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IS IT TRUE November 7, 2014

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IS IT TRUE the day has finally come that the construction company for the downtown convention hotel has announced a starting date for actually doing something that is not exclusively a PR stunt?…Hunt Construction that was also the builder of the Ford Center has set a start date for November 19, 2014, exactly 6 years and 6 months after former Mayor Weinzapfel smiled and announced that there would be an unsubsidized 4 Star Marriott if only we would build an arena?…if all goes well and if the financing is really in place, there will be a grand opening in mid 2016?…even though there is a $20 Million subsidy and a $14 Million slight of hand private contribution this is as good of a deal as Evansville was going to get for a convention hotel?…we will cross our fingers that chasing the dying convention industry will actually work,out for this hotel?

IS IT TRUE on the day after the election some Evansville homeowners were rudely greeted by notices that the SNEGAL (sneaky but legal) Johnson Controls deal that Weinzapfel saddled the City of Evansville with on his way out the door is about to pick their pockets?…these notices were to let homeowners know that the smart meters were about to be installed and that their water pipes have been determined in need of repairs prior to that installation?…it also advised these homeowners that they would have the privilege of paying for these repairs to the tune of roughly $1,500 each?…if they do not comply the City will be installing the meters anyway and if the City breaks the pipes the homeowners will still have to pay for the repairs?…this is BIG BROTHER in action and this is not any way to run a city?…with the increasingly oppressive heating bills and the holiday season on the horizon this is just not an acceptable way for the citizens of Evansville to be treated?

IS IT TRUE the CCO is pleased to learn that the Blue Angels will be performing in downtown Evansville next summer?…this performance will be happening due to the generosity of Vectren that has stepped forward to underwrite $50,000 of the the nearly $200,000 cost to bring the Blue Angels to town?…we do wonder exactly who will be putting up the balance of the need as this $50,000 does not cover the cost of the show?…we hope if this show really happens on free money that most of the people of Evansville will come out and enjoy this once in a lifetime gift?…this gift was necessary because the people of Evansville have howled like hit dogs at the very thought of paying $20 for a button which is necessary for air shows to be sustainable?…this is a generous gift that we as a society should have given ourselves and hopefully it will be an inspiration to establish a realistic value on well run street festivals in the future?…gratitude is in order for Vectren and any other benefactors that come forward to cover the balance and the best gratitude would be for Evansville to step up and make this sustainable by paying their own way?…perhaps a voluntary charitable donation by each person who takes advantage if this kind action would be a down payment on a sustainable festival of substance?

IS IT TRUE that down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where plenty of beautiful people cavort, the City Council passed a law last Friday laming it illegal to feed the homeless?…the Fort Lauderdale storm troopers wasted no time enforcing this law by arresting a 90 year old man and two ministers for giving some homeless people something to eat in a forum of civil disobedience?…local news reports that the good hearted geriatric and the preachers are facing 90 days in jail for this gross infraction that must threaten someone’s right to tranquility?…the CCO thinks this is an insane overreach by BIG BROTHER and encourages our readers to cross Fort Lauderdale off of the vacation list until this insane law is repealed?

IS IT TRUE the Republican wave election of 2014 has had an unforeseen consequence that is very positive for women?…for the first time in the history of the American Republic there will be 100 female members of congress?…that sort of puts the “war on women” assertions to rest?…there may even be a time in our future when women are over half of the US Congress and we think that is great for our country?

JOHN FRIEND ARTICLE FOR NEXT MONDAY

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Evansville – Fiscal Sept 30, 2014 Fund Balance Changes

