IS IT TRUE August 9, 2012

28

The Mole #??

IS IT TRUE August 9, 2012

IS IT TRUE CCO Mole #30 tells us that one third of the staff of GAGE have recently decided to seek their fortunes and futures elsewhere?…that a significant expansion of a Evansville grown business known as Sigma Packaging was announced yesterday with no smiling politicians, surrogates, or incentives granted to get this company to expand in Evansville?…home grown businesses are the key to a expanding and prosperous local economy and the sooner that the smokestack chasing folks get that through their heads the sooner Evansville has a chance to have a broad based economy of businesses who are here because they want to be here as opposed to being paid to come here?…that it is no coincidence that the headquarters of Apple is less than 3 miles from the garage that it was started in?

IS IT TRUE the fact that Whirlpool has announced its final departure from Evansville without some accompanying announcement that all of the unearned tax and cash incentives given to them by the City of Evansville has granted them will be paid back has many of our readers profoundly disappointed in local governance?…that Whirlpool was handed deal after deal by City leaders and has not completely fulfilled the requirements placed upon them to earn those incentives?…that if our Mayor, the Evansville City Council, GAGE, and any other parties involved in raiding the City coffers to give the money to Whirlpool do not have the courage or will to collect the money back for the people of this City then they should just hand it over to a collection agency and hope they have the wherewithal to do it?…it has been 3 days since the Whirlpool announcement and not a word about collecting our money has been uttered to the public?…that the question of how many other companies are out there that have not fulfilled their obligations and owe the City of Evansville money has come up multiple times?…that is a question worth exploring?

IS IT TRUE that at the recent joint budget hearings few County Council members attended?…that of those members, only one stayed for the entire meeting?…that County Council members are paid more money than City Council members, but generally have less responsibility? …that this sort of inexplicable city-county imbalance is prevalent throughout local government?…that sometimes having two separate councils makes it twice as hard to hold these councils accountable because of twice the meetings, twice the minutes, etc.?…that regardless of your position on consolidation, everyone should agree there is a better way to conduct business?…that if the County Council’s elected members don’t take joint budget hearings seriously enough to attend them that it could lead one to think that the County Council is willing to hand the reigns of forming the annual Vanderburgh County budget to the City Council?…that the County Council be abdicating their duties seems to be trying hard to prove to the people who elected them that they are irrelevant and uninterested in doing the job they were elected to do?

IS IT TRUE that it is not just the City of Evansville that has been in the habit of handing out incentives and cash to companies to get them to locate or expand here?…that County elected officials have engaged in the same practice and that we have not heard of the County officials repatriating any of the people’s money that was handed out either?…that if the City and County elected officials can possibly work together on one thing it should be on how to collect the monies owed to them by businesses that took the incentives and ran?…that would make for an interesting meeting to attend if only the County Council would muster the attention span to sit through the meeting?…collecting debts is part of the revenue line in the budget and should be given the same respect as the collection of taxes from citizens?…that every dollar of incentives granted to companies that do not fulfill their obligations is a dollar stolen by our elected officials from the taxpayers of Evansville?…that the thieves in this case are our elected officials and not the companies or cronies that they handed the money to?

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28 COMMENTS

  1. I was told that all the Evansville City Council members attended the joint budget meeting and stayed the entire meeting.

    All but three County Council members attended this meeting. Members not attending this meeting were; Tom shelter, Jim Raben and Mike Goebel. All but one member left this extremely important budget meeting before it was over. Newly appointed County Councilman, stayed so nhe could do the peoples financial business.

    Just in case it matter to individuals who are voting in the upcoming November election the following County Council members are on the ballot, Mike Goebel (didn’t attend meeting), Ed Bassemier (left meeting early) and Angela Koehler Lindsy (left meeting early) and Stephanie Terry (left meeting early).

  2. As a small business person in Evansville, my roots keep me here but they find no nourishment. I could run my business from any town, and if it could fit into a trunk, I likely would find another town.

    • Same here. Looking to move outside of the county. Too many poor decisions have been made and I am not going to stick around to pay for them.

    • I’d consider doing so if one existed.

      Alas, such an animal is as elusive as an honest Vectren lawyer.

    • This 2009 video and comment says a lot:

      http://youtu.be/ytEkvgURSJ0

      UNIGOV was passed in 1970. In 2009 the Marion County Sheriff’s Office became the only Sheriff’s Dept. in Indian without an enforcement division.

