At approximately 5 pm on 8-25-2020, Evansville Police were dispatched to a motor vehicle accident with serious injury in the southbound lanes of I-69 near the Morgan Ave exit. The call taker advised that a SUV had flipped over and that a male had been ejected from the vehicle. The vehicle was reportedly occupied by other individuals including three juveniles and an adult female. Officers, as well as Vanderburgh County Deputies, and EFD arrived and immediately shutdown traffic to southbound I-69 and attempted life saving measures as well as medical welfare checks on the other occupants in the vehicle. The male, who has been identified as Dylan Cleveland (27), was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced deceased. A juvenile inside the vehicle was also transported to the hospital for minor injuries. No other injuries were reported. Witnesses behind the SUV stated that they observed a rear tire blow out of the SUV before the vehicle began to swerve and eventually flip. Cleveland was reportedly not wearing a seatbelt prior to being ejected from the vehicle. EPD Accident Reconstructionist arrived on scene to investigate and, I-69 remained closed until they finished their on-scene investigation.Â
Gov. Holcomb to Provide Updates in the Fight Against COVID-19
Gov. Eric J. Holcomb, the Indiana State Department of Health and other state leaders will host a virtual media briefing to provide updates on COVID-19 and its impact on Indiana.
WHO:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Gov. Holcomb
State Health Commissioner Kristina Box, M.D., FACOG
Chief Justice Loretta Rush
Secretary of State Connie Lawson
WHEN:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 2:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday, August 26
“IS IT TRUE” AUGUST 26,2020
You now are able to subscribe to get the CCO daily.
OFF-ROAD VEHICLES AND GOLF CARTS WITHIN VANDERBURGH COUNTY
On July 14, 2020 the Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners authorized Off-Road Vehicles to be operated within Vanderburgh County, Indiana, outside the corporate limits of the City of Evansville and the Town of Darmstadt, Indiana subject to the following requirements summarized below:
- Off-Road Vehicles must not be operated on an excluded county road, sidewalk, bicycle/walking path or state highway.
- Off-Road Vehicles must be equipped with headlights, tailights and fully functional brakes.
- Off-Road Vehicles operated after sunset must be equipped with two (2) headlights and two (2) tail lamps.
- Off-Road Vehicles shall not carry more passengers than the vehicle was designed for.
- Off-Road Vehicle operators must be eighteen (18) years of age AND possess a valid driver’s license.
- Off-Road Vehicle operators shall carry liability insurance for the Off-Road Vehicle and possess a Certificate of Insurance while the vehicle is being operated.
- Off-Road Vehicles may cross a prohibited roadway, but only at a right angle and only when the operation can be done safely.
- Off-Road Vehicles must be operated in compliance with applicable state laws.
The complete Off-Road Vehicle ordinance is available here:Â County Ordinance 10.60
Golf Carts
By state statute and local ordinance, golf carts are not considered Off-Road Vehicles and NOT currently permited to operate on any county or city roadway. For more information, please click here.
Penalties
An Off-Road Vehicle operator who violates any provision of the county Off-Road Vehicle ordinance is subject to a fine of $50 for a first offense, a fine of $100 for a second offense and a fine of $500 for a third offense (within the same calendar year).
Registration
For information regarding how to register your Off-Road Vehicle, please visit the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) website.
The BMV will not register an Off-Road Vehicle as a normal motor vehicle (regardless if lighting, street tires, and safety equipment has been retrofitted).
Helmets
Indiana Code 9-18.1-14-11 requires an individual less than eighteen (18) years of age who is operating or riding on an Off-Road Vehicle to wear a DOT approved helmet. IC 14-16-1-33 places responsibility for ensuring underage riders wear helmets on the owner or possessor of the Off-Road Vehicle.
Under the law, owners of ORVs who allow children younger than age 18 to ride their ORV on public or private property without wearing an approved helmet can be charged with a Class C infraction, which carries a maximum penalty of $500.
County Off-Road Vehicle Map (Click Map for Larger View)
Pictured above: County Off-Road Vehicle Map. Off-Road Vehices may not be operated on roadways depicted in red or blue or within the City of Evansville or the Town of Darmstadt.
Visit the Indiana Department of Natural Resources website to learn more about Off-Road Vehicle safety and operation.
Yesteryear: In 1916 Woodrow Wilson Signed Into Law The Creation Of The National Park Service
In 1916 Woodrow Wilson Signed Into Law The Creation Of The National Park Service
this article was submitted by Ron Riecken of Evansville
It was on this day in 1916 that President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the act that established the National Park Service. Yellowstone was designated as the first national park in 1872, and by the 1890s, there were three others: Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant (now known as Kings Canyon). When Congress created the first national parks, it didn’t assign a part of the government to run them, and the task ended up falling to the Army.
The Army patrolled for poachers or vandals — traveling on skis in the cold Yellowstone winters —but they didn’t have any legal recourse to deal with criminals, so they just gave them warnings. In 1894, the last remaining wild buffalo herd in the country was in Yellowstone, and it was small.
