IS IT TRUE? February 20, 2012

1. Is it legal for money from the former Mayor’s half-million dollar re-election contributions to be used to pay off the Democrats bill at the Bauer House?

   • Of course. He could donate to the party and they could then pay off the bill. There are other bills that would appreciate being paid too.

     • um-Democrat party donations to a Weinzapfel campaign that doesn’t exist-not playmoney. If it IS playmoney then they call that kickback-same as the other $$$ Weinzapfel made under the table with his Indy pals. It is supposedly campaign money-either give it back or give it to the Democratic party that got you in office-if it is graft, someone has committed a crime.

       • or better yet, throw it down the toilet and give it to zebracoat (God knows SHE’s entitled to some sell out $$$, she was such a good little closet Republican) and tell her high time to get rid of some butt ugly clothes. I hope you know most of us would not elect her as dogcatcher.
         Kharma, sometimes you are way too slow! There are so many greasies in that little puppetshow, it gives us all high cholesterol-you can’t come too soon.

   • Why would you even ask?
     He’s far too selfish to do something like that.

2. RE: Information Technology Audit:

   Why not just go ahead with the $$$ the City has in the Budget and have the auditors just audit the CITY’s functions ? My guess is that there will be significant findings there, and that will serve as a catalyst for the County to get off of their butts and get some money appropriated. Come on John Friend, don’t let the County slow you down, put the ball in play on the City 1/2.

   • What is the total estimate for the complete audit, city and county combined?

     What is the estimated cost for the city’s portion of the audit?

     What exactly will the audit accomplish for the County?

     Who will conduct the audit?

     Who provides the tecnical services for the county sheriff? For the courts?

     Who does the IT department report to directly, and I mean the primary authority to whom the IT department contract administrators report to first and primarilly – the mayor, the county commissioners, the city council, or the county council?

     • Soon2B:

       You posed seven (7) questions, and I believe I know the answer to two of them:

       Who will conduct the audit ? I believe the firm of McGladrey Pullin (spelling) was the company with the best credentials and price to do the work (at least I believe their quote was used for setting the ‘budget’ for the City–at least the 1/2 );

       Who does the IT department report to directly ? At least under JW, the City had a CIO (Chief Information Officer), Matt Arvay (spelling) who reported to the Mayor. The entire IT department is outsourced, and the contract is held by Mark Rolley Consulting (Mark Rolley is a former City policeman, BTW). Also of note is that Mark Rolley Consulting received a new 5-year contract in the last few months of JW’s tenure. IMO, these ‘going-away present’ contracts for service providers should always be revoked and revisited by the new administration (just like the Johnson Controls deal for Water Dept. should ).

       • Thank you, BeerGuy. I was also hoping the editor would weigh in because this audit seems to be one of his hot topics for the past week or so.

         I’d also like to know how many hours are spent by the IT department serving the city in comparison to the hour count working for the county. Those figures should be available from the IT department without an audit. Then we could see if the editor’s suggestion that the county put up its “50%” for the professional audit.

         And, oh lookie here, the article has been edited to remove the previously phrased encouragement for John Friend to initiate the audit and force the county to kick in 50%. Why was the article edited after I asked my questions, Mr. Ed?

         • Soon2B,

           I am advocating for a full audit (City + County), and that if the City has money budgeted, get the ball rolling now with hope that County joins later.

           It sounds like you are in favor of the City part going forward but not the County ? If that is correct, are you stating that the County’s portion is far less than 50% of total services provided, and thus the City should kick in more of the audit fee than just 50 % ??

         • I am not advocating for or against an audit of the IT department. I am asking questions in hopes that the answers will lead me to an opinion for or against an audit.

           What will it accomplish? How much will it cost? Whether the sheriff’s department, the courts, and the prosecutor’s office are included as county entities served by the IT department? If not, then what is the balance of services rendered by IT between the city and the county? What percentage of the cost of the audit is the county asked to pay? Who is the IT department’s direct political boss? Etc.

           I have not seen all the answers. But I continue to see this clamour for the county to “pay its share.” So, I’m asking what is the county’s share, and what benefit will county government realize from the audit?

         • Okay, BeerGuy, I did a bit of checking:

           The audit is estimated at 90,000 to 100,000 dollars.

           Generally, the politician(s) who have been clamouring for the audit (basically as a campaign issue back in 2011), hope to discover if the city and county “are getting their value” and whether the IT contractor is fulfilling the contratual terms.

           Seems to me that the two finance chairmen, one of them being a certified public accountant, and the other being a longtime finance chair who should be completely familiar with determining compliance with contractual obligations, can ferret out such details.

           After all, the IT contractor submits annual and periodic reports. Are the council members reading them? In particular, is the council member who is beating this drum reading the IT contractor’s reports?

           I ask because two of the issues raised by two particularly critical city councilmen are their desire for voice-over IT (VOIT) and virtualization capabilities. Guess what? We’ve had those programs in place since 2006. So, why didn’t the two councilmen know that? I guess they’re too busy soapboxing and not spending enough time asking the right people the right questions. You think?

           Bottom line: I think this entire clamour for an audit is nothing more than a created venue for political soapboxing, facetime and print. And there is way too close of a personal/political relationship between the politician(s) who benefit(s) from the continued clamour and the media outlet who is printing the clamourations.

