IS IT  TRUE “Under the Winnecke Administration crime rates in Evansville have risen sharply, up 13% in 2012, up 1% in 2013, and up an unacceptable 28% in 2014″?

IS IT TRUE we were told the shelves at the Zoo are becoming bare because the Controllers office won’t approve any purchases?  … we also hear  that the Vanderburgh County Building Commission can’t even buy staples?

IS IT TRUE that Mayoral Candidate Gail Riecken sent out a memo stating “Winnecke has called in out-of-town reinforcements”? … Riecken says; she’s heard that the State College Republicans are sending people down here to canvas for Mayor Winnecke? …Riecken continued to state; “It seems he can’t find enough supporters here in Evansville to continue to spread his message of overspending and financial mismanagement, so he’s bringing in outside forces?

IS IT TRUE we wonder what City Council is going to do about the Building Commission paying the garbage collection bills out of the Riverboat Demolition Fund?

IS IT TRUE the Courier and Press was all about Community Blight and nothing else on Sunday? …that the Courier and Press staff kept very busy with the online portion removing both negative and neutral but informative posts from the comments resulting in very few posts because there were no pro comments for expanding the Evansville Brownfield’s land banking operations using riverboat funds.

IS IT TRUE that the issue of expanding the Brownfields land banking operation is as the Courier and Press  says “hanging fire”, but not because of the funding issue but the concept itself and the proposed partner in crime–the Brownfields Corp? ..that land banking should not be the cities only focus to solve the Community Blight problem?   …that the Brownfields has lost its primary funding source, HUD funds, because it was discovered that their land banking operating over the last five years was not an authorized use of HUD funds, and they are now left high and dry?

IS IT TRUE that the COURIER AND PRESS is correct that the city was allocated about $2.2 million in funding from the Indiana Hardest Hit Blight Elimination Program (BEP) in 2014, but misleads the public in the facts of the program? …that the program, although a federal program, was launched with a simple contract between the US department of Treasury and the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) almost three years ago that stated simply that the funds were to Demolish vacant, abandoned, homes in the communities affected by the housing crisis? …that language was specific that red tape was to be avoided? …that most of the red tape has been created by the people administering the funding?

IS IT TRUE the COURIER and PRESS is totally wrong and misleading when it says the funding is “designed to help program partners–primarily nonprofits and community development corporations–acquire the properties and carry out and acquiring land or rehabilitating structures”?  …that the original legislated use of these funds was to subsidize mortgage payments to keep people in their homes?   …that because IHCDA did such a lousy job administering the program, remaining funds were re-designated, not to help program partners, but to help the communities where these houses were abandoned? …that the “helping program partners” is a help yourself to the money attitude developed as the money changed hands from the U.S. Department of Treasury through the IHCDA , through city leaders and to the neighborhoods needing zombie houses removed?

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