IS IT TRUE September 27, 2012 (Counting and Consolidation)

1. When you refer to “2001 audit” twice above, did you really mean 2001?

2. BigPappa, looks nlike the editor corrected the 2001 mistake.

   Saw the debate last on WINN. I agree that Davis was on his game. I didn’t relize that he is one smart guy.

   Anyway looks like Mayor Winnenke is involved in another political coverup concerning our tax dollard spent not being properly tracked.

   Wish we could recall him from office! He has no idea of a value of a dollar. Looks like our City Controller, Russ Lloyd, Jr. isn’t any better.

   • Yep, it is fixed. Just checked the SBOA website and still no City of Evansville 2011 audit posted.

     • by “fixed” you mean there may be someone withholding or delaying this public information on purpose? Say….till after the vote or until a spin can be crafted and release to the pro winneke media.

       • No not at all. I meant my typos of 2001 are now fixed to be 2011 as they should have been. Spell checkers don’t fix such errors. Your theory of fixed (rigged) is of interest though. Any info to share?

         • no info here. If I had it I would share it. I was looking for clarification. Thanks for all you do!

3. NO OBJECTIVE BUSINESS PERSON WITH ACCOUNTABILITY TO SHAREHOLDERS WOULD MERGE WITH THIS CITY?…Unfortunately we have Abell and Kiefer in lock-step with the current city administration, throwing us to the wolves. The CORE people have tried to educate the voters that the current Plan of Reorganization is not in the best interest of ALL taxpayers. The City is in desperate need of money to satisfy its ever increasing greedy appetite. The City is in a financial mess, and is pushing u-u-unification to bail them out. This should not be a City vs County issue, but the backers of u-u-unification have made it an issue.

4. How in the hell can the Mayor and 5 members on City Council give the “Guilded 11” an average of 9.9% raise and the other 700 city employees only a 3% raise for 2013 when the city books aren’t balanced?
   Our elected city officials have no idea how much money we have in the bank and they are making multi million dollar decisions, wow.

   10 to 1 odds that the Mayor, his Chief of Staff and City Controller will try to blame City Council for not balancing the city financial records! Guess what, this is the second time that Lloyd Winnenke has been in involved in a financial backroom deal coverup. Remenber the Homestead Tax Credit deal that he and the past Mayor was involved in? Looks like history repeats itself!

   • Why are you worried about chicken feed raises that don’t even amount to a total of $50,000 a year when the City can’t count. Why don’t you attack for giving 3% across the board to 700 people at a cost of over a million bucks by a government that can’t count? Focusing on chicken feed when the farmer can’t count the chickens is not going to lead to any real solution.

5. Same old cronies,crooks and clowns looking for more money!!! Vote NO to CONsolidation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   • Wait, how are the “same old cronies”, etc. going to disappear if we retain the status quo?

6. Merging with the City of Evansville right now is like joining a herd of lemmings. Giving money to folks that can’t count makes as much sense as giving drugs to a drug addict.

   At least Winnecke didn’t do this. Weinzapfel did it. If Winnecke is not willing to lay that blame where it lies and come up with a plan out of this crap hole he is not fit to be Mayor.

7. I do not understand why Bruce Ungethiem and Rick Davis do not take off the gloves and get down to business in these debates.

   I am talking about the credibility of a Mayor who is running a city that has the host of problems that Evansville does. I will not bother to list all of them here but everyone knows it is a target rich environment.

   That is what was going through my mind last night as I watched the show: How can this mayor sit here and expound on this subject with any authority or believability given the fact that his administration is in such deplorable shape?

   Rick and Bruce should have brought up the current (2011) and previous (2010) SBOA audits for the city. Also, the fact that the previous “strong mayor” was the sole force behind spending $126. million, add another $100. million for interest, to build an arena and to place it in a TIF district where there could be no remonstrance petition filed against the project, no voice from the people.

   Rick Davis stated last night that “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior”, and I think that those of us who have a few gray hairs on our heads can all agree with that where the City of Evansville is concerned.

   The City of Macon Georgia and Bibb County Georgia just consolidated, July 2012. There process to that consolidation was head and shoulders above our local effort.

