Letter to the Editor: Jordan Baer (Robert’s Demolition Anniversary)

Today the calendar year has turned to June 6th, 2013. It has now been 365 days since Lloyd Winnecke announced his decision to tear down Roberts Stadium. If you want to waste 11 minutes of your time, you can view the full announcement here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-TkN01sRQI).
By all accounts, the Roberts Stadium Task Force should go down in the history books as one of the worst handled committees in Evansville’s illustrious 201 years of existence. Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of working on various campaigns, committees, and initiatives across a wide variety of areas including Seattle, Washington, Lexington, KY, and Arlington, VA/Washington, D.C.

Despite the wide variety of different views and issues these groups had, none of them were as despicable and disgusting as the Roberts Stadium Task Force. It is now more than obvious that I was put on that committee in an effort to be used, and I’m not the only member who feels that way. As of right now, approximately seven task force members have reported to the City-County Observer that they do not agree with the “general conclusions” page found on page 13 of the final Roberts Stadium Task Force Report.

On the flipside, only two members reported to the C&P that they stood behind page 13 of the report, and these two members happened to be the chairman of the whole committee and a subcommittee chairman who oversaw the green space group. Outside of Ken Quakkelaar calling Alan Brill’s statements at a Parks Board meeting “wrong, wrong, wrong,” no one else has come forward to say that they stand behind the “conclusions” in the report much less proved them.

Before I dive into the full reasons why the whole Roberts Stadium process makes me sick to my stomach, I want to make one thing very clear- The city has no one to blame but themselves for this process being ugly. The blame rests solely on the city and their supporters and not on the side of those who worked to save this arena. I myself did everything possible to support these “leaders” in this process of both constructing the Ford Center and repurposing Roberts at the same time.
When the former mayor began taking heat for the construction of the Ford Center I stood behind him in a letter to the C&P (http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/oct/11/no-headline—11comment/) and when he broke ground on the new arena I was the first person in line in front of his stand in support (https://www.facebook.com/jordan.baer1/media_set?set=a.800460678350.2394023.12913772&type=3). Yet the amount of time I sat in the waiting room in his office was longer than the time he gave me to work on putting together a plan for Roberts Stadium.

Likewise, I took time out of my schedule to meet with then-commissioner and then-mayor-elect Lloyd Winnecke to go over piece by piece how the plan for Roberts would not compete with that of the Ford Center. The last time I met with him in his Main Street office in November of 2011, which required me taking a lunch break from work, changing into business attire, going to the meeting, and then changing back, was the last time he reached out to me to discuss Roberts Stadium. That’s right, HE NEVER sat down with me and my subcommittee on the task force (at least not with me in attendance I must say) to even spend one second reviewing and investigating the data obtained from the task force’s research.

During that meeting, he looked me straight in the face and said he would look into getting the value of selling naming rights to the gates among many other things. To this date, I have yet to hear anything from him on any research he did on the idea of converting the facility for mid-sized sports use. I find this to be nothing but a spit in the face of both me and those who I worked with to put together a plan that addressed the needs, wants, and goals of the vast majority of residents who brought a wide variety of ideas especially given the fact that he took time to visit both Columbus, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky for a skate park plan that made absolutely no sense (9th paragraph http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/jun/06/winnecke-will-turn-roberts-stadium-green-space/).

Ironically enough, Winnecke would not have had to have traveled outside the Evansville city limits to have been in contact with qualified professionals who knew how to handle multiple arenas. As part of my research for this project, I reached out to both Sandie Aaron of SMG and Scott Schoenike of Venuworks.

Mr. Schoenike got his start with Venuworks in Grand Rapids, MI overseeing a mid-sized arena during the time the brand new Van Andel Arena was built. He was very successful at it and reported that, (paraphrasing) “both seemed to get a fair amount of business from their niche market.” Sandie Aaron is in charge of the entire Midwestern region for SMG and gave me quite a few examples of cities who thought they needed to tear down their old arena but ended up keeping it for a smaller target market (Tulsa being the one she dealt with most). She also was in charge of Roberts Stadium since 1994 and I would say she did quite a good job getting the facility profitable …
(http://local.evpl.org/views/viewimage.asp?ID=717553)

