The Evansville IceMen, proud ECHL affiliate of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators and AHL’s Binghamton Senators, have enjoyed providing the excitement of professional hockey to the City of Evansville at the Ford Center.  The IceMen are most particularly appreciative of the fans, the IceMen Maniacs and valued season ticket holders.  The IceMen have also enjoyed the use of the City’s state of the art facility and plan on bringing a championship trophy through its doors very soon.  However, Evansville stands to lose its hockey team.

“When we signed our lease for the Ford Center in 2011 we had already moved 22 families to Evansville based on some good faith negotiations with the City.  After we moved those families, and at the last minute, we were presented with different terms and told to sign or lose the opportunity.  We signed a lease that was not in our best interest, but we have honored it.  Now that lease is set to expire and we need to be treated fairly in the new lease,” said Ron Geary, owner of the IceMen.  “The current lease and price threaten our ability to bring our fans a premier ice hockey team and at the same time run a business,” said Geary.

In order to have a team for the 2016-2017 season, the IceMen must have a lease in place with the City and dates of games to the league no later than December 1, 2015.  The IceMen started negotiations on the new lease with the Mayor’s office in February.  The City has proposed no terms to the IceMen for the new lease.  “The ECHL conducted a study for the 2011-2012 season showing the IceMen paid the highest rent in the entire league – $650,000.  The median for the league is about $152,000.”  said Jim Riggs, IceMen COO.  “The City receives about $1.2 million each season for IceMen games in rent and food and beverage net income,” said Riggs.

The team has lost money every year.  “I don’t mind investing in the team and in the City, but after spending millions with no return on the investment we need a lease that is fair and does not take advantage of the IceMen.  The only reason we lose money is because we have the worst lease in the league,” said Geary.  “At the same time, we have the best fans in the league so we are going to continue to try and get something reasonable even though the Mayor’s office has been pretty tough to work with over the years.  We tried to renegotiate in the past but got nowhere,” said Geary.  The City put a clause in the lease that if the IceMen even tried to renegotiate in the first two years of the lease the IceMen would have to pay the City’s legal fees.  “Bottom line, I want a championship team here in Evansville.  But we cannot continue to operate in financial loss because of an overpriced lease,” said Geary.

“We are going to do everything possible to provide the City and fans a great team for the 2016-2017 season.  We hope we give our fans what they have come to expect – a premier hockey team and a great game day experience.  We remain hopeful we can achieve great things on the ice and eventually bring a championship to the City,” said Riggs.  The IceMen will not sign another lease with such high rent.  Without a lease and dates, the league will move forward in 2016-2017 without the Evansville IceMen. “We hope that is unnecessary but it remains a reality,” said Geary. “Our attempts to negotiate over the past 40 weeks have resulted in nothing.  We are going public because deadlines are approaching and the fans need to know what Evansville stands to lose.  We need our fans support.  We need the City to get reasonable, start negotiating in earnest and get this lease in place,” he said.

Let’s Fix That Tax Sale-Stories To Tell

By George Lumley

A big problem with thriving neighborhoods starts with that one vacant house or grown up lot. When there are other alternatives, why rent or buy close to a mess – unless you like messes. And that is why a street soon becomes lined with vacant houses for sale or rent that no one wants.

I decided to help keep Evansville beautiful by starting a land bank. That is right. Looks easy enough. Just get title to properties and then hold them. That is land banking. My land banking operation will be more costly than some because I will pay taxes on the properties. That is the best kind of land bank, one that pays taxes. I could form a nonprofit and avoid the taxes, but I want to be on the same level with all the other private free enterprise land bankers in Evansville, and promote more of them.

Many of the abandoned unkempt lots that the city fails to maintain (because the fees generated are diverted to other uses instead of actually mowing lots) go to the tax sale. I hear that is the best place to get title to lots that no one realizes they want. So it was off to the tax sale.

Following the “auction today” arrows just a few miles down the road and into an office area with a meeting room about the size of a school classroom on one side, I had arrived. There was a screen and table setup in the front and about thirty chairs facing it. My first thought was –something is not right-. Things were not jiving. I had been out and about knocking on doors pretending to be electioneering for the Mayor but was really working undercover to find out what people thought about the vacant houses and lots. My reconnaissance indicated that there were many people that wanted the lots, would own the lots, maintain the lots, and even pay taxes on the lots. Maybe I was wrong and the City was correct that “nobody” wanted the lots and a tax funded land bank was necessary. At least it did not look like they were prepared for very many bidders.

