Democratic candidate for Mayor of Evansville Rick Davis released his long awaited plan for jobs today just after the first townhall forum at Harrison High School. Davis made reference to his plan during the forum and had volunteers handing out one page overviews at the entrance.
In his plan Davis addresses a plan to address skills improvements for at risk youth by implementing the “Jobs for Americas Graduates” program that has been in practice in several Indiana cities. Davis also is proposing to tap into existing funds within the Department of Metropolitan Development with matching funds from local banks to assist existing businesses with growth.
Davis plans to use the six unsold Front Door Pride homes to attract minority police officers and fire fighters to Evansville in hopes of making the neighborhood safer and creating positive role models for at risk children.
Finally candidate Davis is calling for accountability and transparency in the job creation and tax incentive tools use by economic developers. The one pager and the full plan are available on the following links.
That’s it? That’s the plan?
Counselors in High School?
Free homes for six public employees?
Move a meeting to Evansville?
Make public incentives public even though they are always voted on in a public meeting?
And a whopping 3 million dollar fund to loan to businesses? That’s enough money to fund 3 stall strip mall if the parking lot is already there.
Yea… heck of a job there Ricky.
That’s funny. So he is supposed to go out and start up his own version of whirlpool. Anybody see that coming besides me? Do you really think any candidate has any real power to add jobs in a community? Maybe city jobs or “infrastructure” projects, but that just burdens us homeowners and taxpayers with more public debt. At least he’s not another “good old boy” this city has had to tolerate for how many years now, say what sounds good to get the job they do what you want.
It full plan document says sell, not give.
I think the one pager does a disservice to his plan. He’d been better off not to have it.
I eagerly await the next Rick Davis campaign finance report which should show who was paid a consulting fee to develop this plan.
WOW – that one pager is pretty sad. my comment is on the tax abatement item. Businesses already do that – IT IS ALREADY REQUIRED. The author of that plan obviously either didn;t do their homework or didn’t understand the assignment. again I say WOW.
So, beyond pandering to minorities using taxpayer-funded front door pride houses, what exactly is his plan? I fail to see how any of this would create a single solitary job…unless it’s government contract jobs tearing down houses and removing the debris, leaving a vacant lot.
This idea that government should step in where entrepreneurs won’t, or they will somehow succeed where the reality of the market fails is ABSURD. How about this…sell the existing FDP homes to the highest bidder in a FAIR and open auction and get out of the business of real estate? That seems pretty easy to me. It was a failure when Weinzap tried it, and it’ll only ever be a failure henceforth because it is not a function of a free market and free investment of capital, it is a function of someone in government spending someone else’s money on something for yet a third party, often paying their cronies to do the work at far above the market rate. THAT is why it is a failure. It’s simple, Milton Friedman style economics. Unfortunately, even common sense goes above the heads of elected officials.
Wow… Turning a 100K FDP loss into a 200K giveaway? That’s taking the status quo, and going the wrong way, isn’t it Rick?
Are there corporate moving packages these days? And here Rick wants to give homes away to new guvy hires?
I think I nailed it when I told you all the other day – “Unsubscribe”? (Sorry Rick, I can’t dream up any “POSITIVE” comments!)
I think that Rick has made some good public relations points with a generalized ideas in this jobs plan. Yes, he has his thinking cap on today, and that’s great. But I’d like to see more emphasis by both candidates on ways to seriously stimulate new housing starts in the Evansville real estate market area.
While Habitat for Humanity is a wonderful thing, those houses are built largely from donations and by volunteers, and the homes are intended for a very limited ownership population. And FDP is really limited in it’s market appeal since it’s targeting older neighborhoods for redevelopment, and most homebuyers are shopping the city fringe and subburbs.
The not-for-profit private charity programs and the for-loss-of-profit government subsidized programs are appropriate for some purposes I suppose. However, new houses built for profit by our southwest Indiana homebuilders create an average one new job per house built, and during the height of our pre-2008 building boom, we saw 650 – 900 new homes built per year. And I remember reading that nearly 1/3 the price of constructing a new for profit home is cash that circulates in the local economy.
I’d like to see new house starts return to something near those pre-bust numbers, and Habitat and FDP are not going to accomplish that alone.
We have great real estate sales professionals and the best homebuilders in the state. We need to see a comprehensive plan to draw major industries to Evansville, draw new residents who will purchase the current glut of surplus homes for sale, initiate programs whereby banks keep mortgaged homes from going into default, and re-stimulate new homebuilding in the Evansville metro area.
So far, these position papers show thoughtful consideration of our employment problems, but rambling about generalized ideas is not going to accomplish what really needs to happen. I know I am generalizing too, but I’m not running for Mayor of Evansville. Please, guys, get specific and git’r done.
Shrink government back to the essentials. Ruff times call for ruff
measures. We can not all work for the government.
One problem is transfer funds. We send our tax dollars off to Indianapolis or Washington D.C. and they send it back in one form or another. Why not cut out the middle man and keep the money right here at home? We need less dependence on the state and federal government and more dependence on a local government that is run by ethical people.
If Indy and Washington can not get their hands on it in the first place, I guarantee we can keep more money working for us right here at home.
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