BRINKERHOFF RILEY STANDS UP FOR TAXPAYERS AGAINST JOHNSON CONTROL WATER METER PROJECT

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PUBLIC E-MAIL  LETTER FROM CITY COUNCILWOMAN BRINKERHOFF-RILEY TO MIKE LARSON
Mr. Larson:
Thank you for your email. I spoke with the Water Department and Mayor’s office today. I was told that 1000 letters went out last Friday telling homeowners that if repairs to the water meter pit were not made within 30 days that the water would be turned off. However, it sounds like yours was received sooner.
The history of this is that Johnson Controls sold the city on a water meter replacement program that was supposed to be more accurate and therefore collect more money. The focus was commercial users of water. The concept is that once the new meters are installed, if the increased revenue is not realized then Johnson Control is liable to make up the promised revenue. However Johnson Controls has to agree that the meters have been installed correctly before they are liable and therein lies the rub.
Johnson Controls contracted the work to Hydromax who is replacing the actual meters. We were recently told that the project was 40% complete. The water department employees had been making the necessary repairs cited by Hydromax in the water meter pits. However, this led to outlandish amounts of overtime. The contract was then amended for Johnson Control to pay the water department approximately 200k as reimbursement for some of the overtime. I’m told that the water department has no more money for overtime in this project.
Now apparently the cost of repairs to water meter pits is being passed on to the homeowner. The water department representative cited Memorial Community Development Corporation and CAPE emergency home repair program as possible places to get assistance. They also stated that once an estimate is obtained it is not imperative that the repairs be made within 30 days. They claimed they were working with people and did not want to turn off anyone’s water. Some of the plumbers being used are scheduling repairs out in March, and I was told this was not a problem. However, it is hard to imagine that all 1000+ homes will be able to find the necessary funds or qualify for assistance. Your top estimate was $4300. I had another complaint by a homeowner who’s estimate was $1400. Either way, these are not funds that are easily found right before Christmas.
I have asked the Mayor’s office to reach into contingency funds for the contract with Johnson Controls to pay these costs being pushed onto homeowners. I have also asked the president of council to request that the director of the water department (Allen Mounts) appear Monday at city council to answer questions about how this is happening. I have additionally started reaching out to other members of council regarding the idea of passing an ordinance that the water cannot be turned off to a home that is current on its bill.
I am waiting on Allen Mounts and the Mayor’s office to call me back. I think the letters are inappropriate given that this program was not supposed to cost the ratepayer any money. I believe that city council and the Mayor’s office will find a solution to ease or eliminate this burden and make sure that no one’s water is turned off. I will give you more information as I get it. I stopped by the home in question and it didn’t look like anyone was home. I didn’t knock given your mother-in-law’s age, as I didn’t want to scare her.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Stephanie Brinkerhoff Riley 
3rd Ward City Council Member

PUBLIC E-MAIL  LETTER TO COUNCILWOMAN BRINKERHOFF RILEY FROM MIKE LARSON
Subject: Water Department Issue
Dear Council Member Brinkerhoff-Riley,

My name is Mike Larson and I am speaking for my 80 year old mother-in-law who owns the property on E. Virginia St.

As scene in the news recently the Water Dept. has sent out notices of repairs needed all over the city. About a month ago my mother-in-law received such a notice and I have assisted her in getting an estimate to have said repairs completed. To my surprise the estimate came in at over $4,300!!
Now there may be cheaper plumbers around town and let’s say another estimate came in at half as much. Who on a fixed income or even with a steady job has an extra $2,000 plus dollars laying around to do work on something that isn’t broken? She didn’t ask for these new meters to be installed and as of today her water pipes are just fine. So, I am asking you for some guidance on what she/we need to do. I am quite certain that several citizens around the city will be in this same situation and turning off the water to hundreds of taxpayers because they cannot afford the costly repairs is really not an option.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to speaking with you about this matter. Feel free to call or reply to this e-mail if I can answer any questions you may have.

Sincerely,

Mike Larson

POSTED BY CCO WITHOUT BIAS, OPINON OR EDITING

Vanderburgh County Recent Booking Report

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SPONSORED BY DEFENSE ATTORNEY IVAN ARNAEZ.
DON’T GO TO COURT ALONE. CALL IVAN ARNAEZ @ 812-424-6671.

http://www.vanderburghsheriff.com/recent-booking-records.aspx

Commentary: What no one else can claim

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By John Krull

TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Two bright, determined young women have become the bookends for the contemporary library of mortality.

Lauren Hill and Brittany Maynard faced similar challenges.

Hill is a first-year college basketball player at Mount St. Joseph’s with an inoperable brain tumor. She has only months to live. Hill’s dream was to play college basketball. To help her realize that dream, the NCAA moved up the start of the basketball season two weeks so she could play.

Hill played that first game over the weekend, scoring the first and last buckets in a game played before a sell-out crowd in a huge arena. Her every move provoked ovations, a tribute to her courage and determination.

Maynard was a young woman who was diagnosed earlier this year with terminal brain cancer. At 29, she was older than Hill and married. She made the decision to move from her home in California to Oregon, where she could make use of that state’s death with dignity law to end her own life on her terms. After ticking off some items on her bucket list, Maynard did just that – on the same weekend that Hill played her basketball game.

Maynard’s decision provoked a more mixed response than Hill’s did.