   The rejection threshold was in place in the Macon-Bibb process, which meant that the idea of consolidating the two political subdivisions HAD TO BE SOLD ON ITS MERITS to a majority of those voting in both the city and the county in order for it to pass.

   That is the fairest and best way to present these ideas to the citizens, and the way that best ensures that the actual implementation of the idea will have the best chance of succeeding.

   That is something that the State of Indiana understood for most of its history until recently a window was opened by our legislature that allowed this referendum to take place without the rejection threshold.

   In the interim, Indiana has regained her senses and that window has now been closed for future referendums. How convenient for Evansville that such a window of opportunity was opened for them, but that is a story for another day.

   So far in this process the only thing the city backers of the plan have put out there that is verifiable from their past behavior is their threat of annexation if their plan fails at the ballot box.

   I do not know about you, I do not respond well to threats!

   ____

8. What we have going on here is an arrogant former Mayor and an arrogant former Controller who thought that they knew better than the professionals that advised them. If the former Controller payed attention in her Accounting Info. Systems class, she would have ran the old and the new system parallel for a year. She thinks she’s an accounting God and that Evansville is lucky to have her. The fact is that she’s a complete idiot and she doesn’t have a CPA. Just an accounting degree from an accounting program that isn’t AACSB accredited. She doesn’t know how to reconcile but yet this new idiot Mayor bumped her pay $20,000k for a newly created fake job.

   Word is in the Civic Center that they were completely not cooperative with the State Board. They kept on blaming them instead of accepting responsibility for their own negligence and stupidity. I noticed that one of the State Board people’s hair turned from black to half grey during the audit and that the entire audit team looked very frustrated and unhappy to be there.

   Hopefully the Governor doesn’t delay this release. Hopefully the real news reports these problems. It’s time that the City be held account for their stupidity. If the Controller’s Office can’t do there job, then it’s time to clean house!

   • I noticed one of the State Board of Accounts guys coming out of a room in the middle of the civic center with his hair standing straight up like he had been in the cockpit of a small plane that had been hit 100 times by lightening.

     Could be what caused his hair to turn gray.

     That was the same week I saw Rusty getting off the elevator with a stack of files 3 feet tall in his arms and in his rumpled suit.

     You couldn’t write stuff this funny.

     • The State Board guy probably just had seen the “Munis expert” in her revealing attire. She’s way too old and unattractive to be dressing like that!

9. Rick Davis was playing chess last night and he made all of the others look like they were playing checkers — and that goes for the moderators too. The Courier reporter especially — what an idiot. What was he doing on the panel? He asked some d-u-m-b questions. All I remember about last year’s mayor debates is that Winnecke was stuttering and stammering then too. And I remember he gave his closing speech before he was supposed to. I thought that was funny. So the mayor’s lousy performance last night was no surprise to me. But I must say I always thought of Rick Davis as a Beaver or Wally Cleaver before last night. But the man brought passion and fire with him last night. He’s at an entirely different level than I remembered from last year. He was on fire.

   • Watched and can not disagree at all.

10. I’m not a huge Rick Davis fan, and that’s a well known fact. But you got to give the Devil his due. Rick was on his game in last night’s WNIN forum on the pros and cons of consolidation of Evansville-Vanderburgh County government … more so than any other participant.

    Two points he made in spades: 1) the merger may drive established residents and new homeowners into surrounding counties (more with regard to property tax and user fee issues than “representation” issues in my opinion), and 2) the merger plan clearly anticipates property tax increases for property owners outside the urban services district/current city limits, and user fee increases for property owners inside the urban services district/current city limits.

    The Yes! folks continue to claim the plan will not cause property tax increases. I disagree.

    Rick Davis kept referring to section 7.1.1 for proof of the potential tax increases, and he is correct to point you to that section of the plan. But I would more particularly direct your attention to section 7.4 wherein the new government would be required to complete an annual review to target areas outside the urban services district for incorporation into the urban services district on a regular schedule.

    Significant areas now receive certain services that the plan designates as urban services, while other areas are planned to receive those services in the near future. The plan requires incorporation of such areas within 18 months of each annual review, with the urban district property tax increases to phase in within 3 years.

