LETTER TO THE EDITOR: ADAMS AND O’DANIEL NEED TO BE RE-ELECTED

    18
    Dear City County Observer Editor, Dr. Dan Adams
    Dr. Dan Adams and Attorney Conor O’Daniel have proven their value to our city government as the most educated, respected and experienced law makers on City Council and in the field for the At-Large positions in the Democratic Primary on May 5, 2015
    conorDr. Adams has served for almost eight years and demonstrated time and again his pragmatic, compassionate and honest leadership. He currently holds the positon of City Council President and brings both a medical degree from Harvard University and Master of Business Administration from Washington University to the table. His consistent leadership and ability to work across the aisle with the current administration has been essential to the City winning the IU Medical Center for its downtown. His work with others to develop a team training concept brought the University of Evansville, the University of Southern Indiana and Ivy Tech Community College into the project and will ultimately lead to 2,000 students learning and potentially living in Evansville’s downtown.
    Dr. Adams’ career as a heart surgeon taught him the value of a learned approach to his decisions. His quiet and encouraging leadership took a City Council reeling from internal conflict and brought back its integrity as a body. He has demonstrated his ability to work with each member of City Council with a hands-off approach to their projects and has supported bringing each and every initiative to a vote whether he ultimately agreed with the measure. His leadership, education and experience are essential to the body functioning to its fullest potential going forward. He embodies the role of the At-Large Representative and is widely respected within all sects and demographics of the Evansville community. He must be re-elected on May 5, 2015.
    Conor O’Daniel has served for nearly four years, and is in his second year as the City Council Finance Chairman. His thoughtful and policy driven approach to issues has proven essential to the effectiveness of the legislative body. He brings with him the experience of being a small business owner and is the managing partner of the law firm that bears his name. He has been licensed to practice law in Indiana for more than 15 years, and holds a Doctorate of Law degree from the top tier law school, Indiana University. 
    Attorney O’Daniel has also demonstrated his ability to work with Republicans and Democrats alike both on City Council and with the current City Administration. His bravery and honesty was most notably shown when he was the first City Councilmember to question the size of the downtown hotel subsidy. He was the first one to say that he could not support a $38.5 million bond and played a critical role during the weekend negotiations when the Administration and City Council agreed to reduce the City’s debt to $20 million. He has been the first Finance Chairman in the recent past to truly stand up for budget cuts and outline where the City was overspending. When threatened with an opponent or reduced support from special interest groups, he held his ground and persisted in the need to do the right thing for the taxpayers. 
    There is no other member of City Council now or in the running that could adequately replace Mr. O’Daniel as the Finance Chairman. It is essential that he be re-elected to continue the work of bringing the City’s spending more in line with its revenue. 
    These men range in age from early 40s to early 70s, but age is not necessarily an indicator of drive or energy. They have what it takes to lead this City. It has been demonstrated by these two truly professional gentlemen, time and time again. 
    Voters on May 5, 2015 may vote for three At-Large Candidates but only two truly matter to the ability of this community to move forward. Please join me in sending these two leaders back to City Council. Your vote is critical to our progress as a community.

    Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley

    3rd Ward City Councilwoman

    RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

    18 COMMENTS

    2. Ms. Brinkerhoff-Riley:

      A well-written letter in support of your colleagues on Council. But I have to wonder . . . after your heroic act of exposing the changed 2012 audit opinion, these gentlemen did not support you as Friend sought your ouster from the V.P.’s position. I might also add: neither of these two gentlemen pressed for an inquiry into the changed opinion thereafter, or sought explanation of the $ 29 Million in cash write downs to the Funds.

      Why then, your call for votes ?

      • Coma “Why then, your call for votes ?”
        Can’t speak for SBR – but perhaps IHO – the good of the citizenry is more important than personal issues
        past – current or future. (selflessness is rare and precious)

        • @bubbageek,

          What “personal issues” ? Are you saying SBR is putting the citizenry ahead of her personal issues ? Wouldn’t the failure of these two gentlemen to act on the SBOA change be directly negative to the citizenry ? In other words, if Adams and O’Daniel played ostrich and stuck their heads in the sand while $ 29 Million was -whoops–vanishing, how can that be good for citizens ???

        • Well Said. Everyone makes some mistakes. I’d vote for the ones that make the least mistakes and let the small stuff go. But I do see where people find it hard to let go of the missing 29 million dollars and those God awful State Audits that have a funky smell to them. Some thing is rotten in Denmark. I was hoping that Dan and Conner would stand up with Stephanie to challenge the Machine. I know that’s hard to do as the Machine is powerful and they could have been next on the chopping blocks. I obviously wonder if the Machine has some thing on everyone and uses that to keep their people in line with the Machine? I can only guess what the reasons are.

