We hope that today’s “IS IT TRUE” will provoke honest and open dialogue concerning issues that we, as responsible citizens of this community, need to address in a rational and responsible way?

https://evansville.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=3204

IS IT TRUE many people are wondering why do the Evansville DMD/ERC officials continue to subsidizing housing units, loft apartments, facade grants, low-interest loans, tax abatements in both downtown and North Main street?  …someone needs to inform the officials at the Evansville DMD/ERC that Evansville has a Westside, Eastside, Center City and a far Northside area of town that could use their assistance?

IS IT TRUE we get the impression that the officials at the Evansville DMD/ERC think that the IU Medical School-Evansville has an enrollment of 2000 students?  …we wonder if this is the reason why they feel there is an immediate need for new offices and apartments downtown proper?

IS IT TRUE we been told that our elected officials are spending money from the local TIF funds by leaps and bounds?  …in fact, they remind us of kids shopping in a candy store?

IS IT TRUE that former President of the Vanderburgh County Commissioner, Bruce Ungethiem, current Vanderburgh County Commissioner President, Ben Shoulders, and County Engineer, John Stoll, recently attended AIC Conference (Association of Indiana Counties) awards dinner in French Lick, IN?…that Vanderburgh County was the ONLY County in the state of Indiana, among 92 Counties, to win the coveted “Outstanding Achievement Award”?  …this award recognized Vanderburgh County for its work in 2017 to the present on new County road projects, road repairs and road paving, and extensive work done on infrastructure projects?

IS IT TRUE we feel that there are many student-athletes who are participating in long-distance running events on the high school and college level that would greatly benefit by attending a long-distance running clinic conducted by former Olympian Anne Audain?  …we are totally convinced that there numerous local long-distance runners that would greatly improve their running skills by also attending a one-on-one training session with Anne Audain?  …if you know a student-athlete that would benefit in a long-distance running seminar or training session conducted by Olympian Anne Audain please contact the City-County Observer@live.com?

IS IT TRUE we hope that the investors building new hotels in downtown Evansville have considered the DoubleTree Hotel vacancy rate?

IS IT TRUE that the State Board of Accounts states that routinely overdrawn funds could be an indicator of serious financial problems of a municipal entity that should be investigated by the unit?

The Vanderburgh County Coroners, the US Forestry Service, and the Saline County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the death of an individual who fell at the Garden Of The Gods area in Southern Illinois.

The victim was flown to St. Vincent’s Hospital where she died at 03:08 hrs on 10/06/2019. The investigation indicates she fell approximately 60 feet and suffered multiple blunt force trauma from this fall.

Victim

Sara Rappee

Age 36

A resident of Evansville, IN

By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com 

INDIANAPOLIS – Every big news story reveals illuminating truths.

The battle over President Donald Trump’s possible impeachment is no exception.

Here’s one: Trump is worried about Vice President Mike Pence.

He has reason to be. It’s not that Pence will turn on him. No, it’s that Pence will begin to look like an attractive alternative to the constant chaos of the Trump presidency.

That’s why the president threw the vice president under the bus a few days ago by saying Congress should investigate Pence’s phone calls, too. Trump knows that many Republicans in the House of Representatives – where Pence served for a dozen years – and the Senate would prefer to deal with a President Pence rather than him.

One reason is ideological. Pence is more conventionally conservative than Trump, who in the past has mused about adopting a single-payer healthcare system, among other rightwing heresies.

Conservatives know Pence is one of them. He never met a tax cut he didn’t like. He believes regulating big business is always wrong but that restricting women’s reproductive choices or the right of members of the LGBTQ community to pursue happiness is okay.

But that’s not at the heart of the discomfort Republican officeholders feel. They say quietly that Pence would be more predictable and easier to deal with than Trump.

Many Republicans in Congress have the same Trump fatigue much of the country experiences. They’re tired of the non-stop stream of silly, often self-destructive fights, the daily Twitter-fueled feuds and the endless upheaval.

They want a little peace.

Pence would give them that.

That weariness of spirit accounts for the assessments by veteran GOP political strategist Mike Murphy and former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, that between 30 and 35 Republican senators would vote to remove Trump from office if they could so by secret ballot.

There’s another dynamic at work, too.

When Trump took the oath of office, the members of the Republican Party establishment had two big-ticket items on their agenda. They wanted a huge tax cut for the wealthy, and they wanted to gain control over the U.S. Supreme Court.

They needed Trump’s help with those things.

He delivered.

Trump nominated Federalist Society-approved conservatives Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh for the nation’s highest court, and he signed one of the deepest and most regressive tax cuts in American history into law.

But now that those two things have been done, Republicans don’t need his help as much as they once did. Given their druthers, they’d opt not to renew the Donald Trump White House reality show for another season.

But there is a complicating factor.

They’re scared of Donald Trump. They fear primary challenges or, just as bad, that his relatively small but ferociously loyal base of voters would desert the GOP in a general election.

For that reason, they will cling to him until it becomes clear that standing with Trump costs them more than abandoning him.

That’s the way politics works.

There is a lovely myth that Republicans during the Watergate era took principled stands when they pushed President Richard Nixon out of office. The reality is Republicans saw they were headed for disaster in the 1974 congressional elections if Nixon still was the head of the party when voters went to the polls. They threw him overboard to save themselves.

It was an act of self-preservation, not political courage.

Whatever his other faults, Trump’s own instincts for self-preservation are first-rate. As polls began to show that more and more Americans now favor impeachment, the president saw a way to create an additional barricade for political self-defense.

