IS IT TRUE April 29, 2014

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Mole #??
Mole

IS IT TRUE that the Evansville City Council has finally put the wheels in motion that will most certainly lead to the $4.8 Million loan approval made under duress and on the basis of false information to be rescinded?…ORDINANCE G-2014-4 originating in the FINANCE COUNCIL and sponsored by the entire Evansville City Council AS A WHOLE is An Ordinance repealing Ordinance F-2012-1 that approved $4.8 Million loan to Earthcare Energy LLC?…last night was the first reading which sets the stage for the remaining readings and a 9 – 0 vote to rescind on May 12, 2014?…we are sure that the City of Evansville has not heard the last of the Earthcare Energy saga and that when it comes time to collect the $186,000 loan snuck to them by the Office of the Mayor things will get ugly?…that day of reckoning was conveniently set to be 4 months after the next City Elections?

IS IT TRUE with all of the pixie dust parties and golden shovel events to distract us it may have been easy for many people to have forgotten that the EPA and the City of Evansville have still not announced any decision with respect to the task, the timeline, and the cost of the sewer upgrades needed to eliminate the combined sewer overflow (CSO) problem?…we don’t even know when that news is going to be released?…one may ask how on earth with our credit limits about to be maxed how Evansville will be able to pay for what may end up being a BILLION DOLLARS in sewer repairs?..the answer to that riddle is WITH RATE INCREASES to cover the entire cost?…at the now prevailing rate of 7% interest just the interest on a BILLION DOLLARS will be $70 Million or over $100 per month?…when you toss in a 25 year term and average this tab over 50,000 ratepayers, the average water bill may rise by $150 per month from where it is today?…the water may be clean but we who pay these rates will have cleaned out wallets to match?…even then our sidewalks, roads, and housing stock will need another BILLION DOLLARS to be acceptable?

IS IT TRUE that the Vanderburgh County Republican Party is showing a tendency to splinter just like the Democrats did with their pinky shake meeting that split the party to elect Lloyd Winnecke to be our Mayor?…this split is not quite as stark as what happened with the Democrats but for a sitting County Commissioner like Joe Kiefer to endorse a candidate (John Montraselle) that is not the same candidate the party chairman Wayne Parke endorsed (Pete Swaim) for County Council shows a bit of a crack in the solidarity?…the CCO thinks that it is a good thing for people to let themselves be people as opposed to drones and enthusiastically endorse any practice that breaks straight ticket activities of both major parties?

 

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57 COMMENTS

  1. Editor:

    Kudos on the dramatic enhancements to the web site…I am happy to see more news. I confess I am still getting used to design and layout. When I log on to the CCO, I look for things in this order: 1. The CCO’s brand of Breaking News, 2. Editor’s informed opinion of priorities and the back-story on news and events…IIT., and after that…wherever those leads take me. For me, there’s little value in the editorial comic/front and center cartoon (top and front?), a poll front and center too?, a ticker too?. Maybe they’re fun…but they dominate some really valuable first look real estate.

      • Agreed….. I hope someone also has the good sense to loose the red background and move to a darker color, heck even black would be a better choice then the bright red which looks childish and amateurish for a redesigned site in 2014.

        JMHO

          • LOL…thank you, I’ll try to do better but spelling/syntax isn’t really a specialty of mine and I’m afraid I’m too old to change or care, I think my point was made even using the wrong word…but all the ever-present vocabulary/spelling Nazis on the interwebs does appreciate your effort to keep us’all on the straight and narrow path to excellence!

            Thanks again….

            JMHO

  2. Look. Downtown needs work. I am GLAD to see it is a priority for the City and it’s economic and planning/development officials. While EDITOR is correct in calling out the challenges…and having some fun doing it…I think Hooper is correct when he says “The current trend is to urbanize, where more and more people are moving back to cities, and in order to expand and improve we need to stop trying to be a suburb, and be more like a city.”

    • And that my friend takes planning and execution as opposed to random acts that are unrelated to each other. Mr. Hooper may have recognized a trend that is happening in other cities but there is no defined path for him to follow. Effective execution will take a solid plan with safety, infrastructure, essential retail like groceries, and that last necessity good public schools within a safe walking distance or public transportation. Evansville can do this if it will stop fixating on fun and games and start getting serious about the bare necessities of life.