In some quarters, Maynard was condemned as a coward and quitter. In others, she was touted as a crusader in the cause of personal self-determination.

What I find interesting about these young women’s stories is how eager we are to turn them into symbols – so eager that we strip them of their humanity.

But I suppose that’s because when we talk about them, we’re talking about something that scares us. We’re talking about death – and that conversation is easier in the abstract.

My friend Nancy Comiskey has a beautiful piece in the current issue of Indianapolis Monthly magazine about the death of her daughter, Kate, 10 years ago. One of the most painful sections to read deals with the ways that well-meaning but insensitive people try to comfort Nancy and Steve, her husband, by delivering bromides and platitudes designed to assure the grieving parents that they “understand” the Comiskeys’ loss.

But they – we – can’t understand what Kate meant to them. She was their daughter, not ours. And, more to the point, Kate was her own person, without a replica or facsimile anywhere in the world.

While love and grief may be universal feelings, they are individual experiences. Each person is unique. And the death of a human being is a specific loss, one that will evoke its own distinct and, to some degree, unknowable responses of pain and sadness among those who loved the person who died.

If this weren’t the case, marriage would not exist and neither family nor friendship would matter. One person would be the same to us as another.

We don’t mourn in the abstract because our losses are always concrete. The people we love who die are real – and irreplaceable.

Lauren Hill and Brittany Maynard aren’t symbols. They’re people, fellow human beings whose suffering and deaths will leave marks on the people who love them until those friends and family members meet their own ends.

It’s tempting to judge how others face death – or deal with grief – because it gives us an illusion of control, some sense that there is a shield protecting us from misfortune and pain.

But, in the end, we can’t know with any precision what Hill’s and Maynard’s pains, fears and hopes are like. Their lives are their own. To say that we “understand” what they have gone through is to deny them the most precious thing they have left, the knowledge that their lives have their own specific meanings and that no one else can lay claim to that.

We cannot know the thoughts that race across another person’s mind or the feelings that stir even a loved one’s heart.

All we can know for sure are our own thoughts and our own feelings, and that is why the most comforting words we can utter in times of tragedy are not “we understand,” but “we care.”

We care.

John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

Commentary: A day for the disenchanted voter

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By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – The 2014 election has a clear winner.

Anger.

 

None of the candidates for office at the state or national level elicited much enthusiasm. In fact, the polls tracking public approval ratings for Democrats and Republicans indicate that both parties are just slightly more popular than the common cold.

The public’s disgust with – and distrust of – politicians, regardless of their political affiliations, rarely has been higher.

In Florida, for example, the two candidates for governor – Republican incumbent Rick Scott and former-Republican-governor-now-Democratic-candidate Charlie Crist – spent more than $100 million on their campaigns, the bulk of it spent on negative advertising bashing each other. The end result was that voters decided they didn’t trust either man and, in a classic case of choosing the lesser of two evils, opted to retain Scott for another four years.

That was a storyline repeated across the country. People didn’t much care for the choices they had when they went to polling places and wanted a way to express their anger, but found there was no easy way to do that.

When the smoke cleared, it appeared Republicans would control both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives with the White House in Democratic hands – making it likely that the federal government would improve upon its already record standards of dysfunction.

And, in the process, increase the levels of frustration and distrust among the electorate.

Closer to home, here in the Hoosier state, it appears that the GOP will hold onto its supermajorities in both the Indiana House of Representatives and the Indiana Senate.

Perhaps the day’s highlight was the apparent election of a man under a huge ethics cloud who didn’t even want the office for which he was running – Rep. Eric Turner, R-Cicero. Turner has been slapped on the wrist – hard – by the leadership of his own party for being less than forthcoming about his personal financial interests while he lobbied for legislation that would affect those interests within the House Republican caucus.

Thanks in part to some skillful gerrymandering, Turner was able to hold onto his seat despite announcing his intention to resign as soon as the votes were counted. Turner’s maneuver means the citizens of his district will be represented by someone for whom no one other than a handful of precinct leaders has voted.

That sort of cynicism has a cost.

Earlier in the day, I hosted a radio program that dealt with the subject of supermajorities in the Indiana General Assembly.

Once people began calling and writing in to the program, it became clear that their disenchantment went further than mere partisanship.

They were frustrated with what they saw as a government more interested in political game-playing than it was in serving their interests. They were angry about a government that wasn’t responsive to their concerns.

