APRIL 20, 2015 DAILY “OFF TOPIC FORUM”

1. Great idea
   However: Forum should be called “Open Topics.”
   New Posting Rules And Guidelines should remain or be easily accessible.

   REPAVE RIVERSIDE DR
   IS IT TRUE – that Old Man Winter has been unusually hard on our streets and roads this year? … that City road-crews are out in abundance and working hard? … that we thank them for getting out early this year?

   IS IT TRUE – that it could be said that the Gateway to Evansville is her Riverfront? … and that a trip down Riverside Drive reveals many points of interest? … that our Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences … its’ Planetarium … the Pagoda … Esplanade … Reitz Museum … Tropicana … it’s Hotel and the Entertainment District are all located there? … and that much taxpayer treasure has been dedicated to revitalizing downtown … just a stone’s throw away?

   IS IT TRUE – that the Lunar surface in front of the Casino is dangerous and barely passable? … that visitors on foot … cross traffic there? … IS IT TRUE – that these rim-bending potholes … dips … ledges and lob-lollies may have rendered the stretch un-patchable? … that the repaving of this section of Evansville’s show-front is fundamental to marketing our town? … that this qualifies as a need … that trumps our wants?

   IS IT TRUE – that a jogger was a victim of an alleged drunken – hit-and-run driver – and was seriously injured – along this very stretch?
   http://www.courierpress.com/news/local-news/crime/police-investigating-hit-and-run-on-riverside-drive_95902247

   IS IT TRUE – that there is a Railroad Crossing just north of Second Ave on Fulton Ave … that will automatically empty your ashtrays and take out your trash?

   IS IT TRUE – that our readers could list a few other sections of roadway that need major overhaul?

2. ….great idea…how do we do this with only 1.8 million in the budget…for the entire city…if the paving was for the one square mile downtown…well…you know the results..

   • How does the city determine how much money is taken in from things like Parking tickets and industrial permits from the Health Department and other city departments that charge fees and bring in money to the city in the form of checks from local industry and business other than taxes. Who keeps track of that money? And is that money talked about openly in the public domain. And who’s over seeing all those checks to make sure that the income is logged in and accounted for? And then there is the Federal Grant money and State funding that may be given to the City Government. How is that money accounted for and if there are strings attached to that particular funding how is that money kept separate from other tax money?

     I’m getting the impression by reading the CCO for the last year that the city’s accounting department is not following the SBOA accounting guidelines and not doing a very good job of keeping track of the money that the Mayor and his department heads are spending. And I’m not so sure that the SBOA knows what they are doing either.

     • Off Topic forum , How quaint, just call it the @ the daily JoeBiden dirge…… covered.

3. Speaking of budgets, finances, etc…..On January 1, 2012, when Mr. Winnecke took control of our city finances, the General Fund balance was $4,000,000 and the Park/Rec was $3.3 million. . . .

   Now, on January 1, 2015, the General Fund has only $300,000 and the Parks/Rec is only $109,000. . .there is nothing to show for the decline. . .the hospitalization fund on January 1, 2012 was $5,800,000 and as of January 1, 2015, the Hospitalization Fund is NEGATIVE by $680,000. . . as of February 28, 2015, the General Fund is NEGATIVE by $12,200,000 and the next payment of property taxes isn’t until June, 2015. . .and any payment from the Utility for “in lieu of Property Taxes” was received in 2014 for 2015. . .and the Winnecke Administration held over not paying their bills in the tune of $5,100,000 into 2015. . .and most of my neighbors have just received their property tax bill and are very disappointed to see increases well beyond reason. . .

   and we need our streets repaired….hopes and dreams….?

   • Meter Maid,

     These are disturbing numbers. But the blame lies with the City Council, failure to oversight the spending spree of Winnecke. I saw a while back that Councilman Friend proposed an ordinance to monitor these transfers of funds. That should be enacted now ! Weinzapfel wrote an epistle this past week saying that Casino, Food & Bev and TIF were off-limits for daily operations. Open those three cans of worms up, and I’ll bet that notion will be disproven.

4. Based on the above comments, I accepted the State Board of Accounts website to review your claims. . .as it seems based on those posted reports your figures appears to be correct. . .

   But I think you missed a very important observation. . .on January 1, 2012 the city’s debt compared to the 2013 audited financial data increased substantially over those two years. . .it appears to be approx $440,000,000. . .I have insiders those tell me that the Administration has failed to disclose that the City owes $240,000,000 for our retired employees in Health Care Benefits and we are upside down by $680,000 as of January 1, 2015?

   Sure appears that the rejection of the unified government by those county folks was justified?

   • I understand the $ 240,000,000 for retired employees–and that sounds unsustainable to me over the long run.

     What does “upside down” by $ 680,000 mean ?

   • Concerned, Owes $240 million in retiree health care ? Come on now, back up that statement.

     • These kinds of claims are usually based on a present value analysis of a recurring cash stream that a municipality is obligated to spend. An interest rate that is realistic must be assumed. In days like these with low interest rates, a higher present value of cash is necessary to guarantee a monthly cash steam.

       For example if a community was obligated to pay their retirees $10 Million per year in benefits and the interest rate was assumed to be 4%, the amount of cash that would be needed to assure those payments would be $250 Million. That is derived by dividing the annual benefits by the interest rate ($10M /0.04).

