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Riley and Feehan pace UE at Miami
Aces drop 70-67 decision
K.J. Riley scored 20 points and Shea Feehan added 16, but Miami University hung on for a 70-67 win over the University of Evansville men’s basketball team on Sunday afternoon inside Millett Hall.
Riley was 6-of-12 from the floor and knocked down eight free throws in the game for the Purple Aces (6-7). Feehan hit three triples in the effort. Dainius Chatkevicius and John Hall added eight points apiece; Hall led the way with nine rebounds.
“Teams are just out-toughing us. We have to start making tough plays; we have to rebound the basketball better and take charges,†UE head coach Walter McCarty said. “I think we did a great job defensively, we just did not finish some of those defensive possessions with the rebounds that we needed.â€
Miami (8-5) was led by Dalonte Brown’s 16 points. Mekhi Lairy scored 14.
Evansville hit four of its opening eight attempts leading to an 8-8 score. K.J. Riley and John Hall posted the opening eight tallies. After Miami took a 10-8 lead, Jawaun Newton hit a pull up jumper in transition to tie it up.
Newton’s bucket was the start of a 7-0 run that gave UE a 15-10 lead at the 11:04 mark. Shamar Givance added a field goal and Dainius Chatkevicius posted a free throw before Newton completed the run with another bucket. On the ensuing Miami possession, Dalonte Brown converted on a 4-point play that got the RedHawks back within a point.
Over the final 10 minutes of the half, UE never gave up the lead. Miami tied it up on two occasions but with the game tied at 27-27 with under five minutes left, the Aces went on an 8-4 run to take a 35-31 halftime advantage. Shea Feehan recorded eight points as the Aces pushed their way to the lead. Riley led the team with nine tallies in the first half.
In the early moments of the second half, Evan Kuhlman found Hall open underneath the basket for a layup that gave UE its largest lead of the game at 42-35. Miami fought back with a 12-0 stretch that gave them a 47-42 lead inside of 12 minutes remaining. Mekhi Lairy, a native of Evansville, had six points in the run.
A Givance bucket got UE back on track, but Miami stretched its lead to 50-44. Midway through the second half, Dainius Chatkevicius posted back-to-back field goals to get Evansville within a single point at 52-51. The RedHawks added two buckets to go up 56-51 before Shea Feehan took over. His 3-pointer capped off an 8-0 run that gave UE a 59-56 lead with five minutes on the clock.
Miami ended the stretch when Jalen Adaway connected from outside. On the next Aces possession, Feehan put UE back in front with a pair of free throws. The back-and-forth play continued when Lairy gave MU a 63-61 lead with four minutes on the clock before a free throw made it a 3-point game.
K.J. Riley connected on an and-one that tied it up at 64-64, but the RedHawks went back in front on their next trip down the floor. They would hang onto the lead for the duration as a last-second shot by Riley fell short giving the RedHawks the 70-67 win.
Evansville’s defense was solid, holding Miami to 38.1% shooting. UE finished the game at 46.8%. The RedHawks finished with a 44-30 advantage on the glass.
On January 2, the Aces open up Missouri Valley Conference play with the annual West Side Night contest against Drake. Fans can get vouchers to purchase $5 tickets to the game at several West Side locations. Game time on Wednesday is 6 p.m.
It’s Time For City Council To Start Challenging The City Deficient Spending Practic
It’s Time For City Council To Start Challenging The City Deficient Spending Practices
The political circus at City Council budget hearings for 2017 has begun.  We enjoy watching Finance Chairman Dan McGinn, President Missy Mosby,  Vice President  Jonathan Weaver and City Controller Russ Lloyd Jr do a “balancing act†with past due to bills, advancement on future revenue and proposed tax increases they insist are “negligibleâ€.
In the current 2017 budget hearings, we are waiting for members of City Council to start challenging the city deficient spending practices and do a better job in questioning the continued waste of our hard earned tax dollars by the Winnecke administration. Â We have become more concerned about the City’s finances with each passing City Council meeting,
For over a year we suspected that the city finances were in bad shape. Â Last week City Council Finance Chairman Dan McGinn disclosed that the city finances are indeed in bad shape.
Some Evansville residents are already struggling to hold on to their homes, buy medications, pay ever-increasing utility bills, and put food on the table. Â Young families are scraping to save money for a down payment on a home to put down roots in a city that presently doesn’t have an overabundance of good-paying jobs.
