We previously presented to the Board a request for a meeting which was scheduled for Thursday, August 2, 2012 based upon information our committee provided to the Vanderburgh County Clerk and member of the Election Board, Susan Kirk. Unfortunately, that meeting was cancelled by Ms Kirk and she requested we submit our information to her so she could distribute it to the Election board.

In response to Susan Kirk’s request as the Vanderburgh County Clerk and a member of the Election Board, we are setting out the basis for our request for a meeting and our request to have the public question which reads as follows “Shall the City of Evansville and Vanderburgh County reorganize as a single political subdivision?” removed as a ballot question from the vote on November 6, 2012 because of the reasons set out below, which are the responsibility of the Election Board.
Insufficient Signatures to Place Petition before Voters of Vanderburgh County

There are not enough valid signatures on the petitions to meet the state requirements of 5% of the voters who voted for Secretary of State in the 2006 general election. The last election for Secretary of State before the petition was 2006 when 52,639 voters in Vanderburgh County voted for Secretary of State. State law requires five percent of that number which is 2,632 voters sign a petition meeting all the requirements of the Indiana laws. The petition was submitted to the county auditor with 2,676 valid signatures. However, in reviewing and researching the petitions that were submitted we have found more than enough entries that do not meet the requirements outlined by the State of Indiana at I.C. 3-10-9 to bring the number of valid signatures well below the number required to initiate a reorganization action. The failure of the Vanderburgh County Clerk’s office and its Election Board to adequately research and review the petitions resulted in over one hundred (100) duplications, triplicates, failure to have a printed name or signatures resulting in the valid number of signatures on the petition to be well below the minimum of two thousand six hundred and thirty-two (2,632) registered voters. The petitions were not checked against the Secretary of State bank of registered voters. The petitions are invalid and the question should not be on the ballot.

Failure to have Petition Comply with IC3-10-9-6

Indiana State law requires that in order for a petition presenting a question to be placed on the ballot to be a valid petition, the petition itself must state in clear and plain language the date of the election on which the ballot question will be placed. The language in the below referenced statute clearly requires that the petition regarding Vanderburgh Consolidation or Reorganization to have the date of the November, 2012 election on the petition. The petitions have no date and therefore should never been validated under state law by the Election Board as is clearly set out in the statute below:

IC 3-10-9-6: Petition for placement on ballot

Sec. 6. (a) If a statute requires the submission of a petition for the placement of a local public question on the ballot, the petition must:
(1) state the day of the election for which the petitioners seek the placement of the question on the ballot;
(2) contain the signature of each petitioner;
(3) contain the printed name of each petitioner; and
(4) state the residence address of each petitioner as set forth on the county voter registration record (or the mailing address if no residence address is set forth on the record).
(b) A petition is not valid for the placement of the public question on the ballot on any other election day.
As added by P.L.10-1988, SEC.98. Amended by P.L.3-1995, SEC.91; P.L.3-1997, SEC.240.

Failure to have Organization of Vanderburgh County Voters Initiate Proposal

The League of Women Voters of Southwestern Indiana initiated the petition for Vanderburgh County government consolidation and was instrumental in collecting the signatures for the petition. This is a violation of Indiana State Code IC 36-1.5-4-11 which states that “voters of a political subdivision may initiate a proposed reorganization”. The membership of the League of Women Voters of Southwestern Indiana is not restricted to Vanderburgh County therefore they are not all inclusive voters of the Vanderburgh County political subdivision and are not eligible under state law to initiate a proposed reorganization in Vanderburgh County. Some of the signatures were from outside the county and outside the state.
IC 36-1.5-4-11: Initiation of reorganization by voters

Sec. 11. (a) The voters of a political subdivision may initiate a proposed reorganization by filing a written petition, substantially in the form prescribed by the department, with the clerk of the political subdivision that:
(1) proposes a reorganization; and
(2) names the political subdivisions that would be reorganized in the proposed reorganization.
(b) If the written petition is signed by at least five percent (5%) of the voters of the political subdivision, as determined by the vote cast in the political subdivision for secretary of state at the most recent general election, the clerk of the political subdivision shall certify the petition to the legislative body of the political subdivision.
As added by P.L.186-2006, SEC.4.