    Another issue: Water and sewer customers outside the city limits currently pay a 35% surcharge for sewer service. This surcharge, implemented by the Russ Lloyd, Jr. administration, has never been justified by a financial analysis. The Lloyd administration and the water and sewer utility simply said that state law allowed them to do it, so they did it.

    Rick Davis stated at last night’s WNIN debate that the surcharge is justified by the customer’s distance from the sewer treatment plant, but if you use a map, you will readily determine that many customers within the city limits are significantly farther from a sewer treatment plant than many customers outside the city limits. So, the surcharge is unfair, not equal, and unjustified.

    The Yes! folks claim the plan makes the sewer charges fair and equal simply by equalizing the rates across the entire county (including inside the urban service district/city limits. But I maintain this would simply impose an increase of user fees for city residents, and willy-nilly impose a rate that has never been justified and therefore is unequal and unfair to begin with.

    The Yes! folks encourage you to read the plan for proof of their claim that it will not raise taxes. I as well encourage you to read the plan for clear proof that it will raise property taxes for the greater number of property owners currently outside the city limits, and will raise user fees for nearly everyone currently inside the city limits.

    All this is not to say there could’ve been a plan that truly offered a better, more unified, more fair form of local government. But this plan does not meet that challenge. The authors of this plan realized this fact, and will tell you the plan includes methods for future amendments to rectify the plan’s shortcomings. I ask you two things: 1) is that not clear proof of the plan’s failure to meet the challenge? 2) when’s the last time you saw local government move quickly through the political process to rectify shortcomings in local government structure or services?

    • Amen

    • Those are some significant words coming from a full fledged member of the JUDAS CLUB of Democrats that sold Rick out during the election. Good to see you give credit where credit is due.

      • You apparently only operate from one side of the story. There’s always the other side of the truth, about which you appear to know little. But at this late date, why not just stick to the issues at hand and stop belaboring yesteryear.

        • You want us all to forget that you donated to Lloyd and signed the petition for Connie. Gee I wonder why.

          • In a race, the driver who is stuck in reverse at the starting line typically loses. Happy trails, FTDCC.

          • What happens to a driver who pits in the wrong pit box?

          • LOL! Good one, 6WD!

        • Please articulate why you dislike Rick Davis…. I’m interested to hear why.

          • Rick Davis has, and forgive me if I leave anyone out in this listing, actively worked against the following Democrats: Keith Jarboe (his cousin), David Mosby, Z Tuley, Annie Groves, Missy Mosby, Jonathan Weaver (as Assessor)all BEFORE he ran for Mayor. Crying poor me at the treatment he received by members of his own pary is a tale told too long. You reap what you sow. Democrats didn’t go after Davis they just returned the favor. I think there must be a certain level of schadenfreude among local democrats vis a vi Davis and his troubles. JMHO

11. Winnecke and Wathen couldn’t come up with any reasons for the average taxpayer to want consolidation. All their arguments would benefit the current powerful politicians and take away any checks and balances that give the public a chance to have their opinions heard on tax issues.

    Cities that have consolidated have had huge tax increases in the first ten years. In this “plan”, at the END of that ten years they will TRY to figure out how to combine the fire and the police/sheriff’s departments. Combining them will involve “EQUALIZING” pay schedules, which translated will mean higher pay and benefits for all in those groups and tax increases for the rest of us.

    Then the city will need to build new firehouses and buy new equipment so everything is the top of the line. It takes a couple years for a special order firetruck to roll off the assembly line, so there will be tax increases, followed by bonds and more tax increases to pay for the equipment and structures.

    In ten years I may be dead, but my kids will still be paying the bills or moving out of Vanderburgh Co.. The young people will move to a county or state where the taxable property values and taxes are lower. My grandkids and great-grandkids have already done that. If they stay here they might have to rent or live in Mom and Dad’s basement until Wathen or GAGE can lure or bribe a business with high wage jobs to locate here. High wage means anything from $10.00 per hour and up.

    This plan promises nothing but less representation, fewer ways for the taxpayers to make their voices heard, too much power in the hands of the mayor and his cronies and a lot of loopholes that we can’t trust this administration or the current politicians he would appoint to power, to fill in ways that would be beneficial and fair to the taxpayers and voters.