We have been saying for many months that the  City of Evansville Employee Health care funding is in trouble and a day of reconvening is near.   City Council is now telling us that Evansville is expected to have more income tax revenue than in previous years, but council leaders want to cut extraneous funding to reflect a sharp increase in Employee Health costs for city employees.  The City’s Employee Health care plan for its employees is changing next year saving the city about $3.6 million. The cost savings to the city will increase the employees’ deductibles and out-of-pocket expense.
The Mayor’s office budgeted $301,000 for nonprofits in 2017 and council leadership seemed in agreement.  We are now hearing that City Council President Missy Mosby, D-2nd Ward has alleged that she’s being inundated with calls from city employees upset with the proposed changes to the 2017 Employee Health care plan. We wonder where in the world Ms. Mosby has been for the last several years when she and fellow Council members voted for every spending request the Mayor submitted.
It’s time that Council makes some tough choices in order to balance the budget, like laying some employees off, no pay increases for city council, and city employees together with department heads and the Mayor’s staff for 2017.  Of course,  delay the expansion on new exhibits for the Zoo,  eliminating the funding of “political pork barrel” projects, make major reduction to city grants given to area not-for-profits, make cuts to sports grants, suspension of capital projects requested by department heads,  put a freeze on hiring new employees for 2017,  cut the proposed 2017 city budget by 2%. across the board and address the Employee Health care funding problems head-on.
The most important ingredient that we believe has been missing from the discussion about how to stretch the budget is simple; the city administration and the Council needs to adherence to the principle that requires transparency and a willingness to be innovative in order to promote local government efficiencies.
Finally, it looks like former City Council member and Chairman of the Budget Committee John Friend CPA warning that major budget problems will be facing Council in 2017 was spot on!
FOOTNOTE: The new slogan for City Council is ‘PENGUINS OVER CITY EMPLOYEES HEALTH INSURANCE”?
reference to Housing Authority audit
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – A recent audit says the Evansville Housing Authority did not comply with federal guidelines during an upgrade of hundreds of units.
EHA officials predicted the matter will be settled with little or no consequence to the agency or residents, but the audit conducted by the Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General calls for issues to be addressed.
The audit was conducted between October 2017 and March 2018, and was released this month. It examined how the EHA handled improvements of 559 apartments under a new federal program designed to address a nationwide backlog of maintenance needs in public housing.
The federal program, known as Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), creates a funding mechanism for housing agencies to repair aging units. This is done with the involvement of private funding and low-income tax credits, as well as longer-term contracts for residents.
In Evansville, about $30 million was spent to convert units for use in the RAD program. RAD was created in 2012, and nearly all of EHA housing units now fall under the program’s guidelines.
According to the audit by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General, the EHA’s actions came up short in these three ways:
* EHA did not ensure units complied with HUD’s housing quality standards before entering into a housing assistance payments contract.
* The EHA failed to have a HUD-approved, independent third party to inspect the units under housing quality standards.
* The EHA did not apply correct contract rents for the improved units, causing the financing to fall short by about $1 million.
The Office of Inspector General stated those situations occurred because the EHA “lacked a sufficient understanding of HUD’s requirements for housing quality standards and conflicts of interest. It also lacked an adequate quality control process.â€
EHA Executive Director Rick Moore and board President David Hatfield disagreed with those conclusions.
Both said housing rehab projects across the EHA – which included kitchen and bathroom replacement, heating and cooling upgrades, roof repair, painting, carpeting and more – went through many inspections and exceed the government’s minimum standards for RAD program housing.
The units were inspected by multiple entities including the City-County Building Commission, according to the local EHA officials.
“We believe we complied with two things, one, that the units met minimum housing standards, and two, there is an inspection requirement that we met,†Hatfield said. “We’re pretty sure we didn’t violate anything, or if we did, it’s minor and will be easily remedied.â€
The local housing authority is working with HUD’s field office in Indianapolis to settle issues raised by the audit.
“Our field office is basically supporting what we’re saying, that with all the rehab work, this should be no issue,†Moore said.
The Office of Inspector General’s audit, though, makes some stern comments.
As an example: “The (Evansville Housing) Authority contends that the deficiencies we ‘alleged’ were at most a technical issue of when and how to conduct housing quality standards inspections of the RAD units that did not result in any detriment to residents. Further, it contends that the units ultimately passed the housing quality standards inspection.
