IS IT TRUE that the events are starting to stack up at the Ford Center and that a little browsing of the ticketmaster website is a good place to learn about prices and availability?…that there are still good seats in the lower part of the lower bowl are still available for the Bob Seger concert?…that of a more athletic interest that on October 4th that Evansville Icemen tickets will be going on sale?…that single game tickets including fees are from $14.40 to $47.05 per game?…that season tickets for adults are available for price ranges from $343 to $917 per seat for the entire season?…that you should be able to save some money by using the VenuWorks ticket booth or the Icemen website?…that we wish all of the events great success?

IS IT TRUE that gasoline in Henderson tonight was $3.06 or about 30 cents less than Evansville stations?…that this guy was across the river anyway and filled up with 15 gallons saving $4.50 over what the cost would have been over here?…that a nickel of that 30 cents is taxes but the rest is something else?…that the difference in gas prices between Kentucky and Indiana really should not be more than 7 cents to 10 cents?…that as much as Henderson seems to be prone to gas wars that Evansville is becoming the land of price fixing?

IS IT TRUE that a disturbed man deliberately set his own house on fire in North Evansville yesterday?…that it was the foregone conclusion with many people that this fire was meth related?…that we have every reason to be predisposed to believe that when a house explodes in Evansville that it is meth related?…that this time it was not meth but it was a disturbed person?…that it remains to be seen if this explosion and this persons demise will be classified as an accident or as suicide?…that either way another exploding home is not a statistic that we are pleased to see?

IS IT TRUE that the fact that the Firefighters Union has chosen to endorse Rick Davis and that the Policemen’s Union chose Lloyd Winnecke is proof of the closeness of the upcoming election for Mayor of Evansville?…that the Mole Nation is pretty sure that if the election were held today that the Evansville City Council will contain 6 Democrats and 3 Republicans but that there is disagreement over which 2 Republicans will prevail in the contested races?…that the Mole Nation is a clustercoinflip on the Mayor’s race with a bevy of opinions on why Mr. Davis will prevail and a similar amount who are betting on Mr. Winnecke?…that perhaps as many as a third of the moles have not yet made their choice?

IS IT TRUE that we received many questions about the statistical salary for attorneys and paralegals in Evansville so we did some research on Salary.com?…that the median salary for an attorney is reported to be $80,080 per year?…that a paralegal in Evansville is reported to command a median salary of $42,800?…that it seems as though we shall stand beside yesterdays analysis that hiring an attorney and a paralegal to work directly for the City of Evansville as opposed to farming this out at $150 and $95 per hour is a vastly better deal for the taxpayers?…that we agree with some of our posters and those who sent us emails that these pay levels in the national scheme of things are pretty insulting?

IS IT TRUE that Mole #5 tells us that several City of Evansville employees that serve at the pleasure of the Mayor are bidding on jobs in other departments?…that while this is understandable that some of these people may be well served to stay where they are and to serve the next Mayor?…that Evansville is not like Washington DC during a change of administrations and that it should be no stigma upon anyone for doing a good job during the reign of Mayor Weinzapfel?

IS IT TRUE? September 27, 2011 Special Mid Morning Edition

IS IT TRUE that the last 24 hours in Evansville have been a period of significant learning and a time to start to truly start considering the ramifications of the 2012 election when the Pontious Pilate Resolution (consolidation) will go to referendum?…that a perfect opportunity to do something differently to save a significant sum of money was exposed last night when City Councilman Dan McGinn and City Controller Jenny Collins struggled to admit that it was essentially impossible to estimate the amount of legal services with sufficient accuracy to make this a line item in the budget?…that the services of interest that are difficult to predict are billable hours for an attorney at $150 per hour and to a paralegal at $95 per hour?…that it was stated by Councilman McGinn that the billings under this contract seem to amount to $30,000 per month?

IS IT TRUE that at those hourly rates that it would take 122.5 hours per month to run up a bill for $30,000?…that an entire month at 40 hours per week averages 173.3 hours?…that an attorney and a paralegal are already utilized through an hourly arrangement at 71% of all time available?…that the City of Evansville should consider just hiring another attorney and a paralegal at the going rates in Evansville of about $65,000 for the attorney (as per a line item in the city budget) and $40,000 for a paralegal?…that these two salaries even burdened with a 35% premium for benefits would only cost the taxpayers $141,750?…that at $30,000 per month we are currently paying $360,000 per year for these same services and may be held over a barrel for additional money if the work load increases?…that hiring two people into full time jobs to handle the liability and workers comp claims would save the City of Evansville 61% ($218,250) just on labor and benefits?…that the City may also save additionally in the office rent and support staff contracts but that we will go with 61% as an adequate amount?