       I would not be surprised if the numbers for Evansville are close to the example above. Nearly no governments have the cash on hand to assure their retirees of continuation of benefits. Social Security is the biggest offender of being under funded.

       • Joe, The person was trying to make the situation appear worse than it is. (lot of people do that on this site). Your sentence about nearly no gov’s has the cash on hand is closer to the truth.

5. April 18, 2015
   Community Organizer-in-Chiefs phony war on ISIS:

   ‘Falih Essawi, the deputy head of the Anbar Provincial Council, personally involved in the city’s fighting like the rest of its population, told CNN this week that security was “collapsing rapidly in the city.” He begged the Iraqi government for reinforcements and the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS for “urgent” air support.

   This urgent support? According to CENTCOM, between Monday and Wednesday of this week, the Coalition bombed only seven ISIS targets in the entire city. In a Pentagon news conference, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey stoutly maintained that no coalition forward air controllers on the ground were spotting the strikes, nor had any ever been.

   Dempsey was surprisingly equable about the prospect of the modern-day Genghis Khanate taking over a major urban area. “I would much rather that Ramadi not fall, but it won’t be the end of the campaign should it fall,” he said.

   To hear the Obama administration pitch it, it is more important for Iraqis to be politically correct than to actually defeat the mortal enemy of all mankind. “I was up front in our meetings about how a lasting victory over ISIL requires inclusive governance in Baghdad and respect for local populations in all areas liberated from ISIL control,” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said at the same time. Still, U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power waxed optimistic: “We’re chipping away.”

   Just like France and Britain in 1939.”

   Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/04/obamas_phony_war_on_isis.html#ixzz3XfReAfMq
   Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

   Obama, more concerned with political correctness and inclusiveness of “allies’, than stopping the barbaric hordes of ISIS on their bloodlust of ethnic cleansing. It hard to have much hope for a good outcome when our (Unites States) greatest national security flaw is our Commander-in-Chief.

6. Obama’s foreign-policy errors result not from incompetence, but from a misguided liberal progressive conscious agenda:

   “The president has an adolescent, romantic view of professed revolutionary societies and anti-Western poseurs — and of his own ability uniquely to reach out and win them over. In the most superficial sense, Obama demonstrates his empathy for supposedly revolutionary figures of the non-Western world through gratuitous, often silly remarks about Christianity and Western colonial excesses, past and present. He apologizes with talk of our “own dark periods” and warns of past U.S. “dictating”; he contextualizes; he ankle-bites the very culture he grew up and thrived in, as if he can unapologetically and without guilt enjoy the West’s largesse only by deriding its history and values.
   …
   One of the many reasons why Obama pulled all U.S. troops out of a stable and secure Iraq at the end of 2011 was that its democracy was, in his eyes, tainted by its American birthing and its associations with George W. Bush. Such a hazy belief that Western influence and power are undeserved and inordinate made it initially impossible for Obama to condemn ISIS as growing and dangerous rather than dismiss it as “jayvees.””
   …
   “The chief danger in Obama’s romantic view of revolutionary societies is that nothing in their histories suggests that these regimes will ever cease aggression or adopt internal reforms.”

   http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=8342
   …
   “

7. New CCO posting rules and guidelines as of April 20, 2015. We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is: obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, threatening, abusive, or hateful.
   Sounds a lot like the rules in effect before April 20th, where those defending religious freedom were called hateful, bigoted, ignorant Nazis.

   • They were not defending religious freedom. They already have religious freedom and there is no real reason to have to defend it. What they were doing was defending their right to go against the teachings of Jesus which they were doing by attacking other humans right to be free.

     • Move, Say What ?

     • Once again, rev. move, you miss the point entirely.

8. Is it true the water dept has been working overtime every Saturday for a while changing out old meters for the new ones? Will there be a adjustment in the contract? Is it true they are changing the meters in the oldest part of town? Is it true they have not broken any services?

9. “The gulf monarchies were alarmed at the lack of U.S. support for Egypt’s former strongman Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in the so-called Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region in 2011. The Saudis sent troops into Bahrain that year to protect the Sunni royal family from a Shiite uprising and later intervened with financial help for the military government that carried out a coup in Egypt, moves opposed by the United States.

   The kingdom’s leaders have long argued that the U.S. underestimates the threat posed by Iranian ambitions for regional hegemony. They were especially frustrated that President Obama did not act more forcefully to remove Iranian-backed President Bashar Assad from power in Syria, including a failure to punish Assad’s government for using chemical weapons or provide substantive military aid to rebel groups.

   http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-saudi-foreign-policy-20150420-story.html#page=2

10. Obama said the “Arab Spring” simply represented ordinary Egyptians seeking freedom, and had nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood. When if became obvious to all he was lying he changed his story. He said the Muslim Brotherhood was not a radical, terrorist organization. When it became obvious to all (particularly Egyptians) he was lying again, Egyptians overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government. What did Obama do? He promptly withheld all aid to Egypt.
    Be it illegal aliens here or Islamic radicals around the world, a discerning person may well ask “Whose side is he on?”

    • Commonsense, well said.

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