Dr. Bucshon Votes Provide Certainty for Students, Taxpayers
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On Wednesday, the House approved a bipartisan motion to concur with the Senate on a permanent, market based solution for student loans.
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Representative Larry Bucshon said:Â Â
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“As a physician who made it through medical school on student loans and the father of two college students, I understand the struggle that many families face. I am pleased that the Senate took action on the permanent, market based solution to student loan interest rates that the House passed in May. We sent a bill to the President’s desk that takes politics out of student loans and provides certainty for students and their families.â€
BACKGROUND:
The House passed H.R. 1911, the Smarter Solutions for Students Act on May 23rd, 2013 to prevent interest rates from doubling on college students.
After months of delay, the Senate finally took action and passed a solution that closely mirrors the proposal passed by the House.
Art in the City Opening Reception
The Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana’s annual members-only exhibit, Art in the City, will open this Friday, August 2, 2013 from 5:00pm – 7:00pm. Awards include Best of Show, 1st Place, 2nd Place, and 3rd Place. The juror for Art in the City is Melissa Erwin, one of the founders of the Arts Council of Doom. The Arts Council is located at 318 Main Street in downtown Evansville, IN. All opening receptions are free to the public. For more information about this exhibit and upcoming shows, visit www.artswin.org.
Trooper and Oakland City Officer Saves Oakland City Man
Trooper Chris Dyer and Oakland City Police Officer Mike Collins are being credited for saving the life of a 22-year-old Oakland City man.
On July 27, at approximately 4:30 a.m., Indiana State Police, Gibson County Sheriff’s Department and Oakland City Police responded to a domestic disturbance at 12245 East C.R. 100 South near Oakland City. Responding officers received information the male had punched a glass window and was bleeding severely from his arm. When Trooper Dyer and Officer Collins arrived they immediately noticed the male was losing a lot of blood and was going in and out of consciousness. Trooper Dyer and Officer Collins immediately applied a Combat Application Tourniquet (CAT) and controlled the bleeding. The injured male was transported to St. Mary’s Hospital in Evansville where he was originally listed in critical condition, but his condition has since improved.
“The quick actions of Trooper Dyer and Officer Collins and the use of the Combat Application Tourniquet likely saved the life of the 22-year-old Oakland City man,†said Lieutenant Brian Bailey, Commander of the Evansville Post.
The CAT was originally designed for the treatment of wounded soldiers while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indiana State Police at Evansville recently received training from the Evansville Police Department on the proper application of these life saving devices.
IS IT TRUE August 3, 2013: Special Saturday Edition
IS IT TRUE August 3, 2013
IS IT TRUE that there is a most wonderful establishment on the island of Maui called Java Jazz?…Java Jazz is owned by a gentleman (loosely speaking) named Farzad who has been a friend of this writer for over 10 years?…that of all the things in this world that Farzad who is an entrepreneur, an artist, and a politically incorrect philosopher loves, his most treasured thing is the United States of America?…Farzad is of course a citizen who came to America from Persia but his love of this country exceeds that of most native born citizens?…Farzad is so passionate about American service people that every month he uses some of the profits from his business to bring people who have earned a purple heart in battle to Maui for rest and relaxation?…Farzad is starting a radio show soon from Java Jazz and there is a very high probability that someone from the CCO will be a guest on a regular basis?…when it comes to politics, Farzad agrees with the CCO that both major parties could use some serious improvement and that Libertarian principles may just be the salvation of either the Democrats or Republicans who have strayed so far from Jeffersonian realism that they have a long journey back to be sustainable?
IS IT TRUE that of the 953,000 jobs created in the United States during the first 7 months of 2013 that 731,000 of them were part time jobs and only 222,000 are full time jobs?…our government counts them anyway toward determining the unemployment rate?…all one has to do to be regarded as employed by the federal government for the latest weeks data is work one hour as a babysitter or a manual laborer for a paltry amount of money?…all of the part time jobs created this year (77% of all jobs) count toward employment whether these people work 1 hour or 29 hours per week?…a full time job for government calculation purposes constitutes working 30 hours or more per week?…this migration to a part time job society is a direct result of the half witted law formally known as the Affordable Care Act but informally referred to as ObamaCare?…this is just one more reason to force congress to hold a bill for 3 months before passing it and requiring each member to sign an affidavit stating that they have read every bill at least a week before being allowed to vote on it?