IS IT TRUE that doing the analysis of what is best to be hired and what is best to be contracted should have been one of the things that the consolidation committee did?…that if the consolidation committee would have identified 61% savings in multiple line items that last night’s vote would not be heading to a referendum with organized opposition?…that we could not wait to vote for consolidation if real and tangible value would have been shown to us?

IS IT TRUE that the City of Evansville routinely has line items in the budget for gas electricity bills that are literally as difficult to predict as the weather?…that the City of Evansville routinely has line items in the budget for overtime pay for public safety employees?…that being able to predict the amount of overtime needed for public safety employees is about as difficult as predicting the crimes and fires along with their locations 18 months in advance?…that the CCO would expect that there are plenty more line items that are variable by more than the variation in worker’s comp claims and legal liability needs?…that just rolling over and accepting the fact that you can’t predict whether a lawyer will bill you for 1,500 hours or 2,000 hours a year while pretending to predict utility bills and crime is quite disingenuous?…that the best way to save money and make this a line item is to hire two people as described above because even if the load increases there is a 50 hour per month margin left to fill?…that if the City of Evansville does this that this will be predictable and an appropriate line item in the budget?

IS IT TRUE that there is a classic lawyer joke about billable hours that we would like to share?…that a 65 year old attorney died suddenly of a heart attack and found himself standing before St. Peter for his judgment?…that this attorney was welcomed into the pearly gates and was taken on his orientation tour?…that he saw a small ramshackle house and asked St. Peter who lived there?…that the resident was Gandhi?…that they continued walking and came upon a home in a typical working class neighborhood?…that St. Peter told the attorney that this was the home of Mother Theresa?…that the attorney was beginning to worry about the kind of box that he may be living in with Gandhi in a scrap house and Mother Theresa in a modest home?…that they rounded a corner and saw a shining mansion on a hill and that the attorney asked if that was God’s house?…that St. Peter advised the attorney that the mansion was prepared for him and that he is special as the oldest man to ever walk the earth?…that the attorney realizing that heaven is not the place for lies corrected St. Peter and told him he was only 65 when he died?…that St. Peter responded that the Heaven Housing Authority had only used the attorneys billing records to determine that he had lived to be 1,000 years old?…that is why in Heaven they hire their attorneys as opposed to giving them a blank purchase order for billing to?

IS IT TRUE that the Evansville City Council passed the proposal to go to a referendum of the voters to let them decide of the governments of the City of Evansville and Vanderburgh County should be merged into a single unified governing body?…that this vote was by a margin of 8 – 1 with the only “nay” vote coming from the heart surgeon on the City Council Dr. H. Dan Adams?…that Dr. Adams toiled all weekend with his decision and when coming to the conclusion that the hard work of identifying and proposing real tangible savings had not been done casted his “nay” vote stating that he could not vote “aye” to a “PIG IN A POKE”?…that often the most knowledgeable among us are often the ones who stand up to obsolescence, laziness, and just ill defined resolutions?…that passing the buck to the voters in this particular case is an abdication of duty of the City Council, the County Commissioners, and the hardworking well-meaning committee that worked many hours to bring this to a vote?

IS IT TRUE that the Reverend Adrian Brooks who was a member of the consolidation committee stood before the Evansville City Council tonight to urge them to pass this to the voters?…that Reverend Brooks did this as he was advising the City Council that he does not support the proposal and will be working to help defeat it at the ballot box?…that the Reverend Brooks and Dr. Dan Adams both put up a good fight and asked for tangible value that this proposal will bring?…that finding neither the Councilman Adams chose to vote “nay” to this “pig in a poke” but the Reverend Brooks pledged to work hard to gather hundreds of “nay” votes for next year’s referendum?…that if the will of the voters of unincorporated Vanderburgh County and the will of the realm of Reverend Brooks’ influence align that this proposal is destined for defeat?

