IS IT TRUE May 3, 2013

23
The Mole #??
The Mole #??

IS IT TRUE May 3, 2013

IS IT TRUE yesterday’s IS IT TRUE regarding the $53 Million Johnson Controls deal signed on behalf of the taxpayers of Evansville without consultation or funding approval by former Mayor Weinzapfel during his last hours in office elicited the most calls and emails that the City County Observer has gotten regarding an article published since the drunken party fueled by lobbyist dollars in 2012?…the particular part of this $53 Million scheme that our readership finds particularly offensive is that the Winnecke Administration who has labored furiously to keep this contract alive after the IURC shot it down is threatening to go forward with this spending with or without City Council cooperation?…our readership is incensed that it is even legal for any Mayor or surrogate of a Mayor has the authority to bind the City of Evansville to such an expensive capital project without having the funding approved by the City Council?…if this is really the case there is no real need for a City Council at all and we along with other Indiana citizens must be voting for a Dictator as opposed to a Mayor every four years?…if this Johnson Controls deal is pursued after a vote of the City Council not to fund we should just disband every City Council in the State of Indiana and resign ourselves to martial law when it comes to squandering tax dollars with no checks and balances?

IS IT TRUE that such an end run nearly happened last year until Mayor Winnecke finally realized he had painted himself into a corner?…there is a new joke in town at the expense of Mayors Winnecke and Weinzapfel and it goes like this?

Q: “What do the Johnson Controls deal and the Earthcare Energy deal have in common?”

A: “an Evansville Mayor did an end run around the City Council to make and fund the spending of lots of taxpayer dollars”

IS IT TRUE in both of these cases Mayors acting in a substantial vacuum from the City Council went out and cut deals to commit taxpayer dollars without having the support of the legal funding authority?…in the case of the Earthcare Energy deal getting the fifth vote from Councilman Conor O’Daniel to fund the Earthcare deal took on the form of a Civic Center Shake Down resulting in a last minute reversal of opinion?…when all was said and done it turned out that the Winnecke Administration had found a SNEGAL (sneaky but legal) way to advance Earthcare $200,000 that is still not paid back but is curiously current on the $380 interest only monthly payments?…it is widely expected that the rush to sneak $200,000 to Earthcare followed up by Mayor Winnecke’s subsequent reversal of opinion will be coming back to bite the City of Evansville squarely on the backside in March of 2014?

IS IT TRUE the Winnecke Campaign was awarded a CCO Mole Award for its clean campaign with a focus on COLLABORATION and TRANSPARENCY?…we stand by that award for the things that then candidate Winnecke expressed when running for office?…what we are wondering is what has happened to the GREAT COLLABORATOR?…a great collaborator does not go behind the City Council’s back to make deals to spend millions of taxpayer dollars?…a great collaborator is always a collaborating with others as opposed to just when he gets his way?…the first 16 months of the Winnecke Administration have not exactly been a time of transparency either?…thus far what we are seeing is an administration that is dedicated to carrying on the Weinzapfel doctrine at all costs?…if the nine members of the Evansville City Council truly believe that putting new water meters on a dilapidated set of pipes (the delivery system) needing over $500 Million in replacements in a city with a looming $500 Million sewer repair on the horizon is the best use of $53 Million taxpayer dollars then by all means vote yes and prepare to face the voters?…if however the members of the City Council are not convinced that having a shiny new meter on the end of a rotting pipe is not worth $53 Million at this time and that Mayors doing sneaky end runs around the lawful spending authority of the council is unacceptable then you members of the City Council who see this light are obligated to vote NO and challenge the threat of forcing the deal through the courts based on the signature of a lame duck Mayor in his last hours in office?

IS IT TRUE we hope that the sometimes complacent people of Evansville will pay attention so that as the old song says “they don’t get fooled again”?

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23 COMMENTS

  1. How is it such a jackass Mayor can make the Council look like such insignificant jackasses as well?

    Not much point in a Council if it A) is a rubber stamp for an administration, or B) cannot assert its authority to check executive power.