The line of succession says that should a sitting president die or leave the office for any reason, the vice president becomes president. If the vice president can’t do so, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives becomes president.

Trump’s implication of his vice president was a message – and not a subtle one. He was warning any wavering Republicans that, should they be tempted to abandon him, he’d take Pence down with him. That would leave them with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, as president.

Does that seem a bit panicky on the president’s part?

Yeah, but these are desperate times for him.

They call for desperate measures.

That reveal desperate truths.

FOOTNOTE: John Krull is the director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

New Zealand Track And Field Olympian, Anne Audain, Builds Legacy At Spokane’s Bloomsday

By Ryan Meza 

Posted: Sep 21, 2019 05:15 PM PDT 

SPOKANE, Wash. – Anne Audain, first female professional distance runner, and seven-time Bloomsday champion, has released a documentary outlining her life’s struggles and how she overcame them.

Born in 1955, Audain was the first professional female distance runner to represent New Zealand.

According to Audain’s website, she was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame and the U.S.A. Running Hall of Fame. She was also honored with the Member of the British Empire Medal from Queen Elizabeth II.

The documentary, Running her way, talks about some of the struggles she faced.

In her documentary, Audain talks about suffering bone deformities in both of her feet as a child, causing her to not walk correctly. When she was 13 years old, she had successful reconstructive bone surgery. The surgery was what she needed to help her career take off, and she joined a local athletic club not long after.

Audain made a name for herself by winning her first race while running barefoot.

It was in 1981 when Audain left her mark on Spokane, however, winning her first of seven Bloomsday races.

She kept her winning streak going through 1983 before the Olympics in 1984.

She returned to Bloomsday in 1985 to keep her legacy alive by taking home the prize and again in 1986, where she set her personal best and course record time at 38:48, a time that wasn’t beaten for nine years.

Audain won Bloomsday two more times in 1988 and 1990, leaving her mark not only on Spokane and Bloomsday but as a female runner.

In 1993, Anne founded the Idaho Women’s Celebration 5K which has now become www.FitOneBoise.org. It was just held on September 28 and was an urge success.

To learn more about Audain, you can watch her documentary, Anne Audain: Running Her Way.

FOOTNOTE: THE ASSOCIATION OF ROAD RACING STATISTICIANS REPORTED THAT FORMER OLYMPIAN ANNE AUDAIN POSTED 70 CAREER WINS.   THIS FIGURE DOESN’T INCLUDE HER CAREER PRIZE MONEY OF WELL $200,000.  SHE ALSO RECEIVED UNDETERMINED AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION FOR CORPORATION SPONSORSHIP, PRODUCT ENDORSEMENTS, SEMINARS, AND PRIVATE DISTANCE RUNNING SKILL SESSIONS.

Obituary Of Bettie (Groves) Engelbrecht

Bettie (Groves) Engelbrecht passed away at 8:00 a.m., on Wednesday, October 2, 2019, at the Heritage Center in Evansville.

Bettie was born November 16, 1920 to L.D. and Edith Niekamp Groves. She graduated from Bosse High School, attended Purdue University for 2 years, and finished earning her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Education from Evansville College. Bettie became the physical education teacher at Centennial Grade School. In the same year she started teaching, she and John A. Engelbrecht were married.  She became a west side booster and resident at that time, as she remained ever since. She was a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church since 1945, where she taught Sunday School for 20 years.

Her fiancé, John A. Engelbrecht, whom she met in the Evansville College library, was serving aboard the Light Cruiser Birmingham as its radio officer during World War II. They married while his ship was in port at Mare Island, Hawaii. Bettie and John A. became the co-founders of WIKY AM & FM radio stations in Evansville.

WIKY-FM was the first FM radio station to sign on in the Evansville market. They went on to start WTVK television in Knoxville, Tennessee and became franchise holders of several Muzak franchises including Evansville, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. The corporation’s name at that time was South Central Broadcasting. The company today is known as South Central Incorporated, which is a family-owned business investment company. At the time of her death, Bettie still owned a minority stake in South Central Inc.

Bettie was very active in philanthropic work in the Evansville area. She served on the boards of numerous organizations including the Board of South Central, Goodwill Industries, and the University of Southern Indiana Foundation where she received an honorary Doctorate degree. Bettie was a member of the Chi Omega Sorority, American Colleges and Universities and was one of the founding members of Altrusa of Evansville. She was active in supporting the West Side Nut Club and was a booster for Ducks on the Ohio and a Member of the Evansville Kennel Club.

Bettie is survived by her son, John D. Engelbrecht (Stephanie) of Evansville; grandson, John P. Engelbrecht (Allison); and great grandchildren, Ellie, John W., Myles, and Anna.

Bettie is preceded in death by her loving husband of 29 years, John A. Engelbrecht, who passed away in 1974; and her parents, L.D. and Edith Groves.

Private Graveside Services will be held Thursday, October 10, 2019 at Lutheran Cemetery, 1305 North St. Joseph Avenue, Evansville, with Reverend Chad Eckels and Father Ted Tempel officiating.

Friends may visit from 4:00 p.m. until 7:00p.m., Wednesday, October 9, 2019 at BOONE FUNERAL HOME EAST CHAPEL – A Family Tradition Funeral Home, 5330 Washington Avenue, Evansville.

Memorial Contributions may be made to: St. Paul’s Lutheran Church at 100 East Michigan Street, Evansville, IN 47711.

Condolences may be made to the family online at boonefuneralhome.net