IS IT TRUE that this did not have to be this way?…that most everyone is on board with the proposition that consolidation is a good concept and that savings are there to be realized?…that the committee under political pressure failed to tackle the hard realities that sacred cows would have to be slaughtered in order to realize the potential savings?…that succumbing to this pressure and giving in to the powers behind the committee that a great opportunity to transform Vanderburgh County has probably been wasted and set back for another decade or more?…that the last line of defense from sending a flawed document to the voters was the Evansville City Council?…that eight of them washed their hands of the obligation to send their best work with significant impact to the voters?

IS IT TRUE that Pontius Pilate once did such a thing?…that Pontius Pilate knowingly chose the cowards way to govern and knowingly sent a decision to “the people” that he should have made himself?…that when leaders refuse to lead and learned work is sent to the masses by referendum that the best of times is not served?…that through emulating the decisions of Pontius Pilate and sending a decision to “the people” that is not ready for “the people” to have a positive choice that our City Council has washed their hands of this decision just as Pilate washed his hands of his decision to appease a mob in the street?…that this is the Worst of Times”?…that the people of Evansville deserve better than this?

IS IT TRUE that in another example of the “Worst of Times” City Councilman Dan McGinn concurred with Evansville Controller Jenny Collins that the legal services contract for the City of Evansville could not be predicted well enough to become a line item in the budget?…that what was passed is a open ended opportunity for whatever law firm that our next Mayor of Evansville selects to write their own check when it comes to liability and worker’s comp insurance?…that Attorneys bill at a rate of $150 per hour for such work and PARALEGALS are billed to the City of Evansville at a rate of $95 per hour?…that one would think that such services could be reviewed on a month to month basis as opposed to handing a law firm a blank check as has been the practice of the Weinzapfel Administration?

IS IT TRUE that in the year 1859 that Charles Dickens wrote a magnificent novel that would become one of the most read novels ever written?…that “A Tale of Two Cities” was set in London and Paris during the turmoil of the French Revolution has sold over 200 million copies worldwide since it was published?…that this epic novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same time period?…that this novel was about London and Paris but that at last night’s meeting of the Evansville City Council that remnants of “A Tale of Two Cities” permeated the air and the spirit of the room from the elected officials right down to the least significant of the citizens of Evansville who attended the meeting?

IS IT TRUE that “A Tale of Two Cities” begins with the phrase “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”?…that both the best and the worst of Evansville and its elected leadership came to the forefront last night in a meeting of the City Council that encapsulated who the City of Evansville really is as a people?…that Evansville was truly two cities last night?…that one is worthy of love and devotion but the other is business as usual?…that business as usual will be the subject of IS IT TRUE Part 2?

IS IT TRUE that the “best of times” was in flow and love was in the air when a seemingly insignificant sum of only $2,000 was being contemplated for removal from a City of Evansville grant allocation to a charity called Voices?…that Becky Kasha, the head of the unification committee spoke passionately in favor of continuing the funding for Voices?…that the members of the Evansville City Council was visibly struggling with an impending vote to defund the $2,000 that Voices was counting on?…that as many members of the Council pointed out that the small charitable organizations are impacted the most through removing grants from their funding sources?…that then something magical happened last night at the meeting of the Evansville City Council?

IS IT TRUE that the Reverend Adrian Brooks approached the lectern and committed to voluntarily accept $1,000 less that his daycare center had been allocated by the City Council and asked them to allocate that amount to Voices?…that seeing the actions of Reverend Brooks that commercial realtor Cory Mills acting as a private citizen stepped up to the lectern and committed to donate an additional $1,000 to Voices fully restoring the $2,000 in funding that they had been counting on?…that the pain that was obviously felt by our Evansville City Council, the willingness of Reverend Brooks to give up some of his funding, and the generosity of Woodward Commercial Realtor Cory Mills to step up and make a personal donation is the “Best of Times” in Evansville, Indiana?

IS IT TRUE that City Councilwoman Connie Robinson added to the “Best of Times” moment with her impassioned plea to be forgiving in deciding exactly who will be allowed to live in the forthcoming Front Door Pride rental houses?…that standing up for forgiveness is something that many people of Evansville pay lip service to but when it comes down to codifying such things City Councilwoman Connie Robinson is an example for all to follow?…that some of the Evansville City Council had some “Best of Times” moments last night as did Cory Mills?…that all are to be commended for their generosity, their empathy, and their thoughtfulness?