One caller lamented the fact that gerrymandering meant she didn’t even have a choice in regard to who represented her because only one party fielded a candidate. Another caller said he didn’t even know how to connect with legislators because it seemed to him that they only wanted to hear feedback from voters that tracked with lawmakers’ preconceived notions.

And still another listener made the argument that elected officials often seemed to work to thwart her hopes rather than create opportunities to fulfill them.

Nothing that happened Tuesday is likely to erase or even ease those frustrations. The vote in 2014 did little more than set the stage for more bickering, more posturing, more gridlock at the federal level and more strong-arm maneuvering at the state level.

All of this raises an interesting – and troubling – question.

At some point, the campaigning is supposed to end and the governing is supposed to begin.

Now, though, it appears the campaign never will end.

So how are we supposed to govern?

John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

Suspicious person/ persons reported in two neighborhoods

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SPONSORED BY DEFENSE ATTORNEY IVAN ARNAEZ.
DON’T GO TO COURT ALONE. CALL IVAN ARNAEZ @ 812-424-6671.

Evansville Police responded to two separate complaints of a suspicious person on Wednesday evening. Both involved a man trying to lure kids into a vehicle by offering free candy.
The first incident happened in the 700 block of Wall around 5:30. A white male with facial hair told a juvenile that he had candy at his house and told the juvenile to get in the car. The child said no and left the area. The car was described as a green 4 door. The juvenile was unable to give any other details. The car may have traveled through the area several times before the man approached the child.
The second incident happened a couple hours later in the 100 block of W Oregon. A unknown race male tried to lure a juvenile into his truck by offering free candy. The child said no and left the area. The truck was white, had dark tinted windows, and lights on top.
Officers responded to both incidents, but were unable to locate either vehicle.
Anyone with info on theses incidents is asked to call 911 or WeTip at 1-800-78-CRIME.
Parents are in encouraged to talk to their children about safety. Particularly stranger danger. Some kids may feel that since it was ok to accept candy from strangers on Halloween, it is ok to accept it now.

Vanderburgh County Recent Booking Report

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SPONSORED BY DEFENSE ATTORNEY IVAN ARNAEZ.
DON’T GO TO COURT ALONE. CALL IVAN ARNAEZ @ 812-424-6671.

http://www.vanderburghsheriff.com/recent-booking-records.aspx

EPD Activity Report November 6, 2014

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SPONSORED BY DEFENSE ATTORNEY IVAN ARNAEZ.
DON’T GO TO COURT ALONE. CALL IVAN ARNAEZ @ 812-424-6671.

EPD Activity Report

Insurer on The Hook for nearly $64,000 In Home Repairs Following Storm

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Jennifer Nelson for www.theindianalawyer.com

An insurance company, based on the terms of its policy, is required to cover storm damage to the home of a northern Indiana couple, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed Wednesday. The insurer argued deteriorated shingles were the cause of the water damage in the home.

In April 2012, an 80-MPH windstorm hit Howe, Indiana, and caused damage to the home of Troy and Teresa Sams. Prior to the storm, they had no water leaks in the home; afterward, water seeped in the kitchen, living room, and other parts of the home, and mold began to grow. The wind damaged the exterior vinyl siding and tore shingles off the home’s multi-peaked roof.

The Samses filed an insurance claim with Erie Insurance Co. for all storm damage. The parties dispute whether the damage is covered under the Samses’ policy. Erie ultimately decided it would pay out only $3,436.69 for damages; under the Samses’ estimate, the total cost for repairs or replacement was nearly $125,000.

The insurer sought declaratory judgment that it had not further obligation on the claim; the Samses counterclaimed for breach of contract. The trial court found the insurance policy required coverage and used the estimates submitted by the parties to come up with an average amount of $63,924.89 for replacement costs.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court that the amount of damages the Samses claimed were caused by the windstorm is supported in the record. The couple had no evidence of water leaks or damage prior to the storm. Their policy unambiguously covers losses to insured property caused by storm damage, and the COA rejected Erie’s claim that the deterioration and faulty materials exclusions apply.

Erie argued that the shingles on the roof were deteriorated and were the source of the water damage. But the policy language requires Erie to show the loss is caused by the deterioration, which it did not do.

The judges also pointed out that both parties had an opportunity to fully and fairly litigate the replacement cost issue. The trial court based its judgment on the evidence the parties introduced and the judge’s ruling is well within the evidence presented, the Court of Appeals held in Erie Insurance Exchange v. Troy Sams and Teresa Sams, 44A03-1403-CT-97.

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