      Stripping away the power of an elected county sheriff, in favor of an appointed police chief, is no minor thing for those who respect the Indiana Constitution.

      It is however a major coup d’état for those who believe in APPOINTED government!

      __

      • I’m with you. I support Sheriff Williams only in that a consolidated Evansville-Vanderburgh County should include a consolidated law enforcement under the ELECTED sheriff! Which, unlike Sheriff Williams, I will be voting NO to consolidation.

    • There are a few minor details missing; where is the costs savings, how much will the transition cost, what about the salary differences of the few departments to be consolidated, city and county pension plans, etc., etc., etc. Pig-in-a-poke! Vote it in, and we will figure out how to make it work!

  5. People of courage it’s time to rebell.

    Vote against Ed Bassemier, Mike Goebel, Angela Koehler Lindsey and Stephanie Terry as your next County Council members. They all have breach the pubic trust by either not attending or leaving the joint city-county budget hearings early this week.

  6. I would like to know where any incentive money has gone if it was not earned, per whatever contract the City or County had with a business.

    I’m sure either entity would come after a land owner who didn’t pay his property taxes. It is only fair they go after corporations who fail to honor their contractual obligations.

    I smell an election issue brewing here. Council members would be smart to head this one off at the pass right now before it gets away from them and reaches potentially scandalous proportions.

    All of that being said, once again I have to reiterate why it is a BAD IDEA to entertain this practice of giving “financial incentives”, i.e. shows of political FAVORITISM to one company over another. There is great potential for abuse in this kind of process.

    I would support an amendment to the Vanderburgh County Code and the Evansville City Code banning this practice. That would weed out a great deal of cronyism and fraud and ensure that if politicians want to attract new business to Evansville, they will have to do it honestly and with balance and fairness to ALL local business, not just their preferred ones.

    • Good luck. You have twice the code to amend and twice the subcommittees to navigate.

      When bureaucracy becomes this bloated and tough to navigate, it insulates those in power. Only with a more simple, direct, and transparent local government will we finally be able to change things.

      That’s one reason I’m voting yes on consolidation.

      • Mark O

        Never vote for appointed power over elected power if you want to change things.

        When things are not going right it is usually the result of an uninformed electorate.

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        • Playing devil’s advocate here… what positions would be appointed under unification you object to that are not already appointed? Please be specific.

          • You could start with the Deputy Mayor, Director of Finance, Pubic Information Director, “and such other department directors and deputy directors as required for the efficient operation and management of the Combined Government” (art. 2.7)

          • Blatant lie by Zenacher5. Those positions all exist now. None of that is new, nor are the powers you cite new. Quite misleading and lying.

          • I have major problems with consolidationa. I’ll lay them all out right now and cite sources as I go along so there is no confusion…

            1: THERE ARE NO TERM LIMITS FOR MAYOR OR COUNCIL! [SOURCE: http://www.yesforunification.com/about/the-plan/ Section (4).]

            2: An APPOINTED “Transition Board” will oversee the details of the actual consolidation, meaning “we’ll just iron all of this fine print out later and appoint the people who do it”. [SOURCE: http://www.yesforunification.com/about/the-plan/ Section (24).]

            3: If a Mayor cannot complete his term, the Deputy will serve in his stead until the PARTY the former Mayor was member of holds a caucus to APPOINT a new Mayor. I’d prefer a special election to a Party appointment. This is just protectionism for the two prevailing Parties. Why shouldn’t Independents have a say if a Mayor they elected cannot continue to hold office? [SOURCE: http://www.yesforunification.com/about/the-plan/ Section (2).]

            4: Consolidation Proponents keep making this argument that taxes will not increase, yet their own Plan says point blank, “Any INCREASES or decreases in tax rates that are the direct result of this Plan shall be phased in over a three year period”… Sounds to me like a clear acknowledgement taxes could increase. [SOURCE: http://www.yesforunification.com/about/the-plan/ Section (18).]

            5: Terms of 4 years for Council Members is too long, in my opinion. Terms of 2 years would ensure better accountability for recent actions. And I do not agree with the logic of having 3 at large Council Members. Why is electing 1 Mayor and 1 Councilman not enough for each neighborhood district? At the very least the AT-LARGE Councilmen should be elected to 2-year terms. [SOURCE: http://www.yesforunification.com/about/the-plan/ Sections (3) and (4).]

  7. No report on the decision yesterday by the election board to allow the consolidation referendum to stand? Of course the article on the C&P is full of comments from Della and others praising the decision and saying those against consolidation are fools/freeloaders.

