IS IT TRUE? November 10, 2011 Cities in Bankruptcy

IS IT TRUE? November 10, 2011

IS IT TRUE that today is the day that the property owners of Vanderburgh County need to pay the fall installment of their property taxes in order to avoid being charge a penalty?…that this deadline applies to each and every property owner including City Centre Properties LLC of Carmel, IN that owns tract #82-06-30-020-005.002-029, aka the McCurdy Hotel?…that the tax bill on that property that is due today is $10,268.66 and that if it is not paid will incur a penalty of 5% on the first 30 days that it is delinquent?…that at day 31 that penalty is increased to 10%?…that the choice to pay or not to pay this tax bill will serve as an early indicator as to whether City Center Properties LLC has the means or intention to move forward with this project?…that a 5% penalty per month amounts to an annualized rate of 60% and that any person or business that chooses to pay an annualized interest rate of 60% is sending a clear message about either its capacity to pay or its intention to do so?…that City Centre Properties LLC does have the City of Evansville and its Redevelopment Commission by the throat on this deal and can probably get by with any stunt that it has the chutzpah to try to pull?

IS IT TRUE that Harrisburg, PA has been followed to bankruptcy court by Jefferson County, AL?…that Jefferson County, AL is where Birmingham the largest city in the state of Alabama is located?…that as of the 2010 census that this county was home to 658,466 people who have been saddled by their County Government with a $3 Billion debt for a failed sewer deal?…that this debt works out to exactly $4,556.04 for every resident of Jefferson County?…that the estimate of the cost to repair the CSO problem in the City of Evansville is about $500 Million or $4,273.50 for every resident of Evansville?…that financial failures such as the one in Alabama which will result in lower expectations of ROI for the debt holders will make places like Evansville trouble in trying to finance the repairs of their own for aging infrastructure?…that the project that sunk Jefferson County, AL began when they entered into a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency regarding sewer overflows into the Cahaba River watershed. A total of $3.2 billion of construction was subsequently contracted?…that if this does not sound familiar to the people of Evansville then they must have been living under a rock for the last several years?…that Jefferson County, AL has a form of government called “limited home rule” which is sort of a consolidated government in most aspects with some exceptions but also with some additional activities normally covered by the state?

IS IT TRUE that as cities with financial problems go the State of Michigan is becoming a debtors prison for failing cities?…that the latest to fall into an official state of “financial emergency” is the City of Flint?…that this will involve among other things having the State of Michigan appoint an “emergency manager” to run the city while a long term recovery plan is developed for approval?…that the Michigan cities of Pontiac, Ecorse, and Benton Harbor along with the Detroit school district are already under the management of state appointed “emergency managers”?…that Detroit Mayor and former Detroit Pistons star Dave Bing who followed the now jailed former Mayor Kwame Kirkpatrick into office is having substantial difficulties as well?…that Detroit may be facing a day when the State of Michigan appoints an “emergency manager” to run its affairs too?…that the issues cited in each of these troubled cities are deindustrialization, population shrinkage, brain drain, excessive contractual obligations with respect to union contracts, and a half century of substantial control of the City Council by the Democrat Party?…that once again, anyone that can’t see the similarities with Evansville has been living under a rock?

IS IT TRUE that these other cities with similarities to Evansville that have fallen on times that make our hard ones look like a Sunday School Picnic should serve to emphasize the size and importance of the tasks that are facing Mayor Elect Lloyd Winnecke as he forms his new administration and puts together his plans for moving Evansville forward?