      A downtown with fun and games may attract some hipsters who want to believe they are living in a big city. Without those bare necessities in place these hipsters will continue to meet, fall in love, start families, and move to suburbia where family needs are met.

      • Excellently stated and I agree. And you are right, strategy precedes tactics.

        • The question that I’d like to see answered by the people that post on here regularly is, “What’s the solution for downtown?”. You can’t say ignore it and let it rot like an abandined Detroit neighborhood. I hear a lot of opinions on what won’t work but I never hear any ideas on what will work.

          • The first part of any solution is a comprehensive plan that the population supports. There was one written in 2000. It has not been updated. It has a baseball stadium where the District is and an Arena somewhere other than where the Ford Center was built. The old saying “piss poor planning proceeds piss poor performance” fits the random projects in downtown Evansville like a glove. My opinion is think first, plan second, and execute afterward. This whole ready, fire, aim approach being done here is what got Detroit into the shape it is in now. Why is Evansville replicated the plans that have failed elsewhere?

          • How about the administration and all the planning this and planning that committees and boards get out of the way. Then let businesses work with other businesses to come up with their own plans and then let the citizens vote.

          • +1

            ….or I might add, some of the withdrawn from the arena balcony crowd wants to simply burn it down. What a bitter response.

          • One other issue is the transportation infrastructure there is flat out archaic,not just the crumby approach roads and Highways either,how about the the approach to the “Metro aviation hub” [snicker,snicker] EVV is an prime example of a community sitting on their thumbs for years.
            They are finally fixing the approach problems the Regulatory standards were busting their chops on for the last 40 years. Suppose that’s progress,however looking at the weather footprint at EVV today I wondered if the “commercial carriers could even operate at all due the crosswind factors on the shortsheeted runway 18-36 at that even safely.”
            4-22 is still X’ed out and slopped, ripped too pieces,SO, they couldn’t align an landing to that ongoing mess,as well.

            “Real Metro issues” that hold your place down seem to just go overlooked,and,in some cases end up as nothing more than someones sore ass flyby redirection memory,due too field restrictions.

            Destination EVV…Yup,go land somewhere else and take a bus to town if you are required to be there,at all.

            http://wn.com/c-130_assault_landing

            Meah…

      • Agree Joe,that’s plain and simple. The place has to be livable/usable and set forward for climate change,and livable means affordable,as well.

      • It’s a pretty sad comment to say that the best we can hope for is to create a living lie that allows some “hipsters who want to believe they are living in a big city” to act out their fantasy.
        If our county-wide population continues to shrink, we can forget downtown revitalization. We need a coherent plan to save and grow what we already have, and concentrate on general population growth. I expect that the predicted increase in water bills alone would sound a death knell for any hopes of growth. Then, take a look at our Vectren rates. Those things alone would pretty much preclude any new industry within Vanderburgh County, and if that happens, downtown revitalization is really a lost cause.
        It appears to me that at this point in time, the ado about bringing back downtown makes as much sense as getting a facelift to go to the gallows. We have more basic things to deal with, and if we do them successfully, downtown will come back of its own accord. It will take decades, but it will be real, not some hipsters’ fantasies.

        • LKB:

          Whew! LKB, normally you present a progressive, forward-thinking can-do attitude that isn’t afraid to tackle up-hill wrongs because of old-world prevailing attitudes.

          But it is ALL negative from you on protecting, growing and sustaining Evansville’s downtown. The majority of your input LKB boils down to “just go ahead an burn it down and build the suburbs.”

          There are those who do, and those who watch. If you have decided to throw in the towel because you’ve decided to move to warmer elder-friendly climes, then no problem. God bless you.

          But LKB, you don’t have to justify your moving away by trashing the, granted, uphill effort to protect the City’s historical core. Nothing worth doing is easy, is without struggle. It all requires getting back up when you make a mistake or fall down while you are moving forward. LKB, you seem to think you were one of those people once. Well not anymore.

          We love it here. We want to stay and build success.

