
IS IT TRUE January 4, 2013
IS IT TRUE that Mole #33 is telling us that Mayor Winnecke has gone hat in hand down to the Evansville Convention and Visitors Board (ECVB) president Bob Warren to beg for some spare change to secure funding for two walk bridges that will be needed to go along with the future convention hotel?…there is already a bridge to nowhere that could serve as an approach for an Olympic diving board into the sinkhole/pool/pond that is in the unfenced lot across from the Centre right now?…one of the needed bridges could be doing some bailing wire and duct tape patchwork to get that walk bridge into pedestrian shape once again?…the building slated for that lot is a storage building that SHOULD HAVE BEEN PART OF THE FORD CENTER PROJECT?…the duct tape bridge would go from the Centre to the Storage Shed?…another bridge will be needed as well to connect the new convention hotel (assuming there will ever be one) to the Ford Center, the Centre, and the Storage Shed?…the funds targeted by Mayor Winnecke to do all of this bridge work are none other than the Innkeepers taxes that were at one time slated to build $20 Million ball fields?
IS IT TRUE that Casino Aztar just completed a new walk bridge that spans Riverside Drive so that people at Le Merigot or the District can safely and dryly proceed to the Casino and back?…this bridge has been reported to have cost over $3 Million?…this was Aztar’s private investment to stimulate their other private investments in Evansville’s entertainment industry including two hotels?…Aztar also pays the City of Evansville in the area of $10 Million per year in “Riverboat taxesâ€?…that there are other innkeepers in Evansville who are conscripted into collecting the Innkeeper’s tax and handing it over to the ECVB who are not on the preferred list of downtown developers?…Aztar and the other Evansville based innkeepers are being gouged into collecting tax money and delivering it to local government and its surrogates and that very local government is plotting to appropriate these funds in enterprises that compete with Aztar and the other innkeepers?…this is sneaky, this is legal, but people THIS IS NOT ETHICAL?…we should all ask ourselves if we were treated this way as citizens whether or not this would be tolerated?…the CCO predicts that at some point in the future there will be consequences to be paid by Mayor Winnecke, the ECVB, and by any member of the City Council that support this scheme financially?
IS IT TRUE that Mole #5 and a few other well placed Moles confirm that Mayor Winnecke alone has made his choice from the three proposals to build a downtown convention hotel?…we have it on further authority that the CHOSEN ONE has a marquee property in Branson, Missouri and that the Mayor is frantically organizing a trip to Branson with a posse of elected officials to look the place over?…this is part of the due diligence process but we wonder how the Mayor could have made his choice without making any visits?…the pending Branson trip does not seem to be for VETTING purposes at all if the choice has already been made?…if the choice is made then this is a SELLING trip and should be treated as such?
IS IT TRUE that there is also money in the City of Evansville budget for a trip to Evansville’s sister city in Germany?…before proceeding with this trip any elected official taking part needs to review the trip reports from sister city visits to Germany and Japan in the past?…if something real, tangible, and beneficial has come from the dozens of trips overseas that Mayors and Council members have taken in the past then such a trip may have merit?…if the dozens of previous trips to chug beer with the Burgermeister have not produced any real economic benefit, then such trips need to be suspended until a real business opportunity is defined?
IS IT TRUE Mole #16 tells us that the Department of Metropolitan Development is up to its sneaky trick of denying members of the Evansville City Council access to material financial information?…holding material information away from the people who have been elected to fund the city is not appropriate and should not be tolerated?…the CCO will cooperated with any and all members of the Evansville City Council to beat material information out of the DMD by the use of the Freedom of Information Act as deemed appropriate?…the new guy who head that department had better take notice of the consequences of being obstinate to his partners in government?