Signing up was easy. I just had to provide my driver’s license, and print and sign my name on a form that said I had never had any property tax delinquency issues. Now that form is something new. Contrary to the propaganda promoting the costly, secretive, Brownfields tax funded land bank/land control proposal that not much has changed in the tax sale process – this is one of those changes. The perpetual offenders that let properties go back can no longer buy them.

I moved across the room looking for a place to sit and noticed a doorway into a large gymnasium size room full of chairs with a few people milling around. As a lady was passing I asked if the auction was in the classroom or the gymnasium. She pointed to the big room saying auction and then the other setup, indicating that people would wait there for processing the paperwork after finishing their purchases. Hmm, lots of room for a big crowd. I wonder how many will be interested in these properties no one wants.

Moving into the almost vacant sale room I spotted a familiar face. Pastor Steve Ary was sitting 2nd row center. I had visited Pastor Steve last week to look at the tax sale property he bought direct from the Commissioner for $1.00. That a story for another day. I took a seat beside the Pastor and got comfortable with my surroundings as people started streaming in. My camera crew showed up and were able to sit right in front of me. Yes there will be video productions.
People just kept coming in. It was time for the auction to start but there seemed to be a delay. There were a few seats left but people started filling the standing room area. An announcement was made that the delay was because there was a line getting people signed up. A lot of people must want the same property. Auctions can be fun, maybe people came to be entertained and are not really interested in bidding.

I know three people were looking for the same property: A Mother and son to my front left and their attorney sitting on my right. Yep, I was sandwiched between a preacher and an attorney. (?) But the bigger story is the Mother had an installment contract on the house and the owner did not pay the taxes. Now the county owns it. Common, but this story has a twist you will not believe. I was glad they had an attorney with them until he started asking what the auctioneer was saying between the bids. I explained that when an auctioneer begins their career they use real words to learn there “rant” or “cattle call” and that with experience they slur it into a rhyme of babble that cannot be deciphered. Only the auctioneer knows the word he started with. The auctioneers even get together and have contests on who can guess what the babble started out as. I think he believed me.

When the lady’s former property came up for bid they stood together and watched it sell. I anticipated them to bid but they did not. I spoke to them later and tried to offer a little comfort while it appeared the attorney was dealing with the purchaser.

Although there are some sad stories to tell, there were plenty of people delighted with their purchases. Especially the ones that were able to buy the vacant lot beside their house. I had a great time and now have firsthand knowledge on how to relieve some of the problems to make the tax sale process better for everyone. There were a few properties that no one came prepared to buy. The auctioneer, being an expert in his trade, was able to use his babble to coax bidders to buy lots they Knew absolutely nothing about for as little as one dollar. I will be telling the one dollar story along with at least a half dozen more. I told my editor that I went there to report the news but actually ended up making the news. Watch for follow up stories.

Bring on the tax sale! Tax sales are in everyone’s best interest. Just like other debt collection processes they provide a means that, although unpleasant if you are the debtor, allow for an effective means to preserve assets and collect from those that cannot or do not want to pay.  Debt collection is never a pretty process.  Be positive and look on the bright side.  Of the two things that are certain in life, death and taxes, taxes is the more pleasant subject.

Today is the last tax sale of its kind in Vandergurgh County, I hope.  Not because we do not need the tax sale or that it is an undesirable process, but because we will use the new tools legislated over the last couple of years in handling the tax sale process to make it a more positive, efficient, and effective process.   I hope to enlighten the Evansville naysayers and negative people who are standing in the way of implementing these new positive procedures.  With your help we will influence City/County officials to work together and make positive changes that serve everyone’s best interest.

I see the C&P followed my Saturday feature – “If it is not Broken” then “Don’t fix it”- tax sale intro with their usual negative connotation of the tax sale in their Sunday edition.  As usual they twisted fact and printed propaganda to support their chosen special interest – Evansville Brownfields Corp (Brownfields) – rather than a fair and unbiased positive approach.  It is hard for me to believe that a newspaper would actually come out so blatantly misleading the public.  When I read the last Paragraph of the C&P article where the King of propaganda himself, Mr. Kelly Coures, Director of the Department of Metropolitan Development (DMD) is quoted as saying the auction doesn’t work, I patted myself on the back for my Saturday feature – Bulls eye, it fits perfect. You should read it.

