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.
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?
Please go to our link of our media partner Channel 44 News located in the upper right-hand corner of the City-County Observer so you can get the up-to-date news, weather, and sports.
If you would like to advertise on the CCO please contact us at City-County Observer@live.com
Footnote: City-County Observer Comment Policy. Be kind to people. No personal attacks or harassment will not be tolerated and shall be removed from our site.
We understand that sometimes people don’t always agree and discussions may become a little heated.  The use of offensive language, insults against commenters will not be tolerated and will be removed from our site.
Any comments posted in this column do not represent the views or opinions of the City-County Observer or our advertisers.
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.
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.”
City Is  Responsible ForThunderbolts Financial Losses For The 2016-2017 Hockey Season
City Is Also Paying All The Utilities Bills A t The Ford Center
Attached below is the e-mail that Scott A Schoenike the Executive Director of the Ford Center sent Pastor Steve Ary over a year ago concerning the utilities at the Ford Center and acquisition contracts between VenuWorks and the City of Evansville. Mr. Schoenike answered the questions that we have been asking for a couple of years concerning the Ford Center utilities and Thunderbolts acquisition contracts between VenuWorks and the City of Evansville.
We are puzzled why this information wasn’t provided to Pastor Steve Ary, City County Observer or the general public by then City Council Finance Chairman Dan McGinn (R), or by City Controller Russ Lloyd  Jr.
We also wonder why our friends with the local main stream media won’t inform their readers and viewers that the taxpayers of Evansville are responsible for all theThunderbolts financial losses for the 2016-2017 and the 2017 a-2018 hockey seasons?  We also wonder if they will  ever report that the City of Evansville are paying all the utilities bills at the Ford Center?  …we predict that they won’t touch this story because they will consider this to be “FAKE NEWS”!
ATTACHED BELOW IS MR. SCHOENIKE’S Â E-MAIL SENT TO PASTOR STEVE ARY VIE DEPUTY CITY CLERK OF EVANSVILLE Speaks FOR ITSELF.
Mr. Ary,
Please find the information below in response to your questions from Monday night. These answers are provided by Scott Schoenike.
The City ultimately ends of paying the utility bill. The process is a little complex but this is the way Harding Shymanski recommended after our annual audit for the city in all years of operation (2011-2016). Since we don’t control the maintenance or operation of the utilities at the Ford Center by contract utilities are not suppose to be paid by VenuWorks. For simplicity VenuWorks pays the utility bills throughout the year, at the end of the year we bill back the city the annual total paid for utilities and then give the city the cash to pay us back. On the line item city budget Fund 0474 and 0408 Arena this adjustment is taken into account and includes utilities being paid in the approximate $1million paid to the city.
In regards to the question if the hockey team loses money who pays. It would be paid out of the Ford Center Operating budget which is city funds. The big picture would be the loss of hockey would negatively affect the bottom line of the Ford Center. So the way I look at it is the $1 million operating revenue budgeted for VenuWorks in the City Budget does not change even though hockey operations are now indirectly part of the Ford Center budget. Without hockey at the Ford Center the budgeted $1 million operating revenue would not be possible.
Illinois’ dioceses have released lists publicly identifying 185 clergy members who had been credibly accused of child sex abuse. But state Attorney General Lisa Madigan said preliminary findings in her ongoing investigation reveal that the church failed to disclose sexual abuse allegations against at least 500 additional priests and clergy members.
In many cases, the accusations have “not been adequately investigated by the dioceses or not investigated at all,” Madigan’s office said in a statement Wednesday. What’s more, the statement added, the church often failed to notify law enforcement authorities or state Department of Children and Family Services about the allegations. “By choosing not to thoroughly investigate allegations, the Catholic Church has failed in its moral obligation to provide survivors, parishioners, and the public a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior involving priests in Illinois,” Madigan said in the statement.
“The failure to investigate also means that the Catholic Church has never made an effort to determine whether the conduct of the accused priests was ignored or covered up by superiors.”
Madigan began her investigation in August after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a 900-page report detailing horrific abuses by 300 Catholic clergies against more than 1,000 victims. Since then, 36 dioceses have publicized self-reported lists of clergy “credibly accused” of abusing minors. (There are 197 dioceses in the United States.)
But advocates for survivors of sexual abuse have challenged many of the lists, calling them incomplete or evasive. Few of the lists detail exactly when the abuse claims were made, or what was done about them. Madigan’s criticism seems to lend credibility to those accusations.
“The preliminary stages of this investigation have already demonstrated that the Catholic Church cannot police itself,” Madigan said. “Allegations of sexual abuse of minors, even if they stem from conduct that occurred many years ago, cannot be treated as internal personnel matters.”
