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EVSC to Name Harrison Track

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The EVSC and EVSC Foundation will officially name Harrison High School’s new track as the Charlie Siesky Track at a dedication ceremony planned for Friday, Jan. 6, at 7:25 p.m., in Harrison’s gymnasium immediately preceding Harrison’s home basketball game. The event, which is open to the public, will include remarks by EVSC Superintendent David Smith, Kevin Eastridge, chair of the Siesky Track committee, and Charlie Siesky.
Siesky, coach of Harrison High School’s Track & Field and Cross Country programs from 1967 through 1999, accumulated a number of records and accolades during his tenure of both programs, including being named to the Indiana Track & Cross Country Coaches Hall of Fame; winning 93 percent of dual meets and 50 percent of city, conference and sectional titles; and accumulating 68 straight dual meet wins from 1979 – 1992 and 51 straight wins from 1970 to 1979. Siesky also coached three state champions during his tenure including Bob Winchell, Vaughn Wedeking and Don Sellers. In addition, Siesky accumulated:
• A Track Dual Meet Record of 198-14-2
• 37 City Meet Titles
• 33 SIAC Meet Titles
• 29 Sectional Titles
• 9 Regional Titles, 3 – 2nd place titles and 5 – 3rd place titles

“EVSC and EVSC Foundation are proud to honor an individual who had such a great impact on many students during his 32-year tenure,” said David Smith, EVSC superintendent. “His record speaks for itself, but maybe more importantly Coach Siesky served as a great role model for students. His legacy will live on through the naming of the track.”

CCO Public Servant of the Year

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Nick Hermann
One thing the CCO didn’t mention to its’ loyal readers during Tuesday’s awards ceremony was the marquis event: the Public Servant of the Year Award. Who was this year’s recipient? Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Nick Hermann. The CCO selected Hermann from a slew of qualified candidates as the cream of the crop. This selection can be attributed to any number of reasons, not the least of which being the increased productivity of the Prosecutor’s Office. Mole 7 has learned that Hermann instituted a number of cutting edge and well thought out changes to increase the efficiency of his office.

Changes made include a switch to Vertical Prosecution, meaning attorneys are assigned cases immediately upon filing. This provides accountability for cases, has improved communication with law enforcement officials and victims and has had a positive effect on overall case management.

Additionally in 2011, Hermann took steps to join forces with the United States Attorney’s office and formed a joint initiative to combat violent crime. Deputy Prosecutor Levi Burkett has been assigned the role of Special Assistant and works closely with the US Attorneys fighting the worst of the worst in local crime.

Hermann fought hard for the rights of single parents in 2011 as well. Under Hermann, child support collection rates rose above the state average despite being severely understaffed: his agents carry a caseload that is 64% higher than the state’s average. Also on the child support side, the undertaking began to eliminate paper files with the institution of a new paperless system that will allow agents to access the over 15,000 active cases electronically and thus lead to further efficiencies.

Over the past year, Hermann recognized and took on one of the area’s largest criminal foes, methamphetamine. He began a series of Public Service Announcements aimed at combating this epidemic. The PSAs have led to increased community awareness and involvement.

Additionally, Hermann and his office have been active in support of several local charities whose missions are directed toward mentoring youth. Hermann recognizes that the youth are the future of this community and his office is being proactive in attempting to give them the best future they can have by supporting programs that provide them opportunities that give them a chance to lead lives free from crime

Seeing a need for appropriate case resolution, Hermann and his office got outside “the box” and revamped a wide array of programs geared toward finding appropriate resolutions for offenders such as Infraction Deferral, Pretrial Diversion, Drug Court, Juvenile Drug Court, GPS monitoring, In-home drug testing, and Veteran’s Court. These programs offer creative and effective solutions.

One of the biggest changes the CCO noticed from prior years was Hermann’s aggressive approach to the prosecution of repeat offenders. In 2011, the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office filed over 400 Habitual Offender or Habitual Substance Offender Counts, a marked increase over the 10 filed in the prior year.

Broadway Veteran to Present Free Performances at USI

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USI
Broadway veteran Nora Cole will give four performances of “Voices of the Spirits of my Soul” January 16-18 in the Mallette Studio Theatre at the University of Southern Indiana. In the one-woman performance, Cole traces the history of her family from its time in slavery to the present through dramatic characters and song.

