In a move that demonstrated the sheer PR genius of the Winnecke administration, the Mayor’s treatise of excuses for the city’s financial trauma appeared on-line and in the “Dead Tree” edition of the daily publication over the weekend.

His theme was penned because he is pleading to move $8 million around between the Rainy Day Fund, Riverboat Revenue Fund and General Fund. City council is scheduled to review his request Monday night.  Apparently, he still doesn’t get the meaning of “Rainy Day Fund” or he thinks it has been raining a lot during his time on the third floor of the Civic Center.

He wanted to explain this little monetary difficulty to us, use his magic decoder ring, lest we lowly taxpayers get the impression that he just can’t figure out that “budget” means you are given a figure and you spend no more. He also didn’t want his financial maneuver to get tangled up in politics, he wrote. That train left the station a long time ago with Winnecke sitting in the engineer’s seat.

With all the military precision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he reviewed his litany of excuses for his government’s failure to keep the city on sound financial footing. The bugaboos, according to the Mayor, are: Less tax revenue, an inconvenient revenue distribution schedule, rising health care costs, and finally, property tax caps.

Now, if he keeps harping about property tax caps long enough, he’s going to talk himself into quite a pickle. These state-required limits keep public officials/politicians from digging too deep into our pockets to fund government. This is a curious mantra for Winnecke, since it’s the final firewall between Evansville property owners and his grab for money.  Aren’t Republicans generally fiscally conservative?

He concluded his theme paper with the familiar indictment of the Democrat-controlled City Council for an ordinance they passed earlier this year that stopped him from finessing the fund balances by smoothly maneuvering money back and forth, and around and around. It was hard to determine if the administration wasn’t counting the same dollar more than once, so seamless were the money movements.

What he failed to mention was that prior to passing the ordinance,  the City Council made repeated requests for a “spending plan,” as they predicted the city’s financial ship could run aground. The  past Mayor of Evansville and City Controller said a plan would be forthcoming.  But another operative sneered, “We’re making a plan. It’s called a budget.”

So, with no “plan,” the ordinance halting the fund interchange was passed, and the moaning began.

The City Council, not without their failings, has become the Mayor’s favorite foil. In order to be the “good guy” he has to identify the “bad guys.”  They have often failed to fully examine issues in a timely and concerted manner.  Often, they are all over the place – challenging, arguing and finally acquiescing.  Leadership sometime seems to be simply a goal.

But, the negative fiscal prognostications came from council, though sometimes hard to decipher.  The Mayor and his squad had a simple retort – “No it’s not.”  However, beginning year General Fund balances were reported to have dropped from $4 million in 2013 to $307,000 in 2015.

You almost have to overlook some of Winnecke’s emotionally charged positioning.  After all, he came into office believing that Democrats loved him.  He somehow thought that election love, borne out of a local political divide of epic proportions, would continue as a warm afterglow into his reign.  The concept that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” escaped him somehow, so he didn’t see that election love is a convenient, fleeting love.

Thus he started down the path to a dicey relationship with Democrats on City Council.  He didn’t understand that he needed their approval for critical issues and other lesser whims. Cart then horse, was his frequent game plan.

When he stood before that “Welcome to Evansville Earthcare Energy” banner on March 2, 2012, he didn’t make much of the fact that the City Council still had to OK the deal. With some hesitation that finally got legs, the council did get its turn to welcome Earthcare Energy to Evansville, but they chose to jerk back the welcome mat, thankfully so.  During this drama, the Mayor unveiled a strategy of casting council as obstinate, naysaying obstructionists.  Ah, where did the love go?

Winnecke spent the rest of his first year in office waging a campaign to become the first monarch of a consolidated county-wide government.  That didn’t turn out so well either. They love me, they love me not.

And finally, to explain his leadership posture and motivation, we have to remember he came from county government, a virtual Republican love fest for years.  Not an environment requiring a high level of compromise.  So power-sharing might have been a somewhat foreign concept for him, a love-struck new Mayor faced with figuring out how to work with checks-and-balances and having an apparent need to perfect his financial expertise.

Name Held By Request

Evansville

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Gail Riecken Statement on Mayor Winnecke’s handling of Schriber Scandal

Evansville, IN – I have been asked to make a statement regarding Mayor Winnecke’s handling of Mr. Schriber’s recent admission to sexual misconduct with a 15 year old male student. I first will comment on the Mayor’s handling of this situation, and then talk about how we move forward to protect children in the future. While the timing of the leak to the press brings out the worst in politics, it also brings to light my concerns that the Mayor has not been transparent or truthful with the people of Evansville.

The Mayor said he was notified of the investigation as early as July. If it were left to the Mayor, the acknowledged molestation involving Mr. Schriber and the student would have never surfaced and Mr. Schriber could have been a city councilman. The Mayor was informed of the allegations before this past Sunday and Mayor Winnecke did nothing. Only when the story broke in the media did Lloyd Winnecke choose to say anything.

More questions should be asked of the mayor. His calculated answers that tip toe around the issue should not be allowed to stand.
While the Mayor acknowledges that he was informed about the investigation, does the Mayor expect us to believe that he was not informed about Mr. Schriber’s admission?
Even Tim Ethridge in the Courier and Press (October 24) stated: “It’s difficult to fathom that police officials who are the mayor’s direct reports did not give him all the information, considering all the intertwined relationships.”
During his 2011 campaign the mayor wrote in his position paper on Public Safety, the Police chief will report directly to the Mayor’s office, creating an open, unfiltered flow of information. This direct communication will include frequent briefings…
Winnecke said he remained silent to let the police do their job, but nothing was done in the investigation after August 7th and Mayor Winnecke remained silent. Mayor Winnecke remained silent until the Courier and Press broke the story after voting had already begun. Why didn’t the mayor publicly or privately ask Mr. Schriber to suspend his campaign when he learned of his misconduct?

The mayor owes us an explanation as to why he and his campaign continued to have a relationship with Schriber after the Mayor acknowledges he had been informed of the investigation.

After Schriber confessed to the sexual misconduct with a student, there was continued support and collaboration between him and the Mayor’s campaign until the Courier and Press broke this story on October 20th.

This is not a political issue. It’s about credibility. The mayor has displayed a lack of transparency throughout his term – from a closed-door homestead tax meeting, playing a shell game with our finances, withholding hotel details, and now withholding from the public knowledge about a city council election. This election needs to be about the truth.

I called this press conference to assure you as Mayor that I will be open, honest and transparent. Action must be taken in order to prevent future abuses. I have been a long time advocate of children and their right to a happy, healthy childhood. I recently received the “2015 Friend of Children” award from the Indiana Association of Resources and Child Advocacy and I serve on the Commission for the Improvement of the Status of Children. I spoke to Superintendent Glenda Ritz earlier today, to ensure training is available for the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation. The training is called “Adults Protecting Children.” I will re-establish the Education Round Table to ensure that our children come before our politics. We have great schools and great teachers but the Mayors office always has responsibility to protect our children. As Mayor I will continue to advocate for the safety of our children.

Gail Riecken is running for Mayor of Evansville and is a former Evansville City Council-woman, Evansville Parks Director, and a current member of the Indiana State House of Representatives. She is a lifelong Evansville resident, has been married for 47 years, and has 2 children and 3 grandchildren.