IS IT TRUE February 14, 2013

16
The Mole #??
The Mole #??

IS IT TRUE that the Indiana University Medical School is, indeed, coming to Southwestern Indiana?…the study indicates that downtown Evansville is most desirable, but, stop the presses, isn’t there a phase two study not yet begun?…the phase two study is to be completed by November of this year?…that four square blocks of downtown real estate is necessary after the cost of demolition and Indiana University will NOT pay for the site ready land and why should they because USI has all the land necessary without cost?…the legislature will be addressing this issue in the 2014 General Assembly and will only appropriate one half of the cost?…considering the city was going to select D-Patrick’s one square block for a bargain price tag between 9-11 million dollars excluding the cost of demolition, it would NOT be unreasonable to assume the cost of site-readiness could be at least 20 million dollars including demolition expenses?…that Indiana University pays NO property taxes, and that this would have an adverse effect on the downtown TIF?…and over one third of the TIF pays for the Ford Center and perhaps the downtown Hotel needs to be deferred until the completion of any Medical school facility?… if the City has to come up with the one half [10 million dollars] and they have comment to 20 million or more for the hotel, the Winnecke Administration could end up with a Hotel hanging on by a thread and miss the opportunity to have a school which will employ highly paid individuals?… that the study suggest going to Warrick County if the downtown option is not feasible or affordable? …that in Grand Rapids, MI, the downtown medical school has created economic dividend to their downtown and has facilitated the development of hotels in the downtown area without public resources in the mix?…a convention hotel was built in Bloomington, IN, but, if it wasn’t for Indiana University, the hotel would have failed?

IS IT TRUE that the saga of the anonymous caller with a vendetta against David Garrett took an interesting turn yesterday when it was revealed that Scott Danks has been retained by Mr. Garrett to represent him in seeking to restore his reputation that someone or some team clearly tried to tarnish to keep whatever he has discovered about the City of Evansville’s finances from seeing the light of day?…those of us that know Scott Danks also know that he will tirelessly pursue the relief that Mr. Garrett has hired him to secure?…the last person or people or even company that any of us here at the CCO would want to be right now is whomever placed that call or was a part of any action that has defamed the excellent business analyst reputation of Mr. David Garrett?…this will be most interesting to watch unfold as some ratting out is already starting to happen?…tensions are so high among the membership of the Evansville City Council that allegations of nasty name calling are abundant?…we are pleased to report that the Mole Nation has not come forth with the name of Councilman Al Lindsey or with that powerful substance called alcohol as being involved in the alleged name calling?

IS IT TRUE that counter to what is coming out of the Office of the Evansville Controller inside sources tell the CCO that the MIPS software conversion is still not working flawlessly over at the Department of Water and Sewer?…the truth should be coming out very soon as another state audit report is supposed to be coming out?…we sure do hope the saga of the blown software installation ends soon or the computers that it was installed on will become obsolete and we will have to start all over again with new hardware?…in a world where the useful life of a computer is 3 years any company or municipality that can’t install a program in less than a couple of months is going to find itself back in the horse and buggy days without a whip?…such places may have to balance their books by hand?…that is where the City of Evansville has been for over two years now?…we have it on good authority that it is just a case of Montezuma’s revenge that the City came down with while trying to convert to the Aztec calendar?

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16 COMMENTS

  1. IUSME (Indiana University School of Medicine Evansville) has existed in Evansville for 40 years now. The school is expanding from a 2 year program (students have gone north for their remaining 2 years of med school) to a full fledged 4 year program, hence the need for more space.

  3. CCO..I just love your very appropriate use of the term “Ratting Out” !

    I hope fumigation will occur in the coming elections to flush away he political parasites this town has endured far too long.

  4. Anything ever come of the request for information from the Sheriff? Probably just getting swept under the rug as usual.

  5. Why hasn’t anyone brought up the point that if the City would hire competent people in the Controller’s Office in the first place then they wouldn’t need Mr. Garrett’s services. No CPA and bankruptcy. Sounds like everyone that currently works in that Office except Russ.

  6. Let me get this straight… IU wants to put a campus downtown but doesn’t want to pay for the land?

    Doesn’t anyone else realize we are in the midst of a bubble in higher education and that enrollment is already showing signs of weakness across the country? The jobs don’t exist for graduates in the depressed marketplace and the guarantor of all the spending on education – the Federal Government – is quickly going broke?

    …and we are seriously considering buying a chunk of land for a school which already boasts an endowment of $1.57 BILLION? Come on.

    http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2011_NCSE_Public_Tables_Endowment_Market_Values_Final_January_17_2012.pdf

    • Has everyone forgotten that in a short six-month period, the O’Daniels family (D-Patrick) bought up 2 full blocks and the 2 abutting half blocks in downtown Evansville, just before Weinzapfel was going to announce the location of his monument to himself?

      Have you forgotten that O’Daniels was left holding the bag when the Taxpayers Association put the pieces together and exposed the under the table deal forcing Weinzapfel to either admit to the deal or to make other plans. He chose to reduce the size of the arena and seating and cram the Jon onto the Executive Inn site overhanging MLK Jr. Blvd. and 6th St..

      This is just a deal to take some of that land off O’Daniels books and put a sizable chunk of taxpayers’ dollars in their bank account, regardless of the damage it will do to the TIF revenues for the arena and the Pigeon Twp. property tax stream. I think that is called a political payoff.

      This may end up like the arena hotel, McCurdy renovation and EarthCare, just another happy, happy headline with promises of good jobs and no results.

      More Evansville dirty politics and insider deals.

      • Thanks for that refresher. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out you were right on the money here. Someone always benefits. If it were the stock market it would be called “insider trading”.

        Why can’t local government just be libertarian? It’s so easy a cave man could understand it. Live within your means. Don’t take from one sector of society and give to another. Don’t hand out special favors or put any group above another in policy or practice. If you wouldn’t do it for a single individual, why do it for a group of them (a corporation)?

  7. Don’t we have the former Old National Bank building downtown that is nearly empty? Why can’t the IU Medical Campus take a few floors of that facility?

    • Because that wouldn’t be free real estate to further bolster their $1.57 billion endowment. Why take just a pint if you can suckle the cow dry?

    • The last time I looked the McCurdy was vacant and it’s $600,000 parking lot was also vacant. But, I’m not a highly paid out of town consultant. So the possibility of the IU Medical Campus being located in a vacant historical river-front building is not likely to happen.

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