She based the work in part on family letters, photographs, and stories passed down through the generations. It also includes pieces from other sources that have had such a lasting impression on her that she was compelled to share them.

Performance times are 7 p.m. Monday, January 16, and Tuesday, January 17, as well as 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 17, and 1 p.m. Wednesday, January 18. The Mallette Studio Theatre is located in the lower level of the Liberal Arts Center.

The performances are free and open to the public through support of the Provost and the Department of Performing Arts.

“Ms. Cole can have a profound effect on an audience,” said Elliot Wasserman, chair of the Department of Performing Arts. “I have seen her great talent and had the pleasure of working with her. She will provide a very memorable and inspirational experience.”

School Board Agenda: 1/6/2012

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January 9, 2012
Regular Board Meeting 5:30 P.M.

2. Opening Items
2.01 Roll Call
2.02 Pledge of Allegiance

3. Organization of the Board of School Trustees
3.01 Election of President, Vice President, and Secretary of the Board of School Trustees for the period of January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012

4. Opening Items (con’t)
4.01 Good News
4.02 Public Comment Cards

5. Consent Items (Dr. David Smith)
5.01 Consideration of Minutes of the December 12, 2011 Board meeting
5.02 Consideration of Allowance of Payments
5.03 Consideration to purchase items from Extracurricular Accounts
5.04 Consideration to submit four grant proposals
5.05 Consideration to appointment a treasurer and deputy treasurers of the Board of School Trustees for the period of January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012
5.06 Consideration to approve the agreement between EVSC and University of Southern Indiana
5.07 Consideration to approve the agreement between EVSC and EVSC Foundation
5.08 Consideration to renew the contract between EVSC and Hahn Realty
5.09 Consideration to approve the agreement between EVSC and Dream Center
5.10 Consideration to approve the agreement between EVSC and Leadership Evansville
5.11 Consideration to approve the agreement between EVSC and Pel Industries, Inc.
5.12 Consideration to approve the change orders regarding the New North Campus

6. Consideration of Personnel Recommendations (Pat Tuley)
6.01 Personnel Recommendations

7. Action
7.01 Transfer to Rainy Day Fund (Tuley)
7.02 Peck Road Right of Way Agreement (Cameron)
7.03 Peck Road Utility Easement (Cameron)

8. Information
8.01 General Fund Monthly Review (Tuley)
8.02 Monthly 5% over expended report (Tuley)
8.03 Summary of Cash Balances by Fund (Tuley)
8.04 Expenditure Ledger Summary by Function and Object (Tuley)
8.05 2 Year Revenue Comparison (Tuley)
8.06 Interlocal Agreement for Provision of Services between EVSC and Vanderburgh County (Cameron)

9. Public Comment
9.01 Public Comment

10. Continued Business (Dr. Smith)
10.01 Continued Business

IS IT TRUE? January 6, 2012

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The Mole #??

IS IT TRUE? January 6, 2012

IS IT TRUE that the Mayor of Evansville has three appointments to the Evansville Redevelopment Commission?…that of the three Mayoral appointments to the ERC that two of them will not be reappointed?…that Sara Miller of Old National Bank who lately has been the voice of sanity and practicality on the ERC is being reappointed by Mayor Winnecke but that long time Chairman of the ERC Bob Goldman and recent old boss appointee architect and buyer of the $500,000 Idea Home for well under $200,000 Jody Phillips will not be coming back to the 2012 edition of the ERC?…that the two and only two votes cast to quick slam a deal with the newly formed McCurdy Development LLC are both history so maybe some sanity can return and last minute cram deals will depart forever?…that the final two appointments are at the whim of the Evansville City Council and the incumbents are Greg Elpers, CPA who was absent from the last minute cram vote and Jay Carter who has been very quiet but did cast what may be the most powerful NO VOTE seen on the ERC in a decade in deadlocking the cram through vote so that the cram through could not happen?…that we will be very interested in what happens with the City Council’s appointments?

IS IT TRUE that Mole # 33 tells us that there are concerns haphazard nature of the Evansville Water and Sewer Utilities financial records?…we are hearing that the newly appointed CFO-Jenney Collins shall find a real mess concerning the financial records of that department?…if these concern are valid that the past President of that Board of Directors need to come forward and explain why these problems are just surfacing because this person since is a CPA and should have assured that all of the accounting procedures were conformal and that each audit was comprehensive and competent?