Based on their review of the Illinois dioceses’ internal files, the dioceses have received sex-abuse-related allegations for approximately 690 clergies, according to the attorney general’s report. But they publicly reported just 185 of the allegations.
Nearly 75% of the allegations were either not investigated or were investigated but not substantiated, according to the report.
In many cases, the dioceses said they had not conducted investigations because the priest or clergy member was dead or had already resigned by the time the allegation was reported to the dioceses, according to the attorney general’s office. It did not specify which of Illinois’ six dioceses were responsible for the unreported accusations.
In other cases, the dioceses failed to “substantiate” an allegation when it came from only one survivor, even when church officials had reason to believe that survivor and reason to investigate further, according to the report.
“The dioceses also often found reasons to discredit survivors’ stories of abuse by focusing on the survivors’ personal lives,” the report says. Â In a statement, the head of Illinois’ archdiocese, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, said that since 2002, the archdiocese has reported all allegations — regardless of whether the accused is living or dead — to civil authorities.
The Diocese of Joliet said that it has “received no formal or informal indication from the Attorney General that we failed to adequately investigate any allegation of abuse and/or report it to authorities. The Attorney General has also not informed the Diocese of Joliet of any inaccuracies or omissions in our files that would prompt additions or corrections to the list of priests with credible allegations that is on our website.”
The six dioceses in Illinois are Chicago, an archdiocese, and Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield.
“The Dioceses of Belleville, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield did not take the basic step of publishing a comprehensive list of clergy who had been credible “accused until the Office became involved,” the report says.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield said his diocese has cooperated with the attorney general’s investigation, but the decision to withhold names in the past was done with “a virtuous intent.” Â “Reviewing these past cases has also reminded us that many years ago people didn’t publicly discuss the kind of salacious allegations documented in these files,” Paprocki said in a statement.
“A virtuous intent to protect the faithful from scandal, unfortunately, prevented the transparency and awareness that has helped us confront this problem more directly over the past fifteen years. We are continuing to learn and strive to improve our assistance for those who are victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.”
Cupich, a close ally of Pope Francis, is one of the dozens of Catholic bishops who will meet in Rome February 21-24 to address the clergy sexual abuse scandal, which has rocked the church on several continents.
In December, the Society of Jesus, popularly known as the Jesuits, released lists from four provinces of more than 230 priests who had been credibly accused of abusing minors.
FOOTNOTE: CNN’s Rosa Flores contributed to this article.
Gifts to Deaconess Foundation impact health care invisible ways. With the generous help of past patients and families, employees, community philanthropists, corporations, volunteers and many others who share the Deaconess vision, Deaconess Foundation has been able to increase the quality of and access to health care throughout the Tri-State region. Learn how to give today.
Health Initiatives Supported By Deaconess Foundation includes:
Mammograms and pelvic ultrasounds
Automated External Defibrillators (AED) for community locations
About Deaconess Foundation
Deaconess Foundation was created in 1972 with a mission to support the medical, charitable and educational activities of Deaconess Health System by raising and distributing funds. Over 45 years later, our efforts continue to grow, supporting Deaconess health initiatives throughout the Tri-State. Governed by a local Board of Directors, Deaconess Foundation uses funds raised for health system projects. Meet our team.
Thank You to our Foundation Board of DirectorsÂ
Ms. Carol McClintock (Chair) – F.C. Tucker/Emge Realtors
Mr. Jeff Justice (Vice Chair) -Â HAFER
Mr. Scott Saxe (Secretary) -Â Saxe Pinkston Financial Group of Wells Fargo Advisors
Mr. Court Kull (Treasurer) -Â Fifth Third Bank
Mrs. Jane Absher -Â Henry Absher Oil Producer
Mrs. Shirley Becker -Â Community Volunteer
Mr. Don Breivogel -Â Atlas World Group
Ms. Kathy Briscoe -Â F.C. Tucker/Emge Realtors
Mrs. Kristine Cordts -Â Karama Collection
Ms. Susan Enlow -Â Community Volunteer
Mrs. Linda Garrett -Â Mel-Kay Electric
Ms. Jennifer Gilbert -Â Old National Bank
Mrs. Lori Goris -Â Community Volunteer
Mr. John Lamb -Â German American Bank
Ms. Laurel Mills -Â Community Volunteer
Mrs. Kathryn Nix -Â United Way
Mr. Doug Padgett -Â Community Volunteer
Dr. Lynn Penland -Â the University of Evansville (retired)
Mr. Donald A. Rausch -Â Community Volunteer
Mr. John Robertson -Â Deaconess Auxiliary
Dr. Peter L. Stevenson -Â Deaconess Hospital Emergency Physician
Mr. Mike Sutton -Â Commerce Bank
Mrs. Havi Troffkin -Â Community Volunteer
Mrs. Kirsten Wagmeister -Â Community Volunteer
Ms. Brenda Wallace -Â Harding, Shymanski & Company, P.S.C.