One of the things Sandie asked me to do was to get an official clarification on what the mayor meant when he said the facility “could not compete with the Ford Center” because “everything competes with everything” but that “if only premium concerts, Aces basketball games, and other Ford Center specific events were exempt you could probably make it work.” For this reason, I emailed the chairman Larry Steenberg so that I could get an official clarification on this binding constraint. I wanted to make sure that the task force and mayor understood that we were going after sporting events that would never be able to afford the Ford Center nor would they need that large of a facility. His response was the following…

“My concept of “no competition with The Ford Center” is that we should not recommend something for which both venues would be suitable. Regardless of your or my opinion, the city has built and financed The Ford Center and needs to guard the financial health of that project. Our proposed solution(s) should not possess the potential to draw business away from The Ford Center. Our proposals should add to what the city is and can offer.”

Although this answer still was light years away from being anything official that I had asked for, it still serves as conclusive evidence that a mid-sized arena was not a competitor with the Ford Center. As of this day, there has never been a minor league indoor soccer game, an indoor football game, a minor league basketball game, hundreds of trade shows, or even a high school basketball tournament held at the Ford Center.

Was Chairman Larry Steenberg a professional in the arena industry who had more knowledge and experience than Sandie Aaron or Scott Schoenike? Well, according to this link, he has none (http://www.newharmonyproject.org/lsteenberg.html). One thing Larry Steenberg was though was a supporter of the Winnecke for Mayor Campaign…

(Larry Steenberg 2nd To Right; Photo Credit: Winnecke for Mayor Facebook Group)
Although it is a mystery why the chairman of the task force wasn’t someone who had a deep knowledge and experience with the arena industry, it is an even bigger mystery why a “general conclusions” page was added to the report after our final meeting that was never voted on by the general body of the task force, never agreed up by the general body of the task force, and certainly never endorsed by the general body of the task force. According to Winnecke’s Director of Communications, it was Larry Steenberg that added this page (https://city-countyobserver.com/2012/04/26/page-13-was-added-to-the-roberts-stadium-report-ella-johnson-watson-mayor-winneckes-director-of-communications/).
As someone who put in over 2 years worth of work into Roberts Stadium, I am deeply appalled and offended that something like this would happen. I find it to be absolutely mind boggling that a task force report would have a “general conclusions” page added without any approval from the general task force body. Shockingly enough, this was just a small blemish on the long list of errors the city has committed with the Roberts Stadium project. The following is just a sample of these errors in no particular order…

1. Fellow task force member Greg Stilwell tells me that he tried to conduct a survey at the third task force public meeting. He wanted to ask those who had taken the Roberts Stadium tour previously a few questions. Lynn Miller-Pease from Leadership Evansville, who was placed in charge of gathering input from the public, began fighting Greg’s attempt to poll the four separate groups. She even talked to Larry Steenberg to try to stop it. Thankfully, once Lynn walked away, Greg was able to poll all four groups. It turns out, 28 people took the tour of Roberts Stadium. Of those 28, 25 looked upon it favorably and wanted it preserved. Of the 3 who did not, only one was not willing to accept a compromise of a half arena half green space in the back lot plan. Lynn now leads the VOICE program.

2. Thanks to Winnecke’s Chief of Staff Mr. Steve Schaeffer, sexually explicit graffiti featuring fish that had been left on the windows for several days that was labeled as “vandalism” in the media was finally removed just a few days before the public meeting after much was made about it affecting the building’s condition in the media. Mr. Greg Stilwell asked one of the Building Authority members if it had taken them more than a mere 20 minutes to remove. The man jokingly said, “Oh I’d say about 30 minutes.”

3. During the tour of Roberts Stadium, Mr. Greg Stilwell asked one of the workers why the small area of the roof that was leaking wasn’t repaired and how much it would cost. The worker responded back to him that those types of leaks usually just cost only about $1,000 but they were told not to make the repair.

4. In a last chance effort to save Roberts Stadium, Alan Brill sued the city to prevent demolition. Judge Richard D’Amour was assigned the case and ended up ruling in the city’s favor. It turns out, his wife Holly was a campaign coordinator for Lloyd Winnecke (http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/jan/22/winnecke-tells-600-evansville-needs-laser-focused/?print=1).