Now that Mr. Coures has introduced himself into this tax sale issue, I just have to provide a quote from him.  Mr. Coures emailed me “Everything is not a Conspiracy”.  Well maybe “everything” is not a conspiracy but this tax sale issue along with manipulation involving the expansion of the existing DMD owned Brownfields land banking operation appear to be a scheme for special interest instead of our best interest. With all the secret back room deals involving the Brownfields It might even be a conspiracy.

I am actually at the tax sale today to do my part in Keeping Evansville Beautiful.  I selected a couple of lots to bid on.  I have no use for them except to buy them, maintain them, and pay taxes on them.  Yes, I am going to land bank them.  One good thing about the USA is anyone can land bank.  Look around Evansville and you will see literally thousands of land banked parcels. There are many different types of land banks right here in Evansville.  Some are private individuals like myself, if successful today; Some are large corporations with a future purpose for the property; some are large corporations without a purpose that got stuck with them like the banks; some are charitable organizations with a cause like Habitat; some are governmental like the city or county; and one other that I know about is an animal all to its own:  the Brownfields.

I am still learning about this tax sale process and how it relates to my positive mission of promoting the use of existing resources to help aging neighborhoods thrive.  As I ask the how and why queries I am finding many components that seem questionable.  Is there a good reason for these components or are they part of the scheme for special interest?

Is there a good reason to sell the properties without providing any Information?  I hear the county does not have any information about them.  Oh, but wait a minute, the City/County Building Commission inspected these houses back in the spring in preparation of the deal to stop the tax sale and give everything to the Brownfields. The city would also know and could easily post on line the amount of any weed, trash, or demolition assessments. It would be to everyone’s benefit to make this information public without the time delaying public access request.  Why sell a property and then laugh at the buyer because he didn’t know what you knew. Be nice, tell potential buyers what you know at the time of the auction.

Is there a good reason not to educate neighboring owners that if they would be interested in adjoining property that they could buy it before the auction?  Yes, the property does not have to go to the public sale where the whole world is bidding on an unknown grab bag that they may or may not want after opening it. Based on records I obtained through Public Access Request at least 25 properties were transferred in the last couple of months to adjacent owners for as little as one dollar each.  I have also talked with adjoining owners that called the County Building Superintendent and were told they had to bid on the property at the auction.

Is there a good reason that 60 choice properties were quietly taken from the tax sale list and transferred to the City?  The City plans to transfer these properties to the Brownfields land bank.  Brownfields plans to sell these properties to? Why promote stopping the tax sale if properties can simply be pulled from the sale and given to Brownfields to land bank or market them? We should be positive and offer this deal to others willing to take the burden of owning the lots.

Is there a good reason these 55 to 75 homes that are repeatedly cycling through the tax sale are being blamed for the 1800 blighted structures that Evansville needs to address?  Yes, there are only 170 or so properties and most are vacant lots.  The number of actual problem properties related to the tax sale is small compared to the total number of problem properties.

Is there a good reason that we constantly hear the negative: that sixty percent of the houses sold return to the tax sale?  I want to promote the positive. The process took care of 40% that did not return without costing the taxpayer a dime.

Is there a good reason that when I tried to promote neighborhood residents volunteering to perform simple mowing and trimming of abandoned properties as the City of South Bend does, Evansville officials intervened and discouraged the practice? Now that is truly a negative stance on my positive initiative for cleaning up the neighborhoods.

Is there a good reason that the news tries to spin facts and blame all the code violations and open case problems on these 170 properties?  A recent email from the Building Commissioner stated that he had over 1300 open cases.  We should be positive and solve the right problem.

Is there a good reason that per Sunday’s C&P the tax sale of this small quantity of parcels should be stopped, the parcels given to a land bank, Brownfields, which will cost millions to operate so Brownfields can get the properties in “the hands of competent developers”?  Don’t we already have City/County government functions that do that for all properties?

Well, I am sure you see I could go on and on.  Please tune in to read my positive approach with specifics to fixing what is broken, not by depicting people as poor and stupid but by educating and shedding light on what we can do using existing resources to promote better neighborhoods.

By George Lumley