Ms. Linda White -Â Deaconess Foundation
Mr. Brian Williams -Â Kahn Dees Donovan & Kahn, LLP
Ms. Nancy Hartley Gaunt -Â Board Member Emeritus
Two cases from Indiana, including the controversial fetal remains disposal law, will be on the agenda when the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court meet for their next conference on Jan. 4, 2019.
The justices are scheduled to consider the petitions for hearing oral arguments in Kristina Box, Commissioner, Indiana Department of Health et al. v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc., et al., 18-483, which centers on the abortion restrictions imposed by House Enrolled Act 1337, and Larry W. Newton, Jr. v. Indiana, 17-1511, which questions the constitutionality of imposing a life sentence on a juvenile. This will be the first time Indiana’s writ of certiorari for its abortion law will be reviewed and the fourth time the
Newton petition has been distributed for conference.
Consideration of Indiana’s abortion law comes less than a month after Justice Clarence Thomas issued a fiery dissent when the majority of the court declined to hear cases from Kansas and Louisiana over whether states could cut Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. Justices Samuel Alito, Jr., and Neil Gorsuch joined the dissent.
Indiana’s abortion law, signed by then-Gov. Mick Pence in 2016, was immediately challenged by Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky. The law requires fetal remains to either be buried or cremated and bans women from terminating their pregnancies because of certain genetic predispositions such as gender, race, and disability.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana found the law to be unconstitutional https://www.theindianalawyer.com/articles/43268-federal-judge-blocks-another-indiana-abortion-regulation  and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.
However, Judge Daniel Manion dissented with ma majority on the fetal remains provision and argued the state has an interest in “recognizing the dignity and humanity of the unborn child.â€
Indiana filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court Oct. 12, 2018, and a reply brief Dec. 18, 2018. Groups that oppose abortion rights, including Americans United for Life, Susan B. Anthony List and Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund, have filed petitions urging the Supreme Court to take the case.
As a 17-year-old, Larry Newton pleaded guilty in 1994 to killing a 19-year-old Ball State University and accepted a sentence of life without parole in exchange for the state dropping the death penalty. In 2013, Newton filed for post-conviction relief, arguing his life sentence imposed when he was a juvenile violates the Eighth Amendments prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.
He cites Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) and, his petition asserts the U.S. Supreme Court “imposed a flat prohibition against the mandatory imposition†of life sentences on juvenile offenders. However, Indiana counters the Hoosier state courts had held Millerapplies only when sentencing is mandatory. In Newton, the judge had the discretion to accept or reject the plea agreement and, in fact, held an evidentiary hearing examining the appropriateness of the life without parole sentence.
According to the Supreme Court rules, four of the nine justices must vote to accept a case.
Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch announced Misty Weisensteiner, an experienced tourism executive director, will serve as the director of the Indiana Office of Tourism Development effective Jan. 14, 2019.
Weisensteiner most recently served as the executive director of the Orange County Economic Development Partnership, where she initiated the organization’s restructuring, created and implemented their strategic plan and boosted the economic outlook and vitality for the county.
“Misty’s impressive resume and career made her a front-runner immediately for the position,†Crouch said. “Her experience in the tourism industry and her work invigorating the economic outcome for Orange County will translate well to the tourism industry in our state. She is an excellent choice as director for the tourism department.â€
Crouch said that Weisensteiner has direct experience in understanding Indiana tourism, its potential in the national audience and how it fits within a larger economic development strategy. Her demonstrated and continual improvement in the tourism industry will bring significant recognition and results to Indiana.
“I am excited to be a larger part of Indiana tourism and take the assets Hoosiers know are spectacular and share those with the nation,†Weisensteiner said. “It is important we recognize that tourism has an impact on creating superior quality of place, our ability to retain talent and how we grow businesses. Tourism plays a vital role in our economy, and I am ready to work with our tourism leaders to take it to the Next Level.”
Additionally, the Tourism Task Force, created by the General Assembly in 2017, completed their report last month. The purpose of the task force was to study state tourism offices across the nation to learn how they are structured, how they are funded and the relationship between state funding and economic impact. The report has been submitted to the General Assembly for their review.
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Just the mention of Wayne Parke‘s name prompts eye rolls, winces or forced smiles from many Vanderburgh County Republican activists.
Tapped for the party chairmanship by GOP precinct committee members in 2010, Parke was the target of a pre-election campaign to force his resignation. Parke had tried to enforce a party loyalty rule against Evansville Deputy Mayor Steve Schaefer, who publicly expressed support for a Democratic candidate. Both efforts ultimately fizzled.