3. Meth is a real problem. Our city is burning to the ground. The cost to clean the site of a drug bust is outrages. Our city/area is being labeled “high density drug trafficking area.” Sooner or later we are going to lose an officer, a fireman or an innocent neighbor – maybe a combination of these. People addicted to this drug are loosing their chance to live a normal life. Do I need to list more costs?

   Let’s try a new approach. For the next two months (more if it works), when you provide your driver’s license to purchase pseudoephedrine the cashier says in return, “is this where you’d like your purchase delivered?” The purchase is later given to a police officer who delivers the product where they are able to verify that the information provided is accurate and that there are no signs of potential misuse.

   We can use our rookie officers for this delivery. This will give them the chance to get to know the neighborhoods their assigned to and give them a chance to meet the residents.

   Will this be expensive? Hell yes! So what?! How much does it cost to help a person heal from full body burn wounds? How much would you pay to wipe the smirk off your out-of-town friend who calls to remind you that you live in the only city on Earth that has figured out how to simultaneously be fat and hooked on meth.

   I’m not the only citizen that wants to do something to stop this. I’ll donate the first $500 to the fund to pay the officer’s salaries for this venture. If we can ask every resident of this city to donate $1 each that will give us $100k to get this thing started. And I know they won’t all give a $1. They have to save up for that new plastic lawn furniture so they’ll have something to put in heavy trash pick-up next fall. But people like me, who already own plastic furniture, will give extra to meet this need.

   What do you think? Do you have a better idea that doesn’t include shooting users like George shot Lennie in “of mice and men.” Tell me about those rabbits Lennie…….

   • Great Idea!

   • Couldn’t the act of smoking Meth be described as:

     The burning of every resource you can get your hands on in a delicately crafted manner that produces the biggest short term high, totally ignorant to long term health, family or community impact or sustainability?

     When you say it out loud, it’s amazing how similar certain un-named past and present leaders think…

     Before you jump to the conclusion that Evansville is burning from the bottom up, consider that we’ve been burning from the top down for some time.

4. I notice we haven’t heard much about Vectren from John Friend or EL Walters since the election. Just cause the election is passed there’s no reason to let Vectren roam free. I guess we’ve gotta count on Gail Reicken to be our voice.

   • Please tell us what has Gail done in this regard, lately?

     • I heard her discuss them in a speech last week, what has anyone else done? Seems like it was a one shot election year issue

     • Gail consistently speaks out against Vectren.

5. Why can’t the city and county just pass an ordinance requiring a prescription. Cities in Missouri have done this and the laws there are not that much different from what we have at the state level. It amazes me that the city council has not passed an ordinance that helps battle a true issue that plagues the city instead of regulating smoking.

6. Winnecke only steals ideas from Davis, except that tank thing-mayne he was watching Patton’

7. Eight of these comments are off-topic. What the Hell? When will the next Blues Brothers movie come out?

   • You know you’re the the Night Tripper, Belusi’s dead. I don’t want a remake-who would do it?
     The first idea about meth is superb-but I still wonder where the tank is.

8. Soon2B: RE: Information Technology Audit

   For $ 100,000 that would be a great investment. I think we are way too far away from an election to play that card. This IT group (CIO included) need to have someone independent take a look-see. Among the many transgressions that I hear of are: a) Lots of unhappy users at Civic Center; 2) a 5-year contract in JW’s waning days given to Mark Rolley Consulting; 3) Utter failure of this group to disclose the costs to amp up the cell phone signal for the Arena–they rivaled the ERC on lack of transparency; 4) this is the bunch that password protected the ERC Minutes, and then claimed it was a ‘coding error’ or the like; 5) the murky role of Matt Arvay on the Johnson Controls project for the Water Dept. , which in terms of murkiness rates way down there in the muddy waters. Many more things I have either heard or know for a fact, “let the sunshine in” as 5th Dimension would say. BTW, like the new word clamourations.

   • At a time when the county commissioners are taking previously earned health insurance benefits away from the employees due to severe budget constraints, I think the expenditure of $100,000 for an audit that may serve no good purpose for county agencies is not a great investment of either monetary or political resources.

     Other than the alleged “lots of unhappy users at Civic Center,” (and I wager I could provide a list of happy users in greater numbers than unhappy), your litany of “transgressions” appears to be all city-oriented sins.

     On top of that, it seems the only carping is coming from a couple of city councilmen not exactly adverse to occasional pontification.

     So, let the city pay for the audit that those city councilmen apparently wish to let to an outside contractor, even though there now is a new administration with a new controller who surely is able to objectively audit the IT department.

     Or, wait until after consolidation, and the issue of the payment split is moot.

     • Soon2B:

       Tip 1 for the County: close The Centre, save $ 700,000 annual operating loss, and restore the health insurance benefits.

       Tip 2 for the County: pony up for the IT Audit. The Mark Rolley Consulting Contract was a ‘NO BID’ deal. Open it up to competition, and you’ll get all of that money invested in the audit back many times over.

       Also, what in the world would make you think Russ Lloyd Jr. is qualified to perform an IT Audit ? He would be the first to admit that.

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