IS IT TRUE November 11, 2013

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Mole #3 Nostradamus of Local Politics
Mole #3 Nostradamus of Local Politics

IS IT TRUE that many East Side business owners are wondering why 1st Ward City Council member, Dan McGinn hasn’t pushed the City of Evansville to follow through with the commitment to install new street lights on the North end of Burkhardt Road once they were annexed into the city?…it’s been 3 years since the North Burkhardt business owners were annexed by the City of Evansville?…we respectfully request that City Councilman McGinn take an evening drive down North Burkhardt so he can see for himself that the city street lights stop right after you pass Sam’s Super Discount Store? …we suggest that he turn his bright lights on after he passes Sam’s Super Discount Store for obvious safety reasons?…when the city annexed this cluster of Eastside businesses the city added about $3 million dollars of tax revenue for the city per year?…that we are surprised to learn that Republican Councilman McGinn didn’t push his Republican Mayor to add money to the 2014 city budget to install new street lights on North Burkhart?…we respectfully suggest that Councilman McGinn to spend less time worrying about the financial issues of the Zoo and pay more attention to the needs of the business people of the 1st Ward?

IS IT TRUE the City County Observer has learned of an gentleman who owns a business that takes over poorly maintained public parks and privatizes them?…after privatization the parks that Dan Biederman has taken over are cleaner, safer, have corporate sponsorships for services like free WiFi, and are still open to the general public and free?…this gentleman’s business is profitable, provides superior services in parks than the local governments did and accepts ZERO tax dollars?…there are similar services for public libraries and even public protection?…the common denominator these outsourced managers of public assets say influences their success is that the prevailing wage rules and de-facto tenure agreements with unions do not apply to them as they do to public employees?…Evansville tried this once way back when with the Sewer and Water Utility before former Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel reversed that decision?…it could be that repatriation of a private managed asset into the open arms of government has driven the recent problems of the City of Evansville that seem to originate in the Sewer and Water Utility?

IS IT TRUE the sign ups for ObamaCare continue to defy gravity and fall flat on their backside?…the latest numbers released for the District of Columbia (Washington DC) are FIVE ENROLLEES, while Delaware checks in with FOUR ENROLLEES, and Oregon that has not released any numbers has embarked upon an acid trip psychedelic ad campaign to sign people up?…you can see this ad campaign straight out of the 60’s at the end of this IS IT TRUE?

IS IT TRUE President Obama feeling the heat for lying to the American people has now proclaimed that “I want to fix the healthcare.gov website but don’t know how to write code?”…most of us knew the President could not write code when he ran for president but we did assume he had the good sense to hire someone who could?…the longer this debacle continues the more the United States of America looks like an impotent third world nation incapable of accomplishing anything?…the only question remaining is how low the ratings must go before a real apology is crafted for the President to read to us?

IT IS TRUE that we wish all our Veterans a joyful and blessed day.  We are very thankful for your service to our county.  May God Bless America and also our Veterans!

Mike’s Car Wash is giving free basic car washes to active service members and Veterans alike.  The time for free car washes are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.  Krispy Kreme Donuts are giving free donuts and coffee to our Veterans between 6 a.m. and 11 am. and 6 pm. to 11 p. m.  If any of our readers know about any other free or discounts offering to our Veterans today please post on this site.

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38 COMMENTS

  1. Is it also true that Councilman McGinn is not offering support to to any proposals that would offer a site in the First Ward for the IU Medical School? Is it true that the street lights on North Burkhardt would be a “plus” for the developers of the Promenade?

  2. Where’s Wayne at?

    The lone Republican on the city council is gettin’ his time in the box today we need the GOP leadership input.

    JMHO

  3. Is it true that privatization doesn’t always fix things? Is it true that privatizing everything is usually a way to pay back your good ole boys and ends up lowering wages for all involved?

    • Possibly, but it depends on the item being privatized and the amount of government involvement in the transfer. When profit is the motivator as in private business, wages may suffer but it’s normally market based or what the market dictates is a fair wage not a inflated wage paid to support political patronage.

