Last week the City County Observer discovered and published the fact that the Winnecke Administration held a committee meeting that resulted in a very select group of 10 City of Evansville employees being recommended for salary increases of up to 33%. The select group of ten was heavily weighted by the staff of the Office of Mayor Winnecke. Someone in the CCO knows nearly all of the 10 people singled out for these hefty salary increases and the forthcoming opinion on the process and judgment exhibited in these recommendations in no way reflects our admiration and support for competitive wages being paid to any on these people as individuals.

The salary schedules used by the City of Evansville are deficient, obsolete, and out of date. Exceptions and side deals have to be arranged to attract outside candidates to City positions. An exclamation point was put onto the paltriness of the City of Evansville’s salary offerings when the attraction of Tom Barnett by the Weinzapfel Administration in 2008 required a secret side deal with GAGE of over 50% of Barnett’s base salary to even be competitive with the towns of under 20,000 in locations with a lower cost of living. The salary schedules for Evansville needed to be adjusted upwards by more than 50% then and they still do.

The 10 who were singled out for large salary increases were already on the payroll with only 6 months tenure in their present positions. Attraction of talent was in no way involved in the committee recommendations. These are 10 people who knew what they were going to be paid when they accepted these jobs in January. To single out 10 people who for the most part came into the Winnecke Administration in January for increases while ignoring the skinflint salary schedules imposed on the other 800 or so City employees does not address the root problem and sets the administration up to look like the practice of cronyism is alive and well in Evansville. The City salary schedules were not upgraded by the Weinzapfel Administration and have thus far not been addressed by the Winnecke Administration.

The failure to address the non-competitive salaries offered by the City of Evansville in a transparent manner has been and will continue to be the reason that Evansville can’t even compete with smaller and less well off places like Gary, Indiana for talent. To refuse to deal with this situation is to tie a permanent albatross around the ability of the City of Evansville to compete on the world stage when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.

The United States and especially the rust belt of which Evansville is a part continues to be mired in a recession/depression that has wreaked havoc on municipal budgets across the country. The truth of the matter is that Evansville cannot at this time afford to bring all of the wages for City jobs up to national average standards. Evansville as a city is also faced with well over a billion dollars in required spending on infrastructure improvements like replacing aged water pipes and solving the combined sewer overflow issue. The money to make these improvements will have to come from tax and rate increases.

The Winnecke Administration is establishing a reputation for acting before thinking. First it was making deals with Earthcare Energy before seeking City Council approval and now RaiseGate. Earthcare was not vetted and neither was this. Is it too much to ask of elected officials to think things through before taking even the right actions in the wrong way?

2012 began in Evansville with much hope for new leadership that promised transparency, ambassador level marketing, and financial competence. What we have seen so far is simply more of the same old boy cronyism that Evansville has suffered through for over half a century. There is an old saying about being in the right place at the right time. These increases however merited they may be are done at the wrong time in the wrong way. Evansville with its debt levels at record highs and looming infrastructure costs of well over $1 Billion is surely not the right place.

These increases in the aggregate are small potatoes in view of the overall budget. The balls that we all need to keep an eye on are things like the $80 Million Johnson Controls deal, the $10 Million in new parks, and of course the Billion dollar legacy costs associated with failure to do maintenance. Those are projects where real talent that we can’t seem to find or afford can make a profound positive difference on the future of Evansville.

The most terrifying thing about the future of Evansville is that the elected leadership is not even getting the $50,000 decisions right yet they are in charge of the forthcoming billion dollar decisions.

Evansville’s Grave Injustice

I will never forget the day I visited Oak Hill Cemetery. As I crossed through the famed entrance gates to the facility, I was there for one reason only- to pay tribute to the mayor whose goals, visions, and ideas I seek to replicate with my own career. Before I arrived at Hank’s burial marker, I was already engulfed with feelings of sadness, anger, guilt, devastation, and depression due to the fact that I didn’t have a victory for Roberts Stadium in tow with me to deliver to Mayor Roberts.

No matter what part of Oak Hill Cemetery you visit, you will surely pass through many plots that are reminiscent of ruins from an old civilization. You will see headstones crushed, leaning, tilting, laying upside down, sitting on top of tree branches, and completely out of line from the rows they were originally intended to be in. Even worse is the fact that this isn’t just one, two, or three grave sites that have these problems. Rather, we are talking about many of hundreds grave markers that are in disrepair.

After viewing the dilapidated condition at Oak Hill Cemetery, I then took a trip to Evansville’s other public cemetery- Locust Hill Cemetery. As I expected, Locust Hill was a carbon copy of Oak Hill. Truth be told, the only areas in these cemeteries that are in acceptable condition are the areas being taken care of by our local veterans organizations. The rest of the areas in both of these cemeteries should be acceptable to no one.

As someone who has a great amount of respect for the veterans, the icons, and the residents of Evansville’s great past, I refuse to allow these cemeteries to remain like this, and I would hope the city of Evansville would refuse to allow this condition to get any worse than what it currently is. What kind of message do our cemeteries convey to our guests, visitors, and outsiders about the way Evansville views its deceased?

In order to get these cemeteries turned around, I have made the decision to do everything in my power to get the word out about the condition of our public cemeteries. First of all, I have created the blog- http://agraveinjustice.blogspot.com/ – so that residents can view pictures of what the cemeteries look like as well as receive updates on them 24/7 from the comfort of their own home. Secondly, I will be asking local lawmakers for their support in making sure these problems don’t continue to unattended to. I will be asking local residents to voice their concerns about these two cemeteries. I ask that any and all residents who are embarrassed by these horrendous conditions will write into our local media as well as our local leaders.

Yes, we have a tall task ahead of us in making sure that all of the deceased have a proper headstone surrounded by a lot that is maintained. But we can, and we will, accomplish this goal if our city is willing to take pride in both its past and present cemetery grave sites.

Finally, want to stress that the horrible condition that our two city cemeteries are in was not caused by our new Mayor or his staff but the blame for this problem is on the backs of past elected officials.