STATEMENT FROM RICK DAVIS, MAYORAL CANDIDATE
Like many Evansville and Vanderburgh County residents, I was outraged when I read about the excessive spending the appointed board members of the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau exhibited recently at their annual Christmas party.
The ECVB’s appointed board has violated the public’s trust. I feel the first step toward restoring public confidence requires that the board members who attended the Christmas Party repay the ECVB for the full amount of revenues expended at the party. Additionally, I call on each of these board members to resign their posts, due to the fact that the public has lost confidence in these board members’ ability to exercise proper judgment when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars. Resigning their posts is important because in the future it will be nearly impossible for any of these appointed board members to present a worthwhile community project that requires the use of public funds.
The City of Evansville has many appointed boards that spend taxpayer dollars. As a private citizen, I myself have wondered how so many boards filled with appointed people could spend millions of taxpayer dollars without any direct accountability to the taxpayer. If I am fortunate enough to be elected mayor, I will ensure that as many elected officials as possible will be placed on these boards to ensure that board members responsible for making these decisions are directly held accountable by the people.
In the case of the ECVB, state law requires that at least three members of the hotel industry are to be placed on the ECVB board. We can adhere to state law while also putting elected officials on this board so that the decisions of these boards can be held directly accountable to the public. I also ask that the mayor join representatives of the Vanderburgh County Council and the Vanderburgh County Commissioners – the bodies that appoint the ECVB positions – to determine a proper oversight committee to ensure these types of funds are not being abused in the future.
Rick Davis
Democratic Party candidate for City of Evansville Mayor
Well said.
Well said Rick.. Couldn’t have said it better. IMO, it’s pretty cut and dry what needs to happen if we have any aspirations of taking Evansville to the next level.
We need another committee, just because the public suddenly found a 3K dinner receipt filled with shocking amounts of booze?
I applaud your conviction and reasoning behind the call for the resignations.
However… it didn’t take a committee to cause this light to be shed on the booze crew!
Quite the contrary, it just took a public official that actually seems to give a damn about the public portion of the job.
To me, telling us that we need another layer of insulation (an honorary committee) between the public and facts about taxpayer money – is TOTALLY missing the whole problem, Mr. Davis!
[Foul ball, will anybody catch it? Mr. Nixon… Mr. Nixon where are you?]
For clarity, did you mean you want them to repay just this latest bill? You aren’t concerned with prior years at all?
If prior years were as excessive as the 2010 party we think repayment is appropriate for all of them. In 2010 the bill amounted to a months pay for an Evansville family. That is too high for 14 people. Perhaps something like anything above 8x the minimum wage per person would make sense.
[…] https://city-countyobserver.com/2011/01/04/mayoral-candidate-rick-davis-speaks-out-on-the-ecvb-roman-christm… […]
Great job City-County Observer for pushing the story to the Front!!!
Evansville Convention and Visitors Bureau??? Dig deeper, Further back, Exotic foreign vacation junkets, Booze, Drunken blackouts, Follow the money, Friendly No-bid contracts, Nepotism, interview former board members and staff they want to talk and have much to say, next stop Redevelopment Commission???
“LibertyJournal.org and National-Tea-Party.com members know the story years before the Mainstream Media starts reporting the news.†FTP2011
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