IS IT TRUE? September 19, 2011

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Aztar Hotel Can be Expanded Upward

IS IT TRUE? September 19, 2011

IS IT TRUE that yesterday’s New York Times had a poignant but relevant quote by Maureen Doud?…that it goes like this?

“So we’re choosing between the over-intellectualized professor and blockheads boasting about their vacuity? The occupational hazard of democracy is know-nothing voters. It shouldn’t be know-nothing candidates.”

IS IT TRUE that there may just be or may just have been an alternate approach to securing new hotel rooms in downtown Evansville that was not seriously considered by the powers that be?…that there was at one time a proposal made that would have expanded the main hotel at Aztar by about 140 rooms?…that 140 rooms is what we have been told that studies indicate that the downtown Evansville hotel market can absorb comfortably?…that the proposal we speak of would have involved substantially less pubic money that the RFP that is currently being vetted has already committed to kick into the deal?…that the proposal would have made the 220+/- rooms that the RFP mandated available for conventions under the control of the Evansville Convention and Visitors Bureau during the week?…that this proposal included investments in luxury transportation to shuttle hotel guests to and from the MLK Entertainment Complex?…that this ghost of Christmas Past should be discussed by the Evansville Redevelopment Commission at its earliest convenience?

IS IT TRUE that a solution that required little or no public money and provided the hotel room requirements should have received more disclosure and discussion than it did?…that if such a proposal could be resurrected that it is still worth consideration?…that the City of Evansville and the Weinzapfel Administration are using a $3.5 Million contribution from Casino Aztar that was meant for an Arena project as part of the $8 Million incentive to a hotel developer?…that to take $3.5 Million from Tropicana or Casino Aztar and to hand it to a future competitor is flat out insulting to a complex that constitutes about 30% of all of the tourism revenue to the City of Evansville?…that reminds us of exactly what Mayor Weinzapfel accused Bill Yung III of Columbia Sussex of doing a couple of years ago?…that saying one thing and doing another is wrong even if it is SNEGAL (sneaky but legal)?

IS IT TRUE that it has now been 1,604 days since the announcement was made on May 14, 2007 that the McCurdy Hotel was to be refurbished into luxury apartments?…that it has now been 1,457 days since the Evansville Redevelopment Commission at the request of Mayor Weinzapfel approved the spending of $603,000 to purchase the parking lot?…that City Centre Properties and Scott Kosene the developers of the McCurdy project are both listed as contributors to the Weinzapfel for Mayor committee for 2010?

IS IT TRUE that in a short 51 days we will all know whether it will be Lloyd Winnecke or Rick Davis who will become the Mayor that will assume responsibility for executing the decisions that are playing out right now?…that that there are 103 days remaining in the Weinzapfel Administration?

IS IT TRUE that there are now 405 days remaining in the two years that the EPA had given the City of Evansville to present an acceptable solution to the Combined Sewer Overflow problem?…..that this plan is an expensive and complex endeavor that needs immediate attention to avoid the embarrassment and expense of another round of fines?

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6 COMMENTS

    • LOL…..somebody over on the C&P site suggested it was great that they wrote a check for the arena, I guess no one told him/her about the bonds or bond payments.

      JMHO

  2. I would like to see AZTAR build a second hotel (not counting Le Merigot which competes in a different market) on the lot between the greenway and Mulzer stone. That way, the outside of the building could replicate the old L&N station and it would leave room for Aztar to fill in the land between the two hotels with retail and entertainment.

  3. The only problem is that no one is going to want to walk from the convention centre or the arena to the aztar complex. Both should have been built by aztar in the first place but thats a whole different argument that isnt going to happen now.

  4. Anyone else think you could grab any person at random and make them Mayor and it would turn out better than this?

    • There are tortured souls in insane asylums that could have done one hell of a lot better job than the greedy, conniving removed who the Courier endorsed for mayor in 2003 and 2007. Hopefully at some time in the next four years we will finally be rid of that gang of foolish socialists at the Courier, and the Democrats will be forced to carry their own water, rather than swim in a sea of disingenuous blather, courtesy of His Royal Newspaper Highness, Mizell Stewart removed.

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