          • Whew,looks to us from afar,like you both have the same goal,ever think about creating a plan with some real life viable objectives to get there Weinz? That’s the difference. The objectives must include worth for the whole unit perceived as an community moved forward.
            Nothing as planned so far meets that objective,so that will just fail,as well as, add some more costly time wasted due any areas recovery.

            The goal is achievable,but the present pathway taken isn’t going to touch what will make the Downtown a viable district flow point for the whole communities commercial or residential needs.

          • V-R…I’m not sure we agree. I do think the focus by the City and it’s planning and economic officials on downtown growth and sustainability is correct. I do think Evansville’s downtown is a valuable, important, foundational and historical component of the overall health of the entire county. And I think the IU-Med school project is a nice part of continuing the goal. The initiatives to develop downtown residential projects, also excellent. Initiatives for hospitality and meeting space development, also good for the continuing goal. And each of those initiatives are designed to positively influence downtown retail and living quality, also excellent. That being said, of course transparency and ethical dealings are a prerequisite for any project and business, not just those downtown.

          • My children are becoming a part of the “brain drain” the area is suffering from. It just so happens that they are rearing my grandchildren in better climates, while sending them to excellent schools, and enjoying professional successes not available to them here. My arthritic joints look forward to the transition to better climates, but you can bet your bottom dollar they’d just have to suffer if my family felt that their futures were here.
            I am not “trashing” Evansville. I am looking at it through clear eyes. I am sickened at what the citizenry of this town has elected to lead it, ever downward, with self-interest as their main motivation. You can’t save people from themselves.

          • I don’t “think” I was a backer of downtown. I know, that by serving as the sole sponsor of the Washington Ave Historic District, founding a Neighborhood Association, and MOST of all, rearing my family there, I was a backer of downtown revitalization.

        • +1 After 70 million for the mythical hotel, $130 million for the Ford Center, now another $80 million for IUMSW, not to mention the money spent on the yet to be finished Victory, the yet up be collected $10M per condo unit incentive, the new library, Vectren and ONB HQs (neither want to be there), and the McCrudy incentives, how much more do you want to spend on downtown as a driver of growth. It should be a reflection of growth and wealth.

    • I live in Chicago but came here from Evansville. There are two reasons that are driving people back to living in The Loop. Those are the hour long commutes and the cost of gas. Until traffic in Evansville makes your commute a miserable and expensive experience, there is nothing that will compel people to move downtown. The few exceptions are of course some empty nesters and the people that spend their evenings at Hammerheads, The Jungle, and Tropicana. That combination of misfits is kryptonite to a young family that likes a yard. Downtown may succeed as Pleasure Island (where Pinochio went to be turned into a jackass) but not as a place to raise children.

    • I don’t have a problem with that per se. Though I think the numbers the editor calculated per apartment are reasonable and asks valid questions of just who could afford it. Certainly not students and of those professions capable, it is questionable if they really would in numbers great enough. On the whole I strongly dislike the notion of using taxpayer money as an enticement to get people to live in a downtown area. It is artificial and does not really address any real problems why it is vacant.

      In my opinion this and past administrations have a lousy track record of spending taxes in a wise fashion and think it is about time they get out of the real estate business. I think it was LKB that mentioned to the effect it is apparent that private money sees little profit to be made in downtown.

      I agree and in my view a very large portion of that reluctance is from cronyism and administrations deciding on the “winners and losers”, but most importantly the city does not have the population (its been in decline) to sustain all the pixie dust (editors terms) dreams at this time.

      It is clear to me of the past attempts to do something about downtown are part and parcel of the same old games of politics and favoritism that have failed and continue to fail falling short of the grandiose promises. Try something new. Give private money the opportunity to create their own plans using their own investment monies (sans taxpayer support) and let the citizens vote to which is their favor and keep the government out of it.

      Downtowns thrive when a city has a vibrant and diversified economy in the downtown area and its surrounding areas, those things pull in the local, surrounding populations and those from afar. That does not exist in Evansville.

      Shuffling students around amounts to nothing more than a game of three card monte.

  3. is it true that the Democrats are glad there are no contested primaries except for a few precinct committeeperson slots?