  8. ” Mark O on August 9, 2012 at 1:12 pm

    Blatant lie by Zenacher5. Those positions all exist now. None of that is new, nor are the powers you cite new. Quite misleading and lying.”

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Mark O

    Those positions do not exist under county government. They exist under city government. So is everything that currently exists under city government automatically going to be elevated to the dominate positions and offices, and everything in county government is thrown over the cliff?

    This would be right in line with the attitudes of those who have promoted this referendum. It is after all a total takeover attempt of county government.

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  9. This video should be required viewing for anyone who is contemplating casting a vote in this fall’s election.

    I hope the CCO keeps a permanent link up the website connecting to this video so that everyone who visits here from now until the election can see where we are headed.

    Not mentioned in this video is that Stockton built a new arena in 2005. The city of Stockton has over twice the population of Evansville and only payed half of what Evansville did for the Ford Center.

    A major factor in Stockton’s downfall was lack of transparency of the city’s finances. Two factions are to blame there: the city for not openly publishing and promoting all the vital financial data, and the public for its apathy in not following what the city was doing with public tax dollars.

    Yes, the Stockton city council did sign off on all of the debt, but they want us to believe that they did not know what they were signing or were deliberately misinformed. The latter, of course, is a criminal act, the former shows they had no business holding a seat on the council.

    Before you start grinning and offer that such a thing could never happen here, just how much do you know about the city of Evansville’s finances during the 8 years of the Weinzapfel administration?

    I believe that the administration prior to Weinzapfel’s was the last one to publish a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the city of Evansville. No such report was published for any of the 8 years of the Weinzapfel administration! Why was that? Was stealth government the order of the day in that administration?

    What would a real audit of the cost to taxpayers of the Ford Center uncover? What went on behind the scenes concerning the purchasing of property down there, including the Executive INN and its demolition.

    Why was Evansville’s infrastructure left to rot for 8 years while a handful of well connected businessmen made millions on public/private projects of dubious value to the taxpayers?

    Evansville needs to clean their own house before they go looking for other local elected governments to conquer. The way I see it, voting for this consolidation plan would deprive Evansville’s leaders, most of whom were present for the 8 years of the Weinzapfel administration, of the satisfaction of seeing their handiwork of the last 8 years come to fruition.

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  10. This issue, of whether CORE’s reading of ststute is correct, will not be settled by determining which side presents a better media presence. Statute is statute and in cases like this only the courts determination counts.

    The Vanderburgh County Election Board does not exactly have a stellar record to stand on: allowing Mike Duckworth to continually hold dual lucrative offices, and having allowed the EVSC to place their petition on the ballot a mere 3 months after they pulled out of the petition and remonstrance procedure when the Vanderburgh County Taxpayers association filed a remonstrance petition against them. The statute stated that if EVSC pulled out of the process they could not place the question on the ballot for at least 1 year, and that petition had to be substantially different than the original.

    The Vanderburgh county Prosecutors Office, under Stan Levco, had the authority to seek the courts determination on whether Mr. Duckworth was holding dual lucrative offices, but no amount of prodding on my part could get Mr. Levco’s office to act.

    We here a lot about voter intimidation nowadays, but there is some real, palpable, voter intimidation that goes on around here and it all centers around the fact that certain individuals know that the average citizens is reluctant, or may not have the financial resources to file an
    action, or do not believe that it is proper for a private citizen to be forced to spend their money in order to enforce State statute.

    There needs to be a major attitude change in Evansville as to who is at the top of the food chain around here.

    I contend that it is the citizen who is at the top and I believe that our State Constitution backs that up.

    Having said that, I have to admit that even state statute can sometimes get out of whack and need revising.

    I cite the recent fiasco of the EVSC and The EVSC Foundation making an end-run around what the public thought was a cornerstone of government policy: the competitive bidding process for projects over a specified dollar amount.

    Since EVSC had already entered well into the process and contracts were already let, I believe the judge felt compelled to pull some rabbit out of the hat for them, calling EVSC’s actions legal, but not passing the smell test.

    That ruling has now opened the flood gates for any school corporation to do the same thing, virtually doing away with competitive bids for mult-million dollar building projects.

    As far as I know the Legislature has not yet moved to close that loophole in statute that “did not pass the smell test”. You need to personally contact your elected Indiana Legislature representative an inform them that is a high priority and needs to be dealt with immediately.