Their acquaintance predates Parke’s elevation to the party chairmanship by two months, when then-Chairman Nick Hermann dismissed him as party treasurer over fundraising issues the two men wouldn’t discuss.
Marshaling arguments in his favor, the 74-year-old Parke pointed out that he has presided over tremendous successes for the GOP in local elections. Republicans in presidential and statewide races typically carry Vanderburgh County.
Parke, a retired executive of Peabody Energy Co. and Black Beauty Coal Co., also is a major funder of local GOP operations. A party fundraising report shows he had already pumped $23,550 in direct and in-kind contributions into the GOP this year by June 5.
But Parke also has conducted himself in ways guaranteed to make enemies.
A formal complaint seeking the party chief’s removal bore six signatures — Steve Hammer, Vanderburgh County coordinator for Sen.-elect Mike Braun’s 2018 campaign; Kirk Byram, the GOP’s 2014 nominee for sheriff; Chad Howard, a precinct committeeman; County Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave; Alfonso Vidal, a Warrick County-based GOP activist; and local party secretary Hobart Scales.
But multiple Republicans said those six names represent just a fraction of the opposition to Parke within the GOP.
It’s not just the half-dozen or more precinct committee members he has removed or his habit of supporting one Republican against another in primary elections. Parke’s involvement in primaries — often seeing his preferred candidate lose — is contrary to the wishes of prominent Republicans who have asked him to stop.
You can still hear bitterness in the voice of Sean Selby, the party’s nominee for a County Commissioners seat in 2016. Selby hasn’t forgotten that Parke vocally supported former Libertarian Party officer Robb Myers against him in a caucus of precinct committee members.
“It was the first caucus that anybody had ever seen a party chairman get involved in,” said Selby, who narrowly lost the November election to Democrat Ben Shoulders.
Selby had publicly criticized Parke two years earlier. He didn’t dispute the formal complaint’s assertion that Parke “shunned” him and “offered no support in any way” to him against Democrat Shoulders.
Parke’s disputes with Musgrave — a Republican politician so successful that the national GOP once entreated her to run for Congress — are the stuff of legend.
Calling her divisive, Parke unsuccessfully worked for Musgrave’s defeat in a 2016 GOP primary and predicted she would lose that year’s election. Months after she won, he sought her resignation and had her removed from a party position. Parke once even asked Musgrave to leave a GOP dinner. Musgrave calls him out of touch with Republican rank and file.
Musgrave supported Democrat Jeff Hatfield in this year’s County Commissioners race, calling him a “solid conservative.” It was heresy in Parke’s eyes, but he couldn’t leave it at that.
In a Nov. 13 email to local GOP activists, Parke included a stinging “Chairman’s Note” meant to rebuke Musgrave for supporting Hatfield. “I encourage all voters to remember her Party disloyalty if she ever runs for another political office. I know — I will not forget,” Parke wrote.
City Councilman Dan McGinn left the Republican Party in 2017 over Parke’s criticisms of him for voting in favor of a tax increase and establishing an independent council that could redraw political districts to curb gerrymandering. The two men had a history. In April 2009, Parke ran unsuccessfully in a GOP caucus to choose a successor for departed First Ward City Council member Jeff Kniese. The seat went to McGinn, former head of Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden.
When the two old foes went at it again in 2017, McGinn said he wouldn’t buckle to Parke’s demands for “adherence to political dogma.” Parke demanded McGinn step aside so voters could be “represented by a Republican.”
It was vintage Parke. Asked about his war with Musgrave, he said he will put his differences with her aside “if she demonstrates she’s acting in the best interests of the people.”
Parke said he’ll continue to criticize other Republicans — no matter how high-ranking, popular or successful — “when I believe they are wrong.” He said his habit of choosing sides in intra-party contests is meant to encourage people to cast ballots when they might not otherwise. It’s leadership.
“I am the party chairman. I am the leader. People who lead, lead!” Parke said, his voice rising, in a conference room at GOP headquarters. “You don’t lead from the rear. You lead from the front. And this city and county at one time was considered a Democrat city and a Democrat county. Well, it’s not anymore.”
Parke wouldn’t rule out running for another four-year term as chairman in a party caucus when his current term expires in March 2021.
That may be an opportunity for his critics — or it may be a big nothing.
It’s one thing to grouse about Parke and quite another to get rid of him. The job is unpaid, thankless and demanding. Candidates get hosannas when they win. When they lose, party chairmen get the blame.
Selby has a ready response when other Republicans complain about Parke.
“My thing always to them is, ‘Well, who are you going to replace him with?’ And then at that juncture almost always everybody says, ‘Well, we don’t know,'” he said. “People would ask if I was interested, and I would tell them I’m not necessarily interested in something like that.
“And that would pretty much be the end of the conversation.”