IS IT TRUE that New York Congressman Charles (Charlie) Rangle who was caught up getting free and reduced accommodations a couple of years ago was quoted by the Daily Beast in an interview last week as saying that “the Tea Party is the same group of White Crackers who fought against civil rightsâ€?…while the City County Observer supports civil rights and admires the team of people who fought, bled, and died for civil rights, we really wish that the use of terms like “white crackers†would be met with the same level of disgust as other racially insensitive words?…in this arena there is no such thing as equal protection in the court of public judgment and media frenzy?…all racial slurs are bad and some are meant to demean?…the way that Congressman Rangle used the term “white crackers†was not only meant to demean people of the present for the sins of people of the past, but it was used in a media forum that does nothing but inflame hatred and promote distrust?…unless Congressman Rangle was referring to saltines or soda crackers as opposed to using that term as a racial slur then he should be tossed into the same media meat grinder that Paula Deen was?…it would be justice for Congressman Rangle and Paula Deen to be sentenced to eat a few meals together to think about the words they have chosen to use?…they may just learn to like each other?
Chicago May be the Next Big Bankruptcy
By: Mike Austin
Chicago — Having just been downgraded three notches by Moody’s, Chicago is suddenly hearing the uncomfortable shifting of deck chairs, as people wonder if the nation’s third-largest city is about to slam into the same debt-and-pensions iceberg that sank the SS Detroit last month.
It was once inconceivable that the Motor City would become the setting for post-apocalyptic visions of burned out, abandoned neighborhoods, a corrupt and incarcerated city government, and all-but-nonexistent public services. Yet Detroit’s collapse took but a few decades. Now, the same disbelief and denial about Chicago is being heard, yet the evidence for the inescapable bill of mismanagement and bad policy is still making headlines just a few hundred miles north of the Windy City.
For all its manifest faults (such as being the world’s most dangerous global city), Chicago is not yet close to matching Detroit’s mismanagement, hollowed-out tax base, or loss of productive sectors. Neither is it the one-industry town that Detroit was, nor has it been hemorrhaging residents for decades. In fact, it is a far more vibrant place than when I was growing up here in the 1970s and 1980s, with lots more young people, gentrified neighborhoods (which, admittedly, reduces its gritty charm for an erstwhile resident), and money sloshing around. Even those decades, though, were an improvement over the city’s near-death experience in the 1960s when faced with the decline of traditional industries like steel. Then, Mayor Richard J. Daley, the “Boss,†saved the city, or at least argued that he did, by building vital transportation lifelines into the downtown, making real development of the suburbs and exurbs a viable proposition. Of course, to do so, he had to drive the Dan Ryan Expressway through vibrant ethnic neighborhoods like Little Italy. It was messy and highly controversial, but it was focused solely on making the city economically competitive again.
Today, Chicago faces another threat, shared by many Democratic municipal governments. The city may seem healthy on the surface, but its finances are shaky, to say the least. Chicago is staring at a massive, $340 million budget deficit, which, if pension plans aren’t radically changed, may open up to a $1 billion shortfall as soon as 2015. The Moody’s downgrade was tied directly to the looming budget hole and lack of progress on restructuring its pension and health-care obligations. All too predictably, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has addressed this by focusing on increasing revenue and getting a bigger slice of state taxes.
The next decade will likely determine the city’s future, and mordant urban death watchers should track every step Emanuel and City Hall makes from now on. Whatever you think about Emanuel, he’s no deer-in-the-headlights politician, and his battle with the Chicago Teachers Union last year showed his willingness to take on heavyweight opponents, regardless of the outcome. He knows that Chicago will face the same fiscal pressures Detroit did, the same political battles to preserve pension plans, and the same pressure on businesses to relocate to friendlier confines in Indiana and Wisconsin. And there’s no hope for help from the state capital: Illinois’s situation is far more dire, with unfunded pension liabilities topping $100 billion. Time will tell whether Emanuel adapts and forces Chicago to make the tough choices, or follows the Detroit model of slow, inexorable collapse.