      There are core services that cities do provide a better overall value like police & fire protection depending on the tax base it has to draw from and others where the tax base makes absolutely no difference like in our case city parks/cemeteries which the city doesn’t seem to care enough about to allocate the necessary resources, we won’t even mention our streets and sewers.

      The key to privatization is profit, if a ROI can be derived then it’ll be a success, without a reasonable ROI we have to have subsidies like the downtown hotel, which is a aspect the city and taxpayers shouldn’t be involved in at all, subsidies create a unfair advantage and the illusion of an ROI.

      JMHO

    • Privatization is a real hot-button for me. You are SO right about it not always being a solution, but it does always seem to work out as a reward for political cronies.

    • John Doe,–I always heard, although un-sustained, that the “unions” stopped the City from using convicted Law Breakers from being used to maintenance(cut grass, weed, etc.)at the City owned Cemeteries, thus denying Community Service sentence opportunities, that would address appropriate penalties, and–the Community’s needs, and that, effectively stopped any stretching of scarce tax moneys at every turn in the Name of “preserving ” Union jobs. Citizen Volunteers offering to donate their “work” to address some of the “City’s” problems have supposedly been rejected for the same reason. So John,–Does this hearsay story have any truth to it?
      PS. Privatizing the Ambulance Service was a wise decision by former (D) Mayor Frank McDonald Jr.

      • From some direct knowledge of the program many years ago, I seem to recall that it was cut back because of a Federal Law that required the payment of minimum wage to prisoners and patients in mental institutions. It was one of those things where “do-gooders” harmed those they were trying to help.

        • Back in the late 80’s I got to do 200 hrs community service for a 2nd DUI
          along with other punishment , I did what I was ordered by the court system and In my opinion it made a believer out of me , I cut grass at 41 ,burdette park and picked up trash where ever I was taken ….but then we still had some bad apples in the bunch

          • The fact that Community Service still picks up trash along the highways and other unpleasant jobs also makes me doubt the union-bashing tale.

        • I don’t remember that law, but I do know that sheltered workshops are exempt from minimum wage laws. Effective community service that benefitted the community ceased when community corrections was taken from Circuit Court and turned over to the Sheriffs Dept. When community corrections was moved to the Sheriffs Dept. it caused a major political rift that has cost taxpayers millions in wages for new hires.

          • I think the sheltered workshops had to sue to get an exemption. We had patients at ESH whose jobs included helping in the library, dining room, and making things to sell in the giftshop. Taking those things away from them was a terrible blow to the little bit of “normalcy” in their lives.
            Now there are a very few jobs for clients, because of the pay scale.

    • When I learned during the Clinton impeachment that secretary Linda Tripp was earning $96,000 plus a sweet federal benefits package I started looking into wage disparity. Public works projects mandate what they conveniently call “prevailing wages”. In Evansville that means that a painter is paid about $30 per hour as opposed to the market rate of closer to $12 per hour. The same wide gap goes for the other trades. Ask yourself then why a project like the Ford Center or the new hotel costs more than 30% more than private efforts and “prevailing wage” laws is the answer. Ford should have been $70 Million instead of $127 Million and this hotel should be $25 Million instead of $44 Million. Why is it that governments in this country OVERPAY UNIONS by extravagant amounts but can’t hire web developers that can make something work? I think you know.

      The people whose wages are kept down are the ones that should be paid market rate instead of a VOTE BUYING inflated rate at the taxpayers expense. Artificially high wages for cronys should be a crime. The only reason it isn’t is because the criminals who run the government are exempt from prosecution.

      • Dude, that being the case I conclude that the entire city contribution to the new hotel is to overpay the unions. Today that is $7.5 Million but Winnecke and his minions wanted to pay them off with $25 Million. What puzzles me is how Bob Jones is ever gonna find seasoned investors that are stupid enough to throw money into this political snake pit.

        • I’m guessing that Mr Jones won’t find the needed investors but that everything else will fall in place as far as financing goes, the subsidy will have to be adjusted with a loan from the city that it will forgiven after the fanfare dies down and we have another “shiny” downtown to marvel at.