5. Roberts Stadium supporter Berniece Tirmenstein was notified by Kathleen Bracher, who had worked for FEMA and the Red Cross for over 20 years, that she was interested in making Roberts Stadium a disaster relief area. Berniece sent a letter to Mayor Winnecke but never heard back from him.

6. The Roberts Stadium road signs were taken down before the building was even demolished. Not only were they taken down in a record setting pace, they were also never offered to any Roberts Stadium supporters who were interested in them (the most notable being the Roberts family).

7. Wilson Auctions was allowed to have their advertisement banner on the top of Gate 1 for over a month after the auction ended. It should come as no surprise that Andrew Wilson can be found twice in the Winnecke Campaign Finance Report from the 2011 Mayoral Race (https://city-countyobserver.com/2012/09/17/after-the-roberts-stadium-auction-by-jordan-baer/).

8. The city vastly underestimated the cost of demolition. Originally pegged at $200,000, the final cost ended up being over $700,000. This is just a fraction of the total cost of building “Roberts Park” on the site which is expected to fall between $6-8 million total which is double what the estimate to renovate Roberts was.

9. Since the costs for demolition were higher, the mayor had to get additional funding approved from the City Council. One of the council members who ended up caving in under the pressure was John Friend who is believed to be the Democratic front runner for the 2015 Mayoral Race. I asked him on this site to clarify why he supported demolishing Roberts and did not look into the value of the naming rights to the gates even though he looked into naming rights back in the 1990s. He has responded to other questions on here but has avoided answering any questions about Roberts. I am also waiting to hear back from Vanderburgh County GOP Chairman Wayne Parke on a few questions I asked him on this site as well.

10. Shortly before the vote, Roberts Stadium supporter Brenda Bergwitz tells me that she received a phone call from Carol McClintock urging her to support demolition. Thankfully, Brenda had the courage to stand against Carol’s wishes. During the call, McClintock gave away one valuable piece of information when she told her that both Democrats and Republicans were fighting demolition. This proves once and for all that Roberts Stadium was not a partisan issue, it was an Evansville issue.

11. According to the City-County Observer on October 9,2012, council member Dan McGinn compared the design of Roberts Stadium to that of a building in the former USSR. He also claimed that buildings such as the Old Post Office, Old Courthouse, and Greyhound Bus Station have “bled the city dry.” The problem is, the Old Post Office is now run by a private owner named Bashar Hamami, the Old Courthouse is now run by the Evansville Bar Association, and the Greyhound Bus Station is in the process of being renovated for Indiana Landmarks.

12. A picture taken by Klenck Co during demolition shows a perfectly dry floor while all water pumps were ripped out (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10101158804308800&set=gm.571920646159676&type=1&theater) proving that a temporary generator could have been installed while the floor was raised for a mid-sized arena.

Obviously, I can go on and on with the numerous amounts of errors committed by local government officials as well as those closely aligned with them against Roberts Stadium. But the most important thing I want you to see is just how vicious and vile these people treated this arena. And in the end, it cost all of us dearly as the effects of demolition are everywhere.

Council member Connie Robinson has not been able to get a fair amount of diverse acts here because the Ford Center is too big, the Evansville RAGE relocated, USI student Justin Meek, who helped try to bring the Evansville SkyHawks basketball team here, ended up going back to Hickory/Knightstown and made the Indy Star after landing a team for Knightstown, the GLVC Tournament looked like a ghost town in an arena too big for its size, attendance at UE basketball games has fallen to a record low, and now USI’s PAC is beginning to show its age. All of this is happening while not a single dime of Innkeepers Tax revenue has been given back to hotel guests who would have financed the simple renovation to Roberts.

Moving forward, we still have much work to do. We need to make sure Alan Brill receives a Mole Award, we need to make sure the old North H.S Gym (Baby Roberts) is preserved, we need to make sure no additional funding is approved for Roberts Park, and we need to make sure a mid-sized arena that replicates Roberts Stadium is in the eventual plans for both the city and either UE or USI on the former Roberts Stadium site.

Those who were in charge of Roberts Stadium’s fate proved they were a joke. And the problem is….. Nobody is laughing.

FOOTNOTE: THIS LETTER WAS POSTED BY THE CITY COUNTY OBSERVER WITHOUT OPINION, EDITING OR BIAS.