Petition Fails to Accurately State Issue for Public Consideration

The petition as written was misleading with regard to eliminating costly duplication and promoting efficiency. The plan that resulted from this petition does not identify any elimination of cost nor does it define any specific plans to promote efficiency.

PETITION REGARDING GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION

We, the undersigned, ask that Vanderburgh County begin the process that will allow citizens to decide whether to merge the county with the City of Evansville into one countywide governmental unit that would eliminate costly duplication, and promote efficiency, in the provision of Governmental services.

Therefore, for the reasons stated above, we the citizens of Vanderburgh County respectfully request that the petition to reorganize the city of Evansville and Vanderburgh County be removed from the November 6, 2012 ballot.
We would expect a ruling no later than seven days (August 9, 2012) from the submission of this information.
Sincerely,

C.O.R.E.

By:

Bruce Ungethiem
Co-Chair

Bruce Blackford
Co-Chair

CC: Charles L. Berger, Esq.

Excerpts:

“Four years ago, Hurricane Ike swept through this island town on the Gulf of Mexico, flooding homes, destroying property and wreaking havoc on the economy.

Now, Galveston has become the center of a different type of tempest, as local officials battle the Obama administration over plans to replace 569 public-housing units ruined by the storm.

The issue has already cost Joe Jaworski his job as mayor of this port city. In June, Mr. Jaworski, a Democrat who supported rebuilding the housing as part of a mixed-income development, was defeated in a run-off election by Lewis Rosen, a conservative businessman who promised not to rebuild the units.”

“This election was a referendum on public housing,” Mr. Rosen said. “The citizens of Galveston did not want to build back the type of housing that was here before.” He said vouchers would allow residents to live “where they have job opportunities, which do not exist in Galveston.”

Irwin “Buddy” Herz, the newly named chairman of the Galveston Housing Authority, said mixed-income developments are “like communities of the poor. They destroy people’s incentives to do better.”

Mark Calabria, an economist for the libertarian Cato Institute, said “there’s a tremendous amount of research that shows that voucher programs are more effective than anything we do in building assisted, affordable rental housing.”

“The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds subsidized housing, is demanding that Galveston build 569 low-income units—as part of mixed-income developments, not old-fashioned projects—or risk losing more than half a billion dollars in storm-recovery funds the city needs to rebuild infrastructure, such as a water-treatment plant, roads and sidewalks. The agency has authorized $109 million in federal funds to replace the lost housing.”

Link to full article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443545504577563271568716862.html?KEYWORDS=galveston

Wayne Parke, Chairman Vanderburgh County Republican Party, will hold a News Conference at 1:30 PM Thursday August 2 to announce who he has selected to fill the ballot vacancy for County Coroner.

Purpose: Announce Coroner Candidate
Time: 1:30 PM
Date: Thursday August 2, 2012
Location: GOP HQ Office
815 John Street
Evansville IN 47713
Phone: 812-425-8207

These nationally syndicated cartoons are sponsored by Guthries Pharmacies

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He is Sandy Weill, the once-lionized dealmaker who turned our banks into financial “supermarkets” that tie us everyday depositors and Main Street borrowers to the profiteering schemes of unbridled Wall Street traders and the whims of global speculators. Thanks, Sandy — for nothing.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Weill went on a decade-long merger binge, taking over Travelers Insurance, Smith Barney, Aetna, Solomon Brothers and other powerhouses of high finance, culminating in 1998 with his grabbing of Citibank. The whole empire was named Citigroup, Weill was paid a king’s ransom, and his conglomerated entity was widely hailed as a work of genius. Only one problem: It was illegal.

After the financial collapse of 1929 led to the Great Depression, the Glass-Steagall Act was passed to protect people’s deposits from another system-wide crash by prohibiting banks from also owning stock brokerages, insurance corporations, hedge funds and other shadowy, high-risk financial operations.