  4. The scene at The Jungle ten years ago was a artist/hipster paradise. Then Hammerheads starting catering to “the wrong crowd” with their music selection and attracting “the wrong crowd” to other downtown venues as well. I liked hanging out with the hipsters (my girlfriend was one) but they were wrongheaded about so many things that I have trouble feeling sorry for them. Think of 20 “Ghost of Tom Joad” twenty somethings parroting the same platitudes they heard on Oberman the night before.

    • Going to bars and nightclubs has almost nothing to do w/ downtown development. Worst, when you do see it, “Big Shoulders” is right, it is like kryptonite to successful, sustainable downtown living environments. Approving another bull-riding nightclub…and other such crap, is the wrong focus.

    • You don’t know shit about me, but I’ll tell you I’m far from a hipster. Let me ask you, were these hipsters violent? I doubt it. What’s your point or are you just babbling?

      • The violence level of the “hipsters” isn’t the point. I think the point is this; advocating bars move into a downtown area is not a sound basis to entice people to live there. The way you do it in my view is get businesses to move in which provides a motivation for people to move there and then things like grocery stores and bars will move in.

        His last sentence was just a cheap pot shot.

        • You’ve got it backwards. Businesses move in AFTER the people do, and it isn’t going to happen in the downtown Evansville is aiming for. The article that appeared on CCO about how Evansville isn’t, and probably never will be, attractive to a Trader Joe’s is the best, clearest explanation of what’s wrong here and what we need to do.
          Just think about it. Do you envision opening a business in a low-population, high cost location and operating at a loss until you can attract a population to support it?

          • That’s your view and for a business like Traders Joe that decision factor works has worked for them. They are in the retail business and clearly downtown as it exists today does not fit.

            I am referring to the non-retail, wholesale and other types of businesses requiring people to work in downtown. Sure there are businesses there now but there is hardly enough there for the critical mass to cause people to chose it as a living location. Evansville is far to small for that critical mass, ignoring for the moment the rest of its issues.

        • I am replying here to your “reply” to my “reply”, because we ran out of “reply buttons.”

          “I am referring to the non-retail, wholesale and other types of businesses requiring people to work in downtown.”

          Could you cite some examples? I’m not quite sure what you are talking about. Bearing in mind that online business is biting into “brick and mortar” enterprises, I’m having difficulty thinking of many.

          • Just for description purposes and to save some typing. I mean any business involved with wholesale and that covers a fair amount of business ground in the sense of economic sectors. Then there many different types of manufacturing businesses. You are right to note the Internet has changed how most businesses conduct B2B and that is a challenge.

            Unless my memory if foggy (possible) it seems most efforts by the administrations appear to favor a business with few employees that requires a large number of customers traveling to their store. The focus of that statement needs to be “few employees”. That’s the way retail works and those few employees are not enough to form a critical mass. If that is to be the focus, how many retail businesses can be accommodated in downtown? Not enough I don’t think.

            In my view the focus needs to be on those types of businesses with few customers needing to visit (like Traders Joe) and many employees. Not saying ignore retail, its useful but the employee to customer ratio needs the reverse. There is only so much space in “downtown” unless there are plans to expand its footprint. If the goal is to get people to live in downtown you have to have a reason for them to be there and shopping, boozing around, renting a hotel room for various purposes and gambling just ain’t it; all those are just temporary events and hardly motivators to move there. So yeah, those are some “amenities” and do exist but thus far no one is biting.

      • “His last sentence was just a cheap pot shot.”

        Maybe it was. I was definitely implying that I knew what they would say about a issue before they did, just like most of us can do for GOTJ. It’s kind of like a game for us. Read article, check Dem. playbook for authorized response, and then see if GOTJ went word for word or mixed it up a little!

        • Same could be said for you and Glenn Beck. Who pissed in your cereal this morning bud?

          • Shows what you know! Beck and his neo-con cohorts are just as ruinous to this country as you and your ilk. Anyway, like I said, its a fun little game…keep up the entertainment!

          • I’m glad you’re so interested in what I have to say. A little weird, but I’m ok with it.

    • +1 The Office was nice as was the Firkin Pub and the Jungle along with the Aztar. I think there was also a wine bar in a basement along main as well. Different time with a more wealthy bunch of 20 and 30 year olds that wanted something nicer than just a beer and shot and go play Xbox at home.