    As for Winnecke himself, I’ve known he was nothing but a backbiting, gutter-crawling snake ever since I heard about him leaking confidential information from GAGE meetings about the Freedom Festival not going as well as hoped. What GAGE needed at the time was good PR and solidarity from its Board Members to do a good job. A handful of good people had worked their butts off to try and pull off the impossible and the last thing they needed at the time was negative press and sabotage, but to save his own ass and face, then Board Member Winnecke went squealing all about the private minutes of meetings. It wasn’t long after that several good people got scapegoated. I’m sure Joe Wallace will remember what I’m talking about.

    • Indeed I do. That interview Winnecke gave broke an agreement the entire executive committee made 15 minutes before he blabbed what he did to the CP. In retrospect I think the GAGE staff and I were the only ones surprised by the leak. Other members (not all) of the executive committee had to have given their approval for his leak and the intentionally damaging way it was done. The good side is that the GAGE experience inspired me to as President Obama recently said “pack it up and head home to California”.

        • Very much truth to your statement for many years now. Ironically we were honored with a Senate proclamation for the Coachella Valley Accelerator Campus Monday and are having a tour and a meet and greet with our Senator in about 2 hours. This is something I wanted to do in Evansville for companies graduating from Innovation Pointe. By the way we have two angel investment groups and a start up venture capital firm in house.

          • There is a BBC program I watched just last night about the incubator in Glasgow Scotland… It’s a good watch if you get the time. You’ll have to dial into a proxy to see it.

            Glad to hear of your success out there, Joe. Only wish we could have been so fortunate here. Instead, we have a business incubator that seems more interested in housing the Chamber of Commerce under its roof.

  2. Apparently Winnecke lacks a “Moral Center”, as did King John.
    The question now begs,…Do the Council member´s have one?

  3. CCO, wake up and smell coffee ! Demand the return of the Mole which was awarded to Winnecke ! Are you kidding me ? If he refuses to return that Mole, you would be well within your rights to send Seal Team 7 in under cover of darkness to retrieve this disrespected Mole and get it into the hands of a more deserving elected official or citizen.

    • Agreed. I’ve always felt like Winnecke & Friend among many others should do the right thing for once and turn in their Mole Awards. Their actions have been a disgrace to what is suppose to be a good public policy award for people who boldly fight the system for change on airplanes for better handicap access, on the soccer field for equal rights to coach, and at the voting booth against a consolidation plan that was watered down with nothing but treats and goodies for political hacks.

      Until they do the right thing, they are bringing down what is suppose to an award free of good ole boy politics.

  4. Speaking of Winnecke and GAGE, one of Winnecke’s campaign promises was to establish an “Angel Investor Network”. Has this come to fruition yet, or is it even in the planning stage?

  5. Hey Joe what was the real figure that Gage lost on the it’s last Freedom Festival they sponsored?

    Winnecke told the media that Gage lost around $280,000 on the Freedom Festival. A past Gage Board member told me they lost around $650,000 plus.

    Who is telling the truth, Winnecke or the past Gage Board member?

    • Yea I am curious to hear the entire story on this. I am kind of surprised that Winnecke would leak something negative on any city event much less against an organization that he has done everything in his power to prop up despite the glaringly obvious fact that it’s failing because it is now run by a bunch of yes men like Winnecke himself (although I’m saying that based on today’s GAGE not yesterday’s GAGE which are 180 degrees apart).

      Winnecke’s administration has made closed door meetings and behind the scenes actions their specialty with the Roberts Stadium Task Force General Conclusions Page and the selection of the winning bid for the downtown hotel, not to mention that whole homestead tax thing that precluded all of it.

      So yea, it does kind of surprise me that Winnecke would be a “mole” against GAGE.

      • I suspect the reason GAGE was asked to run the (already on the ropes) Freedom Festival was so some City officials would have some kind of scapegoat for why it ultimately failed altogether. The FF was already way in the hole from previous years and stood zero chance of redemption, though I’m not clear on the exact numbers, even Mitt Romney wasn’t going to salvage it.