One thing both Mayor Emanuel and Illinois governor Pat Quinn can be sure of: Their neighbors aren’t standing still. A friend who runs a Chicago food-industry business told me that one of his subcontractors looking for new land in Indiana personally was contacted by then-governor Mitch Daniels. Daniels apparently had standing orders that he be informed about any company considering relocating to Indiana, so he could reach out himself to sell them on the virtues of the state. Daniels and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker are just as sharp-eyed as Rahm Emanuel but happen to understand that the key to prosperity is creating business-friendly conditions that will lead to more and higher-paying jobs. Meanwhile, as the excellent Illinois Policy Institute reports, Illinois has the nation’s second-highest property taxes in the U.S., which comes on top of 2011’s 67 percent increase in income-tax rates. Quinn and Emanuel may win their fight to limit pension benefits, but none of that will matter if they don’t create a viable economic environment for entrepreneurs and manufacturers.
Meanwhile, society is suffering. A large part of the city’s budget deficit comes from higher-than-expected costs for public safety. Of course, with an elevated murder rate, one can see why Chicago’s Finest are putting in lots of overtime. Already, however, warnings are coming that Emanuel may have to start cutting city services to bring down the budget deficit. That could send Chicago into a Detroit-style death spiral whereby the affluent flee the ever more dangerous city, taking their tax dollars and investments with them.
Breathless media reports about the all-time highs on the stock market condescendingly ignore that life is changing for the worse in our increasingly impoverished cities and towns. Even beyond failing local governments, important urban institutions are increasingly at risk. Consider one small example in Chicago this week: The world-famous Field Museum announced more plans to cut its renowned research staff. A half-dozen tenured curators at the 120-year-old museum are leaving, this coming after a $5 million cut in its operating budget, a 20 percent drop in its research funds, and the consolidation of its anthropology, botany, geology, and zoology departments into one generic science and education division. It is a telling sign that an intellectual institution founded in the heyday of civic philanthropy in the country’s industrial center faces an unknown future.
Being $170 million in debt, thanks to underfunded expansion and modernization plans, the Field Museum is in grave danger of losing its status as one of the world’s premier research centers. That will ultimately affect its exhibitions and educational role in the city. The balance struck between shedding expensive capabilities and maintaining some core competencies will fundamentally change the nature of the museum. It may not disappear, but it will be a very different place in a decade, one that may provide far less value to students, youth, researchers, and the like. That sounds a lot like Chicago itself, come to think of it.
Source: National Review
Update: IS IT TRUE PART 2, August 2, 2013
IS IT TRUE that the City County Observer has just learned that Mayor Winnecke’s Chief of Staff, Steve Schaefer has acknowledged that it was MRC that marked 16 slides from the McGladrey report with the stamp of “draft” and used these 16 pages in their 114 page rebuttal manifesto?…the exact words used by Mr. Schaefer to communicate this information are as follows:
“the 16 pages that you attached are the response from MRC to the draft McGladrey report. MRC took the McGladrey draft and used pages out of it in their response. The words “draft” were added by MRC in their response.
I hope that makes sense.
I’ve copied John Staples, with MRC (now Advanced Network & Computer Services) who created the response document.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Steve”
IS IT TRUE that the CCO agrees with Mr. Schaefer that this does indeed make sense?…it makes sense also that the McGladrey report of April 8th that was never marked as a draft by McGladrey was indeed the “IT Assessment and Executive Report” that is was billed as and was not a simple “draft” as many have asserted?…the peeling of the onion continues and someday we shall get to the bottom of this muddled confusion?
IS IT TRUE August 2, 2013
IS IT TRUE August 2, 2013
IS IT TRUE that a timeline of events that can be used to figure out the order of actions with respect to the series of “draftsâ€, revisions, and final versions of the McGladrey Study of the IT status of the City of Evansville and Vanderburgh County?…just as Mayor Winnecke and others have asserted there was indeed a “draft†version of the report issued by McGladrey and the date on that “draft†is MARCH 20, 2013?…that “draft†was provided to MRC (Evansville’s IT contractor) who proceeded to write a 114 page manifesto to rebut some of the “keeping the lights on†comments in the MARCH 20, 2013 “draftâ€?…despite this McGladrey billed the City of Evansville just over $112,000 on MARCH 24th for “IT Assessment and Executive Overviewâ€, the Controller’s Office stamped the bill received on APRIL 1, 2013 and paid the bill in early MAY 2013?…McGladrey issued the “IT Assessment and Executive Overview†to the Mayor’s office on APRIL 8, 2013 and did not mark the report as either “draft†or “preliminary†anywhere on it?…that should have been the end of the story and the City Council should have been issued a copy of the APRIL 8th report at that time?…life is just not so easy when politics is involved?