Picky-picky, said Weill, who hired a hoard of lobbyists to demand that Washington legalize his illegal structure by simply repealing the pesky law he was blatantly violating. He even brought former President Gerald Ford and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin onto Citigroup’s board of directors to be bipartisan front men leading the charge to kill Glass-Steagall.

Sure enough, in 1999, Congress dutifully went along with Weill’s push for repeal, and Wall Street promptly rushed to amalgamate more Citigroups, thus creating the “too-big-to-fail” system that — only eight years later — did indeed fail. Weill’s “work of genius” forced a multitrillion-dollar bailout on us taxpayers (including $45 billion that went to Citigroup itself), and it wrecked America’s Main Street economy. By then, though, the genius had retired with so much money that he could afford to air-condition hell.

But now — approaching 80 and perhaps hoping to avoid that destination — Weill has suddenly become a born-again convert to the gospel of Glass-Steagall. Late last month, the architect of today’s megabanks called for them to be “split up” so they do not “risk taxpayer dollars” and are “not too big to fail.”

Wow — redemption! Note, though, that Saint Sandy is not returning any of the millions he pocketed from his devilish scheme — just in case he really does need to buy that air conditioner.

Of course, the system has not treated Weill like a crook, even though he not only violated the law but arrogantly flaunted it. No, no, the criminal acts of Street royals like him are countenanced as the unintended consequences of “financial innovation.” His problem, you see, is not that he has a criminal mind, but that he suffers from a rare and tragic genetic flaw called NAD — Narcissistic Avariciousness Disorder.

NAD is what caused Weill to create Citigroup in the first place, then drove him to use his clout to get Congress to legalize his illicit house of cards, which came crashing down on the American economy in 2008.

But having NAD means never having to say “mea culpa,” much less “I’m sorry.” So, while Weill now says from his luxurious retirement bunker that Glass-Stegall should be reinstated, he still insists that he was right to repeal it at the time — and that he’s not responsible for any of the painful economic and social consequences of the collapse that America continues to suffer.

Indeed, he’s even playing the victim, complaining recently on a TV show that “our world hates bankers.” No, Sandy, the world hates greed and self-aggrandizement. You are, after all, the guy who until recently kept a 4-foot-wide wood etching of yourself in your office, grandiosely titling it, “The Shatterer of Glass-Steagall.”

Yet the clueless bankster who shattered that glass so he could reach into the system and help himself to an immense fortune now wants us to remember him as a pious reformer cloaked in the sackcloth of ethical banking.

Who does he think he is fooling? You might remember that just weeks after American taxpayers ponied up the $45 billion bailout of his once-haughty bank, Weill commandeered a Citigroup jet — fueled with our dollars — to give him a free ride to a Mexican resort for a vacation! Reporting on this act of narcissistic avarice, The New York Post wrote Weill’s eternal epitaph in a two-word headline: “Pigs Fly.”

The calls and emails that we received this morning advising us that the City County Observer had been compared to Fox News by Tim Ethridge, Editor of the Courier and Press at the Green River Kiwanis Club gave us all pause to think. Of course given the domination of cable by the Fox News Network we are flattered to be considered by a lifetime journalist to be worthy of such comparison. Knowing what other outlets think of Fox News though we suspect that the comparison was not meant to show the CCO any love or respect.

What we unquestionably do have is a large number of loyal readers of local news that is sourced in local government. It is easy to get caught up in the growth of online traffic but at the end of the day what we want to do is to use our platform to promote good public policy and responsible local government action. After learning of Mr. Ethridge’s comparison to Fox News we decided to do a little self-examination for the things that we are most pleased to have been a part of. Here are what we consider to be our 10 most significant contributions to the betterment of Evansville.

1. Exposing the SNEGAL attempt by the Weinzapfel Administration to eliminate Homestead Tax Credit: The CCO broke this story that lead to the reinstatement of $5.7 Million per year directly into the pockets of Vanderburgh County taxpayers.

2. Reporting on the dense pack technology fee increase of $32 Million sought by Vectren in a way that lead to an IURC field hearing in Evansville and the rejection of that fee by the IURC. The ratepayers of SW Indiana benefit to the tune of $32 Million over the next 20 years.