    Those wanting to reorganize government need to go back to the drawing board and design a real plan, not just a wolf-in-sheep’s clothing like this pitiful excuse of a plan.

    Protect yourself from unfair government and higher taxes.

    Vote NO in NOvember!

12. After watching last nights debate – FOR SURE VOTING NO IN NOVEMBER on reorganization!

13. Thanks to the past and present Mayors, present Chief of Staff and present and past City Controllers the “YESvote” campaign to merge city and county governments is officially over!

    I hope political heads will start to roll after the State Board of Accounts findings is made public! Just don’t understand why the Mayor and his Controller and Chief of Staff thought they couls hide to major problem from the taxpayers.

    Oh, special thanks to the City County Observer newspaper for forcing this issue to go public. Shame on you Courier and Press for not taking this issue head on eatly in the game.

14. Is it possible that the software changeover screw up was used to eliminate records and cause confusion during 2011 so Weinzapfel could grease some cronies and cover his tracks? Remember the other controller Acobert left abruptly and the now ex-controller Collins that was in charge when this basic mistake was made got her job from Weinzapfel. Could it be that clever ex-Mayor knew what he was doing and this was just a part of a scheme?

    • As Weinzapfel’s mentor Barack Obama and his minions say “never waste a good crisis”. You may be onto something.

    • My Spidey sense tells me if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

15. My sources tell me that only one person in the Controller’s Office has a 4-year accounting degree and that’s the short dude that sleeps in his suit.

    How do we expect these buffoons to do anything right? If this was the corporate world, not reconciling for almost two years would be gross negligence which would result in jail time for Princess Jenny and Pretty boy Weinzapfel.

    • The little guy in the rumpled suit was demostrating some unusual facial contortions at the city budget hearings broadcast on WNIN.

      This is a must see. Until then, here is a preview of the rumpled one at the budget hearings:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4GG19mVSHU

16. Just because a guy gave a enthusiastic presentation and presented his side of a debate in a convincing way does not mean he was prepared to run this city as our Mayor. Nice guy or not, if you think Rick Davis was truly prepared to carry out all the duties of Mayor of Evansville you are in la la land.

    • LOL…and Winnecke is/was? as voters we were given a choice of 2 candidates…there was no third choice or even a “none of the above” choice offered to voters. I’ll admit I voted for Davis, I’ll also admit that I still feel he would have been a better choice/chance to correct the problems this city has on it’s plate.

      Instead what we have is a mini-me version of last 8 years under Weinzapfel which IMHO was what the powers wanted and worked at all costs to make it become a reality. All the hoopla over new positions, pay raises for the golden few and even more BS to come is nothing more than paybacks in plain sight for patronage, we do have a merit system in place here in Evansville but the reward is based on the wrong type of merit.

      JMHO

    • Your screen name says it all. I’m one of the Davis faithful. We know who you are Alex whether you’re using Yourlovabletaxcollector, FreeShiloh or Davisfordogcatcher … You’re using all names associated with Rick (using his dog’s name? funny only if you’re on the inside). Nobody likes a rat. And you’re a rat. And Terry White hired you. So you’re being paid by a Democrat from Democrats donations to publicly humiliate a fellow Democrat Party member online. Terry White should be ashamed that he’s hired you to write slanderous things about Rick. I live on the East Side and Terry White has lost my vote. And I tell all of my Democrat friends I know (and there are a lot more of us on the East Side than you think) that White has hired a rat who is spending his days fabricating lies against fellow Democrats. And Tony tells me that by hiring you Alex that White has hired someone who has voted in Republican primaries way more than Democrat primaries yet claims to be a Democrat. Again. A rat.

      • For a truthsquad you must work for Fox. Im not Alex (I know him) , I dont work for Terry White (I dont know him), I don’t know “Tony” (Soprano?) Is Davis a Democrat? I remember a TV commerical saying he was the only Independent in the race. Get YOUR facts straight.

      • Is that the same person as Mark Owen’s Justin Jarvis?

        • yes

    • …and Winnecke was? Come on.

      Nobody’s perfect but Rick Davis would have had to try very hard to screw up as badly as Lloyd Winnecke has in his first year at nearly every conceivable turn.