IS IT TRUE on that very same APRIL 8, 2013 day that the first McGladrey report was issued, the City of Evansville issued another Purchase Order #2880-00 for over $50,000 to McGladrey to do a “Technology Assessmentâ€?…we and many of our readers wonder just what the 2nd Purchase Order was for?…it seems very much like the second Purchase Order would have been used to bill for time and expenses to review the 114 page manifesto from MRC and integrate it into a SECOND FINAL REPORT that was eventually supplied to the City Council and the public in late JULY 2013?…the CCO has not at this point been able to get the billing records or invoices from McGladrey with respect to PO #2880-00 but we are trying?…the McGladrey billing records for time and expenses after April 8, 2013 will provide information as to just how the scathing report of April 8th became the less scathing report of July 23rd?…it appears that the Office of the Mayor believes that neither the Evansville City Council nor the people of this town can handle the un-sugar coated truth about how OUR IT DEPARTMENT appears to a respected outside evaluation team?
IS IT TRUE that given that one of the reasons that Sherman Greer was fired by Mayor Winnecke was for buying $2,000 worth of radio equipment without soliciting competitive bids it is fair to ask the question “may we see the solicitation and the competitive bidding records for when the IT consulting contract was signed by the City of Evansvilleâ€?…our civic center moles tell us this happened in the last days of the Weinzapfel Administration and that former Mayor Weinzapfel along with current Mayor Winnecke (who was then a Vanderburgh County Commissioner) got together to sign the 5 year contract?…what our moles and the CCO are not aware of is whether or not this nearly $1 Million deal was part of a competitive bidding solicitation or if it was just signed off by the two high ranking elected officials without a bidding process?…this issue can be easily resolved if the Winnecke Administration will release the bidding record and the solicitation that resulted in this contract being signed?…if this contract of close to $1 Million was entered into without a competitive bidding process and then Mr. Greer was fired for not sending a $2,000 radio out for bids this will constitute the height of hypocrisy and the intent behind such a deal needs to be investigated?
IS IT TRUE the events of July that may be seen as totally negative to some offer a glimmer of hope that the City of Evansville may in spite of its tradition of letting some things slide while coming down like a ton of bricks on some unsuspecting scapegoat may be tending toward honesty and accountability?…July started out with the firing of Sherman Greer and the hiring of his #1 sidekick who was then summarily fired by Mayor Winnecke after only a few days on the job?…the things that led to the firing of these two long term and competent employees was jumping the gun and spending this year’s money on a truck that was to have been budgeted for next year and buying a radio for that truck without soliciting bids?…in view of the budget of the City of Evansville the number of dollars involved were miniscule but the offense did merit a consequence none the less?…if the actions of the City with respect to Mr. Greer and the exposure of this administration for obstructing the City Council from doing their job are not enough to force Evansville to straighten up and stop the good old boy nonsense, then nothing ever will?…the solution to the problems of multiple sets of rules for multiple people and a “let it slide†mentality for some but a “chained to the whipping post†mentality toward others can only be solved by mass voter demand for equality, fairness, and sanity in local government?…it would be most amusing to hear an 8 year old try to lie their way out of the messes made by the Mayors of Evansville during the last 10 years?
“The Office” Star Creed Bratton Coming to Victory Theatreâ€
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 VICTORY THEATRE
600 MAIN ST., EVANSVILLE, IN 47711 – 8:00 PM – ALL AGES
TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY, AUGUST 9TH AT 10AM
TICKETS ARE $15.00 AND $20.00.
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT
TICKETMASTER.COM, BY PHONE AT 800-745-3000, AT THE
FORD CENTER TICKET OFFICE, OR VICTORY THEATRE BOX ON DAY OF SHOW.
Ticket prices subject to applicable fees.
www.creedbratton.com
Singer-songwriter and actor-comic Creed Bratton, best-known for the quirky former 60’s rock-star character he portrayed on the NBC TV hit comedy series The Office will be at the Victory Theatre for one show only.