffman tomorrow at 1 pm at my office. During our meeting with the
Mayor, last Tuesday morning, when I asked for the Business Plan, you pointed to
reports in front of you and indicated that you would have to speak with Rick
Huffman about releasing what clearly appeared to be an extension document. Now,
you are indicating that you do not have a comprehensive document, in some
circles a private prospectus and in others, a Business Plan. Please don’t tell
me that the ERC would take up such a multi-millions dollar project without the
benefit of receiving the comprehensive business plan, with pro forma information
over at least three years, the assumptions and assertions, management team
expertise, those sort of things. If this is the case, obviously, this would be
outside of the definition of “Best Business Practices” Please note that I will
be expecting to receive a comprehensive business [prospectus] Plan with all the
necessary assumptions, etc. therein tomorrow from Mr. Huffman…. Thanks, John
Come on CCO, you must be kidding. No one with even a day of business experience or two brain cells that function would vote for something they have not ever even seen projections for. These bastards are worse than the Obama congress of 2009 – 2010.
Ed Hafer is doing a good job at the ERC. Friend needs to learn to be more patient and not loose his cool. He will get the data at the proper time.
Hafer = Evansville’s Nancy Pelosi For God’s sake man, he voted for the thing without even having a plan to read. How can you equate that to doing a good job? Are you the president of the Branson developer that is getting the handout?
Ed was not born last night and he is a successful businessman. You can bet he has seen or did the economics on this project.
I think any chance of a vote on the 19th is looking extremely remote.
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If any political officeholder wants to be re-elected, he or she will be voting for the hotel to be built.
The hell you say?
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Sadly, he may be right. The unions will turn on him or her, and the establishment media is primed to report any lack of a new hotel as a “failure” of government, complete with the scapegoats who vote “no”, that is, unless you give them a better alternative narrative they can run with.
The opposition’s only hope is to have a well-formed counter attack ready. I suggest starting a group opposed to the hotel idea, meeting regularly, and electing one or two spokespeople adept at giving TV interviews, and one PR person who is responsible for sending out press releases.
Any spokesperson will need to be able to communicate the high points of the opposing position in a concise way to a general audience and know how to thwart any tricks at clever editing. In an average 3-minute interview for TV, you only get about 10 seconds of actual airtime.
The more grassroots your opposition appears to be to the average Joe, the more likely he is to identify with your side of the argument. Local business owners, particularly local hotel proprietors would make IDEAL counter-spokespeople. Why should their established, taxpaying business suffer at the hands of a government-subsidized competitor from out of state?
Whatever the opposition chooses to do, they better get their asses in gear sooner rather than later!
I can’t believe the e-mail that the Chairmen of the ERC E-mailed to Evansville City Councilmen John Friend yesterday. We are talking about a proposed $74,000 million dollar project to build a much needed downtown convention hotel and Mr. Hafer admits that he didn’t have all the financial before voting for this project.
Something wrong in River City. Oh, I think the resignation of Mr. Hafer from the ERC board is in order.
He’s been on the dole so long he probably has a vested pension comming. Why let him quit, demand wiekeke fire him or have a mayorial recall vote. Time for a reconing, he inherited a over-flowing toilet, but he should have this straitened out by now. If he can’t handle it he should Quit.
Get ready for another Earthcare deal in the making. Wonder why Gage and Debbie Dewey wasn’t allowed to help in vetting this multi million tax supported project?
I voted for the Mayor and give a large sum to his election committee and must say I was an idiot to do so. It’s obvious that the Mayor is an empty suit when it comes important big ticket tax supported projects.
Chairmen Wayne Parks please don’t ever ask me or many conservative friends to donate another dine to Winnenke or Marsha Abell re-election campaigns. Fact is that I’m one of many big ticket contributors to the local Republican party that is completely feed up with self serving politicians. You should spend more time and effort in screening who carries our conservative banner in local politics in the future.
What makes you think Gage was not involved? One clue is that Winnecke is claiming that there is no tax abatement. Tax abatements are graded by Gage and require financial information, commitments to hire a certain number of people, and a budget. Winnecke was able to hide the fact that the numbers were not in order by keeping Gage out of the loop.
Please call me to dicuss. I would like to hear more about your views.
Wayne Parke
Chairman VCRP
Good for you, Sir. Hold their feet to the fire. If it looks like a rat, acts like a rat, and even smells like a rat, it sure as hell ain’t a bunny rabbit.
Mr. Parke, this is just the sort of thing I warned you about, but you came back at me with a smugness and a surety saying, “Well, I was just elected to another four year term as Chairman.” That might be unfortunately true, but the fact remains, your participation and support in all of these spending fiascos, your reluctance to distance our Party from Winnecke’s short-sightedness, and your seeming enthusiasm for acting like a spendthrift Democrat is tearing our Party apart. I don’t care how many bullshit artists calling themselves “tea party” hang out in that spiders den you call a headquarters, you have made yourself into the very thing our Platform professes to oppose.
Once again the CCO has reaffirmed my decision to only work in Evansville and not live here. Warrick is not great, but it is so much better than Evansville and Boss Winnecke.
There is no “Boss Winnecke”. Boss Jon is still at the wheel. We hand an election, but it didn’t take, just quietly, as my Assuie friend would say.
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Make that: “my Aussie friend”.
Is there really anything left to say about this Scheme by the Rulers of Evansville?
Evansville’s Elitists, feed on “filthy lucre”, with “dirty” hands, and proceed with “in your Face” arrogance,and gluttony,–as they pillage the Public Treasury, and pile bonded debt on Our Children and Grandchildren, for years to come..
I dare anyone to show me in the ERC bylaws where members are required to actually consider such esoteric details as whether or not the business entity will actually SURVIVE before handing them $ 37.5 MM. There is nothing like that required.
The ERC is an appointed, hand-picked group of toadies and yes-men. “There’s is not to question why; there’s is but to rubber stamp and fly ! “
This hotel deal seems like a bad dream. Ask the citizens of Paducah how they did in the hotel business. $$$$$ gone.
Ed Hafer. He’s the guy who built Roberts Stadium into the spring.
Why are we still listening to him?
Why is he still getting public money?
Because the secret society that runs Evansville gives it to him. Someone called them the Illuminati earlier but I think a crime syndicate or cartel is a better description.
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