      • Brad, reminds you of the movie “How to Lose A Guy” the amount of misteps both publicly and privately by this administration. It would be fun to watch if we didn’t live here.

        • This is a general reply to the posters above me.
          There is so much “lost in translation” if you will, when limited to writing a response so I hope this addition helps. I made the claim that Rick Davis was not prepared to be Mayor and I stand by that. By saying this, I am not claiming that one choice was 100% right for mayor and the other was 100% wrong. In the 2 candidate choice the voters were given last November, one choice was BETTER and that was Winnecke.
          On a personal level, I like Rick, I really do. I just don’t know why he jumped in the race for mayor so early in his political career. He is flat out lacking on the right experience it takes to hold that position and do a good job at it. He lives on the westside and has a huge following over there. He could have easily won the 6th ward seat on the council. You give him 4 or 8 years on city council where he could actually make a difference and show the voters that he knows what he was talking about and can handle a $260 million dollar budget and then he could win mayor. The only thing we knew about him last November was that his party half hated him (which was actually one of his assets) and that he saved some money by changing how he printed property tax invoices.
          He’s good, but not Mayor good…….yet.

          • LOL….Using your analogy of Mr Davis’s abilities really helps me understand why our economy is so bad with no hope of recovery, we have a man acting as POTUS who didn’t have the necessary time in any political office to really get a firm grasp on what it takes to be in control of 100’s of billion of dollars…it now makes perfect sense to me, if Davis given his limited experience couldn’t handle a couple 100 million dollar city, I understand why Mr Obama can’t handle a trillion dollar country.

            Oh and before you say that the POTUS doesn’t actually control all the money that congress does, I believe the same basic situation works right here in River City with our city council.

            Makes prefect sense…thank you!

            JMHO

17. High noon in Indianapolis and the SBOA has not posted the 2011 City of Evansville audit.

18. We’re getting closer to the deadline…So what about that IT contract that Mr. CPA John Friend is “auditing”? Can he explain why there is a $1 million plus annual contract with Mark Rolley and yet they can’t get their accounting system to produce accurate and reliable financial reports? Then there is the fact that the Controller’s Office finally got off of a DOS system at the end of 2010 (most places got off of DOS by 1995)and is struggling to learn the new Windows system? It’s time for Mark Rolley to go too!

19. I see nothing but a headlong plunge toward Chaos for this city!
    Abandon Ship is the only viable call on this bastion of Boobs, and outright Crooks!

20. Just overheard the short guy in the unpressed suit blaming the State Board for the Disclaimer. The poor State Board didn’t give him enough time evan though the 2011 financial statements were due several months ago. Umm. Yeah. They are auditors. They are paid to determine if the auditee is following proper accounting policies and procedures. They aren’t paid to do the auditee’s accounting work. Good old Rusty Lloyd gets paid good money, so it’s time for him to try to reconcile the accounts if he can’t get his staff motivated to do it.

    I have an idea. Keep the “MUNIS expert” out of reconciling and you’ll have January 2011 finally reconciled within a week. It’s a good start but he’ll have 20 more months to reconcile after that.

    • LOL.

      Another long night of cooking the books, blaming others and sleeping in the suit.

      The sawed-off bean counter has his work cut out for him.

      Time to balance the budget or hang up the abacus.

      • That’s hilarious. What puzzles me about the whole situation is that the Controller’s Office is not stressed out! They don’t think that it’s a problem to not reconcile for almost two years. However, everyone in the Civic Center that has to deal with them is! Rumor has it that the State Board auditors have had an annual end of the City of Evansville audit party. Who can blame them? Saw a twenty something auditor at the beginning of the summer turn into a fifth something auditor. It may be two different people, but maybe it’s not!

21. If that is true, then he has actually been on the side of the taxpayers for a long time. LOL

22. Sorry, my comment was in response to: FortunateOne

23. AnotherOne you could be right but to claim consistently his innocence and the title of victim is absurd. He who is without sin can throw the first stone. Davis is far from without sin and likely can be seen as the instigator of the drama if looked at objectively. It’s a classic example of people getting tired of being pushed. Davis pushed too many, for too long. Right or wrong I wont pretend to know. I think you could distil it down to a classic grade school argument of “he started it, I’m gonna finish it.”

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