          JMHO

  4. Dan McGinn is a fine public servant. The biggest complaint against him is a few street lights that were never installed? Sounds like the CCO is being a little petty this morning.

    • Really, just talk with the business owners across from Sams and you shall hear a different opinion about him. In fact Mr. McGinn is known as the Mayors mouth piece on City Council.

      • I have to disagree with ya ,from what I’ve noticed missy mosby and jonathon weaver are kissing the mayors axx much more then mr. McGinn ,but I have been wrong before

  5. it is true obama lied and destroyed healthcare for up to 93 million hard working Americans………it is also true what Sarah Palin said there will be death panels.

  6. Facts about the water an sewer privatization. A lot of the same upper management was there before the privatization and after the privatization. The private company never fill there end of the contract but were still paid in full every year. They never failed to make there donation for many years. They did eliminate about thirty percent of the actual working jobs while increasing bosses by four hundred percent. Bosses are required to make campaign donations employees are not. If work is not being done it might be because they got rid of the laborers. The same in the parks. they eliminated the labors an increased the bosses. Bosses do not push a shovel or pick up trash but they do make their donation. As for having prisoners doing city jobs. Most civilized places know prison labor is not morally right especially when it replaces regular wage earners jobs. Union or not.

    • So Grumpy Olman, Civilized? Morally right? Are you against Community Service sentencing, from the view point that it’s cruel treatment of Lawbreakers, or what? Oh my bad,I see for you its illogical, and barbaric to eliminate or modify any government jobs, save money, or establish a just penalty for the Lawbreakers that also benefits the Community.

    • Maybe we should stop all of that volunteer work. We should close down all those soup kitchens because they keep some high paid union laborer from supporting his family. How about Habitat for Humanity, now that’s an organization puts a lot of construction workers out of business. We need to put high paying union jobs out of business because they get paid so much for doing low level jobs that there’s not enough money to hire workers to do the real work. Unless there’s a big influx of businesses to increase the tax base this county will never be able to get our parks/cemeteries in shape. Unions really haven’t been that good to Evansville, just poor use of our tax dollars.

  7. You seem to be more interested in punishing prisoners then having jobs that can support a family. With the currant legal system we are all criminals. I am just saying prison labor when it replaces regular jobs is not only morally wrong but bad economics. I will always believe it is better to give a person a job where they can support themselves then to jail somebody on a trumped up a charge an force them to do that job. We have more people in prison in our country then any other in the world. What a convenient work force.

    • So…you would rather they sit in their cells gettin’ three squares a day, watching cable TV, and surfin’ the net all on the taxpayers dime?

      As a society we have a moral obligation to rehabilitate the lawless, to instill the notion that there are consequences for their actions and to try to show a better way of living by being responsible for their actions…part of that rehab is a good work ethic, read the story right here on the CCO by Ron Bacon, it gives a ton of insight as to what we should be doing with the incarcerated.

      He’s a link to the story… https://city-countyobserver.com/2013/11/08/a-different-take-on-incarceration/

      JMHO

      • How about we legalize petty crimes like MJ possession/sale and prostitution and take millions out of the prison system? I think that’s what he’s talking about.

        • No I think his point is that incarcerated people shouldn’t be doing or taking away jobs from the working class and I agree with him on that point, but there are ton of things that no one is doing like picking up trash, shoveling snow, cleaning the medians that work crews could do and wouldn’t effect any other worker in the least bit because no one is being paid to do them and if they are they should either welcome the help or be fired.

          As far as legalizing petty crimes, just give them a ticket/fine and get on with life, if a person gets out of hand and becomes habitual (5 or more of the same) then they need a little jail time on a work crew to sober them up to the realities of life.

          I’d agree far to many folks are incarcerated on bogus crimes of passion or minor drug offenses which is a huge waste of resources, but dealing over a few grams is intent to sell which should be discouraged either with stiffer fines or jail time. Then where do you draw the line between pot, meth, and legal prescription drugs being sold or used illegally? or precursors used to manufacture drugs?

          It’s a slippery slope at best legalizing some drugs or possession under a few grams, you know how folks are…give them a inch and ????

          JMHO

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