IS IT TRUE May 23, 2013

IS IT TRUE CCO Mole #29 tells us that there has been some rumor mongering going on in downtown Evansville about the whereabouts of Joe Wallace, Editor of the CCO and Managing Director of the Coachella Valley Innovation Hub?…our Mole tells us that the rumor mongers are saying that Joe is no longer living in California and is basically unable to be found?…nothing could be further from the truth as the CViHub just opened its new accelerator campus at the Palm Springs International Airport at full capacity and has attracted three companies from out of state in 2013?…at this grand opening Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet declared that the CViHub program has “such momentum that it cannot be stopped”?…the most recent business to come into the CViHub program is Silicon Springs Ventures, a start-up venture capital firm formed by former Silicon Valley VC’s who see the momentum and join two angel networks that already operate out of the CViHub?…life is good in Palm Springs for Mr. Wallace who starts most days by putting together IS IT TRUE for the CCO before going off to do his duties at the CViHub?

IS IT TRUE that Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke ran on a platform that included expanding the utilization of the Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) signed between GAGE and the Crane NAVSEA Division on September 3, 2008 AND on establishing an investment fund to support entrepreneurs?…while the news is full of stories about dog parks, platinum plated water meters, skateboard half-pipes, and subsidizing a downtown hotel complex with $37.5 Million taxpayer dollars, we have not heard a single solitary piece of propaganda about technology transfer or the formation of a functional investment fund?…as has been pointed out to the powers that be time and time again, without a viable investment community in start-up businesses the best local entrepreneurs will either give up and take a job or pack up and leave?…youthful talent, educated professionals, venture investors, and entrepreneurs have the potential to add more value to a local economy than all of the hotels, arenas, parks, amphitheatres, zoos, and ball parks that any mayor could ever afford to subsidize with taxpayer dollars?…perhaps the City Council can redirect the funds that are dreamed of for more fun and games into a more promising area like a private matched angel investment fund?…the alternative is to fuel the brain drain and keep driving the talent and ambition out of town?

IS IT TRUE the day after being attributed with making the impossible statement that a 253 room hotel would increase room night sales by 40%, CVB Executive Director Bob Warren has had his contract extended by three years?…the CCO being a supporter of the kind of analytical thought that Mr. Warren sees this as a positive move if Mr. Warren is indeed allowed to keep thinking as opposed to wearing the puppet strings that so often come with these kinds of jobs in Evansville?…as we opined yesterday, we really wonder who wrote the talking points for Mr. Warren when it came to the details of the projected economic impact of a downtown convention hotel?…the timing of the contract extension even take on the appearance of a reward for following orders?…we certainly wish Mr. Warren success in bringing conventions to town but wish the projections published looked more like realism and less like the tales of Baron von Munchausen?

IS IT TRUE that some of the testimony before Congress yesterday by top Internal Revenue Service (IRS) executives was stunning in the sense that these people do not even think it is wrong to single out groups for IRS scrutiny because of political views that dissent from the views of President Obama?…we have scandals in the federal departments of state, justice, and revenue that should make the country blush and change course?…when senior government officials do not even know right from wrong we have a very serious problem?…it is time for another intervention at the federal level like the one in 2008 that swept President Obama into the White House?…it is time this country learned that details and execution matter as much or more than hopes and dreams?…what this country, and many of the local governments in it need now are doers as opposed to dreamers?

IS IT TRUE May 22, 2013

IS IT TRUE when Bob Warren was hired to run the Evansville Convention and Visitors Bureau after the scandalous way that his predecessor Marilee Fowler was treated by the Weinzapfel Administration and the Opus One party animals that made up the ECVB Board of Directors, the City County Observer came away impressed that Mr. Warren was a serious man with a head for numbers?…Mr. Warren proved his mathematical acumen once again when he held a meeting at the Mesker Zoo and announced that the $20 Million Roberts Stadium ball fields did not pencil out?…given our respect for Mr. Warren’s command of mathematics the CCO was shocked and amazed yesterday to read in the Courier and Press that Mr. Warren believes that adding a 253 room hotel to an already existing 3,727 rooms will increase the number of room nights sold by 40%?…this statement is not just improbable, it is physically impossible and could not come from the mind of a person who did an extensive analysis on the ball fields and pronounced them to be a bad investment complete with percentage analysis to the one hundredth of a percent?…there are only two possibilities for that statement and the first is that a mathematically challenged reporter for the Courier & Press misstated what Mr. Warren said?…it is also possible that the astute Mr. Warren has been in Evansville long enough to have lost his wits due to the consumption of Mayoral Kool-Aid that seems to cause people to exaggerate wildly about the benefits of fun and games projects?

IS IT TRUE the math behind the statement can easily be debunked as ridiculous as follows:

3,727 rooms x 365 days = 1,360,355 room nights available in Evansville now

1,360,355 x 58.7% occupancy = 798,528 room nights per year sold per year now

253 rooms x 365 = 92,345 room nights added by new hotel

92,345 / 798,528 = 11.6% increase in room nights at 100% occupancy

IS IT TRUE from here it gets really easy to see that to achieve the prediction attributed to Mr. Warren by the Courier Press the operator of a new downtown Convention Hotel would have to sell each and every room 3.46 times every day of the year?…a hotel cannot physically have 346% occupancy even in a sold out all of the time situation?…even the most aggressive of the proposals received by the City of Evansville assumed a 65% occupancy rate for the new hotel?…a difficult to achieve occupancy rate of 65% only would increase the number of room nights sold by 60,025 per year which corresponds to a 7.5% increase in room nights sold?…if Mr. Warren had claimed that the Centre would have 40% more people attending conventions that they currently have we could have gotten on board?…making absurd statements that are physically impossible like the statements Mr. Warren debunked about the ball field impact projections a few years ago destroy the credibility of the messenger?…when it comes to 40% more room nights we have got to conclude that the Courier & Press who supports most anything the Winnecke Administration tells them to in their zeal for a magnanimous quote put some dumb words into Mr. Warren’s mouth?…we invite Mr. Warren to release his documentation on the real impact of both the downtown Convention Hotel and the ball fields?…we will publish them without edit, opinion, or bias?

IS IT TRUE that the Vanderburgh County Republican Party is soliciting its members for donations to purchase a $25,000 booth to use at the Fall Festival?…that seems like an expensive booth but if their members respond positively we shall go by and buy a corn dog from them?…perhaps another good way to pay for the booth would be to reign in the excessive spending on fun and games by Republican Mayor Lloyd Winnecke?…that guy can polish off $25,000 taxpayer dollars before breakfast on non-essential projects while trying to delay essential projects like the sewer repairs as far into the future as he can?