“The Authority was required to ensure that the units met housing quality standards before it executed the housing assistance payments contracts or no later than the date of completion of initial repairs as required by HUD. It also did not provide documentation supporting its assertion that the newly renovated units ultimately complied with the housing quality standards. The Authority should work with HUD on the resolution of the recommendation to ensure the cited issues are appropriately addressed.â€
EHA officials blamed their incorrect application of rates under the new RAD program, in part, on a computer problem. They said correct rates were put in place once HUD repaired the glitch.
Moore states in his response to the audit that the temporary use of outdated contract rates “did not result in any harm to HUD or residents of the RAD units.†Moore called the audit’s finding “prejudicial†because a failure of HUD’s technology caused the problem.
But the auditors, again, stood by their conclusions.
“We acknowledged corrections the Authority made to the contract rents,†the audit states. “However, it is not accurate to state that HUD’s computer program created the issue of misapplication of the contract rents …. If the Authority had an adequate quality control process, it would have detected earlier that it was applying the incorrect contract rents for 2017.â€
The EHA owns and operates 904 public housing units and 1,906 housing choice vouchers, according to the agency’s website. Moore said the agency is at capacity, and there’s a waiting list.
Ex-ECHO Housing director TenBarge used ECHO funds to pay personal property taxes
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The former director of ECHO Housing Corp. paid her personal property taxes using the nonprofit’s money, the Courier & Press discovered Thursday.
ECHO’s attorney could not say whether Stephanie TenBarge’s use of the nonprofit’s funds for personal taxes played into her departure from the organization this week.
ECHO announced Wednesday TenBarge left the agency. ECHO officials provided no explanation in a news release announcing her exit, and the interim director refused to comment on the change.
TenBarge used an ECHO Housing Corp. check to pay the spring 2017 property tax payment for her home at 945 Pine Gate Road, according to Vanderburgh County Treasurer records the Courier & Press viewed Thursday.
ECHO Housing attorney Scott Wylie confirmed that TenBarge used ECHO funds to pay her property taxes.
“All donor funds that have come to ECHO have been accounted for,†Wylie said.
When asked whether or not the property tax payment played into her no longer being employed with ECHO, Wylie said he could not say if it “was or was not.†He said he could not remark on the employment status of any former employees.
It is not a policy of ECHO’s to allow employees to use ECHO funds for personal property taxes, he said.
Treasurer’s Office records show that the $1,683 spring tax bill was paid from a check from ECHO Housing Corp.
ECHO Housing board president Dane Chandler did not return a reporter’s multiple requests for comment.
Chris Metz, the interim director and former assistant director under TenBarge, didn’t return calls from a reporter Thursday. When a reporter went to the ECHO Housing Corp. office to ask to speak with Metz, an employee who was vacuuming the floor was told to tell the reporter Metz had “no comment.”
ECHO Housing reportedly received $2.1 million in contributions, grants and revenue in 2016, according to the most recent tax form available. The organization reported having $6 million in assets to the federal government in 2016.
The group owns 66 properties in Evansville, including several vacant properties. It also spent $245,000 last year to purchase 101 N. Garvin St., a vacant commercial building the group plans to turn into a $6.1 million 27-unit homeless housing complex. ECHO Housing also plans to open Garfield Commons, an $8 million 44-unit housing complex at 214 W. Michigan St., next month.
They also own Lucas Place, apartments for homeless families, and Lucas Place II, housing for homeless veterans.
USI falls short of King, 86-80
University of Southern Indiana Men’s Basketball could not get on track from long range and fell short of King University, 86-80, on the opening day of the Bill Jeoregens Memorial Classic Saturday afternoon at the Physical Activities Center. The Screaming Eagles go to 7-3 overall, while the Tornado is 8-3 on the season.
After trailing by nine points early, the Eagles moved into the driver’s seat with a 19-4 run to lead 27-21 with 9:03 left before the intermission. USI sophomore forward Emmanuel Little (Indianapolis, Indiana) led the Eagles’ surge with nine points as the squad hit six-of-eight from the field and five-of-five from the stripe.
The Eagles extended the lead to as many as eight points, 42-34, at the 3:20 mark before the Tornado went on an 11-2 run to close out the first half and took a 45-44 lead in halftime.
The Tornado winds did not slow down to open the second half as King blew through USI to build a 13-point margin with 13:14 left, 65-52. King would maintain a nearly double-digit lead for most of the final 20 minutes until USI began to chip away at the deficit, cutting the margin to four points twice (79-75 and 82-78).
The four-point deficits would be as close as the Eagles would come in the final minutes as the Tornado closed out the 86-80 win.