That year, a poacher named Edgar Howell bragged to reporters that there wasn’t much anyone could do about his buffalo hunting since the most serious penalty he faced would be to get kicked out of Yellowstone and lose $26 worth of equipment. The editor of Field and Stream ran that story in his magazine, and there was a huge uproar. President Grover Cleveland signed the “Act to Protect the Birds and Animals in Yellowstone National Park,†but that was just one park. Without a national system regulating the parks, the government remained limited in its control.
The Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of War all claimed to protect the National Parks, but no one was really doing the job. In 1914, the conservationist John Muir died, after losing a long fight to preserve Yosemite’s beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley against developers who wanted to turn it into a dam and reservoir for the city of San Francisco. Although Hetch Hetchy was dammed, Muir had stirred up public opposition, and many citizens worried that the national parks weren’t adequately protected. The issue was brought up in Congress that year, but they wouldn’t sign a bill to change it.
Secretary of the Interior Franklin Lane knew that they needed a good lobbyist to convince Congress to protect the parks better. Then he got a letter from an old college classmate named Stephen Mather. Mather was a self-made millionaire who struck it rich as the sales manager for Pacific Coast Borax Company, thanks to his genius for advertising and promotion. In his letter, Mather complained that he had just been on a visit to Yosemite and Sequoia and was upset by what he saw: cattle grazing, development, and trails in terrible condition. Lane told Mather that if he was unhappy he should come to Washington and fix the problem himself. Mather agreed.
Mather was talented and he was rich: a perfect lobbyist. He went to Washington and threw himself into a publicity campaign to designate a government agency specifically for the national parks. He hired Horace Albright, a legal assistant, and Robert Sterling Yard, the editor of the New York Herald. He paid much of their salaries himself. He sponsored the “Mather Mountain Party,†a two-week trip for 15 extremely influential business leaders and politicians in the Sierra Nevadas — he paid for it himself — and the men enjoyed a luxurious vacation, hiking and fishing, and enjoying fine dining (complete with linens) in the midst of the parks.
By the end of the two weeks, they all supported Mather’s request for a national agency to oversee the national parks. He partnered with the railroads in their huge “See America First†publicity campaign. He got national newspapers to run headlines about the cause, started a campaign for school kids to enter essay contests, and after convincing National Geographic to devote an entire issue to the national parks, Mather gave every member of Congress a copy.
His assistant Albright drafted a bill to create a parks bureau, which would be part of the Department of the Interior. On this day in 1916, Wilson signed it into law, and the National Park Service was created
Financial Resources for Area Businesses Now Available Online
The “Re-Opened Evansville Business Task Force” is coordinated by Steve Schaefer, Deputy Mayor of Evansville.
Attached below is the link concerning financial resources available to area businesses.
CVBs Enter Triage Mode in the Wake of COVID-19 Staff Reductions
CVBs Enter Triage Mode in the Wake of COVID-19 Staff ReductionsCOVID-19 has cut a path of destruction through the meetings industry, and among the hardest hit are DMOs/CVBs, which are cutting staff as much of their revenue stream from hotel bed taxes and tourism improvement districts has dried up.
According to Don Welsh, president and CEO of Destinations International (DI), the association that represents DMOs/CVBs, the lingering pandemic and dire news about a resurgence in infection rates have added extra urgency for relief that the federal government has yet to offer through the CARES Act.
Welsh emphasized that DI is working with US Travel Association to apply pressure on the federal government to expand the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to include 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organizations, which comprise about 97% of DI’s membership.
“Clearly business conditions have not improved,†Welsh said. “I think many organizations are not able to bring back very important furloughed employees, and in some cases they’re having to now lay off additional people.
[Related:Â Leveraging Your CVB Relationship: Tapping Into Free Services From CVBs/DMOs]
“We had a three- to the six-month runway, and through reserves and budget cuts could continue to operate,†he continued about the general CVB environment.
“Here we are five months into it and the situation has not improved from a financial standpoint. On average, you can probably assume 70% to 80% in staffing reductions from where we were in March, so all of our members have been having to do much more with less, with much fewer people on the sales and services side. The bottom line is the need for us to be included in the funding for PPP, and longer-term loans are critical.â€
Lysa Lewin, formerly senior vice president of sales at San Francisco Travel, who was laid off along with what she estimates was a nearly 70% reduction of the CVB’s staff, said the prime objective for CVBs in the near term will be communicating with their diverse set of clients and stakeholders.
“From the CVB side, their goals are talking to customers and pushing postponements of meetings rather than sales of meetings,†she said, “and how do they know when the hotels are going to open or the convention center is going to be compliant with the latest guidelines?
“The focus is on communication, and at the same time they have to push all that is available in their city to their local community—the restaurants, outside dining,†she added. “The local community is what’s keeping restaurants and catering companies alive during a difficult time.â€
Like most CVBs, the bulk of San Francisco Travel’s efforts was dedicated to leisure travel, so in the short term, the meetings side will get even less attention.