IS IT TRUE you can expect to read that the Evansville City Council shall be electing 4th Ward City Council woman Connie Robinson as its new President and 2nd Ward City Council woman Missy Mosby as its Vice Chairperson.? …that 5th Ward City Councilman John Friend, CPA shall be elected Budget Chairmen?…we urge you to watch who gets the Board appointments handed down by Council President Robinson because it shall signal if we can expect that there will still be a 5 person group of Council members to continue to vote as a political block? …that you can expect that well respected attorney John Hamilton shall be re-appointed as City Council Attorney?

IS IT TRUE that the Vanderburgh County Commissioners shall elect Commissioner Marsha Abell as its next President and Commissioner Joe Kiefer as its Vice Chairman?

IS IT TRUE that each and every person should drive across this United States at least once in their lifetime and that doing so every ten years is an enjoyable exercise that is a good way to keep in touch with other parts of our country?…that driving through Joplin, MO serves as a reminder of the power of nature as the people of Joplin lost lives and property to a tornado much as the people of Evansville did on that November night in 2005?…that it is both humbling yet reassuring that the spirit of humanity pulls together in troubling times just as the people of Evansville and Newburgh did during our tornado?…that Joplin and Evansville are forever joined together in both struggle and rebuilding?

IS IT TRUE that about every 50 miles in Oklahoma there is a toll booth to collect $4 for driving on Interstate 44?…that Interstate 44 is a beautiful road that is free of potholes and has a speed limit of 75 miles per hour and a surface capable of handling speeds of up to 100 miles per hour without vibrating one’s car?…that this writer will gladly pay $4 for such a road and the privilege of speed any time it is offered?…that this writer would also appreciate no questions from the Oklahoma State Police about that Indiana car that has knowledge of how their roads respond at 100 miles per hour?

EPD Intervention Prevents Suicide

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News Release
12-2
Type of Incident: Suicide Intervention
Date of Incident: 010412
Location of Incident: Southeast Side

SUMMARY

Officers from the Evansville Police Department used a TASER to disarm a suicidal subject on Evansville’s southeast side.

The officers responded to the 911 call for help from the subject who had stabbed himself in the stomach with a 10” knife. When officers arrived, they found the subject had set up barriers around himself using overturned furniture. The subject was uncooperative and refused to obey officers’ commands to move away from the knife. The subject demanded time to smoke a cigarette while officers tried to convince him to cooperate.

When the subject finished his cigarette, he picked the knife up and told the officers “Let’s get this done”. After several attempts to get the subject to drop the knife, an officer used his TASER to subdue him. The subject was taken into custody without injury to himself or the officers. He was taken to a local hospital for medical treatment and a mental evaluation.

This incident is another example of the immeasurable value of the TASER as a less lethal option. The Evansville Police Department is currently working to ensure every patrol officer is issued a TASER.

IS IT TRUE? January 5, 2012 “Kodak on the Brink”

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Joe Wallace

IS IT TRUE? January 5, 2012 “Kodak on the Brink”

IS IT TRUE that the Wall Street Journal headline “Kodak on the Brink” describes the once revered Eastman Kodak Company that much of the wealth of Rochester, NY was built upon as being near to bankruptcy and taking the action of liquidating its patent portfolio?…that a century of building things and the last remaining value is the intellectual property upon which the manufacturing dynasty was built yet collapsed when the inventing stopped?…that this writer was a young R& D engineer at Silicon Valley’s Verbatim Corporation when Verbatim was bought out by Kodak in 1985 and vividly remembers two experiences with the first six months under Kodak?…that during that six month period nearly every member of the R & D and Product Development staff of the former Verbatim left Kodak for reasons that lead to yesterday’s article?

IS IT TRUE that the first instance was in an orientation meeting with a Sr. VP of Something who was sent out via private jet to integrate our R & D team into the Kodak way?…that Verbatim was a very forward thinking company in which all employees had stock options, flex time, a sabbatical every 7 years, massages, free lunches, etc?…that it was sort of like Google is today as a place to work goes?…that all of that came to an end when Kodak took over and that we were actually told by Mr. Sr. VP of Something who travelled by private jet that “if you stick with us for 30 years you will retire with a gold watch”?…that this writer just happened to have been given a gold watch for a recent 27th birthday?…that the watch was offered to Mr. Sr. VP of Something that travelled by private jet as an advance against the accomplishments that he was sure to make in the waning years of his career?…that this went over like a turd in the punchbowl but that it did become a story told over and over as Kodak began its 25 year decline into “the Brink”?