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  12. I have major problems with consolidation. I’ll outline them here. CCO doesn’t allow that many links, but if you want sources for each of these claims, I’ll provide them.

    1: There are NO TERM LIMITS for Mayor or Common Council Members.

    2: An appointed “Transition Board” will oversee the details of the actual consolidation, meaning “we’ll just iron all of this fine print out later and appoint the people who do it”.

    3: If a Mayor cannot complete his term, the Deputy will serve in his stead until the PARTY the former Mayor was member of holds a caucus to APPOINT a new Mayor. I’d prefer a special election to a Party appointment. This is just protectionism for the two prevailing Parties. Why shouldn’t Independents have a say if a Mayor they elected cannot continue to hold office?

    4: Consolidation Proponents keep making this argument that taxes will not increase, yet their own Plan says point blank, “Any INCREASES or decreases in tax rates that are the direct result of this Plan shall be phased in over a three year period”… Sounds to me like a clear acknowledgement taxes could increase.

    5: Terms of 4 years for Council Members is too long, in my opinion. Terms of 2 years would ensure better accountability. And I do not agree with the logic of having 3 at large Council Members. Why is electing 1 Mayor and 1 Councilman not enough for each neighborhood district? At the very least the AT-LARGE Councilmen should be elected to 2-year terms.

    6: Although the County Commissioner position is eliminated, the Mayor will immediately get a pay increase equal to the Commissioner’s previous salary. Furthermore, the Mayor’s salary cannot be lowered during his term without his consent.

    7: Anyone living within the General Services District, which comprises all of Vanderburgh County, including non-Evansville residents and those within the Town of Darmstadt, will be responsible for taxes designed to fund offices of the Common Council and Mayor of Evansville. City of Evansville residents will pay taxes in BOTH the General Services District AND in the Urban District of Evansville. Darmstadt residents will pay taxes to the General Services District as well, which fund the Evansville Mayor’s office. Why should Darmstadt residents and County residents be paying tribute to the Evansville Mayor?

    ————-

    My opposition to Consolidation is not knee jerk. I have deliberated on this quite a bit. I am not averse to progress, but all of the above problems would need to be rectified for me to support this proposal.

    • 1. There is no term limit for anyone in local government now. So how is that applicable at all to voting yes or no when it doesn’t change anything?

      2. No, the only details to iron out are the transition of combining the clerks and mild things like where to have the council chambers. It’s a detailed plan with all of the main points ironed out.

      3. Again, THAT’S HOW IT IS NOW.

      4. That was written into the plan when law enforcement was going to be combined. That would in fact result in a tax increase/decrease for some. But since it was excluded, there is no impact on taxes.

      5. Again, both councils have that term under the status quo. That isn’t changing anything, so it isn’t any worse. That’s not a reason to oppose it.

      6. I think this is a fair criticism, though (a) it’s outweighed by the advantages, and (b) the mayor does have more responsibility, so more pay seems logical.

      7. Again, don’t you realize that’s how things are now? Evansville residents pay both city and county taxes. That will continue. And Darmstadt residents pay for the county-wide executive already. That will continue. Why shouldn’t they?

      • You’re arguing against most of my points with “that’s how things are now” and “it isn’t any worse”… But if you’re reorganizing government, why on earth would you keep most of the status quo if you don’t like the status quo? Seems to me a prime time to change a few of these points for the better not to simply leave all the stuff you disagree with intact. If a referendum came up to keep the status quo, I’d vote against that too!

        On point 7, why wouldn’t it make more sense to have Evansville residents pay taxes in the Urban District, have County residents pay taxes in a County District, and Townships pay taxes in their individual townships?

        On point 3, there is no good reason a Mayor who leaves office should expect his political Party to be able to appoint a replacement. This is a disenfranchisement of the voters. What’s to prevent an incumbent Mayor who wants to retire from being persuaded by his Party to use his incumbent status to run again, resign, and let his Party decide who his replacement will be? That could be easily rectified during this Consolidation, but it isn’t.

        On point 4, I don’t buy it. Not for a minute.

        On point 6, if there are no savings salary wise to eliminating the County Commissioner, then why do it? Why consolidate power in one man rather than have two with some checks and balances? If we’re going to make these claims we will be saving all this money, then at least start here.

        —–

        Also, something I forgot to include in my former critique…if you read more into the Plan, the sewer liabilities will be phased in over 3 years and EQUALIZED across the residents of the County. …a pretty cheeky move there perpetrated by Evansville politicians upon County residents and township residents.

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