3. Earthcare Energy: When the rest of the local media was fawning over the prospect of loaning $5 Million without vetting the recipients, the CCO was busy aiding in the vetting process and reading the business plan that GAGE should have been doing. Eventually, Mayor Winnecke saw the light but the end of this has yet to play itself out.

4. Exposing the SNEGAL contract that the Weinzapfel Administration and GAGE used to pay former DMD Director Tom Barnett. The benefit from this is that someday there may be competitive salary schedules in local government and sneaky deals like this one will most likely never happen again.

5. Exposing the excessive price of the $18 Million Roberts Stadium ball fields that was proposed by the CVB as compared to other ball parks across the country. The result was that the project was halted saving the taxpayers $18 Million. By the way if the price had been realistic the CCO would have supported the project at another site.

6. Exposing the dilapidated state of the cemeteries and parks owned and operated by the City of Evansville: The result is a new awareness on the part of the Winnecke Administration to make a commitment to keep the cemeteries presentable for what is a very token amount of money.

7. The analysis of the valuation of the downtown Convention Hotel: Our analysis that was conducted in four hours on a Saturday morning was validated almost to the dollar by the $105,000 spent by the Redevelopment Commission on the Hunden Study. This is a case where the CCO could have saved the taxpayers $105,000 if only the two most recent administrations would have had the good sense to listen.

8. Exposing the financial debacle and neglect of the McCurdy project: The project is now slated to be completed with private money as it should have been all along.

9. Exposure of the financial failure of the Front Door Pride program

10. Financial analysis of the Vision 1505 (Safe House) project where the Evansville Housing Authority is spending $7.6 Million to complete a project that could have easily been done in another way for well below $1 Million: Once again, the City Administration did not listen to the CCO analysis and is essentially wasting over $6.5 Million of tax dollars. The best result here is that this type of senseless spending is ended in the future.

So, there you have it. What we are most pleased to have been a part of are the times that we have exposed government malfeasance to save the taxpayers of Vanderburgh County significant sums of money. This was the first time that we have ever written the numbers down but all things considered it is not a stretch to state that our watchdog efforts and willingness to report without fear of repercussion will be saving the people of SW Indiana nearly $100 Million over the next 20 years. Would the Homestead Tax Grab, the Vectren fee increase, the $18 Million ball fields, the Earthcare loan, etc. have been stopped in their tracks without the CCO? We shall leave that up to you our readers to decide.

It should also be obvious that community health, cleanliness, and tidy appearances are important to the CCO. We praise the leadership for cleaning the city and thrash them when things like the cemetery disgrace and needles in the parks are neglected or swept under the rug. There is much work to do in this department so stay tuned. We must say that Mayor Winnecke has been a breath of fresh air in the cosmetic problems that Evansville has suffered from for many years.

Our MOLES keep us ahead of the other new outlets and we can’t thank them enough for doing so. Our Moles also know they can trust us to expose things that need to be exposed without compromising them personally.

So to the question of the day, are we like a local version of Fox News? We do not endorse political candidates or party agendas, while Fox clearly does. We thrive on saving taxpayers money through exposing waste, fraud, abuse, and stupidity. All supposed news outlets have this as a goal. We promote actions to make Evansville more appealing. National news does not even give good lip service to such things.

The CCO is nothing more and nothing less than an online publication with three part time people who are not on salary that wants to see good public policy on a local level. We take it a step further in that this policy needs to simple enough and practical enough that people with common sense get it.

To paraphrase the great President Harry Truman, “the CCO does not give anyone hell, we publish the truth without fear, and the purveyors of rotten public policy think it is hell”. Keeping government accountable is the only reason that a free press exists.

So Mr. Ethridge, the CCO may have the ratings of Fox News locally, but we are not like Fox News. We are much more like Thomas Paine’s pamphlet called Common Sense. If there had been more common sense in Evansville in recent history there would be no City County Observer and the audience question this morning would have never been asked.