IS IT TRUE: March 29, 2012

IS IT TRUE that Dunn Hospitality is putting up another hotel on Evansville’s east side?…that this time the brand will be a Courtyard Marriot and that it will add 120 rooms to the mix for Evansville to play host to tourists and business people?…that Dunn Hospitality is doing this without getting any money or incentive from the City of Evansville to do so?…that we wonder how much these additional 120 rooms will affect the work in progress that is also known as the $40,000 Hunden study to tell Mayor Winnecke and the Evansville Redevelopment Commission how many rooms are needed in downtown Evansville?…that private hospitality providers like Dunn Hospitality seem to have been looking at the Evansville market for a long time and seem to have determined that Hunden’s answer should be “not enough to make it worth doing” from an investment perspective?…that we will be quite interested to see just how many rooms Hunden deems there is a need for and more importantly how much the City of Evansville will have to pay to get any worthy developer/operator to jump into this fray?

IS IT TRUE that on page 64 of the 2009 City of Evansville Audit under the heading “Audit Results and Comments” the following critique is made?

“The cash balance of the General Fund, General Obligation Loan Fund, Park Bond and Interest Retirement Fund, Police Pension Fund, Redevelopment Bond Retirement Fund, Community Development Block Grant Fund, Home Investment Trust Fund, Continuum Care Fund, Emergency Shelter Grant Fund, Accounts Payable Fund, Payroll Checking Account Fund, and Hospitalization Fund were overdrawn in 2009.

The cash balance of any fund may not be reduced below zero. Routinely overdrawn funds could
be an indicator of serious financial problems which should be investigated by the governmental unit.
(Accounting and Uniform Compliance Guidelines Manual for Cities and Towns, Chapter 7)”

And that the following critique is also enunciated:

“The Water Utility did not pay to the City the amount due in lieu of taxes for the year 2009. The amount due was $702,956.

IC 8-1.5-3-8(g) states in part: “. . . the commission shall approve rates and charges sufficient to compensate the municipality for taxes that would be due the municipality on the utility property were it privately owned.” In Cause No. 43190 the Utility Regulatory Commission established a payment in lieu of taxes amount of $702,956 for the year 2009.”

Finally the following conclusions were made regarding compliance monitoring:

“The City had insufficient controls to monitor compliance with OMB Circular A-87, “Cost Principles
for State, Local, and Indian Tribal Governments,” concerning allocation of salaries to be paid from federal grants. The salaries paid to most of the Department of Metropolitan Development Employees were
charged to the Community Development Block Grant for work performed that was not documented to
meet allowability criteria for activities permitted under the grant.

Governmental units should have internal controls in effect which provide reasonable assurance
regarding the reliability of financial information and records, effectiveness and efficiency of operations,proper execution of management’s objectives, and compliance with laws and regulations. Among other things, segregation of duties, safeguarding controls over cash and all other assets and all forms of information processing are necessary for proper internal control. (Accounting and Uniform Compliance Guidelines Manual for Cities and Towns, Chapter 7)”

IS IT TRUE that all of this occurred under the leadership of former Mayor Weinzapfel at a time that Evansville was in the process of spending $127 Million on an arena and were fined by the EPA for spilling raw sewage into the Ohio River?…that the name on the door may have changed but now in 2012 with Mayor Winnecke’s hand on the wheel of the good ship Evansville that we are loaning $4.8 Million to an unproven start-up company with untested executives and no protected intellectual property?…that we are doing this at a time that it is alleged that Evansville can’t afford to repair or replace a fire truck?…that we wonder just how long the people of this city will continue to tolerate such things?…that a clue to that answer lies in the high probability that Charles Manson could be elected to at least 6 of the seats on the Evansville City Council if he ran as a Democrat?…that it is time to start thinking?