        The brutal fact of the matter is that festival was held in a bad location during the hottest weekend of the year. The Evansville Riverfront is a hellish heat trap no one, even those in peak physical condition let alone people from the fattest City in the US, can stand for a full day. My guess is they were shielding the then Mayor or some other officials from criticism by giving the media another focus of criticism.

        The problem with politicians like Lloyd Winnecke is, like rats, they will run from a sinking vessel and make a big show of it when they themselves contributed to gnawing the holes into the hull and ensuring its failure. That ill-timed interview was his way of trying to distance himself from the coming disaster, which was entirely foreseeable from the outset.

        This Mayor has no honor whatsoever and no respect for the hardworking people around him. He only cares about himself and his own political prospects. That was the incident that made that clear to me, hence my vote for Rick Davis for Mayor.

        • Which Mayor you talkin about having no honor. Weinzapfel was Mayor then. Could it be that Winnecke was carrying Weinzapfel’s water then too? I hear he was threatened by Wallace’s abilities and the positive publicity from the tech transfer agreement and several magazine covers. I also heard Wallace predicted the loss way ahead of the FF and Winnecke and crew moved him aside then blamed him later.

          • I can’t speak to what kind of political threat Winnecke saw Joe Wallace as. Joe did live in the County at the time and had no interest I’m aware of of running for anything. It would not surprise me though, given Winnecke’s other childish inclinations and inferiority of character, that he might harbor ill feelings of envy, jealousy or resentment toward other people doing good work. That’s typical Evansville Good Ol’ Boy network for ya – do as little as possible while pointing fingers at others when things go predictably awry. This is also the mark of a scoundrel, many of which we have.

        • I must say I completely agree with all of this other than to say that I think the Shriners are doing a good job with it currently and I think they might have a chance of making it at least good, if not great, again. Keep the city gov’t out of it and it might have a chance although that may be easier said than done because funding is a major hurdle- Louisville spends close to $4 mil (iirc) on Thunder Over Louisville but it’s a complete and total success.

          Having served on a task force for Winnecke myself and having to deal with him after the task force report’s added info after the final general meeting was brought to the light, I must say that I really don’t understand why anyone would support that man. I think he really thought he was going to put me on that task force to give it credibility, completely use my efforts, and then do whatever he wanted to do anyways while saying it was the task force’s idea and I would stand right behind him the whole time. He quickly found out he was sorely wrong.

          It should come as no surprise that people like Joe Wallace, Andrew Smith, and the former owners of the South Georgia Waves were run out of town by the local machine only to go to three separate markets and build successful investment firms, successful business parks, and win titles in ballparks older than every park not named Bosse.

          I have to wonder if there will ever come a time when this city quits picking mayors who are more focused on their personal careers than the good of the city as a whole.

    • The $280,000 number was the count on the day of release. The count by the time I was gone was closer to the $650,000 figure your friend spoke of that it was to $280,000. To come up with a final real number would require someone to have access to the 2009 audit.

      • Joe, is it true the FF was already massively in debt before GAGE took over and that GAGE actually paid some of the previous volunteer organization’s debts?

        What are the odds that the move to use GAGE as the FF scapegoat was really all about laundering all the losses from the previous years and saddling the taxpayers with them through GAGE’s PPP?

        Did the Shriners start with a clean slate when they took over, or did they have similar debts to cover as well?

        • There were some debts on the books of the previous FF that required payoffs and/or COD terms to be inflicted onto GAGE. As for the Shriners, I do not know.

  6. Can someone tell me how it is legal that the Mayor finance a city project without the approval of the elected financial body of the city? If the approval of the council is not needed for funding things in the city, then why are we paying them to handle the finances?

  7. Well-well-well looks like another back room political deal by Weinzapfel and Winnecke team.

    This looks like the sam deal they pulled on Marilee Fowler, the past Director of the Convention Center.

    Hope Joe Wallace sues them like she did.

    Also he should sue them for defaming his character.

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