The generous reduction in rent being offered the Evansville Icemen to encourage them to sign another lease on the Ford Center has ruffled a lot of taxpayers’ feathers. It has a number of folks hopping mad at the recently re-elected Mayor, but the truth is that the lease on the Ford Center is just one part of a multilayered mess that Mayor Winnecke inherited from his predecessor, Jonathon Weinzapfel. It is also true that Weinzapfel inherited a mess from Russell Lloyd, Jr., who preceded him in the corner office on the third floor of the Civic Center. It appears that handing down a mess to one’s successor is becoming a local tradition for Evansville’s Mayors.
The truth is that Mayor Winnecke didn’t have any input into the Icemen and Ford Center agreement that is now up for renewal. The first lease was negotiated by the Weinzapfel administration, and now that Ron Geary has seen what his “earnings†are at the Ford Center, it is only sensible that he would pull out all the stops to make a better deal this time. That leaves the Mayor between the proverbial rock and hard place. He can be intransigent and likely lose the Icemen or he can capitulate and increase the losses on the Ford Center.  Either result will be a losing one for him.
The Ford Center’s losses are not the only problems that Mayor Winnecke inherited. The “Convention Hotel†will open on his watch, but that project was launched long before he took office. It is true that he is the one who, with the “help†of City Council finally made a deal to get some sort of hotel built next to the arena. We can thank the Visitors and Convention Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce for adding that to our “must have†list. The project we bought included a ten story tower and high end apartments, plus a parking garage. The one that we will wind up with, for the same cost, has no apartments and is a five story stick-built facility without the indoor pool and rooftop bar of our dreams.  At least he, with the unanimous vote of the City Council, scratched the “itch†for a hotel that we are told will make the Ford Center more attractive to conventions and big name shows. The highly-paid consultants all tell us that the subsidies we are putting out now will result in profits, very soon. We hope so.
It is the City Council that actually agrees to public spending and its members must share in the responsibility for the tradition of free-spending and the failure to make agreements that deliver the product that they are buying, as was the case with the new Downtown Hotel.  It is not the sole fault of the out-going City Council. Along with Dan McGinn, Missy Mosby, Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley, Connie Robinson, John Friend, Al Lindsey, Dan Adams, Conor O’Daniel, and Jonathan Weaver, previous Council members, Wendy Bredhold, BJ Watts, and Curt John are to be recognized for loosening the purse strings that brought us to our current deficient spending situation.
We already know that raising taxes is being presently discussed by members of the newly elected City Council, and we believe that will be a reality early next year. We remind all of our readers that while the Mayor may support raising taxes to make ends meet, it will not be his final decision. That unpopular move will rest on the doorstep of the 2016 City Council.
The Evansville Redevelopment Commission should carry a big share of blame for the financial fix we find ourselves in. For a number of years Ed Hafer  and Bob Goldman were Presidents of the free spending ERC of City It now looks like newly elected President of the ERC, Randy Alsman has continued the “kid in a candy store†spending precedent set by his predecessors.
The Ford Center losses, the potential losses of the Downtown Hotel, unexpected costs to purchase a $600,000 32 spaces parking lot for the McCurdy, losses at the Victory, City Parks and Mesker Zoo, and the costs of fulfilling the plans for Roberts Park should all not be credited to Mayor Winnecke. Those are part of his “inheritance”.
When we add in the costs of repaying the $8 million dollar loan borrowed from the Riverboat and Rainey Day funds to pay bills and make payroll, bringing IU Medical School to Evansville and the beginning of the CSO project mandated by EPA for decades, the renovation of Mesker Amphitheater you will see that the our extremely popular Mayor has a lot of financial challenges on his plate for the next four years and we wish him and the new City Council the best in the coming 4 year term because they are going to need it.