As a team, USI shot 47.1 percent from the field overall (24-51), but struggled from beyond the arc, hitting 20 percent of its shots from downtown (4-20). King also had the advantage on the glass, posting a 31-26 lead.
Little led the Eagles with a season-best 24 points and reached 20-or-more points for the second time in three games. The sophomore forward was eight-of-14 from the field and eight-of-10 from the line, while grabbing a game-high seven rebounds.
Senior guard Alex Stein (Evansville, Indiana) followed with 20 points, while senior guard/forward Nate Hansen (Evansville, Indiana) and junior guard/forward Kobe Caldwell (Bowling Green, Kentucky) rounded out the double-digit scorers with 12 points and 10 points, respectively.
The Eagles conclude the 2018 calendar and the brief two-game homestand of the Bill Joergens Memorial Classic when they host Ohio Valley University Sunday at 3:15 p.m. The Fighting Scots, who are 5-4 overall and 1-4 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, won their last two games before the holiday break to stop a four-game losing streak.
USI leads the all-time series 8-0 versus Ohio Valley University with four of the wins coming at the PAC and four on a neutral court. The Eagles’ last three wins over the Fighting Scots have coming at the PAC, including last season’s 84-73 overtime victory.
“READERS FORUM” DECEMBER 30, 2018
We hope that today’s “READERS FORUMâ€Â 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?Â
WHATS ON YOUR MIND TODAY?
Todays“Readers Poll†question is: If the Republican primary for the Mayor of Evansville was held today who would you vote for?
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How the plot to oust GOP chief followed his move against deputy mayor
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — It’s a simple rule, according to the leader of Vanderburgh County’s largest political organization: If a Republican precinct committeeman publicly supports a Democrat for public office, he’s got to go.
But days after GOP Chairman Wayne Parke tried to enforce the rule against Steve Schaefer — Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke’s right-hand man — a formal complaint seeking Parke’s removal circulated among his critics.
More:Â Controversy and Vanderburgh GOP chief are old friends; other times Parke found controversy
It wasn’t just any complaint. Sources showed the Courier & Press communications in which attorney Josh Claybourn, who has close ties to Winnecke and 8th District Congressman Larry Bucshon, solicited signatures and said the two Republican heavyweights would support the pre-election effort to remove Parke. Claybourn has called himself an informal adviser to Bucshon and Winnecke’s early campaigns.
Bucshon denied last week that he ever backed the campaign to oust Parke, which ultimately fizzled out. Winnecke’s office said Monday and Tuesday that he was out sick.
‘Wayne (Parke) just messed with the wrong person’
Parke was attempting to remove the deputy mayor from the precinct committee because Schaefer publicly supported Josh Claybourn’s wife, Allyson Claybourn, a Democrat then running for Newburgh Town Council. The Claybourns are friends of Schaefer, who was working for Bucshon when Winnecke tapped him to be his chief of staff in 2011.
“Wayne (Parke) just messed with the wrong person,†said a source with direct knowledge of the complaint against Parke. “Josh (Claybourn) and Steve (Schaefer) were pissed off. That’s why this happened.â€
But Schaefer said if others used his conflict with Parke as a launching pad for an insurrection against the party boss, that wasn’t his doing. He wasn’t involved.
“Of course I was irritated by (Parke’s complaint), but it’s small potatoes in the grand scheme,” said Schaefer, citing his years of involvement in the GOP. “If others saw his attempt to remove me as an opportunity — another reason to try to remove him — then that’s their business.”
Why the plan fizzled out
The effort to oust Parke ultimately lost steam as its proponents lost heart for a potentially ugly and protracted public fight with him over party rules. Likewise, Parke’s attempt to remove Schaefer from his elected position on the roughly 130-member precinct committee fizzled when he discovered Schaefer was ineligible to serve anyway. The deputy mayor no longer lived in the precinct he represented.
Schaefer’s support for Allyson Claybourn came in a Facebook post, which he removed at Parke’s insistence. Schaefer offered a screenshot of the post featuring photos of billboards touting Claybourn and her Republican opponent, Leanna Hughes. Claybourn won the race.
“We have different national political views, but those tags rarely matter in local politics,” Schaefer wrote. “Good luck to both candidates, but hoping Newburgh elects Allyson Claybourn in November!”
It would have been acceptable for almost any other Republican, Parke said. But it was a violation of an Indiana Republican Party rule that Schaefer had vowed to uphold: A Republican in good standing “supports Republican nominees and who does not actively or openly support another candidate against a Republican nominee.”