    3. I would venture to say the both voted for Obama twice. If only their concern for fiscal responsibility stretched beyond the City limits. Adams can be annoyingly pedantic and O’Daniel can be a pompous ass….Very well.

      • I’ll take pedantic over pompous any day. Especially when we are discussing a municipal governing body.

      • The framers frankly assumed that policy-makers would have to learn on the job: They assumed that policy expertise was largely unattainable by the general public and even by most elites not in government service. But they engineered the structure of the national government to respond to this challenge. The structure of different branches of Congress, for example, would combine to produce outcomes superior to either chamber acting independently.

        When one looks back at the last decade or two of Evansville City Council governance, that statement about “expertise [being] largely unattainable” has more than a kernel of truth to it. At some point in time it might be judicious to at least consider a professional city manager.

        • Press I have to agree with you 100% on this one about the City Manager. The Mayor is definitely not a very good Manager. He is more of a TV personality than anything else. A not so good looking “Pretty Boy” who’s not that bright either. We need a City Manager that can get around the Civic Center on a daily basis and get the different City Departments working together. Everyone who works for the City should have a meeting with everyone else at least once a month or maybe even once a week in order to talk to each other to find out what each office is doing and what they have available to offer. At least in the Mayor’s first year. Further more the Manager should be able to hire and retain people for longer than 4 years. What Big Business that’s doing well in the Business World throws out almost all their employees every 4 years and starts all over again with entirely new employess. It’s no wonder the City is so SCREWED UP.

      • I’d take Doc Adam over Mega any day. Sorry Mega but you don’t cut the cake very well.

        • Cake? Is there cake. I like cake and believe me, I can cut the cake.
          News flash… I’m not running for anything so there is not a choice between Doc Adams and me.

          No one should make a career of being a public “servant”

    4. I am a FIRM believer in Term limits,–I would vote out my own Mother (deceased- bless her Soul) after 2 Terms.

      • Crash. Term limits? Do you work some where? And if so do they throw you out of your job every four years? How well do you think that works for you?

        What we need is longer term employment BUT with oversight that prevents corruption. Any corruption that’s found should be dealt with by the oversight people. That way you get a consistence work force but a good and useful and honest work forces. Its’ the corruption that you want to throw out not the good workers. Right?

        • I understand your point moveon,– but I view Political Leadership/Responsibility as different from being in the work force. In Politics no one is irreplaceable and there comes a time to step down — and let the next generation take the reins, it is after all their future that is usually on the table.

    5. Coma-
      You have to understand a couple things to understand this editorial. I respect peoples opinions and right to voice it as I respect Ms Riley’s., but please understand in the leagal world you must term things correctly to imply your intent but not leave your backside out there to be called on it or worse if it were purely in a legal sense make your comment a risk or liability. Like most every Attorney in this land Ms. Riley is very skilled at her profession and does this very well again I applaud her for her skills.
      Now let’s read the last paragraph first then read the rest. I did not see this as a push to directly support these two Dem candidates as much as it was a request as the last paragraph says to vote for just TWO DEMS in the race. You say so what. This I think goes back to the approach I described above. By voting for just two, it does not and is not a ploy to effect the race of these two. This action limits votes for the other two candidates. Again people say so. By doing this it brings in the straight voting ticket into the situation. In this they are listed in aplhabetical order so these votes are assigned to the other two candidates in that order. W is the last on the ballot and the last to get the free votes. In this tactic it only limits one candidate not helping two. That candidate is the one she continually is at issue with. I have no vote in this race nor no dog in the fight as I live outside of Vanderburgh county, and don’t know ANY of the four running here and certainly don’t have a company who gives money to anybody for favor. I just really don’t like when partial truths or muddied agendas are used to effect a situation. If you just don’t want to see a person voted for that is everyone’s right to express it the last time I checked, just say it. Don’t goto elaborate lengths to do this by these means please. Politics is bad enough to drag in lawyer tactics into this.

      • Yao, OK, I get it now . . . “the Oyster had an interesting green wristwatch”. Check.

    6. My computer can’t find the Open Forum for some reason. Did anyone else see the article in the C&P today about Ms. Hart’s claims of being a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom ? It seems her war experience was serving four months in Terre Haute In. A copy of the article should be posted in every veterans service organization in the area. If you can’t bring yourself to buy a copy of the paper, borrow one. Is has some other background on her.

    Comments are closed.