IS IT TRUE the City County Observer web site design is under construction?  … we have encountered many technical problems with our website over the last five months? …because of those issues we are currently under construction, building a brand new website that’s better than ever? …please accept our sincerest apologies?  …we will soon be back up later this week with our same great content with a new user friendly layout?  …  we thank you for your support of the City-County Observer?

IS IT TRUE that it is Fall Festival week and we encourage our readers to get over to the Westside and enjoy a uniquely Evansville event?…of course the food is the big attraction for the adults but the carnival is a big favorite with the children?…even if the story about being the second largest street festival in the United States is urban myth, this is still a well-run event and offers a good time to all?…the Fall Festival also fills the coffers of local charities with upwards of $200,000 on a good year when the weather cooperates so get on over and try out some chocolate crickets, pronto pups, or even a brain sandwich if you dare?

IS IT TRUE that much hoopla has been made about President Obama’s two hour visit to the tri-state last Friday?…the fact that the event at Millennium Steel was private upset some people as did the choices of Governor Pence and Congressman Buschon as the official greeters of the President?…the reality of the situation is that a Presidential visit is usually seen as a good thing by most people of any community without regard to politics?…such visits do come with a price tag associated with them?…the United States Air Force released the cost to operate Air Force One earlier this year at $228,288 per hour?…given that Evansville is roughly a 4 hour round trip from Washington DC by air the transporting of the President and the others on Air Force One cost the American taxpayers about a Million Bucks?…when you throw in the transport plane for the armored motorcade and the ground support one can easily surmise that President Obama’s trip to Princeton for a private event cost us collectively at least $2 Million plus the aggravation of distractions and closed roads?…that said, it was about time that a sitting President came back to SW Indiana as it has been a good long time since the last visit?

IS IT TRUE the government of Indiana just can’t seem to come to grips with the fact that land based casinos make more sense than rickety old boats?…an exception (or a SNEGAL loophole) was created for the French Lick casino by building a land based casino and then filling the ditch around it with water and declaring it to be a boat?…what is good for French Lick should be good for all of the other aging river boats so let’s get on with some privately financed construction projects to build a collection of land based casinos to replace the nearly end of useful life boats that were a convenient way to legalize gambling in the first place?…they should be reminded that a dollar won or lost is a dollar won or lost whether on land or water, and that a dollar of tax revenue is too?

IS IT TRUE that sometimes by refusing to enter an argument one can define the winner?…that yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States did just that by refusing to hear any appeals with respect to marriage equality?…this refusal on the part of the SCOTUS has be default made marriage equality inevitable?…this is an issue that the City County Observer has supported from day one and will continue to support?…we wish for a day when marriage equality is simply a choice as opposed to a controversy?

IS IT TRUE the nation that invented modern management seems to be suffering a crisis of competence?…the Secret Service can’t protect the White House, public health authorities can’t get their arms around a one-man Ebola outbreak, the army we trained in Iraq collapsed as soon as it was attacked by Islamic extremists, and our own veterans can’t get the care they need at VA hospitals?…lest we forget, it was only a year ago that the White House rolled out its national health insurance program, only to see its website grind to a halt?..one can argue that these problems all have different causes,but it’s hard not to conclude that something basic is amiss in Washington?…the federal government’s personnel system is mired in antiquated civil service rules?… Linda Bilmes, a public policy scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School who worked in the Clinton administration said last week that “You can’t move people around; you can’t pay more to retain your best people; you can’t easily get rid of people you need to get rid of, the pay at the top of the scale is inadequate to attract the best and the brightest into government, and as the old saying goes, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. It’s very demoralizing.”