‘The Steve thing’
For at least two weeks after Schaefer learned Parke was trying to remove him from the Republican precinct committee, plotters organized to oust the party chairman. Sources said they took pains to keep it from becoming public.
Mike Myers, Daviess County-based secretary of the 8th District GOP organization, said he mailed a letter to Schaefer on Oct. 24 stating that Parke was seeking his removal and that a hearing on the matter would be held Nov. 8.
Josh Claybourn’s communications providing the five-page complaint against Parke, soliciting signatures and claiming the support of elected officials were dated about a week after Schaefer would have received the notice. Communications about the anti-Parke campaign by Claybourn were shared with the Courier & Press on condition that they not be shown to him or Schaefer lest the sources be identified.
Speaking from Washington, D.C., Bucshon said multiple people talked to him about Parke’s move against his former aide, Schaefer. Bucshon acknowledged he didn’t approve of it, but he said he never agreed to support a plan to remove Parke as GOP chairman, “no matter what anybody says.”
The 8th District congressman said people told him they were thinking about ways to remove Parke, “if they couldn’t resolve the Steve (Schaefer) thing.”
Who told him that? Bucshon said he couldn’t recall.
“One of the 10 people who talked to me about this,” he said.
Parke’s attempt to oust Schaefer apparently sent shock waves through Republican circles. Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, a former Vanderburgh County GOP chairwoman herself, said she heard about it from another former chairwoman, Connie Carrier. Carrier said she can’t remember who told her.
Phyllip Davis, a veteran local Republican activist, said as many as a dozen Republicans talked to him about it.
“I’m sure Gov. Holcomb knew about it,” Davis said, noting that Schaefer and Holcomb are friendly.
Davis said he was asked to sign the complaint against Parke but did not, reasoning that the dispute would become public, it would be ugly and the party would look foolish.
Parke removed Davis from his appointed precinct committee position this year because Davis expressed support for Democratic Knight Township Trustee Kathryn Martin’s re-election. Davis said Parke overreacted to his endorsement in “one of the lowest races on the ballot” – but Parke shot back that Martin’s unsuccessful Republican opponent, Johnny Kincaid, probably didn’t think it was insignificant.
Nevertheless, Davis said, he and Parke remain friends. But moving against Steve Schaefer? Not smart.
“It’s really freaking stupid of Wayne. Like I told Wayne, you need to pick your battles better. It didn’t freaking matter,” Davis said.
‘A smartass email’
There is one key player — Josh Claybourn — who adamantly denies any link between the campaign to remove Parke and Parke’s action against Schaefer for supporting Allyson Claybourn.
Josh Claybourn cast himself as a detached observer who simply offered legal advice about GOP rules to Republicans who requested it, adding that he would do the same for Parke if the party chairman asked. The complaint against Parke was a spontaneous welling up of long-held resentments against the party boss, he said.
Claybourn, a former GOP officer himself and now legal counsel to the City Council, said he and Schaefer weren’t angry at Parke.
“I remember when Steve told me after (he learned of Parke’s move to oust him), it wasn’t a big deal to him. Like it wasn’t a big deal to me,” Claybourn said.
Claybourn neither confirmed nor denied the communications in which he stated that Republican heavy hitters including Bucshon had agreed to support a campaign to oust Parke.
“You’re asking me to comment that whatever I may have said about Larry’s (Bucshon’s) particular point of view at any given time, and I just want to defer to him,” he said.
If Parke and Claybourn are on good terms with each other, it’s news to Parke.
The party boss said his relationship with Claybourn soured over the business with Schaefer and Allyson Claybourn. Parke confirmed a report that he went to the Warrick County Clerk’s Office to check Allyson Claybourn’s campaign finance report for contributions by Schaefer. He found none — but word of his visit to Boonville somehow got back to Josh Claybourn.
“He sent me an email saying, ‘If you want to make a contribution, make your check out to so-and-so,'” Parke said. “A smartass email.”
Claybourn called it “a brief and insignificant exchange via text” and confirmed that he offered to send his wife’s finance report to Parke “to save him a trip to the Clerk’s office, as well as provide the best way to donate to her campaign.”
Parke turned wistful over the deterioration of the relationship.
“When I first got on the (local GOP) Central Committee, Josh was on there, and he actually was who I learned from,” he said. “So it’s too bad that that has turned, but he and Schaefer are close friends, so I know where I rate on the totem pole.”