IS IT TRUE December 3, 2013

IS IT TRUE that merchants across the City of Evansville expressed such an outrage to City Officials over the fines that Franklin Street businesses were threatened with by the Area Planning Commission’s so called “Sign Nazis” that both Mayor Winnecke and County Commissioner have backed down and used the power of fiat to “suspend” the fines until the laws can be “modernized”?…this is all well and good and in spite of channeling President Obama in the use of executive orders to cherry pick preferred provisions of laws, at this time, if this is legal, it was the right thing to do?…the City of Evansville along with many other American cities are carrying the weight of many legacy laws that in retrospect are burdensome, oppressive, anti-business, and even wasteful of taxpayer dollars?…the arbitrary enforcement of laws of questionable value are just the kind of thing that undermines respect for the rule of law?…given the idiotic law, the enforcement official who went Deputy Dog on us, and the temperament of the population Mayor Winnecke and Commissioner Abell have taken the right temporary action?…this temporary action needs to be followed up ASAP with a change in the laws so that idiocy, followed by lawlessness, followed by a nod and a wink familiar to GOOD OLD BOYS does not become the mode of operation again?

IS IT TRUE that we would be neglecting the obvious if we did not ask the question, “How did it get to the point that an act of Deputy Dog, set the merchants of Evansville off to the point two executive orders were needed during the Christmas season?”…many things in Evansville that are legacy problems can be blamed on past mayors but this is not the case this time?…the excessive fines and business unfriendly sign laws can be traced back to a time when Jonathan Weinzapfel was Mayor of Evansville and current Mayor Lloyd Winnecke was the head of the Vanderburgh County Commissioners?…somehow in spite of secret meetings to take away the Homestead Tax Credit and shove the Ford Center down the people’s throats these two guys found the time to appoint people to the Area Planning Commission to do their bidding and recommend these ridiculous laws?…if the truth is told Mayor Winnecke just used his dubious authority to use an executive order to “suspend” the APC from enforcing a law he was one of the architects of?…this is sounding more like Washington DC every day?…all we are missing is some grandfather statement like “if you like you sign, you can keep your sign?”

IS IT TRUE it does merit some investigation as to just what prompted a sign restriction law in the first place?…the CCO went out last weekend and took about 50 pictures of temporary signage in the City of Evansville and have included some examples at the end of this column? …we wonder if the owners of the signs posted below got the approval from APC and paid the required permit fee so they could display them? …assuming a sign law is deemed necessary by the people of the town it should not be elected officials and their appointed puppets in charge of defining what is acceptable?…that should be business owners who are really the drivers of the economy and are quick to make decisions?…we would suggest that a real blue ribbon committee of business owners like Raffi Manna, Amy Word, Andy Dillow, Mike Weber, Terry Oates or even some downtown merchants take up this cause and tell our elected officials what they want?…without private business earning profits and paying the bills there will be no Evansville?…it is about time the government of Evansville learns this lesson?

IS IT TRUE all of the reports out for the shopping over the Black Friday weekend indicate that for the first time in seven years retail sales for that big shopping weekend have dropped from the year before?…with the official government statistics telling us that unemployment has dropped, wages are rising, credit is easier to get, and that the sun is once again starting to shine on the American economy this phenomena would seem to be unexpected?…there has to be a reason for lower spending when all things that drive the spending are asserted by our government to be improving?…there are three possibilities in the following order first of which is that America has changed its consumerism ways and has become a practical nation during the last year, second is that the government statistics are nonsense, and the third is that the pall of uncertainty over the looming implementation of ObamaCare and the cost of health insurance has traumatized the American public?