Mayor Lloyd Winnecke is pleased to announce the appointment of Brent Schmitt, formerly an Indiana Department of Transportation engineer, to the position of City Engineer. Schmitt’s first day in his new position was Monday, “Brent has spent the past seven years serving the citizens of Indiana by providing quality infrastructure support and management to INDOT projects,” said Mayor Winnecke. “Through his experience, Brent will bring different perspectives and processes that will enable the City Engineering Department to broaden its ability to provide quality product and enhanced services to Evansville residents.”

Schmitt said he looks forward to the challenge of successfully completing local road projects currently underway. He said his past relationships with INDOT will allow him to feel comfortable addressing issues, if problems arise in the future. “I will be able to sit down with people I know on a first name basis to determine what’s in the best interest of the City of Evansville as well as the State of Indiana, and to reach an agreement that satisfies the needs of all users of our roadways,” Schmitt said.

Before joining the City of Evansville, Schmitt had moved up through the ranks at INDOT to become the District Testing Engineer at the Vincennes District office responsible for approval and oversight of material testing activities on all construction contracts in the Vincennes District, and guaranteeing standards and deadlines were achieved. Schmitt managed a staff of 20 engineers, technicians and administrative support employees; managed three laboratories testing materials; provided technical and engineering support to all departments at the Vincennes District office; and administered a $2 million annual department budget. Prior to that, Schmitt had served INDOT as a project engineer for Interstate-69 and a traffic investigations engineer.

An Evansville native, Schmitt is a 2002 graduate of Mater Dei High School. He attended Rose Hulman, where he played football, and later transferred to the University of Evansville, earning a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Civil Engineering in 2007. Schmitt is a Professional Engineer licensed and registered with the State of Indiana.

Sergeant Andy Clark retires after serving 34 dedicated years of service to the Indiana State Police and to the communities in which he served.

Clark is a native of Alton, IL, and a 1974 graduate of Alton High School. He joined the United States Marine Corps and served as a military policeman from 1974 to 1980.

Clark graduated from the Indiana State Police Academy in July 1980 and was assigned to the Evansville District where he patrolled Gibson County until he was promoted to the rank of corporal in October 1984. Clark also became a crash reconstructionist in 1988 and qualified as an expert in court over 30 times during his career. In 1989, Clark was promoted to the rank of sergeant to serve as a pilot and flew over 10,000 hours conducting traffic patrols, searching for missing or wanted persons, taking aerial photos of crime scenes and searching for cultivated marijuana.

“Sergeant Clark was an asset to this department and his experience, work ethic and dedication will be greatly missed,” said Lieutenant Brian Bailey, Commander of the Evansville District.

Clark and his wife, Becky, have been married for over 32 years and reside in Gibson County. They have two children and one grandson.

After much discussion and thought,  the CCO feels obligated to respectfully recommend to our readers that they give special consideration when they vote in the up coming May 6, 2014 Republican Primary in the Vanderburgh County Council race.

On May 6th, as we look to select candidates that will represent the citizens of Vanderburgh County we must realize the importance of exercising our right to vote and choose the candidate who best exemplifies the vision for our community.  For County Council – County Council 4th District we have two well qualified Republican candidates running; Pete Swaim and John Montrastelle.

Although Mr Swaim’s long commitment to serving our community  is extremely commendable and we have enormous respect for him, however  the City-County Observer feels is it is time for a change – a progressive change.  This is why we endorse John Montrastelle as your Republican representative for the County Council seat in the May 6, 2014 Republican primary.

John is a lifelong resident of Evansville with a great sense of pride about our community and the people who live here.  He also believes, very strongly, that we should operate government to be fully transparent and fiscally responsible at all times. He states, “Our ability to understand county programs, departments, budgets, along with sound policies and procedures regarding how we operate the functions of government, is essential to our success.”

John has proven he is forward thinking in his role as the President of the Board for the Evansville Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.  With his leadership and guidance from his fellow commissioners they have transformed the ECVB into a strong and well founded organization. The ECVB developed new policies and procedures, comprehensive budgeting, special event policies, grant criteria guidelines and policies, new marketing initiatives for Evansville and most importantly a transparent organization. The most challenging effort during his tenure at the ECVB has been pushing for the of new sports complex that is currently approved for construction in late summer, using lodging tax versus local taxes as the funding source.  According to Monstrastelle this sports complex is projected to generate new revenues and serve as one of the finest quality of life projects ever built in our community, without costing a penny to the local taxpayers of Vanderburgh County and the City of Evansville according to Mr. Montrastelle.  We hope he is right with his projections about the new sports complex.

John’s father, Bill Montrastelle, was a close confidant to Mayor Russell Lloyd while he volunteered and worked tirelessly on numerous civic projects.  We feel John Montrastelle shares that same compassion for our community that his father did!   It’s obvious that the apple may not have fallen far from the family tree.

The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation had 1,445 of its 1,818 third grade students pass the IREAD-3 test earlier this year — a total of 80 percent. All third grade students in Indiana take the test, – which is required by Indiana House Enrolled Act 1367, in order to progress to fourth grade English/Language Arts curriculum.
Jackie Kuhn, EVSC director of language arts and literacy support, said nine schools in the EVSC increased their pass rates. Among those, Glenwood Leadership Academy saw the largest gains, with a 15.8 percent increase to 66.7 percent. Also increasing the pass rate by double digits was Fairlawn Elementary, with an 
11.2 percent increase to 86.8 percent.
Kuhn said she was pleased that a total of nine EVSC elementary schools also had pass rates higher than 85 percent and seven schools showed progress in reducing those who did not pass.
Velinda Stubbs, chief academic officer, said that the EVSC had an influx of students coming from other schools in the area in January. “A total of 33 students enrolled between January and March when the test was given – which is difficult because we have not had the opportunity to teach students for the entire eight months of school before IREAD. Any student who is listed as enrolled in the EVSC – whether they have been at one of our schools for one day, or at other non-school facilities the EVSC serves, count in the overall pass rate,” Stubbs said.
“Some students need additional time to master material,” she added. “Fortunately, we are able to offer a summer school program to help these students succeed.” The EVSC Summer Program offers 60 hours of free individualized tutoring, June 2-27 (at most locations), to students who did not pass the test. Students also work in small groups with a licensed teacher on reading skills and use technology and data to work toward the student’s reading goals. Free bus transportation routes have been established for each of the tutoring sites. An IREAD re-test will be administered the last week of June.
Last year following students’ intensive work in summer school with EVSC teachers, and including the good cause exemptions, the overall pass rate for the EVSC increased over 14 percent.

School
Pass
Caze
68.9%
Cedar Hall
68.3%
Cynthia Heights
87.3%
Daniel Wertz
76.6%
Delaware
66.2%
Dexter
82.3%
Evans
61.6%
Fairlawn
86.8%
Glenwood
66.7%
Harper
75.0%
Hebron
87.7%
Highland
85.4%
Lincoln
42.3%
Lodge
48.9%
Oak Hill
97.4%
Scott
96.2%
Stockwell
76.9%
Stringtown
79.5%
Tekoppel
82.2%
Vogel
85.6%
West Terrace
87.9%