IS IT TRUE that the other vivid memory came a couple of weeks later at a special meeting to review a rather novel patent disclosure that was written by this writer?…that during a particularly difficult incident during the debugging process of the focusing device for an erasable compact disk that the focusing mechanism focused on the substrate as opposed to the magneto-optic layer (where the bits are stored)?…that this guy was struck with the idea that if there were multiple focal planes in a disk each with a magneto optic layer that one could store the equivalent of many disks of information on a multilayer single disk?…that this guy wrote it all up in a patent disclosure only to be told by the Kodak tribunal that the idea was so far into the future that they did not want to pursue it at that time?…that 22 years later a multilayer CD Rom was successfully tested by the IBM corporation and published extensively as the next breakthrough in data storage?

IS IT TRUE that somewhere in the vault of Intellectual Property that will someday surely be auctioned off to pay the financial obligations of the Eastman Kodak Company is a two page description and 3 pages of drawings that predate the IBM work by 22 years, are signed an witnessed by the Kodak tribunal who decided not to pursue the invention, and bear the inventors name as this writer, Mr. Joe Wallace?…that there is a box in the attic with copies of that patent disclosure too?…that the real tragedy of this story is that a once great American company grew so large and fat that it put more emphasis on Sr. VP’s of Something and private jets than it did on innovation?…that Kodak essentially paid lots of money for Verbatim and proceeded to run off the only real source of value which was the talent of the people working there?…that this story has played itself out many times at Kodak and other formerly great businesses that forgot that it was innovation and ambition that lead to their successes in the first place?…that unfortunately many of these stories are rooted in the Midwest that just today was profiled for continuing to lose population?…that it is not just population that is migrating to the coasts, it is the very part of the population that has the potential to make profound positive differences?…that this is just a continuation of the brain drain?

Kodak on the Brink on the following Link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577140841495542810.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

ERC Cancels First Meeting of 2012: Special Meeting Scheduled for January 10th

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The first regularly scheduled meeting of the Evansville Redevelopment Commission set for Wednesday, January 4th 2012, is cancelled.

The Evansville Redevelopment Commission will hold a Special Meeting on Tuesday January 10th, at 8:30 a.m. in the Civic Center Room 307, 1 NW Martin Luther King Jr Blvd., Evansville, IN 47708.

EPA Official Statement on Compliance

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Some of the rules that Vectren has been telling us will eventually start to raise rates in the rest of the country is taking effect this year and changes are starting. Here is the official statement of the EPA for your information along with a statement from Big Rivers.

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac8525735900400c27/bd8b3f37edf5716d8525796d005dd086!OpenDocument

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/dec/26/new-epa-pollution-controls-may-cost-big-rivers/

Attorney General’s statement on Court’s ruling on motion to stay

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INDIANAPOLIS – Today the Marion County Circuit Court decided to stay its December 22 ruling reversing the Indiana Recount Commission while that ruling is appealed. The Court had reversed a unanimous Recount Commission decision on a candidate’s 2010 ballot eligibility and the Commission is appealing that reversal. The Indiana Attorney General’s Office represented the Recount Commission in the litigation and will represent it during the appeal. Attorney General Greg Zoeller today issued this statement:

“As state government’s lawyer, my office’s obligation is to defend the decisions of state boards and commissions. If the Recount Commission found a candidate eligible for the ballot, we would defend the decision; and if they found a candidate was not eligible, we would defend that decision also. Regardless of the candidate, the commission’s administrative authority to act is a legal principle that the State must defend. My office in a careful methodical way is drafting an appeal with the objective of bringing this convoluted case to the Indiana Supreme Court,” Zoeller said.

The Indiana Attorney General’s Office represents the Recount Commission only and does not represent candidate Charlie White. The Attorney General has the separate legal authority to seek an appeal on behalf of the Recount Commission’s previous decision without the commission reconvening. An appeal of the December 22 court order will be filed soon.

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