  6. In the last Mayoral election, the people of Evansville had a chance to elect a good man. The idea of having a mayor that the REAL bosses couldn’t control was just too much, so the Democrats abandoned the “good guy.” I pretty much lost hope for the City then.
    Anybody who can read yesterday’s local news and not get queasy either has a very strong stomach or a very weak will.

    • Yes, that group of backstabbing Democrats destroyed Evansville’s chance of having a good, decent man as mayor.

      I miss Pressanykey’s posts.

  7. Donald Sterling invaded another country on false pretenses, brought the economy to its knees, illegally spied on US citizens, shut down the world’s busiest bridge to spite poltical opponents, used hurricane relief money to fund his re-election campaign, denied millions of Americans the basic human right to get married and share their lives together, and voted 50 times to deny millions of Americans health care so the NBA, the American people and the media said they had, had enough and today put the hammer down on Doanld Sterling…….

    Oh wait sorry Never mind.

    • It’s a shame they can’t pin the slo-mo horror that took place in an Oklahoma execution chamber last night on him, too. Looks like Mary Fallon may have to carry that one around with her, though.
      Of course, I expect that many people will just dismiss it with an “Oh, well. He caused suffering,too,” instead of taking a look at the civility of what was done.

      • Not saying it’s becoming the norm, but the last one they killed in Ohio was tortured too. The capital punishment states are apparently free to experiment with various drug combinations. Really nasty business. Scalia announced a couple of years ago that the constitution doesn’t require a pain free death for condemned inmates. Not sure what ‘cruel and unusual’ means to him.

        The two who were to be executed last night in Oklahoma committed heinous crimes but what is happening in the nation’s execution chambers is horrific too.

        • Just a thought. How about cruel and unusual to be greater than the methods used by the murderer.

          • How about we as a society NOT lower ourseleves to the depravity and inhumanity, of murderers, rapists and other degenerates?

            How about we stop being the most vindicitive and cruel socity in the developed world?

            Just a thought.

          • That definiton that would almost define justice. It almost surely wouldn’t pass muster with the Supremes.

            Unless they puposely string the actual execution out for punishment purposes, I think the worst of it for the inmate is waking up every day for 8-25 years knowing one day they are going to jerk him out of his cell and kill him. I haven’t read of any murderers doing that to their victims.

            It’s easy to be for capital punishment, especially when you’ve got a couple of guys like Oklahoma was going to execute last night, but it’s a nasty business. Most countries don’t do it. With the protracted appellate procedures those who would get some cold comfort from the death of a killer of their loved ones will already be gone themselves.

            I read a book about John Spenkelink’s execution in Florida (I’ve read many books on the subject). I believe he was the first ‘non-volunteer’ after the Supremes okayed the states to reinstate the death penalty. (Gary Gilmore was first, I think, but he volunteered). There was a flurry of legal stuff being filed in Florida in the weeks leading up to Spenkelink’s death in the electric chair. A lot of the same attorneys (from each side, the defense and the state) often ran into each other at least in passing in airports and so on. One of the state’s attorneys mentioned to another who was trying to save Spenkelink that it was a ‘dirty business’ they were engaged in. The state’s attorneys were doing their job but didn’t necessarily like it.

            All in all I don’t think it does any good except to sate society’s need for retribution. There’s something to be said for that, but not much. I know if somebody killed someone I loved, I’d want them dead a whole lot sooner that the current legal process can do it. I think the death penalty should be done away with again, in favor of life in prison with no chance of parole. And a cellmate called Bubba.

          • The murderer got off easy and I have no sympathy for anyone that would shoot another and then watch two accomplices bury the person alive.

    • Yeah truly horrible Brains.

      People are so sensitive they have taken sticks and stones like Latrell Sprewell strangling his coach and being suspended but not for life and , JR Smith causing the death of passenger but only getting a 9 game suspension and not for life as OK, fair punishment or whatever. To changing the rest but names can hurt me and ban a guy for his personal opinion.

      Funny how people can ignore some of the more serious bodily injuring acts and then turn around all righteous at a guys personal opinion. Not saying there isn’t consequences from what one says but more often than not actions are ignored or minimized. So I guess on this issue, players have to have an equal history of violence of the same degree Mr. Sterling has held his opinions and actions before they would get banned… for life.

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