“Ours was about 60/40,†Lewin said of San Francisco Travel’s pre-pandemic leisure/meetings mix. “The 40 is gone.â€
[Related:Â Unique (And Free) Ways That Florida CVBs Can Boost Meetings and Events]
A Magnified Problem
The numbers don’t lie, and the projections are dire, concerning the prime driver of CVB operating funds.
- U.S. hotels have suffered a 50% revenue decline in 2020, representing a $124 billion loss, according to a study by Oxford Economics.
- Eight in 10 hotel rooms are empty, according to Smith Travel Research.
- 70% of hotel employees have been laid off or furloughed, according to an Oxford Economics and Hotel Effectiveness survey.
The lack of funding and staff reductions in hotels is magnified because the gutting of hotel convention services and sales personnel would usually filter down to CVBs. And CVBs could take up the slack when dealing with meeting planner requests that would normally go to a hotel, convention center or other meeting or event facility.
The Situation on the Ground
So how are CVBs struggling to fill the service gap? Meetings Today reached out to several to see how they are triaging their services.
- Visit St. Pete/Clearwater CVB has maintained staffing levels, but launched its Brighter Days Ahead campaign, which included educational webinars for meeting planners in key segments to discuss the current state of meetings. The CVB also created virtual tours for planners.
[Related:Â Planner Best Practices for Working With CVBs/DMOs]
- The Chicago Southland CVB is dedicating much of its efforts to listing brand-specific safety guidelines and protocols of area hotels. It also created an online portal for planners to request Zoom appointments with its sales team and arrange for virtual site visits.
- California’s Meet in Walnut Creek CVB, located in the San Francisco Bay area, has seen its staff reduced from two employees to just one, but is concentrating its efforts on clear communication of safety guidelines.
- Alabama’s Huntsville/Madison County CVB, while maintaining staff levels, is focusing on offering video site tours and communicating cleanliness protocols.
- The Gatlinburg CVB is also fortunate in not anticipating any staff furloughs or eliminations and noted that since it had ordered an unusually large amount of gift items for meeting attendees, it is well stocked even though the shutdown has decreased the pipeline in many destinations. The CVB is focused on having honest conversations with clients about possible attendance reductions and noted that the Gatlinburg Convention Center is currently applying for GBAC STAR accreditation.
-  Illinois’ Springfield CVB has also maintained its staffing levels, but like other DMOs is shifting to virtual meetings and conference calls to communicate with clients. The destination is offering a mix of virtual and traditional site tours that are carefully conducted in concert with the host hotels to ensure safety.
- Iowa’s Visit Quad Cities CVB, which serves destinations in eastern Iowa and western Illinois straddling the Mississippi River, has also maintained its staffing level, which it said is important in helping groups navigate its unique situation of covering destinations in two states.The CVB said it has ramped up its service of assisting planners with creating hybrid meetings when necessary. It’s also focusing on COVID-19 measures that include the ability to customize outdoor experiences in unique spaces to further ensure social distancing and safety, as well as working with the meeting facility and hotel community to relax attrition and cancellation contract terms.
Read Next:Â How 3 CVBs Worked With Planners to Save or Reschedule 2020 Meetings
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tyler Davidson is Vice President & Chief Content Director. Â Tyler Davidson has covered the travel trade for more than 25 years. In his current role with Meetings Today, Tyler leads the editorial team on its mission to provide the best meeting content in the industry.
Holcomb Signs Executive Order To Expand Childcare Options During COVID-19
Holcomb Signs Executive Order To Expand Childcare Options During COVID-19
Staff ReportÂ
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana families may now have more options in finding childcare as they juggle changes made by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as closed schools and a move to virtual or hybrid learning this fall.
Gov. Eric Holcomb signed an executive order Friday to expand where childcare for school-aged children can take place. School corporations that contract with outside organizations, like local Boys and Girls Clubs and YMCAs, can now choose to offer childcare at locations outside school buildings, which may be closed due to e-learning.
The order also clarifies how many students can meet in a home for e-learning. Residential homes can now welcome up to 10 school-aged children, rather than six, for group learning before that home must be licensed for childcare.
This part of the order coincides with recent efforts to increase childcare options in cities like Indianapolis. The Mind Trust, a local education non-profit, recently provided $200,000 to 11 area sites to offer care for students completing virtual classes. These sites are expected to help around 500 school-aged children.
Nationwide, some families are coming together to push for community learning opportunities despite the new remote learning so students can stay involved with each other and build social skills while away from the classroom.
Several major school districts in Indiana are opting for e-learning or a hybrid schedule where students attend in-person class for only part of the week. Indianapolis Public Schools — the largest school district in the state — is doing remote learning until at least October, for example.
COVID-19 cases in Indiana also continue to rise. The Indiana State Department of Health reported an additional 688 cases Monday, bringing the statewide total to 87,592. Another five Hoosiers are reported to have died from the virus, adding to a total of 3,008 deaths.
The state’s seven-day positivity rate for unique, individual tests was 7% between Aug. 10 and Aug. 17. The seven-day positivity rate for all tests, including repeats, was 5.6% in the same time.
FOOTNOTE: TheStatehouseFile.com is a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.Â
